Hot Blooded

by D V Wolfe

  “Fine,” Noah snapped. He crawled out on the other side and avoided me, looking over at Rosetta. “Done.”

  “Aw, you drew the short stick, huh?” I asked Noah. “Rosetta put you on crystal duty.”

  “Well, Gabe is too big,” Rosetta snapped. “You were otherwise occupied and Stacks said ‘no way in hell’.”

  “Sounds about right,” I said. I glanced over at Noah who was rubbing the top of his head. “At least you have all that,” I motioned awkwardly to indicate his hair. “Padding.”

  Noah dropped his hand from his head and looked at Rosetta. “Anything else?”

  “No, I think as soon as we can ditch those hussies, we can get started,” Rosetta said. She looked over at Stacks. “Make that happen.”

  “They aren’t hussies,” I said. “They’re entrepreneurs.”

  Stacks grinned. “Yeah. Entrepreneurs who just happen to be….” He turned on the spot, coming nose to nose with Tessa and Marge, standing in the middle of the hall with their arms crossed, shopping bags at their feet.

  “Happen to be what?” Tessa asked.

  “The...nicest friends a guy could…,” Stacks said.

  Marge put her hand on his face and pushed him aside. “Yeah, whatever. What are you all up to?” She asked, coming down the hall. Tessa followed her, pushing past Stacks and almost knocking him down. Marge’s gaze found Gabe who was obviously sitting as still as possible, trying to not be seen. “Who’s this?”

  Gabe nodded. “Gabe.” He quickly returned his gaze to the book in front of him.

  “Gabe,” Marge said, turning on the charm. “I”m Margarite, like a human margarita, sugar on my rim and packed with fun inside.”

  I had to cover my laugh with a cough as Gabe fiddled with the pages in front of him.

  “Human margarita, Gabe,” I said. “You might want to buy her a round...or a round of her?”

  “Hey!” Tessa said beside me. I turned to look at her. She’d come around the table to stand next to Noah and she was pointing to the newspaper clipping laying on top of the mute cloth. “It’s Barb!”

  “Miss B?” Marge asked, her interest in Gabe momentarily lost. She came around the table to join Tessa and she studied the article. “She DIED?!”

  I scratched the back of my head. “So you two knew Barbara Mackey? But you didn’t know she died over a month ago?”

  “That long ago?” Marge asked, leaning over the obituary. “Well, I’ll be damned. I wondered why she hadn’t come by the game lately.”

  That caught my attention. “Barbara Mackey was a player in your craps game?”

  “Poker,” Tessa said. “Yeah, Miss B was a serious player.”

  Marge nodded. “That’s how she was able to get her grandson flying lessons for Christmas. She pulled that in one night.”

  “What else do you know about her?” Gabe asked.

  Tessa snorted. “She was pissed as hell about the new preacher choading up the church.”

  “Screwing up,” I muttered to Noah before he could ask.

  “Did she say how he was uh ‘choading’ it up?” Stacks asked. “I mean anything specific?”

  Tessa shrugged. “Nah, that wasn’t Miss B’s style. She was a classy broad. She’d mention if something was pissing her off, but she wasn’t a gossip. And she always gave the money back to the folks who lost it, but really needed it. I once saw her sit with Cyrus Milligan for two hours on the bench across the street after a game, and after that, he went to that AA thing for gamblers. Haven’t seen him at the game since.”

  “I’ll bet you weren’t too happy with her after that,” Gabe said. “Making one of your players quit.”

  Marge snorted. “Honey, we’ve got a waiting list a mile long to get a seat at the table for our game. Easy come, easy go.” Marge turned her attention back to the table. “So what are you all doing with Barbara’s obituary?” Marge had directed her last question at Gabe and she leaned over the table on her forearms, cleavage on the verge of spilling out of the top of her romper. I was having a hard time concentrating on anything else. I could only imagine how Gabe was keeping it together.

  “We’re having a seance,” I said, grinning at Gabe. “Wanna join us?” Gabe gave me a death glare and shook his head.

  “Sure,” Marge said, running a finger down Gabe’s exposed bicep. “Is this seat taken?” Marge asked as she dropped onto the stool next to Gabe.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Stacks said, giving me a pointed look. When I just smiled back at him, his expression changed to somewhat pained and he gave the girls a weak smile. “It’s just some early Halloween fun, you know? Uh, just some old gal from the newspaper, thought it would be a laugh. You two probably need to get back to your store and...thanks for everything…”

  “This sounds like fun,” Tessa said, dropping onto the stool next to Noah. “And It’ll be good to hear that old broad’s voice again.”

  I glanced up at Rosetta who looked ready to spit fire and I winked at her. For a moment, I was almost sure she was going to give me the finger. I dropped onto the empty stool between Marge and Tessa and Stacks looked around the table.

  “Where are Rosetta and I going to sit?” He asked on a whine.

  I turned my knee out from under the table and slapped it. “My knee’s free. Come on, we can do our ventriloquist act.” Stacks glared at me and then looked at Rosetta.

  “I’m going to stand,” Rosetta said. “Sometimes I need the...leverage.”

  “And sometimes she tips over when she sits,” I muttered. Luckily, Rosetta didn’t hear me. Back in her hunting days, Rosetta had been hunting an Adlet when the thing snuck up on her and took a bite out of her right ass cheek. It had healed of course, but she was a little uneven. At her house and in her car, she had cushions that helped her, but from the way she’d wobbled on the stool while we were eating, I could see why she’d rather stand for the seance.

  “Move over,” Stacks muttered, giving my shoulder a shove.

  I looked at him. “Move over where?”

  “We’re one-cheeking it, move over.” Stacks said.

  “Just let him sit with you, Bane,” Rosetta snapped. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  I inched over and Stacks shoved until his boney keister was sharing the stool. Rosetta bustled around the table, lighting the candles and flipping off the camping lantern. She moved it off the table and tossed it underneath. A little too hard. I felt it bounce off my shins and I bit down on my tongue to keep the string of curse words heading upwards into my sinus cavity instead of out of my mouth. They came out as a whistling wheeze from my nose and I raised an eyebrow at Rosetta’s smug smile.

  Noah let out a shriek and we all turned to look at him. All except Tessa.

  “Something grabbed my....me,” Noah said. His face was turning pink in the candlelight.

  “Sorry,” Tessa said. “Force of habit. I think it’s the candlelight.”

  “Hands on the table, everyone,” Rosetta said. “For several reasons,” I heard her grumble as she passed behind me. We all placed our hands on the table, palms down. Stacks and I had trouble with two of our arms being so close together. I gave him a shove and he had to brace himself to keep from falling off the stool.

  “Stop it,” he hissed.

  “Are we all ready?” Rosetta growled from the other end of the table.

  “Yep!” Tessa said. “Throw the dice!” I wasn’t sure if she meant that as a gambling thing or a sex thing.

  Rosetta ignored the comment and said. “Everyone join hands and be still.”

  We all did so with some hesitancy except for Marge who interlaced her fingers with Gabe’s giving the back of his hand a light scratch with her long manicured nails. I glanced up to see her bite her lip and give him a wink. Her introductory rate was a strong game. Gabe looked at Marge and then after a quick glance at me, turned his attention to Rosetta who had begun the rite. She was chanting and the candlelight was beginning to flicker as she called for Barbara’s
spirit to join us. She’d set a talking board in the center of the table and I noticed the other minutiae from Barbara’s file was scattered across Rosetta’s end of the table. Her hands were planted within the papers, one of them on Barbara’s Bible, soaking in her energy as she called her.

  In the candlelight, I saw Tessa and Marge’s faces glancing around in fear as the candle flames began to flicker faster. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to rope them into this. There was a squeak of wood on wood and we all looked over at the talking board as the pointer started to move.

  “Barbara Diane Mackey,” Rosetta said. “Are you in the room with us?”

  We all craned our necks to watch as the pointer moved slowly away from the chart of letters and straight for the YES printed on the top. This was a new one for me. Usually, the talking boards only moved if the live participants had their fingers on the pointer. Barbara had something to say.

  “We understand you were a good person in life, Barbara,” Rosetta said, “strong of faith and spirit. Did you end your own life?”

  The pointer didn’t move. It stayed on YES.

  “Was she hard of hearing?” Stacks asked out of the side of his mouth.

  Rosetta decided to try again. “Barbara, your death, was it by your own hand?”

  The pointer slowly began moving again. It moved between the YES and NO and stopped.

  “What does that mean?” Tessa asked.

  The candles sputtered angrily as the pointer began to move again, back to YES.

  “So she really did do it,” Stacks breathed beside me.

  “Not necessarily,” Gabe said, his voice was little more than a whisper across from me. He was staring at the board intently. “Barbara, did something or someone, make you do this to yourself?”

  At once, Stacks’ trailer began to rock. The candles slid on the table, closer and closer to the table edge.

  “Don’t break the circle,” Rosetta snapped.

  The pointer on the board was rolling around it in a circle. It was jerking back and forth as if caught in a tug of war between two unseen people. With what looked like a great effort, it was shoved up the board to land again on YES.

  “Who!?” Gabe shouted. “Who did this to you?”

  Plates crashed down from the kitchen counter, smashing and rolling across the floor. The trash can tipped over. Something that sounded heavy fell to the floor in a room down the hall. The sound of plastic cracking echoing out to where we were. Stacks groaned beside me.

  The pointer was moving again. It paused and then started jerking around the board as if one person was trying to throw the other off. The pointer landed on the N, a second later it began jerking around again and the rocking was getting worse.

  “N,” I said to the group. As if the pointer had heard me, it stopped again on the letter E, making tiny vibrations as if it was taking a lot of effort to keep it there, “E,” I called out. The pointer began moving again. It stopped on the letter R. “R,” I said. The pointer began moving around the board at a rapid speed, so fast it was hard to keep up with it. The faint burning smell of wood on wood filled the air as it moved faster still. An unearthly scream filled the trailer. The pointer burst into flames, the rocking stopped and all four candles went out.

  We all sat still in the darkness for a few moments.

  “Is...is that usually what happens?” Tessa asked.

  “Hey!” I heard Gabe shout. “Hands off, lady!”

  I felt Stacks leave the stool next to me and a second later the lights blinked on.

  Gabe was standing now, looking back at Marge. Marge was leaning back on her stool looking at Gabe with one eyebrow raised. I saw Gabe visibly swallow. He side-stepped Marge and put two huge hands, on either of Rosetta’s shoulders, putting her squarely between himself and Marge.

  “Well this was fun,” I said. I wanted to talk through all of this but wasn’t sure what to do with Tessa and Marge. I looked at Stacks and nodded my head at the two women. Stacks looked confused and then seemed to catch on.

  “Yeah, woo!” Stacks said. “That was a hoot, right?” Stacks clapped his hands together, “So I’ll be seeing you gals, uh, later this week?”

  “Hang on,” Marge said, turning to look at him. “You’re not going to talk about what just happened?”

  “Yeah,” Tessa said. “Miss B killed herself...but it wasn’t her?”

  “Isn’t that odd?” Stacks asked, getting up to go open the trailer door.

  “And what’s N-E-R?” Marge asked.

  I guess they were in it now.

  “She was interrupted,” Gabe said.

  “What if she was trying to spell Ber-,” the lights overhead flickered. Noah glanced up and then back to me. “...the Duke’s name?” Noah asked. I could see panic starting to creep up on him.

  “What if she was trying to spell ‘nerd’?” I asked. “It could have been anything.” The thought that Barbara had been spelling out her killer’s name was a long shot. It wasn’t Barbara’s fault. Speaking across the veil was the ultimate game of telephone. She could have been trying to call for help and just couldn’t get the right word spelled out.

  “Well, this has been...well, something,” Rosetta said, looking at the women. “But get the hell out.”

  The women didn’t move and Rosetta sighed. She dug behind the stack of pizza boxes against the wall next to her and pulled out Big Joe. Tessa and Marge got to their feet.

  “What? Is granny here off her meds?” Marge asked.

  “That’s right,” Rosetta said, moving to the door. With one hand she unlatched it and with the other, she pointed Big Joe at them. “And I’m handing out free holes in the head. So step right up.”

  Tessa and Marge looked at each other, eyebrows raised.

  “Out!” Rosetta shouted. “Quick like bunnies!”

  Tessa and Marge had a few choice comments for us as they filed past Stacks and Rosetta and out the door.

  “Thanks for the help!” I called after them. “And the...wig and dress.”

  “Yeah,” Gabe said, coming up behind me. “When are you going to show us said wig and dress?”

  “In your dreams,” I muttered.

  “Oh, it’s that kind of dress, huh?” Gabe murmured and for the briefest second, I felt his hand brush my elbow.

  Rosetta closed the door behind the girls and flipped the lock before turning back to the table and sitting down on Tessa’s vacated stool. She braced herself on the floor to keep from tipping over. “So it wasn’t suicide,” she began. “But Barbara did kill herself.”

  “Sounds like demons to me,” I said.

  “Maybe,” Gabe said. “Stacks, do you have the Ars Goetia?”

  Stacks moved down the hall. “Somewhere around here.”

  Gabe followed after him and I turned to watch the pair move away.

  “Nice butt on that one,” Rosetta said beside me. I turned to look at her. “And I’m not talking about Stacks’ scrawny ass. I’d hold on to him if I were you.”

  “Grandma,” I said to Rosetta, seeing her dander rise with the remark. “You really are off your meds.”

  12

  “This is a terrible plan,” Noah said. “Not that that’s anything new for us.”