by Michele Hart
“Damn good memory, Sissy,” Fisher granted her. “I always was the bully. Greg didn’t recognize me, hasn’t seen me more than a few times, probably not since he reached double-digit years of age. He wasn’t supposed to come home so early that day, but I see why he raced home.”
Fisher pointed to Elissa with a morose approval.
“Greg had taken up a hint,” Elissa reminded him. “He’d recognized something in your face, either recalling you from childhood as Sissy had, or merely recognizing a significant resemblance he couldn’t place.”
Jerry announced, “None of these are the right bottles.”
“You checked the red?” Donny asked him.
“I checked the red and the white, just in case they screwed up. The bottles we’re looking for are still on the loose.”
Fisher kept his gun on the women. “Let’s go, ladies. You’re staying with us for a while.”
Neither woman said a word but, from the hollow look of impending catastrophe on Sissy’s sunken countenance, Elissa could tell they shared the same doomsday premonition.
“You, Girlfriend.” Jerry pointed to Elissa. “Put some shoes on. I’ll be damned if I’ll carry you when you step on a hunk of glass.”
“Anger issues?”
“Shut up and get your shoes.”
Elissa rose and went for the bedroom when Fisher stopped her. “No, you don’t leave the room.”
“My shoes are in the bedroom,” she attempted to explain. “So is my purse.”
Fisher deadpanned, “Then you don’t get your purse and shoes.”
Elissa put her hands on her hips in insistence. “You don’t ever want to deprive a woman of her purse, Mister. Sit and imagine how ugly that could turn if a woman doesn’t have her purse.” She mentally pushed imagined horrors of the menstrual variety to scar his male mind for life.
He must’ve caught her meaning. “I’m going to count to five for you to grab your purse and shoes or I’ll come in after you. One.”
Elissa dashed into the room and reached her purse in no time, having known its exact placement. She snatched her cell phone open, powered it up, and mashed the two-digit code for the sound recorder. Then she set the phone inside her purse, atop everything else and out of sight. In another second, she snatched up her sandals in hooked fingers, and was almost out the door when Fisher came through to find her a step away.
Instead of yelling at her, he let her pass by into the livingroom again, a suspicious scowl for her.
“Where’re you taking us?” Elissa asked, hoping the recorder caught their every word.
“Right now,” Fisher surmised, “We’re not all that sure. We hadn’t speculated Greg would give away the bottles like Prohibition starts tomorrow. We’ll press him to find the remaining bottles. You two are good reasons for him to work hard and gain every one of them back. We’ll need to keep you for a while. How long that is depends on how much time it takes Greg to get those bottles back in our hands. Sissy, tell Girlfriend where your purse is, if you want it.”
“By the couch.”
Elissa stepped over to where Sissy’s tapestry purse sat on the floor against the arm of the couch, and partially hidden by the furniture. Reaching with two hands and letting the strap of her own purse and her own long hair fall into the mess, one hand went straight into the purse to retrieve Sissy’s cell phone. In Elissa’s rise back to full height, she slipped the phone into the front pocket of the lacy, bloomy black skirt she wore.
Not stupid, Donny holstered his gun at his belt, took one of the ottomans to sit, and he searched through both purses. Frowning, he pulled out Elissa’s open cell phone from her purse and glared dangerously at her.
“It’s dead,” she explained. “I couldn’t pay for the service. It’s inactive.”
Unconvinced, Fisher put the phone to his ear, and was apparently satisfied not to find a dial tone when he attempted to make a test call. Giving up, he tossed the phone onto the mocha-latte couch cushion, and proceeded to search Sissy’s purse to find nothing upsetting to him there.
“Where’re we going to take them now?” Jerry asked his cousin.
“We’re going to take them out to the marina.”
“You’re going to kill us and feed us to the sharks?” Elissa asked. Who knew, maybe they’d tell her.
“No, we’re just going to put you on a boat in international waters for safe-keeping while Greg finds those bottles for us. You can’t escape in the middle of the gulf.”
“What if he never finds them all? What if the bottles you’re looking for are now empty or missing in action?” She just had to ask.
“If Greg blows it,” Fisher replied, threat all about him, “I’m sure the black market won’t mind seeing both of you as stock for sale.”
Elissa’s flesh crawled, and Sissy shivered at the threat.
Fisher reached over to Elissa and stroked her cheek, sending a shiver of revulsion through her. The moment he did it, she reacted on automatic. She reached up, snatched his wrist, and shot up like lightning to twist his arm, bending him over and pressing her weight over his locked elbow, threatening to break his arm. Fisher wailed aloud.
Jerry pulled his hidden gun on her, and shouted, “Back down! Let him go! It’s not worth a bullet!”
Despising the surrender, Elissa released Fisher from the self-defense hold, and he landed on his knees, gritting his teeth and scrubbing the pain from his elbow. He didn’t know how close he came to a lifelong injury.
Sissy cast Elissa a wary glare, obviously surprised at her reaction.
Watching both men, Elissa sat back down and strapped her sandals onto her feet, rebuking herself from having reacted to Fisher's vulgar touch instead of thinking it through.
Recovering too quickly, Fisher pulled his gun again with a mean look on his face for Elissa now. “Looks like Girlfriend needs to be watched at every moment. She’s a tiger.”
Jerry headed for the door, and he halted at the counter to pick up a bottle of wine. He pointed to the remaining bottles on the counter. “Grab a bottle, ladies. It’s not what we’re looking for, but it’s still good for drinking.”
“I know I could use a drink,” Sissy muttered.
Elissa and Sissy rose from the couch, clutching their purses for comfort, and Donny marched behind them, his gun on their backs.
Everyone clutching a bottle, they left the house in the same car redesigned for crime in mind. Locks busted, there was no escape from the back doors. The police hadn’t held this car for all of a week, a giveaway hint of big trouble now.
Elissa kept her cool, and prayed someone would check her phone in time.
* * * *
“So, what in your warped childhood made you decide you wanted Sissy?” Greg asked, keeping his eye on the road while simultaneously annoying a friend, an inborn talent.
“I was somewhere around eight or nine years old, and Jerry, Derek, and I’d been playing King of the Hill in the side lot of the recreation center. You remember the place. I’d been winning, naturally."
"You were bigger than Derek and Jerry."
"That's beside the point. When I’d thrown those bums off my hill, I threw my arms up into the air and loudly declared my sovereignty.”
“I can imagine the sight of it.” He’d witnessed the same many times over the years.
“When I looked down, I saw Sissy standing there, paint supplies in her arms for her art class at the center. Her big brown eyes sparkled, and she held a look of admiration for me, a spectacular sight, visual music. It was the kind of gaze any man would want to see in his woman’s eyes. Wonder and admiration. That was the very moment when she took my heart.”
“You are a heartless bastard outside your job,” Greg commented.
“Thank you. Then Sissy told me boys were stupid, and she marched off to her class. That was the day Sissy took a stranglehold of my heart, and the feeling’s grown a little stronger every year, making me a little more sure. It’s time to stop playing around and offer her th
e queenship of my hill. Can I have her, Greg? Are you ready to give her up to another guy?”
“No, but I am willing to share.” Greg raised his hand to his chin, faking deep thought. The traffic was light for a Saturday. “Sissy could do worse… You’ve never been convicted of a major crime.”
“Key word. Convicted.”
“You’re well-educated and come from quality stock.”
“I’m not as bad as they say,” Allen vowed, regarding Greg quite soberly for his approval. “But I’ll not step forward and tell her how I feel if you’ve a single reservation on the timing. I know you still need Sissy and her focus through the franchise deal. I don’t want to interfere with that.”
“You know I’ll never stop needing Sissy.”
“I’ll never step between you,” Allen assured him.
Greg had always thought they’d make a cute couple, both hearts of gold, though Allen kept his soft heart under disguise. Few outside Southeast Asia knew what a bleeding-heart marshmallow he was.
Greg had always known this day would come, the day Allen would take Sissy away from him to run off and make babies. Rubia’s could learn to do without Sissy for three months out of the year when Allen would haul her off to Indonesia.
Still he flashed Allen a skeptical eye. “I can’t say I’ve known you capable of anything unforgivable.”
“See? My past speaks for me,” Allen assured him.
“You can have her as long as you treat her like a queen, or Derek and I will break your legs.”
“Sounds fair. Deal. Ah,” Allen hissed in parody of an evil voice. “The trading of the women.... They can never know of this moment.”
“Agreed.”
Back to his Allen voice, he went straight to, “Speaking of happy honeymoons, or the exact opposite, what’s the real story on you and Elissa?” Allen asked, his enquiring mind running on high. Greg knew the look.
“I’m not telling you anything.”
“Come on, Greg, out with it. We know what will happen here. You’ll pour your heart out to me, I’ll ridicule you, then tell Derek and Jerry all about it, and they’ll laugh at you. Then you’ll do it to me, Derek will do it to Jerry, Jerry will do it to you. It’s a happy circle of friendship. So let it rip. What’s the beef on you and the homeless girl?”
Greg shook his head as the car wove through the subdivisions of Carrollwood. He didn’t see the point in colorizing his answer for the bet when the truth was just fine. “She’s got me.”
“Got you? I’ve never seen you slow your world for some woman to hop on, especially one who isn’t so much in the looks department. She’s not your type. What if she’s taking you for money?”
To be fair, Greg considered Allen’s words for a moment or two as the Trans Am turned into the entrance of his neighborhood. Only to be fair.
Greg knew money had ensnared and drawn Elissa to him, opened the door to put her into his arms in public for the stretch of a month. When they were alone, they could hardly keep their hands off one another. If Elissa wished to take advantage of him, it hadn’t happened yet.
True, Elissa lived in dire financial straits, according to the final notices among her bills, and she’d admitted that small confession, but she wouldn’t take money from him to pay her overdue bills, no matter how pretty he made it by wrapping it in the guise of a loan or payment of a debt. He certainly couldn’t see her fall financially when she’d kept his house from getting robbed and confirmed the eye of the Mob on him.
“She’s not homeless. And Elissa hasn’t asked for a single thing,” he informed his friend tartly. “You’re too cynical. What you see on the outside is not the same person on the inside. You’ve got a surprise ahead concerning Elissa.”
“You sound fasssssscinated.” Allen hooted to razz him.
“Well, yeah.”
Everything Greg had learned of Elissa this morning still circled his head. When he thought about it, he felt something was wrong. For all Elissa had spoken of wanting to be an FBI agent, she hadn’t once said she wanted him. And Greg couldn’t control that. But they were still very young in their relationship, and he vowed to make himself important to her somehow.
Even worse, a feeling he didn’t want, had no right to feel yet. He didn’t want Elissa embedded in the crime world. He wanted her embedded in his bed. He didn’t want to wake up every morning and wonder if today were the last day he’d kiss her, or if today some pathetic scum were to harm her, far from Greg’s reach to affect anything. He couldn’t give up another person he really cared about to some desperate maniac.
Greg didn’t want any of that but still wanted Elissa. Something had to give.
“I’m fascinated with her,” Greg admitted, resolving to work it out with her. He couldn’t let her drift out of his world. “When she’s not around, I miss her. I’ve a want to keep her near me. That’s as much as I’ll bend to define it.”
“Yeah,” Allen nodded, now sober from his merriment. “I can say the same for my feelings for Sissy, plus fifteen-something years of memories. How can she not love me?”
Between watching the road and mocking his buddy, Greg saw Allen don determination like chainmail. He’d never seen his friend fill with so much hardcore resolve in his eyes since medical school. But Greg wasn’t going to spill the revelation that Allen affected Sissy like no other man ever did. Let him find out the natural way.
“Well, playtime’s over. Sissy’s known me her entire life. It’s time for her to fall for me. I want to see that expression she wore on her face that day, standing at the foot of my hill. She was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen. I want to see that look a lot in my life. It’s time to stop messing around and have a serious talk with her. Tonight. We’re not kids anymore.”
Greg took the turn into the driveway to see Sissy’s midnight-blue Sebring parked there, and he killed the engine of the Trans Am, as the garage door closed behind them.
“Isn’t that tantamount to reminding her that she’s aging? That never goes over so swell with a woman. Rethink that phrase. Neither of you is flirting with your twilight years.”
The men climbed from the car, and Greg went to enter his code into the security panel to find it unarmed. They entered the kitchen through the garage door and immediately noticed the odd silence in a house holding two vibrant women like Elissa and Sissy. Greg tossed his car keys on the counter and set the bag of mixers they’d picked up at the liquor store up the street.
Allen regarded him, obviously picking up on the quiet of the house when they’d expected to find the stereo blasting and Sissy dancing in the middle of the room, a common sight. Greg imagined he should immediately receive a welcome-home kiss from Elissa.
“Did we beat the girls home? How did that happen?”
Greg leaned and felt the heat rising from the stove, so he opened the oven door to discover the Cook-off leftovers warming. “They’re here, somewhere. Or, they’re no longer here.”
“Sissy’s Sebring’s right outside.”
A glance through the glass doors to the pool with no sight of the girls, Greg suddenly felt very uncomfortable, too aware of the strange occurrences of late.
Just as curious, Allen stuck his head into every bedroom, as Greg checked his own room to find the clothes Elissa had worn to the Cook-off lying in a stack. He bent to her plain shirt, lifted it to his nose and caught the toffee scent he loved, distracting him for a moment.
The open sliding glass door allowed a lazy breeze to stir the drapes, drawing his attention. He stepped outside to catch sight of a bottle of wine sitting on the iron-and-glass table, a stem poured and awaiting its drinker, another glass empty.
Allen came up behind him, shaking his head to have found nothing, and he spotted the bottle and glasses. “What do you think, alien abduction?”
Greg began to worry. The Cook-off was over so he could no longer blame unexpected happenings on the competition. Now he felt wide-open for someone with bad intentions to take a swat at Rubia’s. Elissa may have been
right when she suggested the state police and he might’ve rattled someone bigger than he’d anticipated when he’d first come up with the idea of faking the port robbery.
Greg recalled their easy entry. “The house alarm wasn’t set.”
Allen could read him. “It’s a new alarm, and they aren’t used to using it yet. They left without setting it.”
“In what car?”
Allen shrugged in search of an answer. “Someone stopped by?”
Greg turned back into the house, drew a bottle of water from the refrigerator, and went for the couch to concentrate and remember everything Elissa or Sissy might’ve said when he’d had the Cook-off on his mind. Preoccupied, he sat on something sharp, and reaching, he pulled Elissa’s phone from the cushion. Allen crashed into the pit group.
Greg took a long drink of the water as he inspected the cell phone, reading its various info. “It’s dead, no service. But it has a full charge and a blinking red arrow light that says it’s recording.”
“Maybe, Elissa left you a voice message.”
Greg’s brow arose with his interest. “An odd way to do it. Let’s see.”
He pressed the play button.
“Where’re you taking us?” Greg heard Elissa’s voice ask, and he sent a disturbed look over to Allen.
“Right now,” a male voice surmised, “We’re not all that sure. We hadn’t speculated Greg would give away the bottles like Prohibition starts tomorrow.”
Greg sat in shock, questioning what he heard.
“We’ll press him to find the remaining bottles. You two are good reasons for him to work hard and gain every one of them back. We’ll need to keep you for a while. How long that is depends on how much time it takes Greg to get those bottles back in our hands. Sissy, tell Girlfriend where your purse is, if you want it.”
“By the couch,” they heard Sissy say.
Greg and Allen listened to nondescript shuffling noises until they heard Elissa say a little louder, “It’s dead. I couldn’t pay for the service. It’s inactive.”