Painkiller, Princess

by Chester Gattle

  ~

  After the shooting outside the state fair, Tina Turner—the talent agent, not the singer—had gotten on the first flight back to Los Angeles, and by the time she’d arrived home in Brentwood, she and Simon Halloford had devised their plan. At the crack of dawn, they called Jacob.

  “You’re getting out of Minneapolis,” Tina announced.

  Jacob put the call on speaker so Missy, sitting beside him on the couch, could listen. He said, “Missy and I already bought some pepper spray.”

  “Pepper spray?” Tina huffed.

  “I’ll get a gun once I figure out the process.”

  “Not enough,” Simon said. “Tina showed me pictures of those bullet fragments. Those were serious.”

  “I know, but what’s leaving Minneapolis supposed to do?”

  “Keep you alive,” Simon said. “Go someplace quiet where you can write your book. Go hide in the woods somewhere. It’s Minnesota. Channel your inner Ralph Waldo Emerson. Can’t you drive in any direction for like thirty minutes and be in the woods?”

  Missy touched Jacob’s hand. “Maybe you should. What’s the harm?”

  “There’s no harm in it. Just a nuisance. I’m trying to write my book, not rough it in the Boundary Waters.”

  “Hire a ghostwriter if you think you’re going to fall behind,” Simon suggested.

  “No,” Jacob said. “No ghostwriter. Why do you keep suggesting that? You think I won’t finish it?”

  “You won’t if you’re dead,” Tina snapped.

  “They can be a big help, that’s all,” Simon said.

  “If you want me to get some help, let CB write a chapter or two.” CB being their neighbor, a retired English professor who’d made the offer to contribute to Jacob’s book given that he’d heard plenty of interesting tidbits from his late brother, an ex-DEA officer.

  “No,” Tina interjected. “No CB stories. This’ll be one hundred percent you.”

  “No CB stories,” Simon confirmed.

  “Jacob, you got shot at,” Tina said. “What’s it cost you to just get away for a little while?”

  “I think you should,” Missy added. “I can go with. I’ve got some vacation days.”

  “You just started. You can’t take days off,” Jacob argued, referring to the fact that Google had hired Missy just two weeks earlier. “And if I’m really in danger, you shouldn’t be around me. But I’ll take Quincy.” Jacob pointed to the fawn-colored pug sleeping near the balcony door. “He’s a protector.”

  “Ha. Quincy stays,” Missy shot back.

  Jacob made an attempt to call out to Quincy, but Missy smushed her hand over his lips before he could utter a syllable.

  “Simon’s agency will pay for your hotel and travel,” Tina offered.

  “No, I said they might pay for it,” Simon corrected her.

  “I want to go to the Ritz in Hong Kong,” Jacob said.

  “Be serious,” Tina groaned.

  “You want me to hide? Why not on the other side of the world?”

  Tina immediately latched on to the implication in his comment that they weren’t discussing whether he should hide anymore, but rather where, and the conversation quickly moved toward its inevitable conclusion.

  III.

  Day Three, Saturday

  By the next day, Jacob was sitting in a coffee shop in downtown Duluth. It wasn’t the middle of the woods, but the city was a fifth the size of Minneapolis and off in its own quiet corner of the state, so it’d do.

  Missy had stayed home, and by default, so had Quincy. But with absolutely zero distractions now, Jacob figured he could hammer out the book in no time.

  He’d commandeered a table in the middle of the narrow café, a place called the Coffee Princess, and was spread out with his computer, notes, earbuds, his phone, and a cappuccino, which, to his surprise, was really good, maybe the best he’d ever had. (The barista pulling shots behind the bright-red La Marzocco espresso machine would get a bigger tip when he ordered the next one.)

  Jacob grabbed his phone, took a picture of the cappuccino, and sent a tweet to his million followers: “Roasted coffee seems like the perfect cover to transport drugs, doesn’t it? Wonder if it actually works. This is delicious, btw.”

  Of all the social media accounts he now had, he only bothered with Twitter. He left the rest to Tina and her team. They were the professionals. He was just spouting nonsense half the time anyway, so it was best he didn’t clog up every account he had with such drivel.

  Before he could set his phone down, it rang.

  “Delete that tweet,” Tina yelled. “I can see the café in the background. Someone’s going to recognize it.”

  “Really?” He looked at the photo. The background clearly showed the café’s brick walls and natural light woods, some work by local artists hanging on the walls, and a couple of posters highlighting community events behind the bar, but there wasn’t anything too particular there. The largest poster in the café, the one announcing “Duluth Prince Fest” wasn’t even close to being in the photo.

  “Really,” Tina said. “Delete it.”

  “You can’t tell where I’m at.”

  “I’m taking no chances. Delete it or I will.”

  Jacob did as instructed. “At least give me credit for not geotagging it or whatever that’s called.”

  “That’s not a default setting.”

  “Well, you should know there are a lot of suspicious-looking characters here. I might be dead by midnight. Maybe you should get me some professional security.”

  “Uh-huh. I’ll get on that,” Tina said, and hung up.

  Jacob was joking, but maybe it wasn’t a half-bad idea. If he’d thought of it yesterday, he might’ve been able to stay in Minneapolis.

  Looking around the café for real this time, he caught the barista eyeing him. She dropped her eyes, turning back to the espresso machine and the milk she was steaming. Jacob watched her prepare several more drinks, but she didn’t look up again. Suddenly, though, he wasn’t feeling so comfortable in the café.

  The barista was surely nothing, Tina had gotten into his head.

  He had to go. This anxiety wouldn’t go away now. Thanks, Tina.

  Double-checking that the pepper spray was still inside his bag, he packed up, then grabbed the cup and saucer and carried them to the bin near the counter.

  “Excuse me,” the barista said. “Are you Jacob White?”

  He studied her for a moment, and she smiled nervously. She was a short, dark-haired woman with a slightly frustrated look despite the ease with which her smile stretched to envelope her face.

  “I’ve seen you on TV,” she continued.

  This was the first time he’d been recognized in public. Jacob grinned wide. The Tina-induced panic faded. This barista was no threat. Of course she’s no threat. “Yeah, that’s me.”

  The barista chuckled. “Wow. This is crazy.” She checked that there weren’t any customers at the front counter, then turned back to Jacob. She squinted hard, some fresh doubt in her eyes. “You’re not him. Jacob White’s not really in Duluth.”

  “No, I am.” To prove he really was the celebrity she thought he was, he unfolded his wallet and showed her his driver’s license.

  “Holy shit,” she said. “You’re not lying. And you’re a Taurus. Me too.”

  “Oh, cool.” He didn’t know anything about the zodiac, but she was clearly pleased by that fact, so he went along with it. “That’s great.”

  “So why’re you in Duluth? It’s so boring here.”

  “Writing my book.”

  “Yeah, I saw you talking about it. I’m definitely buying that. My name’s Emmelia, by the way.” She extended her hand across the polished wood counter.

  “Emmelia? I spoke to you earlier on the phone. I called about the Wi-Fi.”

  “Sure. So you drive up here? You’re from Minneapolis, right?”

  “I flew. Puddle jumper. My girlfriend needed the car.”

  “Gotc
ha. I almost moved to Minneapolis once.”

  “Quieter here.”

  “Fits my style. Wanted something different from Chicago but still with all the water, you know?”

  Jacob nodded, his urge to leave the café completely vanishing. “Do you think I could get another cappuccino? That was really good.”

  “Of course. On the house.”

  Yep, he was a real celebrity now. “No, no. I’ll pay. Don’t want you getting in trouble.”

  “I won’t get in trouble. I own the place.”

  “You’re the coffee princess?”

  “That’s me.” Emmelia then got to work on the drink. When finished, she slid the saucer across the counter. The foam was in the shape of a heart.

  Hope she’s not hitting on me, Jacob thought. The problem with being a celebrity.

  “How long you in Duluth for?”

  He really didn’t have any idea. Until that shooter was caught? Until the cartel lost interest? Until he decided “Fuck it” and just went back home?

  The café door swung open and a fedora-wearing woman popped in.

  “Excuse me,” Emmelia said. She went to the elderly woman. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we can’t allow pets in here.”

  Beside the woman was a toy-sized hairless dog that if it hadn’t been on a leash, could’ve passed for a large rat trying to sneak inside.

  “I’ve had Billy Jack in here before,” the woman stated. “He’s a Xolo. Hairless.” She took off her fedora, revealing a buzzcut of silver hair that perfectly matched the frizzies jutting from the ears of her rat-dog.

  “I’m sorry, but whoever let you do that wasn’t supposed to,” Emmelia said. “It’s the health code.”

  “He’s hairless, though,” the woman persisted. Her dog was shaking and snarling, winning over no one’s sympathy.

  “Nasty,” Jacob muttered as he took his cappuccino back to his table. When he gave the coffee a taste, it was unsurprisingly delicious. If he wasn’t careful, he could very well get addicted to these.

  IV.

  Day Four, Sunday

  Prince Fest was a new event for Duluth. A young, entrepreneurial man by the name of Gregory Johnson had first floated the idea in an op-ed piece in the Duluth Times after the iconic musician’s sudden and unfortunate death. The festival took some time to get off the ground, because the committee members kept angling to get their own agendas wedged into the schedule, but the two-day celebration of all things musically purple finally arrived, albeit bloated and at times incoherent.

  On Sunday, the fest’s second and final day, Gregory was standing next to a stall that hawked snow globes. A woman picked one up, shook it, and stared at the tiny flakes (supposedly electric guitars) swirling around a large Prince symbol. Gregory kept his eyes on the woman until she set the globe back on the table and walked away with her boyfriend.

  The vendor had complained to Gregory’s employer, a security staffing firm, that he’d experienced rampant theft the first day of the festival, so Gregory had been positioned near the stall for the entirety of his shift. With his uniform and official-looking patches, nothing had been stolen. He knew he was an intimidating fellow, so that made sense.

  He continued to scan the slow-moving crowd, assessing them all, looking for threats and putting each person into one of two buckets: “could easily take down” and “might need to use a special move to take down.” At the moment, everyone was going into the former bucket. But that didn’t mean he could relax. No way. The situation could escalate in an instant. It only took one nutter in the group, so he continued to do his job, looking for the telltale bulge of a concealed weapon.

  An elderly woman weighed down with dozens of purple bracelets smiled at Gregory as she jingled by.

  He nodded, confident the only thing she was trying to hide was a bad dye job. The short hair poking out from under her fedora wasn’t so much purple as it was the shade of watery Kool-Aid. She’d done a much better dye job on her dog, though. The tiny, hairless thing prancing at her side was a deep, vibrant purple. The dog would’ve been pretty cool except it snapped at him as it passed, then snarled at a boy hurrying around the woman to catch up with his parents.

  That kind of behavior wouldn’t be tolerated. Gregory radioed his manager about the dog. He would’ve followed the public nuisance, but a couple of college-age girls were now browsing the snow globes, and each carried a suspiciously large bag. He couldn’t wander away from his primary assignment with such a threat in the vicinity.

  On top of that, his time in the security industry hadn’t been long (he’d actually had to embellish his résumé a little to even get the job at Security Staffing), so if he left these Barbies to clean out the snow-globe man, he’d be done for. He could kiss getting slotted next year at the Minnesota State Fair goodbye.

  Slipping his thumbs through his belt loops, he cleared his throat, making his presence known.

  A thin man, perhaps in his late twenties, stepped up beside the girls and shook a globe. Gregory put him in the “could easily take down” bucket. There wasn’t a girlfriend or wife, which arose his suspicions that he might even have a sexual predator on his hands.

  Then a third girl (The threats were really coming now. This was the most action he’d had all shift.) approached the other two. She spoke quietly to her friends. The red-haired one reached into her bag. After some digging, she passed the girl something concealed in her palm. They all looked around innocently before moving on.

  Nothing was missing from the table, and Gregory smiled. But he still had the sexual predator to worry about. He cleared his throat again. Then once more.

  Finally, the man got the message that he wasn’t going to get away with anything here, so he too moved on, back the way he’d come, down the corridor of stalls toward the main stage, where a cover band was belting out “Purple Rain.”

  Gregory spent the rest of his shift discouraging a few more snow globe thieves while occasionally pointing people in the direction of the latrines.

  Near the end of the night, he sent a text to his mom so she’d have some leftover lasagna heated up and ready when he got home.

  Even though there were plenty of food stalls at the event, and even though he was absolutely starving, he wasn’t spending any money here. He was making a point. The city council had stolen his Prince Fest idea, then hadn’t had the decency to bring him on the festival committee. They weren’t getting any money out of him.

  He’d considered filing a lawsuit or some sort of grievance to get compensated for his idea, but the work involved in such an action with no guarantee of a payout was a little much for his taste. In any case, he’d found a way to make some money out of it with this security gig, so he was getting over it—just not fast enough to support the event by spending any money there. Maybe next year.

  Once the festival’s gates closed and all snow globes had been accounted for, Gregory made his way through the grassy-field-turned-parking-lot and checked his phone to see if there were any ride requests he could grab.

  He skipped over the first several Uber riders, because they didn’t look sketchy enough. He wanted someone of a less-than-savory repute. This was for two reasons: one, if a rider ever tried to rob or assault him, he could turn around and sue Uber for millions, so the sketchier the better when it came to increasing his odds of a big payday; and two, he was always on the lookout for new customers to buy his Oxy. He had a fresh blend that was going to be big, and like Glengarry Glen Ross had said, always be selling: “ABC.”

  Gregory paused outside his car, thinking about that acronym. It didn’t sound right. “Always be…” he said to himself. “A. B. What the fuck’s the C?”

  It didn’t matter. He got in his Nissan, flipped on the tiny Uber light in the rear window, and selected a rider near the bottom of the list. The short red-haired girl he’d seen earlier. She wasn’t anything close to sketchy, but she’d passed something to her friend, which had piqued his interest. Looks could be deceiving, after all. He confirm
ed the ride.

  V.

  Day Five, Monday

  Emmelia tilted her head back, checking the sixth-floor balcony. All seemed quiet from where she stood, so she hurried back to her car and stuck the magnetic sign to her door. She’d pulled it off a Volkswagen in the Lunds & Byerly’s parking lot. In bold black letters, it said, “FullFRIDGE.” Under that in smaller lettering was “Grocery Delivery Made Easy.”

  She went around to the front of the apartment building and parked in the drop-off zone, pretending to scroll through her phone until someone came walking down the sidewalk, heading for the entrance. Grabbing the bag of groceries from the backseat—a loaf of bread, a head of lettuce, and a box of cereal showing out the top—she stepped up behind the guy as he waved his fob across the reader. As expected, he held the door for her without hesitation. “Minnesota nice” was so nice.

  “FullFRIDGE delivery,” Emmelia told the front desk attendant, pointing at her car.

  “Sign in, please,” the older gentleman said, shifting his eyes from his paperback book to Emmelia’s car with its magnetic sign to the bulging grocery bag to her.

  Emmelia set the bag atop the security counter, angling it so the attendant couldn’t peek inside, and wrote the name of one of the residents in the logbook. She had no idea who the person was (she’d obtained the name from a pile of discarded mail in the dumpster around back), but it did the job.

  “Appreciate it,” the attendant said, cracking open his reading material.

  Emmelia went up to the sixth floor.

  As expected, there was no answer when she knocked on the door. Jacob was in Duluth. Missy was at work. Sixty seconds later, she picked the lock and went in.

  Their pug, Quincy, was standing there on the other side of the door. His tail drooped at the sight of her. The pug backed up a few steps and blinked. The protrusion under his right eyelid, like the head of a veiny worm, jiggled.