Pickled Read online

  I wiped away a tear. What were the chances he would do it, that he would really kill us? Pretty good, I guessed. I felt a telltale tickle in my throat that meant my little bit of weepiness was about to explode at any minute into great big sobs.

  I’d been due for a good cry even before two thugs kidnapped me at gunpoint. And – whoops – here came the flood of tears that might just get us killed.

  Marge held tightly to my hand until my tears subsided into hiccups. Celeste picked up my glasses, which had slid down to the floor. She placed them on my nose, then she glared at Baxter. “Can you at least get us a hankie?”

  “Be a gentleman,” Marge said, thought that was kind of a lost cause.

  “Get a wad of tissue,” Baxter told the tall guy while he held the gun on us. He looked poised to run, as if he expected we might bolt at any second.

  His friend came back and handed me a roll of scented toilet paper in a tasteful shade of powdered blue. This was getting weirder by the second. These looked not like the kind of guys to buy girlie toilet paper.

  “Thank you very much,” I said, then I blew my nose.

  While Tall Dude stood guard with the gun, Baxter clomped upstairs.

  Not much time had passed when he ran down with a rope. Great. It wasn’t hard to guess what was coming next. He grabbed me by the arms, squeezing so hard it hurt, and tied my hands behind my back. He squeezed the knot so tightly that it cut into my skin. I glanced over to the side to see that Tall Dude had Marge tied up. He was working on Celeste next.

  “Do you really have to do this?” Celeste asked him gently, as if she were making a friendly suggestion from one pal to another. “After all, you have the gun. I’m sure this kind of thing is bad for the circulation. And I’m not as young as I was once. Why don’t we all just sit and talk? Let’s work something out.”

  “Hey, I have a great idea.” Baxter leaned down into her face. “Why don’t you shut your ugly trap?”

  “I’ve got something that will help.” Tall Dude held out a massive roll of duct tape. “This will shut these broads up quick.”

  I cringed. Absolutely lovely.

  While Baxter taped Celeste’s mouth, Tall Dude worked on me, pulling the tape tightly around my face and hair. Then he moved on to Marge.

  “Dang, man. What a day.” Baxter turned on a second overhead light and flopped down into a chair, stretching his long legs out in front of him and kicking off a shoe, as if it were him, not us, who’d had the worst day ever.

  I glanced around the room some more which was – again, weird – really kind of gorgeous. Signed oil paintings in nice frames were hung up on the walls, which were painted a light beige with a brand-new coat of white trim. The bookshelves were filled with hardback books as well as family photos. Someone had neatly lined up a group of porcelain figurines like my grandma once collected. Yarn and knitting needles were nestled in several boxes that lined the bottom shelf.

  I looked from the two thugs to the dainty, dancing figurines with umbrellas lined in gold. Something didn’t add up. Some things (besides, of course, Baxter and his friend) looked out of place. Empty plates with dried-up food were scattered about the room, along with smashed-up beer cans and greasy pizza boxes. Magazines were messily strewn across the oriental carpet. Modern Gunman. Shooter’s World. It just didn’t fit. I glanced down at the stories splashed across the cover. People who knitted things in light blue fuzzy yarn were not the type to eagerly dive into A Guide to Ammunition. Fire Away with Confidence!

  Despite the tape across her mouth, Marge began to hum again, something from Peter Pan. Celeste leaned over to give her a shoulder nudge. Marge got the hint and stopped.

  I hoped I wouldn’t hyperventilate. I was feeling claustrophobic, and not being able to move my arms seemed to play into that fear. What if there was a fire? At least I could use my legs, but this rope thing, I suspected, would mess hard with my balance. And now with our mouths taped shut, there was no chance of talking sense into these guys. And, with our arms tied behind our backs, no chance of The Persuader joining our little party and saving the day at last.

  Tall Dude went outside. I heard the van door close, then he came back with a laptop. He trotted over to the couch, then stopped short, staring at us with distaste. “Damn it. You’re sitting in my place.”

  Well, if you would just untie us, we’d be glad to leave.

  Very roughly, he grabbed Celeste and pushed her to the floor, then shoved me on top of her, and Marge on top of me. Carefully, so as not to rile the animals, because that’s what these guys were, we rolled apart from one another. Then, with a little effort, I rolled onto my side. Lying on your back is not the most comfortable position when your hands are tied behind you. I was sorry to be a member of the exclusive club that had that information.

  Tall Dude had opened his laptop and was sprawled across the couch while his fingers flew across the keyboard. I heard some familiar music. Could it be? No. That was just too weird. The awful thug was playing the alien game that my brother was obsessed with.

  “Almost, almost,” he whispered to himself. “I almost beat the boss’s score.”

  Baxter got up from his chair and opened the door to another room which I could see was filled with boxes and more boxes. This operation must be huge. How much were they raking in?

  I decided that one of them at least must have a few more brain cells than they seemed to. But had it occurred to them that counterfeiting held a lighter sentence than kidnapping? Or assault? Did they know what the sentence was for murder? I thought I might cry again.

  I cut my eyes to Marge. It looked like she was thinking hard. How could she keep her wits about her while death stared us in the face? In this line of work, I guessed, that’s what separated out the winners. Marge, with all her quirks, sometimes had a bravery that took my breath away.

  So I tried to be like Marge. I tried to come up with a plan. Only, any chance at escape seemed to involve my hands or mouth, which now were kind of useless. Even if the guys were to somehow both leave at the same time (Would they be that stupid?), I couldn’t dial my cell or even turn the door knob. Could I break a window with my foot? Shoot, there were no windows.

  Neither guy was watching us; both were distracted. Tall Dude was staring into his laptop screen while Baxter shuffled boxes in the adjacent room.

  While I tried to think of something that would get us out of there, I heard footsteps running down the steps from the main part of the house. Please. Be the normal suburban lady with exquisite tastes who must live in this home. Surely Baxter didn’t live here. And surely not Tall Dude. I looked at the stack of stuff beside me. Someone else lived here, someone who could help us. Because there was no way these things belonged to Baxter, and it was not the kind of expensive stuff he’d try to counterfeit. He had no use for stickers and colored papers to Scrapbook Your Cherished Photos, as one cellophane package advertised. Did he collect boxes of tiny wide-eyed dolls, each with the name of a month written across their pastel-colored skirts? I highly doubted that.

  Perhaps the scrapbooking owner of tiny dolls was coming down at this very moment to rescue me from hell. But these weren’t delicate footsteps that I heard; this was a loud clomping. Soon a guy appeared who was a little older than the others. He was dressed a lot like them, with baggy pants and massive sneakers and a ball cap that needed a good washing. He wore it backwards on his head.

  By the way the other two perked up in his presence, something told me this guy was in charge. Tall Dude put down his notebook and sat up straight. Baxter put down a stack of boxes and walked into the room.

  The new guy settled into the couch and looked at us lying on the floor. “Well, what do we have here?” His mouth was set into a frown, but there was laughter in his eyes. “Let’s take the tape off these ladies and see what they have to say.” Then he moved toward me and pulled the tape off my mouth. Whoa. Talk about a sting. But it felt good to have it gone. I’d been getting tired of having to breathe in through my nose.r />
  Celeste winced as well as he pulled the tape off her mouth.

  Tall Dude got up from his seat and went to Marge. “This one likes to hum dumb stuff. Can we keep the tape on this one?”

  “Mmmmph!” Marge mumbled.

  The new guy thought about it. “Nah. Just rip it off. I have some questions for these ladies.”

  “You’re gonna make them pay, right? For messing with our business?” Baxter asked him eagerly. “Broads screwed with us real bad.” He got up in my face, and that, I have to say, did not exactly leave me with the pleasantest of smells. This had been a bad day for my nose. For all of me, in fact.

  Tall Dude set down his computer and let loose with a sniveling laugh. “Hey, Spike, you’re the boss. But this is disappointing. Cause that’s how I like my ladies. I like them with their mouths taped up so I don’t have to hear their nonsense.”

  That’s exactly the kind of talk that would on any other day earn a stream of insults from Celeste. But the girl was cool. She didn’t even flinch. Because our one goal was to live. We could wait until another day to take care of assorted assholes with their bigoted opinions.

  The new guy studied us with interest. I guessed his name was Spike. “Baxter called me from the road to say he was coming over with some lovely guests who’d been causing trouble for our little business.” He leaned back against the back of the couch. “Hey, you guys should separate the girls. I don’t want to have to listen to them chatter back and forth. You know how ladies like to talk.”

  Baxter picked Celeste up and carried her over to the left side of the room, where I could hear him drop her hard onto the floor. What jerks these dumbasses were. Tall Dude grabbed Marge and dropped her hard in a back corner. Absolute assholes.

  Spike sat back and stared at me. “So. You’re the broads from the garage.”

  “What?” Marge called out from her corner. “How did you know that?”

  “Oh, we’ve been watching you,” he said. “We keep a little camera at our storage place. You need to have security when your operation goes big time. And, man, we’re killing it. This thing is getting huge.” The goofiest-ever-looking smile spread across his face at the thought of his success. “So, we saw you snooping around our place. And then we were watching when you nosy broads hightailed it out of there.” He laughed. “Garret opens up the door, and off you ladies go. You three know how to move.”

  “Garrett?” I asked. “Is Garrett the one who…”

  Spike grinned. “The one who bit the dust. In a spectacular explosion! Wasn’t it spectacular?” He made a whooshing sound. “You were there. You remember the little show that we put on. Garrett was not the best of my boys, kind of a screw-up, really.” He looked me in the eye. “I had to get rid of Garrett. Nothing personal, you understand. Purely a business move.”

  Oh, this guy was evil. A cold chill shot right through me.

  “But, I have to tell you, it came off without a hitch. He started up the van, and whoa, did that thing blow. Was it not amazing?” He looked at me expectantly. Did he expect me to say good job?

  Well, if he was talking, he wasn’t shooting, right? I had to stall for time. I had to keep this doofus talking.

  He was smiling, dazed, remembering the scene. “That was some power, man.” He shook his head. “That was intense. Superb.”

  From my place bound on the floor, I held his eye and nodded. I tried to think of some more adjectives.

  “It was very, very loud,” I said. “I won’t forget that. Ever.” Which was absolutely true. “It knocked me unconscious.” Maybe that would make him happy, the idea that his big, bad explosion had knocked me senseless to the ground.

  I tried to think of a question that would keep him talking. If I could just do that, I imagined (I really hoped!) that Celeste or Marge would come up with an action plan.

  Then my ears perked up. What was that clicking sound I heard in the background? It was coming from the part of the room where they had dropped Celeste. I knew I couldn’t turn my head. If Celeste was up to something, I didn’t want this guy to turn around and look. What exactly was that noise? I’d heard that noise before.

  The lighter! That was it. Was she trying to burn the rope so that she could free her arms? That was kind of brilliant, really. But also, impossible. Unless the lighter just happened to be in easy reach. I could barely move my hands from the spot behind my back where they were tightly bound. Our arms and hands were useless.

  Where were the other guys? They seemed to have disappeared, trusting their boss to keep us all in line. For someone who seemed to take such pride in his skills as a felon, he was doing a lousy job in keeping a close eye on Celeste. You go, girl. And hurry!

  So. How to keep him talking while Celeste did her thing, whatever that thing was?

  “How did you get so good at…uh…making things explode?” I asked. I was kind of scared to hear the answer. But a girl does what she has to do.

  He pointed to his head and grinned. “Because I’m brilliant, baby. This guy has all kinds of moves. Someone would be stupid to mess around with me.”

  Speaking of stupid, this guy never even once glanced over at Celeste. Just keep talking, buddy!

  “So, what’s up with these boxes?” I asked. “What exactly are you doing?” Men loved to talk about themselves, and that was working in my favor.

  He gave me a proud smile. “It’s quite an operation. Way more money than I ever thought. This idea was genius, if I do say so myself.” He leaned forward and laughed. “I guess I can tell you. It’s not exactly like you can run out and tell the cops. What we’ve got going on here is a counterfeiting sales ring, and you’re looking at the captain.” He nodded to himself, all caught up with his brilliance, while twenty feet away Celeste (I hoped! I hoped!) worked to free herself.

  “You must be doing well,” I said. “That’s a lot of boxes.”

  “Oh yeah. I think of everything,” he said, oblivious to the clicks, which were getting louder and more steady. “You see, the way it works is this.” He leaned back on the couch. “We’ve got a massive warehouse, and I mean really huge, where we store all kinds of things. Purses, jewelry, watches…and then, you see, we came up with a company that sells the junk to idiots. The kind of sucker morons who pay thousands for a purse. A purse that is a fake!” He laughed. “The world is full of suckers, right? So, we’re raking in the money without spending much at all. Cause, really, it’s just junk. It was perfect, absolutely perfect.” He narrowed his eyes at me. Uh, oh. “Till you three broads decided to waltz into the picture. Who are you, anyway? You cops or what?” He studied me with curiosity.

  Nothing to lose now. “We’re private investigators. We’re in business for ourselves.” It felt good to say it. And I was feeling hopeful – the tiniest little bit – that I’d live to say it to other people too. If anyone could get us out of here, it would surely be Celeste, who was definitely up to something.

  “Investigators, huh?” he said.

  It sounded so important. And, in fact, it was. If we made it out alive, just look what we’d uncovered. They’d sent us out to chase a panda from the zoo, and what would we deliver once we busted out of here? Three major crooks that the cops had yet to catch.

  He let out another laugh. “You’re kidding, right?” He flapped his hands up in the air. “Private investigators! Oooh, I’m really scared!”

  Well, perhaps you should be. The clicking sounds had stopped, but now I heard something else. It was coming from the spot where Tall Dude had thrown Marge. I had no clue what was happening, but I knew what my job was. I had to keep diverting the fool in front of me while my friends did their thing.

  Soon, Baxter appeared beside him. Great, two of them to distract. He handed a plate to Spike. “This was on the stove still hot. Pot roast. It’s my favorite. She said for us to all eat up. I already had two bowls.”

  She? Who was she exactly? And did she have a clue what these thugs were up to in her basement while she fed them pot roast? This w
as some crazy stuff.

  But I couldn’t think about that now. I had to make them look at me and not Celeste or Marge. “How long have you been in business?” I shifted on the floor. Thank goodness for the carpet, but it was far from comfortable. When one side began to hurt, I’d roll onto the other. Well, the doc had said to lie down frequently. Although I’d much prefer a bed.

  “Almost ten months without a screw-up,” Spike said as he shoveled meat into his mouth. He tilted his head toward Baxter. “Then this fool messed up with a big delivery. He almost got us caught.”

  “It wasn’t my fault,” Baxter yelped. “You know that I couldn’t help it that the…”

  “Shut it, man.” Spike turned to glare at him. “I don’t pay you to make excuses. You’re lucky it was just a finger I decided to chop off.”

  Yikes. I felt the threat of tears again, and something was rising in my stomach. Was I about to sob or hurl? Or both at the same time? Get it together, Charlie. And to make it even worse, I could barely see a thing. My glasses had slipped off my nose and rolled off toward the couch precariously close to Baxter’s oversized black sneaker.

  “Excuse me, Baxter,” I said in a timid voice. “Could I trouble you for my glasses?”

  He sighed as if I’d asked him the hugest favor in the world, but he bent down and got them and put them on my nose.

  “Thank you very much,” I said.

  Spike continued with his story. “And then this stupid fool goes running out the door and through the park and loses his own pinky. Can you believe that shit? He trips and falls and off it flies, out of his hand. He couldn’t find it, and then here come some joggers.” He laughed at the memory.

  Baxter winced and gazed down at his bandaged hand. “What could I do but leave? If the joggers had noticed my bloody hand, they would have asked some questions, maybe even called the cops. There was a lot of blood.”

  “We were there as well,” Marge said, apparently, all finished with her secret business.

  Baxter glanced at her, amazed. “No way, man.”