Lizz Lund - Mina Kitchen 02 - Christmas Bizarre (23 page)

“What monkey business? Would you forget about the monkeys already?” Mrs. Phang fumed.

“ Look, you’re cranky because you’re hungry. It’s all set. Let’s eat.”

We stared in disbelief at the domestic arrangement before us: a kitchen table
laid with placemats, napkins and water bottles.

“Dinner is served, ladies.”

Mrs. Phang and I exchanged glances.

“Actually Bernie, I’d like to wash up a little
first, please.”

“Use the kitchen sink,
Tina. You get one trip to the bathroom after we eat.”

Wow.
He was mean. I figured she was faking. But who makes someone try to eat when she has to tinkle?

“Wow, would you look at this?
They finally got the order right. Here girls, dig in.” Bernie energetically arranged the take-out boxes on the table.

“Now.”
He waved the gun at us. We sat down.

“
This is more like it!” He dove into the sushi enthusiastically.

Mrs. Phang and I exchanged
more glances and put pieces of dumplings and spring rolls on our plates. We picked them up and looked at them. Bernie chewed heavily. Eventually, we took some bites. This was just as Bernie chose to spit out his sushi out in front of us.

“Pwah! Ugh! This
ain’t raw!”

Mrs. Phang stared at the remains on his plate.
“It should be. Sushi is raw fish.”

“I know what sushi is!
This is pickled! Here, you try!” He shoved the remainder of the uneaten sushi in the center of the table.

I
looked at it. “Actually, I think what you think is pickled is the pickled ginger. It’s a garnish that comes with the sushi.”

“Really? Well
, I don’t want no garnish.”

“You probably picked up a piece
of ginger by mistake. Try this.” I picked up a piece of the fish, removing it from its rice bed, and put it on his plate.

Bernie plopped it in his mouth, and
chewed tentatively. He smiled, shook his head and swallowed. “Well, I’ll give you this. It’s raw. But I ain’t no seal.” He dove for his entrée and tossed it on his plate. Blood poured forth, along with thinly sliced raw beef.

Mrs. Phang looked down.
I stared in disbelief.

“
This is great! I owe you one, Tina!” Bernie proceeded to suck and slurp his way through his portion of dead, bloody cow.

I
silently vowed to consider the vegetarian thing.

He looked up.
We stared at him. “Whatsa matter? Ain’t you hungry no more?”

“Umm… it’s just that umm…” Mrs. Phang looked h
im directly in the face, specifically where some bloody spittle was drooling down his chin. She dabbed pointedly at her face with her napkin.

“Oh, jeez.
You mean my choppers! I don’t need them to feed like this. I feed on the liquid.”

“Beg pardon
?”

“I only use my choppers to hunt.
I don’t need them to eat stuff like this, just humans. I only have to suck the blood out of this.” He proceeded to demonstrate.

I stifled the urge to wretch.
“That’s pretty creative.”

He nodded and pointed to his temple with his forefinger.
“I got it all going on up here. Never sleeps.”

“
Neither does rust,” Mrs. Phang murmured.

“Say what?”

The doorbell rang.

Bernie swallowed his blood, and reached for his gun.
“Of all the nerve. Just when we were getting all friendly like. You girls keep eating. I’ll see this through.”

I stared at Mrs. Phang. “What do you think?”

“Now or never.”

We crept
toward the doorway to watch Bernie, just as he was about to open the front door. Mrs. Phang hand-signaled me the 1-2-3 drill, with her giving the ‘go’ signal. She held up her hand for me to wait.

Bernie opened the door
a crack. It was another delivery kid.

“Hey
, Mr. Phang. My buddy forgot your fortune cookies. So I’m helping him out. But I got to tell you, after I told my manager, he just started laughing and laughing. ‘Help, I’m being held prisoner in a Chinese Fortune Cookie Factory’. Ha! Ha! Wow, that’s a classic. Your wife sure does have a good sense of humor.”

“You don’t say?”

“Yeah. Wow, it’s great to deliver to folks like you. Hey, it’s great to deliver to anyone these days. Anyway, my manager wants me to give you this.” He handed Bernie a piece of paper.

“
A gift certificate?”

“
For an order of free fried rice. My manager really appreciates a good sense of humor.”

“
Uh, thanks, umm…”

“Leon.
Leon Martini.”

“Martini?”

“Martini, like the drink, get it?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

Mrs. Phang gave the three-finger and we dived toward the door.

She threw it open.
“Help!!! We’re being kidnapped!”

Leon Mar
tini spun around but never saw what was coming. Bernie pulled the trigger from behind her and down he went.

“
No!
” Mrs. Phang cried. She spun around, face-to-face with Bernie. He calmly pointed the pistol at me.

“You
r call, Tina. It’s not any harder to hide two bodies than one.”

“Maybe he’s not dead?” I asked cautiously.
“It was an accident, right? You just over-reacted?”

“Why don’t you find out, Cookie?
Tina and I will wait for you here.” He waved the gun at me, pointing toward the door. Then he held the gun to Mrs. Phang’s forehead.

“Sure,” I lied.
Geez. This was the second dead guy in a week. It was a surreal adjustment to see someone dead, just moments after you’d met them alive. I walked out slowly, and stared at the prone body. Leon Martini’s eyes were wide open, staring into infinity. There was a small hole in the center of his down vest. I bent down and touched his throat for a pulse, just in case. My hands were shaking and I wasn’t sure. I turned around and faced Bernie and Mrs. Phang standing inside the doorway. I shook my head.

“Bring him in here,” Bernie shouted.

I looked at him. “You’re kidding, right? I can’t lift him by myself!” Truth was, I couldn’t. And even if I could, I’d probably puke. I was also stalling for time. A car had to drive by sometime, right? We couldn’t be the only inhabitants on the block, right?

Bernie shoved Mrs. Phang hard and she
fell out the front door. “Drag him in here. And no monkey business.”

Mrs. Phang walked toward me, muttering.
“Monkeys! He got monkeys on the brain…” She sighed, looked at me and closed Leon’s eyes. “C’mon. We’ll get him into a sitting position, and put both his arms around us.”

I did as I was told.

“All right, on three: one, two…” We got the corpse to his feet and dragged him by his toes into the living room and laid him down. Bernie slammed the door behind us.

“Not here, you dummies.
He’ll ooze all over the floor.”

The thought of oozing made me
feel sick to my stomach.

“Move him to the basement.”

We stood there, dumbstruck. Was he really going to make us share our basement prison with a dead guy?

“Now!”

We repeated the one-two-three thing and dragged him through the dining room, kitchen, and down the short flight of stairs. Bernie shone the flashlight down the steps. We lay him near the bottom, trying to keep him away from any puddles, for God knows what reason. Mrs. Phang felt around, and found a canvas drop cloth. She laid it over Leon’s body, and pulled it up over his face.

“Nice touch,
Tina. Very respectful like.”

Mrs. Phang
whirled around. “He was just a delivery guy! Why’d you have to kill him?”

Bernie
came down a step, shining the light in her eyes. “I didn’t kill him, you did. Remember,
help-we’re-being-kidnapped
?”

“You can’t blame a gal for trying.”

“Didn’t say that I did. But you gotta understand something, Tina. Soon – very soon – I’m spending the rest of my life on an island. Sipping cocktails in the sand. And no one’s going to ruin that for me.
No one
.”

“How are you going to do that?”
I asked.

He waved the gun at me.
“It’s all paid for; lock, stock and barrel.”

“I’m sure.
But how are you going to sip cocktails in the sand? Unless of course, I mean, are you only going to do that by moonlight?”

“Huh?”

I waved my arms in frustration. “You just made an elaborate order for a bloody meal, and you forgot you’re a vampire? I don’t know too many vampires who sunbathe on the beach.”

Bernie stared at me.
A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. “You’re right, Cookie. That’s
exactly
what I need. An elaborate meal.” He shut the door to the basement and turned the deadbolt with his key. He pointed the gun at me. “Go get the handcuffs. Now!”

I backed up and
tripped on some bags of concrete mix. I fell back onto the handcuffs.

Bernie rolled his eyes.
“You’re a real klutz, you know that?”

I nodded, wide
-eyed, staring at the gun.

Then he
came down the steps, pointing the gun at Mrs. Phang’s head. “Go ahead, have a seat.” He pushed her down hard on the floor, next to the beam where I’d been handcuffed earlier. “Put the handcuffs on her.”

Mrs. Phang looked at me, and I sat
up against the post, waiting.

“No, not
you. Her. Mina, handcuff Tina like a good girl, won’t you?”

We exchanged glances, and held our breaths.
There weren’t a lot of options. I put a handcuff on Mrs. Phang’s left wrist, and started to repeat the same with the other.

Bernie stepped
over. “Oh, no you don’t. Wrap her arms behind the pole.”

“You want me to handcuff her to the pole?”

“Is there an echo in here?”

Mrs. Phang hung her head.
I tried to keep from crying. Somewhere on Bernie there was that thing he used to pick the lock. And the key to the deadbolt. How could I get them off him?

“Good.
Now stand up, nice and easy like. Away from Tina.” He pointed the gun directly at me. I backed up away from her.

“Great.”
He rested the gun on top of a high shelf, full of old baby jars filled with nails, bolts, and other odds and ends. “Let’s start with the first course!” Bernie lunged toward me.

I screamed.

Mrs. Phang screamed.

Bernie screamed.

“What the fuck? You gonna rape her? You old enough to be her grandpa! You senile!” Mrs. Phang slipped back into broken English.

I slipped
into a panic and ran around the basement like my hair was on fire. I stubbed my toe and fell onto a workhorse, throwing planks and hardware everywhere.

Bernie stood with his hands on his hips, shaking his head.
“I’m a vampire, Tina, we don’t do sex. Truth is, we can’t.”

“
Fabulous. Dolores must be thrilled.”

“It’s not my fault!”

“Of course not. It happens to a lot of men your age.”

“You don’t understand. We’re separated!
”

“
Sorry.”

“I’m not sorry! I did it on purpose! To save her! In case I forgot myself.”

“Forgot yourself?” I asked, immediately wishing I’d kept my big mouth shut.

“I couldn’t suck the life blood out of my better half, could I? It’s not her fault I turned into a vampire. We’ve been married for fifty-three years!”

“
Congrats.”

“Congratulate me in the afterlife, you stupid blood-pumping piece of flesh!”
Bernie lunged at me, and we went tumbling. My head narrowly missed a pile of broken cinderblock, and connected with the cement floor instead.

I blinked a few times
as I came to, dimly realizing that Bernie was sucking on my neck.

“Yecch!”
I pushed him off and shoved him away. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m feeding!”

“You have no teeth!”

“Crap. You’re right.
I left them upstairs in the glass. Be right back.” He hustled away for his gun and leaped up the steps, locking the door behind him.

I rubbed my neck and wiped
away his spit. “Pretty spry for an old guy.”

“Quick!
Can you barricade the door?” Tina asked.