Fat Assassins (11 page)

Cheri stopped in front of us with a tray full of alcoholic drinks asking, “Y’all all done back there?”

“Yeah, we’ve had enough fun for one night,” Ulyssa responded, giving her a twenty dollar tip. “If anyone asks, we were never here.”

“No problem, sugar. I make most of my tips from folks who were never here. Y’all come back now, ya hear!”

Ulyssa kept the envelope hidden until we were back in the trailer with the door locked and the shades pulled. 

She poured us each a glass of wine from the box in the fridge and sank into the couch. “Where are we gonna hide this money? It makes me nervous having it in the house.”

“We could hide it in the coffee can?” I offered.

“No. Too obvious.” She countered.

“Under the mattress.” 

“No. That’s the second most popular hiding place.”

“Tampax box?” I didn’t even realize I’d said it out loud. The filter between my brain and mouth didn’t always work, especially when I’m stressed out. 

Ulyssa looked at me with shock answering, “Perfect!! Most crimes are committed by males between the ages of 18 and 34. There’s no way a man’ll look inside a Tampax box. Brilliant idea!” She ran down the hall and returned with the familiar blue cardboard box. I said a silent prayer of thanks that we buy feminine products wholesale from Sam’s Club because the envelope wouldn’t have fit in a regular size box. She dumped the contents onto the living room table, carefully slid the envelop in sideways, laid some tampons over the top and closed the lid. Perfect. We put the box back in the bathroom and crammed the rest of the tampons into a drawer. Feeling confident that the money was safe, we called it a night. 

It didn’t take long for me to pass out from exhaustion, but my dreams were riddled with visions of town cars being driven by killer squirrels with Italian faces and pot bellies. They seemed especially evil as they alternated between eating nuts and threatening to kills us. 

I woke up in a cold sweat as the sun penetrated the blinds, filling the room with light. I headed to the bathroom to shower off the filmy sweat. The quiet swish-swish of my toothbrush filled the still trailer. Silence wasn’t a good environment for me right now. I was sitting on the couch rocking and chattering when Ulyssa finally woke up.

“Yeah, we could go to the cops. Nope can’t do that they’ll kill us.” 

Rock. Rock.

“But they could put us in witness protection. No, I like it here. I’d never get to see Deputy Hodde again. Definitely not.”

Rock. Rock. 

“$40,000 is so much money. Yeah, definitely. We could do a lot with it. More than I won with the joke lottery ticket.”

Rock. Rock.

“But can’t kill somebody. Definitely not. Killing is wrong.”

“Hey RainMan! How long you been out here having a meltdown?” I blinked at her crazy morning hair. She didn’t sleep well either. 

“Twenty minutes, maybe. Thirty tops.”

“Okay. Looks like we need to get you some serious caffeine today. Only a Starbuck’s triple shot will nurse you out of this shock!” 

She disappeared into the bathroom. When she re-emerged she’d combed her hair down and pulled it back into a ponytail. She waved the newspaper article at me before folding it and sliding it into her pocket. “This may help us figure out what to do. We can have a quick look at these while we’re drinking our coffees.” 

We walked outside to find Mitchell in his yard working on his stock car. He spent all his spare money and time fixing the car, so he could race it on the weekend. 

Mitchell and Mitsy split the mortgage on the trailer across the street from us. We’d met them because we were the youngest people in the Wheels Up trailer park. When we first moved in, the residents thought we might be meth dealers setting up shop in their hood. They’d even tried to have the homeowner’s association pass a minimum age law for the trailer park. But it failed because of age discrimination laws. They started warming up to us once they realized we were just four hard working professionals trying to survive. They’d still call the cops if we were too noisy or rowdy, but at least they weren’t standing 24x7 shifts watching our trailers for drug deals anymore. 

“Mornin‘ Mitchell! She gonna be ready to race this weekend?” I asked. 

“Mornin’ girls! I’ve been having problems with the alternator, but I’m hoping she’ll be ready to race by Sunday afternoon.” He stopped working and leaned against the 1982 Buick, propping his boot against the oversized tire. 

I stared at the giant MoonPie pasted on the hood of the yellow racing car. “Did you finally get a sponsor?”

“Shoot no. I keep hoping they’ll see me racing and pick me officially. Til then I’m just promoting ‘em for free,” he answered, before abruptly shifting the conversation. “What have y’all been up to?”

Ulyssa picked up the conversation smooth as pie, “Not too much. Just job shopping. Why?”

“Just wondering cause I saw one of them fancy Lincoln Town Cars parked outside your place last night. I thought maybe you’d won the lottery or got a rich boyfriend.”

“Uh.” She shot me a warning look before continuing, “Those were just some
friends
out for a visit from the East Coast. They were in town on business and could only stop by for a few minutes.” I shuddered remembering my squirrel nightmare. 

Maybe I was psychic. Like a Dr. Doolittle-Diona Warwick hybrid. I wonder if I could get my own hotline
. 

“Yeah, they were only parked there for bout an hour. I saw them when I wuz running down to Wally World for some pork rinds, about 9, I reckon, and they were gone when I got back. I wasn’t gone for too long, probably an hour. Glad you know though. Thought we were going to have to report them to the neighborhood watch,” he said, winking at us.

“Yeah. These nosey fools don’t have anything else better to do with their time. They probably have one of those hearing amplification devices going right now, so they can here us talking. We’re going to Starbuck’s for coffee in case anyone is curious,” she said the last part loudly to emphasize the joke.

Mitchell laughed, “Y’all have a good one. Enjoy your yuppie coffee!”

Between the nosey neighbors and mob stalkers, we’d reached maximum paranoia and didn’t talk until we were on the highway with the radio blasting 80’s metal. We had to talk louder over the music, defeating the purpose of the white noise. But it somehow made us feel better.

“I can’t believe they followed us home! We’re so dead now! Did you notice them following us last night?”

Ulyssa shook her head and frowned. “I was so worried about what we were going to do. I didn’t pay much attention to anything else. This really, really complicates things. They know where we live now. I can’t believe we’re messing with the mob! Have you ever watched the Godfather or Sopranos? It never ends well.” We both shuddered at the thought of an unhappy Nicolo. 

It was too cold for most folks to sit outside Starbucks, but we were cosy sitting in the corner away from prying eyes. Ulyssa extracted the newspaper clipping from her pocket and flattened it on the table. We both leaned closer to get a better look at it. The man in the photo was being escorted from a courthouse surrounded by bodyguards and lawyers.

CASE DISMISSAL FOR GRAVE ROBBING RINGLEADER

Alleged grave robbing ring leader, Marcus Bernini, was released from custody on Monday after his case was dismissed today. Bernini was arrested after residents complained about unusual activity at the graveyard after hours. An undercover sting by the Charleston Police Department gathered evidence of the nocturnal thefts, but were unable to convince witnesses to testify under oath. Victims claim that Bernini was the ringleader responsible for raiding fresh grave sites and stealing jewelry and other valuables from corpses. It is estimated that his crew stole over $100,000 worth of items from the recently departed. Bernini has a long history of criminal activity within the surrounding counties. He was arrested in 2008 for car theft and again last year for drug and prostitution related charges. Prosecutors claim that Bernini evades serious jail time because of his ties to New Jersey mobster Nicolo Patchelli. Patchelli assumed control of his family’s business when his father died in 2008, expanding the criminal empire as far west as Nevada. 

We sat back in our chairs absorbing the article. 

“It doesn’t make sense to me. If Nicolo is buddies with Marcus, why did he hire us to kill him?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe they had a disagreement or something. What’s the date of the newspaper article? That might help.”

“It’s got yesterday’s date on it.”

“Wow. So, the same day Marcus is released, Nicolo posts a Craigslist ad for exterminators and hires us to kill him?” Ulyssa asked, taking a sip of her steaming coffee.

“Maybe that’s why Nicolo flew out here from New Jersey. But why is he mad at Marcus? Did he try to cut him out of the profits or something? I can’t imagine that grave robbing is big business in the mobster world. Eventually the revenue stream would dry up.” Ulyssa watched loads of crime-based TV shows and I can always tell when she’s speaking legalese.

“I don’t know. But one thing is for sure . . . we have gotten ourselves in a heap of trouble. This Marcus guy seems like bad business and now we’re stuck in the middle of whatever is going on between him and Nicolo.”

“If we go to the cops, we’re dead. If we don’t do anything, we’re dead. If we try to kill Marcus, we could end up dead. Plus, we can’t ask anyone for help or advice cause they’ll end up hurt or killed.” Voicing the hopelessness of the situation only made it worse. “And we only have two weeks to do whatever it is that we need to do . . . .”

Uninspired by our caffeine highs, we were speeding along the dirt road heading home when the car bottomed out on a pot hole. The pellet size crack in the car window spread like a grand daddy long leg spider. 

“Damnit!” Ulyssa exclaimed, as we hit another unexpected pothole, exploding the cracks across the entire windshield. She slowed down to avoid any more bumps that might cause it to crash in on us. “We’re gonna have to stop by Cornnut’s, so he can have a look at the windshield before it falls in.” 

Cornnut was our local mechanic and car dealer who did business out of his house on the edge of town. Used cars with prices marked on the windshield were arranged around his front yard in three rows. Small, foreign cars in the front, midsized sedans in the middle and SUVs in the back. He had a special discounted car selection in the backyard. Most folks from Nitro steered clear of the questionable backyard lot and only shopped for front yard cars. His two car garage was set up as an efficient workshop with hydraulic lifts. Ulyssa pulled the car into the driveway near the garage door. We walked past the pink flamingos to the front door and pressed the doorbell. 

A male chauvinist door chime echo’d through the house.
“Woman, git the damned door. Woman, git the damned door.”

We were still laughing at the door chime, when a mean looking woman swung the door open and glared at us. “What do you’ns want?” 

“Good evening, ma’am. We need to see Cornnut about fixing my windshield,” Ulyssa said, gesturing toward the leering car with the fractured glass. 

“Him and his idiot friends are down by the lake, catching tourists. Just follow the road for a little ways, then turn left at the giant oak tree. Shouldn’t be too far ‘n you’ll see ‘em sitting next to the lake,” she said, slamming the door before we could thank her. 

We decided to walk to the lake since the car windshield looked like it would collapse any minute. The walk seemed like a death march and we were about to turnaround when we saw the edge of the lake. We stepped off the road and followed a well worn trail around the side of the water. It didn’t take long for us to locate the loud, rowdy trio perched on their coolers. 

“Hey Cornnut!” we yelled, from a distance.

“Howdy girls! How y’all doing?”

“Pretty good. We need your help. My windshield is all busted up and I was hoping you could have a quick look at it. Maybe tell me how much it’ll cost to fix it.”

“Sure, I can do that. But you’ll have to hang out for a little while. We just got word from Johnny that a couple tourists passed through town.” He leaned over and spit a stream of tobacco from the side of his mouth. “Me and the boys are bout to go tourist fishing.”

We didn’t get a chance to ask anymore questions because a Lexus SUV came speeding down the dirt road and drove straight into the lake. The truck was going so fast the water immediately covered the hood and stalled the engine. 

“Here we go boys!” Cornnut hooted. They all jumped up and ran over to the truck to help the occupants. 

Ulyssa and I stood on the grassy bank, unsure what was going on. The couple came sputtering to the surface as Cornnut and crew helped pull them out of the water and brought them over to sit down near us.

“Y’all ok?” he asked, the drenched couple.

“Yeah. There must be something wrong with that GPS system. It told us to keep straight for three more miles. Then outta nowhere we’re sinking in this lake. I’m sure glad you guys were here to help.” He pulled a soggy cell phone from his pocket and tried to make a call. “You don’t happen to have a cell phone, so I can call for a tow, do you?”

“I’ll do ya one better than that . . . I’ll head back to the house and grab my truck,” Cornnut said, jogging off down the road. 

He was back a few minutes later driving his tow truck. I narrowed my eyes at him. There was no way he coulda made it home and back that quick. He caught me staring and gave me a wink like we were co-conspirators. Him and the boys chained up the truck and dragged it out of the water. 

“I’ll work on it tonight, but I probably won’t be able to get it running til tomorrow. Do y’all want me to drop you off at the local motel? I can pick you up in the morning when your truck is all fixed up.” 

The man shook Cornnut’s hand saying, “That sounds great. I guess it’s true what they say about you southerners. You really are good folks.”