I angled Maggie left into the parking lot of Davie’s Donuts. The lot was empty except for a dark-blue, late-model Cadillac with the vanity license plate, Glam-Bit. I pulled up along the right side of it.
As I opened my door to get out, the tinted, passenger-side window on the Caddy zipped down with a mechanical hum.
A deep voice from within the car’s dark interior said, “Get in.”
I climbed out of Maggie, tightened my grip on my hillbilly hacky-sack, and peered in the open window. Sitting alone on the driver’s side of the Cadillac’s huge bench seat was a small-framed, big-bosomed woman somewhere between the ages of sixty and three hundred and fifty years old.
“Layla Lark?” I asked.
“The same. Get in outta the heat, kid.”
I opened the door and slid inside. The air conditioning was welcoming. The cigarette smoke, not so much.
Layla swiped an errant hair away from her forehead and crushed out a Virginia Slims Menthol on the carcasses of its fallen comrades, who tumbled from the overflowing ashtray like a spilled platter of albino French fries.
The leather-skinned woman of indeterminate age patted the stiff, grey-brown bun on top of her head with both hands, then spoke with a voice I could only describe as, “the revenge of Virginia Slims.”
“Lemme see it,” she croaked, and held out a boney hand so laden down with rings and bracelets I was impressed she could even lift it.
“Uh...sure.”
I fished around and pulled Dr. Dingbat’s Difficult Defecation from my purse.
She snatched it from my hand and mashed the brown button on its base.
Doo-Doo Daddy moaned like a camel giving birth to an elephant.
“Awe, bumfuzzle,” the old lady said. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone and changed the battery!”
“Well, yes. So it would work. I don’t see –”
“The deal is off,” Lark said, and tossed the figurine on the seat between us. She leaned over the steering wheel, rubbed her forehead with her hands, and began muttering unintelligible words that sounded vaguely like the obscenities hurled by cartoon characters.
“What do you mean, off?” I asked, incredulous.
“It wasn’t the figurine I needed,” she said. “It was the battery inside it.”
“Huh?” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “I don’t understand.”
The old lady shrugged and looked over at me.
“It’s like most collectibles, kid. Once they’re out of the original packaging, their worth is exactly horse hockey. That figure there didn’t come in a box. But it did come with a defunct battery.”
Layla lit up another Virginia Slims, sucked on it until her cheeks caved in, and waved the exhaled smoke around, as if that helped anything.
“Who in the world collects batteries?” I asked.
“People are nuts,” Layla said, and tapped her noggin, as if providing a visual demonstration of the fact. “They’ll collect anything that’s rare. You see, that battery was recalled, so finding a figurine with the original crappy battery still inside is like unearthing a new Mona Lisa, if you know what I mean.”
“So...the twenty grand reward. It’s not for the figurine. It’s for the battery.”
“Bingo, kid. Well, I mean, it’s for both. The matched set. You see, one without the other ain’t worth diddly squat.”
My heart sunk. “So, how much are we talking about, here? For the figurine without the battery?”
“Look at it,” Layla said, and jabbed a cigarette at the little guy on the toilet. “They made thousands of ‘em. What do you think it’s worth?”
“A thousand bucks?”
“Not even a thousand pennies.”
I did the math as I shot Doo-Doo Daddy a dirty look. Ten bucks! Geeze! Twice that blasted thing had nearly gotten me in a heap of trouble with Tom. Now it had just dashed all my hopes with a single grunt from its brand-new battery.
I reached for the door handle.
“Sorry to have bothered you,” I said, and opened the door. Then a thought hit me. “Hey, wait a minute! Layla, what does the original battery look like?”
“I’m not sure. I only saw it once. Brown, I think.”
My gut flopped. “Hold on a second. Let me make a call.”
The old lady sucked on a cigarette and eyed me like a dehydrated chameleon as I dialed Winky’s number. He picked up on the first ring.
“Winky!”
“Yeah. Hey there, Val Pa –”
“Listen! Do you still have that battery you took out of that figurine the other day?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
For the second time in as many days, I could have kissed Walter J. Winchley.
“Hold onto it. I’ll be there in ten minutes!”
I hung up and looked at Layla. She was staring at me, open mouthed, her cigarette dangling off her lip like a miniature, gut-sprung diving board.
“Don’t tell me!” she gasped.
“Yes! But I’ve got to hurry. Stay here. I’ll be back in ten minutes. Fifteen, tops.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Why is it that whenever you’re in a hurry, the world seems to delight in throwing obstacles in your path?
I rumbled down Gulf Boulevard at the incredible pace of twenty-three miles per hour, stuck in the right lane behind a stupid garbage truck. Not only was it slow, it stunk to high heaven in the late-summer heat.
I couldn’t pass, because a Buick with Jersey plates was tagging along in the left lane, a car length behind the truck. Finally, it got into a turn lane. I maneuvered over into the left lane and whizzed by the stinking garbage scow. As I passed, I shot the truck driver a dirty look, then realized I was almost at the corner where I needed to make a right turn.
Oops!
I swerved into the lane in front of the truck, hit my blinker and my brakes, and took a hairpin right onto First Street East toward Sunset Beach.
I could still hear the garbage truck’s horn resounding in my ears when, a few minutes later, I roared up to Winky’s Donut Shop and slammed on the brakes.
“Winky!” I yelled. I stumbled out of the car and nearly tripped on my mad dash to get to the donut shop’s service window.
“Hey there!” Winky said. “You want a cup of coffee? It’s on the house. Or should I say, on the shop?”
Winky chortled at his own joke. I didn’t.
“No thanks. Listen, where’s that battery I called you about?”
Winky’s face went quizzical. He looked to his left and grunted in a way that made me wonder if he’d just broken something inside his brain that was essential for higher thought.
“Come on, Winky. I don’t have a lot of time.”
“Wait a minute!” Winky hollered, as if a light had just flicked on in the back porch of his mind. “Is that you, Val?”
“Of course it’s me!”
Just then, I caught the reflection of myself in the window pane and remembered I was dressed like a country-western disco flooze-bag.
Winky whistled and shook his head. “Well I’ll be darned. I knowed times was tough, but –”
“Ugh! Winky, I don’t have time to explain right now. Where’s that battery I called you about?”
“Well, it’s over yonder.” Winky pointed back behind me.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m fairly sure it’s still in that there dumpster. They hat’n come and dumped it yet. You can see fer yoreself, Val. It’s plum full-up to the brim.”
I looked over at the dumpster, then down at my outfit. The only way I could get any trashier was to crawl inside a garbage container.
Nice one, universe.
I unzipped my platform boots and kicked them off. Then I made a dash across the lot to the dumpster, took a long, deep breath, and climbed up its rusty metal side.
The odor coming off its contents would have curled my hair, if it hadn’t been made of polyester. I hadn’t smelled anything that bad since my Aunt Pansy cooked collard greens
and chit’lin’s together in the same pot.
I swung a leg over and straddled the dented metal rim of the mustard-colored dumpster. Cautiously, I took a tentative step onto a cardboard box. It gave way, and I tumbled head-first into the belly of the foul-smelling beast.
If I’d have been Jonah, I’d have given that halitosis-ridden whale a breath mint the size of a Buick.
The stench made my jaw clamp tighter than a girdle on a pregnant rhinoceros. If I was going to survive this, I was going to have to breathe through an orifice that didn’t have olfactory sensors.
What would Valiant Stranger do?
With no handy gas mask to avail myself of, I closed my eyes and thought of kittens playing with balls of string. Then I shut off my nostrils, opened my mouth, and got to work.
The first bag I tore into contained the remains of some kid’s beach birthday party, complete with frosting-smeared Spongebob plates and half a dozen dirty diapers.
Ugh!
If that wasn’t disgusting enough, when I opened the second bag, I hit the motherlode – of putrefied fish heads and guts.
“Arrggh!”
I screamed and flung the fishy bag out of the dumpster. After that, things got a little blurry. As I continued to rifle through the rest of the mountain of garbage bags, I guess I began to suffer from PTSD...putrid trash shock dementia....
As fate would have it, inside that horrid dumpster of iniquity I found everything but salvation. Like a rabid dog, I was tearing open one of the last garbage bags left when Winky’s head popped up over the rim of the dumpster.
“Val, you got to get yourself outta there!”
“I’m almost done...”
“I mean now, girl! The garbage guys are here!”
“No!” I screeched, and popped my head up for a look. I was so shocked I forgot and breathed through my nose.
Ugh!
Glaring at me was the same brawny guy I’d sped passed on Gulf Boulevard...and then slammed on my brakes.
I smiled weakly at the garbage truck driver.
“Look, sir,” I said, “all I need is like...five minutes more. Can’t you just skip this dumpster for now?”
“Not on your life,” he said. “That dumpster’s private property. Get out now or I’m calling the cops.”
Great. That was the absolute last thing I needed. If one of Tom’s buddies showed up...well, I didn’t want to think about it.
Defeated, I climbed out of the dumpster and watched, in no-longer-sparkly hot-pants, as the garbage truck hoisted the dumpster into the air. The car-sized container swung softly, like a Ferris wheel cage, then flipped over. Mounds of smelly garbage tumbled into the truck’s waiting bed...
...along with a twenty-thousand dollar battery and my best Dolly Parton wig.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“And then what happened?” Laverne asked, hanging on my every word.
We were in her kitchen and my Destiny was a gonner.
I’d arrived home looking, smelling and feeling like a pole cat stuck in a sewage treatment plant. I’d stripped off naked in the garage and thrown my hot pants, halter and the rest of Destiny into the garbage bin.
I’d just finished showering with Lifebuoy and Clorox when Laverne had called me, wanting to talk face-to-face.
She’d said it was urgent, so I’d thrown on some comfy clothes and dropped over, my hair still damp and smelling faintly of Ty-D-Bol. One look at me and she’d told me to tell my story first.
“Then I had to call Layla and give her the bad news, Laverne. The battery’s gone forever.”
Laverne cocked her horsey head and frowned. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry about that.”
I sipped a cup of brown liquid Laverne had said was coffee, and glanced around at the veritable army of Vegas memorabilia crammed in every nook and cranny of her place. A shiny Frank Sinatra figurine smirked and winked a holographic blue eye at me, amplifying my suspicion that every joke ever played in the world was somehow on me.
I set down my cup and picked up Doo-Doo Daddy. I’d brought him along for dramatic effect. I slammed the ugly lump of porcelain on the counter and threw my arms up in frustration.
“I don’t get it, Laverne. What kind of idiot would waste money on stupid crap like that?”
“I sure don’t know, honey.”
Laverne took my hand and offered me a kind, sympathetic smile. All around her, from every bookshelf, countertop and window ledge, hordes of diminutive figures mirrored her expression with their painted-on lips and eyes.
My cheeks flamed from the unintentional insult I’d just hurled. But fortunately, my poison dart had flown right over Laverne’s head. Her kindly smile never missed a beat.
I cleared my throat and shifted my gaze back to the hideous figurine on the counter.
“Right. So, when I called her back, Layla told me she’d give me ten bucks for it. But I tell you, Laverne, it’s worth more than that to me to be able to smash his crappy little brains in for making me climb in that dumpster!”
Laverne pursed her lips and touched my forearm.
“By the way,” I said, “you wouldn’t happen to have a hammer I could borrow, would you?”
Laverne bit her lip. “What about your bet with Tom?”
“I just lost twenty grand, Laverne. Losing my bet with Tom is nothing compared to that.”
Laverne burst into tears.
Shocked by her unexpected response, I nearly missed catching her when she fell into my arms. I held her awkwardly as she sobbed into my shoulder.
“Geeze, Laverne. I’m sorry. It’s just that.... Okay. I won’t smash it. Stop crying, okay?”
“Oh, it’s not that,” she sobbed.
“What is it, then? J.D. troubles?”
Laverne pulled away and sniffed. “No. Well...yes. But that’s not it either.”
“Tell me, Laverne. What’s bothering you?”
“Oh, Val! I did something horrible back when I was in Vegas! I thought the past was behind me. But then, last night...it finally caught up with me!”
“Geeze, Laverne! What did you do?”
“Here. Read this.” Laverne jabbed a letter toward me. “It came in the mail yesterday.”
I unfolded the letter and read it while Laverne sniffed back tears and gnawed at her red-lacquered nails.
DEAR MS. LAVERNE VIVIAN Cowens,
It has come to our attention that while living in Las Vegas, Nevada, you failed to perform your sworn allegiance as an upstanding citizen of these blessed United States of America.
For all intents and purposes, Ms. Cowens, you have stolen an artifact that belongs rightfully to all of your fellow Americans, and one that should have been available to them through the public domain.
Attached, please find evidentiary substantiation of said offence.
I flipped to the next page. It was a bad photocopy of a lending card from the Clark County Library for a book entitled, How to Get Blood Stains Out of Anything.
Laverne had checked it out in 1999.
I flipped back to the letter, my ears already heating up like a small furnace explosion.
Ms. Cowens, we know that the idea of any criminal proceedings being filed against you must come as a shock. But, thankfully, there is a way you can expunge potential charges and keep your good name in full standing.
Simply enclose a check for fines and filing charges of $89.94 and we will act as your fiduciary representative, handle all further governmental inquiries, and send you a receipt of final outcome, clearing you of any criminal activities in this matter.
Sincerely,
Ferrol Finkerman
Attorney at Law
P.S. Send your check within the next 24 hours and receive a $3.25 discount!
P.S.S. If you have any questions regarding the above matter, you may consult our offices for the reasonable fee of $250 per hour.
I folded the letter and handed it back to Laverne.
“Is it as bad as I thought?” Laverne asked.
“
It’s worse,” I said through gritted teeth. “But not for you. For Ferrol ratfink Finkerman.”
I tapped a finger on the countertop. “Laverne, I think it’s high time we hired a hitman.”
Laverne sniffed and nodded solemnly.
“Okay, Val. I’ll go get my rolodex.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Like my three ex-husbands, Ferrol Finkerman had gone and gotten on my last nerve.
His extortion letter to Laverne had worn out the last threads on his Southern welcome mat. Whatever grace I’d allowed him in the past was now as null and void as my Baptist starter-marriage.
I sat at my desk with my cellphone in my hand. As my index finger poised over the last digit in his phone number, I had to admit that over the years, Finkerman had proven to be a worthy adversary.
Only one other person in my life had been able to get my goat like Finkerman. Her name, of course, was Lucille Jolly-Short.
My adoptive mother held a mysterious power over me that could send me into a conniption fit at her beck and call. Like the most maniacal of evil geniuses, Lucille could make me feel lousy for stuff I didn’t even remember doing.
Talking with Mom, even over the phone, was like waking up from a drunken blackout with the dreadful, nagging suspicion I’d robbed a bank, kicked a pastor in the groin, or sold my sister into slavery.
Once trapped in her vortex of guilt, I was powerless to do anything but wince and bide my time, paralyzed with pre-programmed regrets, while Mom’s jabs of judgement stabbed my conscience until she’d rendered me totally incapacitated....
By some miracle, I’d survived my early childhood training. So I knew I was prepared – no matter what Finkerman might throw at me.
I tapped the last digit on the cellphone and waited like a spider for him to fall into my trap.
“Thank you for calling the award-winning law offices of Ferrol Finkerman, attorney at law,” Fargo Finkerman said.
“Yes. Hello. I’d like to speak with Mr. Finkerman.”
“May I ask who’s calling?”
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