by Frankie Bow
“I’m coming down.” Harrison was back on the line.
“What’s your ETA?” I asked.
“Five PM.”
“And your story?”
“I’m a teacher you know from the school where you’re working as a librarian. I’m passing through on my summer break. We’ve only known each other for a couple of years, because any farther back than that, people might ask me questions about your beauty queen days. And that is not my area of expertise.”
“What do you teach?”
“Social studies.”
“Good. No one knows exactly what social studies is.”
“I’m a substitute teacher. That’s why my name’s not listed on the school website. If anyone’s ambitious enough to look it up.”
“And what’s your name?”
“Ben Harrison.”
“Oh. Your actual name. That’s one less thing to remember. Meet me at Francine’s Diner. It’s easier to find than Marge’s house, and no one will think it’s weird if you ask how to find it. See you at five.”
“He’ll be in time for the early bird special,” Gertie whispered excitedly.
“You don’t have to whisper now, Gertie. He hung up.”
I backed the Jeep out of its spot. The gravel and crushed shells crunched softly under the tires.
“Where to now?” Ida Belle asked.
“Home, I guess. I don’t know what Harrison’s going to do here besides be a glorified bodyguard. What’s he going to find out here that we don’t already know? I can’t see him getting the locals to open up to him.”
“Doesn’t he call Carter ‘Barney Fife’?” Gertie asked.
“That’s his term for Sinful law enforcement in general. Who is Barney Fife, anyway?”
“It’s from an old TV show,” Ida Belle said.
I pulled out to the edge of the parking lot and looked up and down the main road. I was about to turn toward home when Gertie exclaimed,
“Go that way!”
“What?”
“She’s right,” Ida Belle chimed in. “Go the other way. Gertie, if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, why didn’t we think of it before?”
Chapter 16
“This is it,” Gertie said. “My, it’s been a while. I don’t remember them having internet access last time.”
A wooden sign stuck in the roadside foliage read
BEAUMONT PLANT NURSERY and CAFÉ.
Tacked to that was a smaller sign, also hand-painted: INTERNET.
The Beaumont Plant Nursery and Café was around ten miles past the town of Beaumont, Texas, just over the Texas-Louisiana border. Apparently Gertie and Ida Belle had an old friend out here—and I do mean old, as in Cold War relic.
I turned up the unpaved road. Stiff oleander branches scraped the sides of the Jeep as I miscalculated a sharp turn.
“Good thing we have the Jeep,” I said. “I hate to think what this road would do to a car with a normal drive train.”
The narrow road opened into an unpaved parking lot. At the far end sat a low wooden structure. A large sign mounted on the roof once again announced BEAUMONT PLANT NURSERY and CAFÉ. The cursive lettering was in a flaking red paint on a weathered white background.
I parked in a far spot with a lot of empty space around me and we crossed the dirt lot to the building. Behind the café building, rows of greenhouses gleamed in the hazy Texas sun. A low hedge sat in front of the entrance, studded with little yellow and red peppers that were exactly the size and shape of Christmas lights.
Inside was a dining room and hostess station to the left, and a little gift shop to the right with souvenir t-shirts, hats, and potted live plants. I scanned the dining room for potential threats.
“What do you think of those two guys in the back booth?” I asked.
“Which ones?” Ida Belle asked.
“The shady looking ones.”
“They all look shady,” Gertie said.
“Except that family over there.” Ida Belle countered.
“Look again, Ida Belle. See the shifty eyes on that kid? And you keep saying I’m the one who needs new glasses. Ha!”
“No offense,” I said, “but this place is sketchy. Plant nursery off a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, and they’ve got a bunch of fifty thousand dollar greenhouses.”
Ida Belle gave me a look.
“Sounds like you know a little something about agriculture. Afghanistan?”
I nodded.
“I’ll never forget it. It’s where I ate my first camel spider. So is your friend expecting us? Or are we just going to have one last meal together before Harrison snatches me away and I never see you two again?”
“Snatches you away?” Gertie’s eyes widened.
“I was thinking about it on the drive over. I think Harrison’s coming here on an extraction mission.”
“Wouldn’t he tell you?” Ida Belle asked.
“Not necessarily. It’s the only thing that makes sense. The cost of hiding me in Sinful is now outweighing the benefit. Someone’s ID’d me. I’m compromised.”
“There he is. Tran. Tran!”
Gertie waved frantically. An elderly man in full cowboy kit was approaching us from the direction of the kitchen doors.
Male. Age late seventies to early eighties. Southeast Asian ancestry. Five foot three, 110 without the American flag belt buckle, 115 with. Overall good physical health despite old orthopedic and neurological injuries, which he covers well. Threat level: Ambiguous.
Ida Belle and Gertie took turns embracing him. Gertie’s hug lingered much longer than Ida Belle’s.
I glanced at Ida Belle. She shrugged as if to say, “I’ll tell you later.”
“And you must be Fortune. I’m Tran.” He flashed me a toothy smile (dentures, but good ones). His Texas drawl was nearly perfect.
Tran led us back through the kitchen door, past the bustle of the kitchen, down a hallway.
“Oh, Miss Gertie,” he said. “I’m reading your latest.”
“Why Tran, I didn’t know you were a romance reader.”
“Are you kidding? I love it. Hot stuff. Practically burned a hole in my Kindle.”
“I aim to please,” Gertie said coyly.
“Don’t I know it, darlin’,” he chuckled, and Gertie slapped him playfully on the arm.
The next thing I knew I was blinking in the sunlight. We’d come all the way through to the back of the building. We were standing out in the bare lot. At least back here we were in the shade. The air was dry and hot, thick with dust and pollen.
At Tran’s invitation, Ida Belle, Gertie, and I sat down on a blue-and-white cooler. Tran pulled four tall brown cans out of a rusty mini-fridge and handed them out. Then he sat down on the fridge. We sat and sipped cold Southern Star Pine Belt Pale Ale.
“Go ahead and tell him,” Gertie said.
Ida Belle nodded encouragement.
I hesitated. I trusted Gertie and Ida Belle, but I didn’t know this man from Adam (assuming Adam was an eighty-year-old Vietnamese cowboy).
“I hear our man in New Orleans came to a bad end out in your neck of the woods,” Tran said.
“Our man?”
“Sure. Well, I retired in seventy-four.”
“Oh.”
“Uncle Sam set me up with a very generous, if somewhat unconventional, pension plan.” He waved at the greenhouses. “So I’m mostly done with official government work. But I still like to keep up with current events. When y’all got people dyin’ that got no business dyin’, why, that’s my particular area of interest.”
Tran reached behind him and switched on a rusty stick fan. The feeble breeze was a welcome relief from the hot, stale air.
Gertie motioned for me to start talking.
Heck, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I told Tran the whole story. Tran drained his beer, took a can of chew out of his back pocket and took a pinch. He pensively spat tobacco juice into the beer can as I told him of the deaths of the fake modeling agent Claudia Hu
nter and the crooked Bernard Mercier. I was vague about my situation with Ahmad, telling Tran only that I’d gotten crosswise with one of the many bad guys I’d dealt with in my job.
At no point did anyone say the letters C-I-A. No one had to.
“You got a tissue sample from either one?” Tran asked. “I can do the basic alkaloid screen right on the premises. Can’t promise it’s state-of-the-art, but it’s not bad.”
“I did get samples from Mercier,” I said, “but I sent them all to my employer. The police took the body. The Medical Examiner from New Orleans looked him over. No one found any plausible mechanism for his death.”
“Well, those fellas got the same equipment I do, so I don’t believe I’d be able to find anything they didn’t. Tell you what this reminds me of. Gertie, you remember Georgi Markov?”
“The Bulgarians are in Sinful?” Gertie exclaimed.
“No silly,” Ida Belle corrected her, “Tran’s saying that Mercier could’ve been killed with some kind of unusual poison delivery system. Something the ME might not know about. Remember, Markov’s ricin pellet was the size of a speck.”
“If I recall correctly,” I said, “Markov took four days to die. Maybe Mercier’s problems started back in New Orleans.”
“Well, Markov was 1978,” Tran said. “I reckon there’s been some progress in the technology since then.”
“But who can get ahold of that kind of weapon?” Gertie asked. “A poison umbrella?”
“Not me,” I said glumly.
Chapter 17
I’d heard rumors of exotic weapons, James Bond-type things like matchbooks and hatpins that enabled you to kill someone in a crowded elevator without attracting attention. But I’d never been allowed to take any of those neat gadgets into the field. I was expected to rely on ordinary tools like my nine millimeter sidearm. Or I could improvise with everyday objects if I had to. A stiletto heel, a roll of duct tape, a piece of hard candy.
My bosses didn’t want their fingerprints on our work, not if they could help it. The fancy stuff was reserved for very special occasions.
“If the technology exists,” Tran said, “you can be sure the bad guys’ll get it. Heck, if there’s one thing you can count on, it’s that the bad guys have a lot more spending money than the good guys.”
“Okay, let’s say Mercier killed one of Ah—killed a bad guy’s henchman,” I said. “To get back at him, the bad guy uses a slow-acting poison on him. Mercier thinks he’s fine, he comes after me for the bounty, thinking he’ll make it up to the bad guy by bringing me in. But he drops dead before he can finish the job. In the meantime, bad guy’s followed him to find out what he knows, and is out there waiting to grab me. Does that scenario make sense?”
“It does, if your bad guy’s one of those careful planning types. Is he? Or would you say he’s more of a hothead?”
“Definitely a hothead,” I said. “I mean, he gunned his wife down when she walked in front of the TV during American Idol.”
Tran’s eyebrows shot up.
“American Idol? Are you talking about Ahmad?”
I nodded warily.
“Young lady, I shouldn’t even be seen with you.” Tran chuckled. “Gertie, you have always have been a magnet for trouble. I daresay not a thing has changed. Now, Fortune, do an old man a kindness and run the whole thing by me again.”
“The whole thing?”
“I’ll try to stay awake this time.” Tran’s tone was whimsical, but he was serious. He was paying close attention, his eyes bright with interest.
“You forgot to tell him about the gumbo,” Ida Belle said.
“The gumbo didn’t kill anyone.”
“Why, I’m rather partial to gumbo,” Tran said. “I’m with Ida Belle. Let’s hear the story with the gumbo this time.”
I went over the whole thing again. This time, I included the disastrous dinner, Claudia storming off in a snit, me throwing the uneaten gumbo into the bushes. Every humiliating detail.
“You gotta be careful with peppers,” Tran said. “I love ‘em myself. I got tabascos growing out front. They’re the ones that look like Christmas lights, and they’re nearly ten times as hot as jalapenos. And half a jar is quite a bit, even in a large cooking vessel. What kind of pepper was it?”
“I’m not sure. The jar said Carolina Reaper, I think.”
I thought Tran was going to fall off his little fridge.
“Did you say Carolina Reaper?”
“I believe that’s right. Why?”
“The Carolina Reaper is no ordinary pepper, Fortune. You got your hands on the hottest pepper in the world.”
“Fortune!” Ida Belle exclaimed. “You fed us the world’s hottest pepper? No wonder I couldn’t taste anything for a whole day.”
“How was I supposed to know? They were selling in a spice shop. If I’m not supposed to put it in food, don’t sell it in a spice shop. What’s so hard about that?”
“Didn’t it say anything on the jar?” Gertie asked.
“What, like a skull and crossbones, or a biohazard symbol? Or a label that said Do Not Use This in Food? No, it did not have any of those warnings.”
“Over one point five million Scoville Heat Units,” Tran mused.
“I don’t know what that means,” I said.
“You know Jalapenos, like you get in Mexican food? Those are only about five thousand Scoville Heat Units. Tabasco’s about forty thousand. But one point five million? And half a jar? Why, I believe you cooked yourself up a nice pot of chemical warfare.”
“I didn’t taste it,” I said. “I was about to try it but I saw everyone choking and turning red and…sorry. You know what? I’m never cooking again. So I basically fed my guests pepper spray?”
“I’d say that sums it up.” Tran’s leathery cheeks dimpled with amusement.
“Did you say pepper spray?” Ida Belle perked up. “Gertie, speaking of pepper spray, do you remember…”
Gertie and Ida Belle both shot me a wary look. Tran shook his head and laughed.
“Let me tell you about a story we read about in the newspaper,” Ida Belle said.
“It was back in the nineties,” Gertie added. “In the newspaper. That’s where we heard about it. Right, Ida Belle?”
“A pair of innocent women were being threatened by a man with a gun,” Ida Belle said.
“For no reason at all,” Gertie added.
“No, the women were just minding their own business,” Ida Belle agreed. “Not asking for trouble or anything.”
“But Ida—I mean, one of the women, had a can of pepper spray. She blasted him with it and the guy clawed at his face and ended up shooting himself.”
“Everyone thought it was a suicide,” Ida Belle said proudly.
“If ‘everyone’ thought it was a suicide,” I asked, “how did you read about it in the paper?”
“I think we better get going.” Ida Belle stood up. “If we’re gonna make it back by five. You know what? I’m glad we came out here. Good thinking, Gertie.”
Tran stood too. “A pleasure to meet you, Fortune. Nice to see you again, Ida Belle.”
Gertie stood and embraced him. Gertie and Tran looked good together, I thought. Like wizened little salt-and-pepper shakers.
“Gertie, I’ll be reading Passion’s Promise in bed tonight.” Tran winked.
Chapter 18
The long drive back to Sinful gave me an opportunity to mull over the implications of my having cooked up a batch of pepper spray in a pan.
“So let’s say I go out on the front porch to throw my gumbo out,” I said. “Mercier’s standing there, waiting for me, pointing a gun. Only it’s not a gun, it’s something that shoots some kind of obscure, undetectable poison. I hit him in the face with the gumbo, he shoots himself instead of shooting me. I can’t see any of it cause it’s too dark out.”
“How far’d you throw it?” Ida Belle asked.
“Pretty far, I think. I have decent upper body strength.”
&
nbsp; “You couldn’t see him,” Gertie asked, “But he could see you?”
“There’s that porch light,” I said. “It’s one of those yellow bug lights, so it’s pretty dim, but it would’ve been enough. We should call Carter and ask him to look through Mercier’s effects. Glasses, pens, lighters, anything that could have been retrofitted with a firing mechanism.”
Ida Belle pulled out her phone and dialed.
“I hate those bug lights,” Gertie said. “They’re so dim, and they wash all the color out. I can’t see anything.”
I waited for Ida Belle to needle Gertie about getting glasses, but she was already talking to Carter.
“I don’t know,” Ida Belle was saying. “I think you might want to talk to her directly.”
Ida Belle held her phone to my ear.
“Hey, Carter,” I said. “You have Mercier’s things?”
“Yeah. The ME’s preparing to release the body to next of kin, if anyone can find them. His personal effects will go with the body.”
“Did he have anything that looked like a gun? Or a blow dart?”
“What? No. I don’t remember anything like that.”
“How about a pen?”
“I think I picked up a pen near the body. Why?”
“It might be important.”
“A pen? Really?”
I drove over a pothole where the asphalt had washed away. The Jeep bucked, and Gertie and Ida Belle shrieked.
“Fortune. What’s going on there?” Carter sounded worried.
“Sorry. I need to pay closer attention to the road. Listen, Carter, do me a favor. All of Mercier’s stuff, anything you have, anything at all, please put it in a box, and bring it to Francine’s Diner at five-thirty.”
“Fortune, this sounds completely insane.”
“Yeah, I know. And be careful. Don’t drop anything. So are you going to be there?”
“You shouldn’t talk and drive. And yes, I’ll be there.”
“Thank you.”
“Only to make sure you haven’t killed yourself and everyone else in the car.”
“You shouldn’t talk on the phone and drive,” Gertie said when I’d hung up. “Carter’s right.”