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“Dorothy,” Blanche Deveraux called, sweeping into the grand living room of her Miami home with all of the command of a late period Vivien Leigh heroine, “do you happen to know why there’s a pack of Palmettos in my boudoir?”
“They aren’t mine!” Dorothy said, without glancing up from the pile of Shakespeare finals she’d been in the middle of grading.
“Well, they aren’t mine,” Said Blanche. “I haven’t lit up a cigarette since Charo left the Love Boat.” That did make Dorothy look up. “Well, it was a very trying time,” Blanche said, flouncing onto the couch. “George was off seeing his mother, the children all had the flu - and her eyelashes were just awful.”
“You know, come to think of it,” Dorothy said, closing her file, “I think those might be Madeline Westen’s brand. She did just sleep in your room during the stakeout.”
Blanche brightened up, enthusiastically nodding. “Well then, we’ll just have to save them until they come back.”
“Why do that?” Dorothy wondered. “There’s absolutely no reason to think we’ll ever see the four of them again.”
“Now there you go again, Dorothy Zbornak! I’d rather think positively. Why you never know when opportunity’s going to come skipping through the door.
At that point the front door slid open, admitting Rose and a sheepish-looking Sophia to the room. It took a minute to register with Dorothy – then she stared openly at her roommate, who sported a well-decorated lamb’s costume. “Feeling sheepish, Rose?” she asked.
“Very,” said she admitted. “Rehearsals for the children’s benefit ran late,” said Rose. “And then I was so busy picking up Sophia that I didn’t have any time to pick up dinner!”
“Great,” sighed Blanche. “What are we going to do for dinner?”
“I have an idea,” Rose said, handing Blanche a take-out menu while heading toward the bedrooms. “It’s a nice little Spanish cantina called Carlitos down on Fourth Street.”
“Spanish food repeats on me,” Sophia said, sitting on the couch beside Dorothy. “Pussycat,” said Sophia, in a tone that was so utterly, insincerely cloying that Dorothy automatically was put on guard. “Have I ever told you how nice you’ve been looking lately? Your chin hair’s really coming in….”
“Ma, what did you do?”
“Do? I didn’t do anything,” laughed Sophia. “I just want you to be happy.”
Dorothy squirmed away from her mother. “Something’s rotten in Sisley,” she remarked to Blanche, who shrugged. Once Rose returned from the bedroom, they headed out to Carlitos, and to the dinner they all needed to properly rest.
***
Michael Westen’s having an off day.
These days that’s like saying water’s wet and politicians are dishonest. Getting burned and dumped in his old home town was just the tip of the iceberg of the crapstorm through which he had been suffering lately. Working on a near-weekly basis with his mother, old best friend and on again/off again girlfriend was quite another. Michael was, however, adapting to his unique little situation. Or so he hoped, he thought ruefully, as he eyed the two of them back.
“I know what the two of you are thinking,” he said, “and we’re not going by the Hollingsworth house again.”
“Aww, come on, Mike,” Sam spoke. “Blanche told me Rose was planning on making strudelkaaka!”
“I thought you and Blanche had broken up,” Fiona said.
“Fi, I know you and Mikey have problems with your little connection here, but Blanche and I are adults. We have an understanding.” Sam said firmly. “I understand that she’s seeing half of Miami and she understands I’m seeing the other half.”
“A match made in the syphilis ward,” observed Fiona.
“Hey, at least it makes more sense than whatever you and Mike have going on,” he said. “I’ll take the syph ward over mr and mrs on and offigan.” Sam cackled proudly at his own clever witticism.
“You’re a wonderful friend, Sam,” said Michael flatly. An abrupt tug on his elbow almost ended with him karate chopping Sam right in the throat.
“Look! It’s the girls!”
Michael stared at the encroaching enclave of senior citizens. They seemed completely out of place among the outdoor café’s rather garish patrons and the grass-skirted hipness of Carlitos – well, all of them but Blanche. He watched her scan the entire are until she saw Sam, then waved to him and sashayed over.
“Hello, mister Axe. Hello, MichaelandFiona,” she said, as if they had fused into a single, huge, glorious form. Michael pasted on his very best and most polite phony smile as the southern woman’s magnolia perfume invaded his nostrils. She pulled a pack of cigarettes – Michael’s mother’s brand, he recognized the label quickly – and passed them over. “I found these on my bedside table, and I’m guessing your mama left them behind while she was staying with us.”
“Thanks,” he cringed, taking the packet of cigarettes and sticking them in the front pocket of his shirt. “I’ll take them to her later on.”
“What do I have to thank for this little visit?” Michael asked. He’d been pleased with the steeliness of the four women back when they were trying to extract Rose’s boyfriend from the clutches of that drug dealer, but Sam developing ties with a client was bound to cause them all extra trouble, the last thing that Michael wanted to deal with.
“Michael!” Sophia said, shuffling over to see him. “You’re looking especially tweedy today,” she observed.
Michael had been through this with his own mother; but Sophia didn’t reap the benefit of having a genetic bond with Mr. Westen. “What do you want, Sophia?”
Sophia’s eyes narrowed. “It’s like trying to work over a bunch of Kreskins!” She glowered. “All right, so maybe I’m in twenty large at this little betting parlor that’s back behind the community center…”
“MA!” Dorothy cried.
“It was a sweet deal, I couldn’t miss! And half of what I won was going to go into a brand new large color television set,” Sophia said. “For the family,” she said, putting up a front of mock-piety.
“So you can watch smut in the privacy of your own room,” said Dorothy.
“TMZ won’t watch itself, kitten,” she said.
“So I suppose what you’d like us to do,” said Fiona, “is bust our way into the ring, get your money back and maybe wreck a little vengeance on their empty heads before calling it a night?”
“Maybe,” Sophia said. Then she fixed Fiona with her best Bambi eyes. “We can blow up stuff. Lots of stuff…”
“You’lll have to excuse my mother,” Dorothy said, in a well-practiced sigh of experience. “She’s eighty and only gets more annoying with every passing year.”
“Like fine wine?” asked Fiona.
“Or sour cream. Excuse us.” While Sophia and Dorothy furiously exchanged words, Michael and Fiona turned inward and started debating the merits of picking up the job.
“I say yes,” Sam offered.
“No,” Michael insisted. “If we go with this we’re only going to delay the investigation of my burn even more. If we don’t get on those clues Carla let us we’re never going to get this thing finished.”
“But…” Fiona said. “These people need our help. And what’s more important; following Carla’s rabbit trail or helping out a bunch of sweet senior citizens.”
“You just want to blow something up,” Michael accused, not without fondness. “And Sophia’s as sweet as a case of sour grapes.”
“Don’t speak ill of the elderly, Mikey,” said Sam. “There but for the grace of God go we- OW!” He cringed as Blanche tugged on one of his curly forelocks. “Present company excluded, babydoll. There’s nothing old about you!”
“We need money, Sam.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” said Blanche. “I’ll pay for your little investigation, just to keep the old lady from getting upset.” She patted Sam’s arm in appreciation and he flexed it.
“Besides, do we have anything better to do?” Sam replied lightly. “Gigs have been sparse on the ground, and I’ve got a sixty dollar bait bill I’ve gotta pay off by the end of the month!”
Michael watched Sophia and Dorothy’s animated argument. He considered Rose as she looked in great fascination at the plaster cock mounted to the bar behind him. Taking all of this into thought – alongside the begging eyes of his girlfriend and best friend, he finally sighed and agreed. “All right,” he grunted. “After dinner, we’ll take a look at that community center.”
“And another thing…really?” Sophia asked, cutting herself off mid-sentence. “You’d do that for me?”
“I’d do it for money,” said Michael.
“That’s a start,” Sophia said, and proceeded to give them instructions to the community center before Dorothy urged them all to sit down and eat – she was starving, starving like she’d never been before, and the food smelled pretty good here.
“It’s not the Falcon Club,” said Blanche, deliberately perching herself beside Sam. “But it’ll do.”
“Oh please, don’t remind me of that place,” Dorothy groaned.
“Why?” Fiona wondered. “Did you lead a raid there, too?”
“No, I just discovered the prejudicial attitudes of some can’t prevent their poor attitudes from ruining your relationship.”
“Hmm?” asked Sam.
“Her author friend was a racist sploooginhoffen,” offered Rose.
“That sounds terrible,” Sam remarked.
“She was, why one time…” Dorothy encapsulated the story quickly, as their food arrived and was placed before them. “…And then she just walked out!”
“All because your mother’s boyfriend is Jewish?” Fiona shook her head in dismay.
“Well, some people just simply are that way. They let their hatred bend and twist them into something they never thought they’d be, until they no longer notice. Michael, have you ever had a Falcon Club in your life?” asked Dorothy.
“I did strangle a Mister Falcon with my bare hands,” said Michael. “But that was because he walked in on an arms deal.” This was delivered aloud in such a matter of fact manner that the women were obviously uncomfortable, and Sam found himself determined to comfort them.
“You’ll have to excuse Mikey,” he said. “The poor guy doesn’t know he’s people.”
“You’ll have to excuse us in return,” deadpanned Dorothy. “We’ve never had a full dinner with an international spy before.”
“Oooh!” Blanche cooed, “That just gets my blood to racing!” She leaned against Sam’s side, her red lacquered nails walking up and down his flank as she pressed herself against him. “Why don’t we all go down to that new club on La Strada street and dance until we sweat through our clothes and have to take ‘em off to go skinny dipping.”
“Heh, that’d be a nice idea, Blanche,” Sam coughed out nervously. “But I don’t think I could squeeze you – I mean I don’t think I could squeeze into…” he trailed off and jumped, thighs slapping into the wooden underside of the table and nearly upsetting it.
“Hold on to your zipper, buddy,” offered Sophia, slugging down another mouthful of margarita. “You haven’t squeezed nothing yet.”
****
Dinner was entertaining, but the eventual ride down to the community center was somewhat less so. They found themselves in a neat, orderly rec center for senior citizens, funded and owned by the state. Each room was carefully and tastefully arranged, and filled with active.
Only Fiona, Michael, Dorothy and Sophia entered the building, with Sam and the others listening to their progress via a mic and chip hidden in Fiona’s purse. There was some time to pass before anything more might occur, and for Sam, Blanche and Rose that meant sitting still in a humid and well-hidden car for the better part of an hour, staring into space and fanning their superheated skin.
“How much longer is this going to take?” pouted Blanche. “The humidity’s ruining my hair, and my thigh is stuck to Rose’s purse.”
Rose grinned blithely. “You know, this reminds me of summer in Saint Olaf…”
Blanche groaned. “Must we take a trip to Green Acres at a time like this?”
“Aww, you’re being too hard on her, Blanche.” Sam pulled his binoculars from their eternal resting place upon the bridge of his nose. “Go on, Rose, I’d love to hear about Summer in Saint Olaf.”
“Thank you, Sam,” she said. “Anyway, this reminds me of the year my father’s prized calf Pansy ran away. Oh, Pansy was a beautiful calf; she was the envy of four counties. She was well groomed, had a shiny coat and could bleat the melody of Handle’s Messiah – which is probably why she had such an intense rivalry with Edna Svenson, Miss Saint Olaf of 1957.” Blanche let out a protracted groan as Sam raised an eyebrow and focused on Rose’s tale. “Well, Edna hated Pansy so much that she challenged the poor girl to a talent contest; after paying my daddy with a wheel of fresh cheese and a bunch of meat tenderizer.” Rose sighed and shook her head. “Pansy won the beauty contest, but that tractor pull was too much for her to take. It all came down to the dance competition, and you won’t believe what happened…”
“Rose, does this story have a point?” asked Sam.
“Good timing!” Blanche offered, and squeezed his upper thigh. “As I know from experience.”
“Anyway,” Rose continued quite deliberately. “It all came down to the talent contest. Pansy did this wonderful tap routine to ‘The Lullaby of Broadway’ – the Gene Kelly version, she hated Fred Astaire, he was too high-toned and snooty for her – but that was when Edna burst out her God Bless America routine. It had won her two state pageants in a row and had she loved using it as a big closer for her acts. Well, this time she misjudged her headstand, and she managed to light the bandstand’s big red velvet curtains on fire.” Rose’s expression took on a faraway cast as she stared off into the distance. “You could smell the beef cooking all the way to Minneapolis!”
“Rose, what does this have to do with the pain of being stuck in a hot car?” Sam wondered.
“Because whenever the weather gets this warm I think of Pansy – I can’t even pass a steak sandwich without tearing up! And that’s why I like air conditioning.”
“Thank you for that story, Rose.” Sam shook his head, as if he’d taken a particularly hard blow to the back of his head. “That long, strange story.”
That was when a rapid popping noise started sounding from the back of the building. Before Blanche could finish her exclamation, Sam had the car in high gear and swerving toward the back door, which shot open, ejecting Dorothy, Michael, and Fiona, who carried Sophia, out the back, guns blazing.
“What happened?” Sam managed to get out, as they threw themselves into the front seat across Rose and Blanche’s laps in a twisted, uncomfortable pile. Sam drove them to relative safety, dodging bullets echoing out from a rusty-sounding revolver in the doorway.
“Sophia decided to lay the evil eye on one of them,” Fiona said, spitting a mouthful of hair out.
“He deserved it!” Sophia cried. “The miserable botchagaloop said I wasn’t there this afternoon!”
“It looks like they’re holding a couple of thousand in the rec center’s safe. The man in charge is around ninety – says he owns the place…Dorothy, that’s not the arm rest!” interjected Michael.
“I’d apologize but your knee is in my nose!” Dorothy said, giving Michael a mighty shove and dumping him onto the floor. “Ma, why did you tell them to kiss your winning streak?!”
“’Cause I wanted to tell them to kiss my kiester,” replied Sophia, “but I didn’t wanna curse in front of Michael and Fiona.”
“I told you to mike up,” Sam scolded Mike and Fi, honking the horn of his Caddy as the swerved toward the general safety of the lot. “Why the hell didn’t you?”
“We were a little busy trying to keep Sophia from destroying the man running the parlor with her purse,” Michael barely managed to pry his left hand from under Fiona’s behind as he squirmed into a more comfortable position in his seat. “I’ll be fair enough to admit that he was taunting us with your debt, but you didn’t have to tell him to ‘bring it’ while flipping them the bird.” Michael polished his glasses against his breast pocket and grumbled to see them blurred and streaked.
“Good lord,” Blanche cried out. “How did the four of you manage to get out of there alive?”
“I don’t know,” Dorothy admitted. “All I remember is saying an Out Father while tripping a man with a semi-automatic weapon as Michael overturned a craps table onto the feet of a man with a machete.”
“Nice work back there,” Michael said casually, as Dorothy shuddered.
“What are we going to do?” Rose asked.
“Well, there’s only one option for tonight,” Mike told her as he asked Sam to pull the car into the lot situated at the loft’s rear and park it. He waited until Sam cut the Cadillac’s engine to continue. “They probably know where you girls live. They may have this car’s plates, but they won’t have mine. Sam will temporarily ditch this car, and the four of you can spend the night with us – or at least until the heat dies down.”
This idea was met with a chorus of objections. Everyone seemed to want time to pack an overnight bag, but Michael seemed to know that that time was long past. “We’ve made it through worse conditions, and worse times. You’ll all be fine,” he insisted. “Think of it as a slumber party.”
“But what if they find us?” Rose panicked. “What if they sneak up on us and throw a sack over our heads!? What if they drag us off to some ugly little club in Timbuktu and make us serve beer and wine to their leader?” She continued on, “and then he’ll demand a bride, and I’ll be forced to dance for him in a cage in a leopard print swimsuit!”
“Put a sock in it, Cheryl Ladd,” Dorothy grunted. “I’m sure we’ll all be fine, Michael.”
“I’m not sure,” Sam spoke up, turning toward Michael. “You want them to stay with us?” Sam asked. “We have more enemies than Stalin had, and that’s on a good day. They’re probably in more danger with us than without us…”
“And then he’ll make me have his baby – oh, I know it’s not biologically possible, but he’ll figure out a way. And then I’ll look into the eyes of my little girl, little Ruby Jane Jarwhalaza, and I’ll have to tell her that the only reason she’s on the planet is because we were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Rose, please excuse me, but I’m not in the mood for your take on Not Without My Daughter: the Senior Years,” Sam turned back toward Michael. “Are you really sure we can protect them, Mike?”
“We’ve guarded nuclear weapons – I’m pretty sure we can look out for four intelligent, well-spoken women who wouldn’t dream of threatening to blackjack a known weapons dealer with a melon baller…”
“He called me an old broad!” Sophia burst out in anger.
Sam sighed. He had once been the one with the most faith in the women; but now that he was presented with the notion of guarding all four from harm at once, apprehension began to settle in. “I’m gonna put a lot of faith in you girls,” Sam declared at last. “I know you know how to handle yourselves when the chips are down. Just don’t go giving me a heart attack before my time. I wanna go in the saddle, not on the floor next to a pot of Fi’s French fried spaghetti.”
Blanche gave him another grin and rested her hand on his thigh. “Keep talking like that and you’ll find yourself with a riding partner.”
“Can we get inside?” Dorothy finally blurted out, glaring at Blanche, “before I turn into Harpo Marx?”
Sam didn’t bother to probe her comment, but rushed to open the door, and untangle his friends’ limbs for the climb upstairs.
***
Michael made the proper sacrifices to peace and comfort while Sam hid the car and hitched back to the loft. Sophia would have the most comfortable spot; his bed, for the evening. Dorothy and Rose would bunk with Fiona upstairs in the office, and Michael and Sam would sleep on improvised mattresses on the kitchen. Blanche repeatedly declared she wanted to sleep with Sam, but he gently suggested she share the bed with Sophia – an offer rejected by Blanche.
“If I sleep with Sophia I’ll wake up smelling like Ben Gay and Metamucil,” she replied. “And unless you’ve had fantasies of making whoopee with Mother Theresa I suggest you let Dorothy sleep with her mother.”
“I’m not sleeping with you tonight, Blanche,” Sam said, as gently as humanly possible.
Blanche winked. “Your mouth says ‘no no’ but your sweaty chest says ‘I’ll see you out by the dumpster next door to the Piggly Wiggly.”
“Sorry, Blanche,” Sam said. “I’m gonna have to take a little raincheck. A very long raincheck,” he said, as apologetically as possible.
Blanche sighed. “Oh, fine. But I owe somebody a little spanking next time.” She flounced onto Michael’s thrice-repaired easy chair and settled down. “Do you have a television in this place? I’m missing my favorite soap opera and I’ll just DIE if I don’t find out if Stefan and Isabelle suck each other’s blood…” That earned her a strange look from Michael. “I’m watching the Vampire Diaries!”
“We don’t have a tv…” Michael started.
“And I’ll miss Heart of Dixie,” Rose sighed. “It’s such a sweet show! They’ve got beautiful stories about love and faith, and animal currying.”
“But we have some monitors. Sam and I could rig to pull in a signal…”
“Don’t let her start with that show,” said Sophia. “You sit down to watch one episode with her and two hours later you end up having deep talks about guys with names like Zest…”
“…So that you’ll have a television set for the night.”
“His name is Lemon!” Rose said. “And he’s the best character on the show,” she added defensively.
“Rose, shut up,” Dorothy called from the office. “Blanche, check my purse, there should be a radio in there.”
Michael grabbed his all-band radio off the kitchen counter, dumped it onto the foldable table between them, and flicked it on. Soon the room flooded with the sound of a big band tooting out an Ella Fitzgerald song.
“Better?” Michael asked through clenched teeth.
“Much,” agreed Dorothy sarcastically, ducking onto the sofa with Sam’s spare blankets. “Ma, try not to kick Rose too often.”
“Nice handling, Mike,” Sam said, dropping onto the kitchen floor. He’s slept in rougher spots, but bare concrete wasn’t exactly his favorite kind of mattress. “Does anyone need anything before we hit the rack?”
“Nah. I’ll just spend the night on this sort of lumpy mattress, in a cold warehouse over a nightclub. No one worry about me,” Sophia said.
“Well, what about me?” said Blanche. “Where am I going to sleep?”
“Up here with me.”
Blanche eyeballed the distance but sashayed up the long stairway, clearly displeased that Dorothy would be sharing her mattress instead of Sam. “If you snore once I’m going to stick my elbow in your nose so quickly you’ll be able to whistle pachabal’s cannon out of your eyeballs.”
“Oh, Blanche, everybody knows you don’t have that you don’t have the aim when you’re exhausted.” Dorothy turned over, yawning, and Blanche huddled miserably on her side of the bed.
“Goodnight, girls,” Fiona said meaningfully, plopping down next to Sophia on the bed.
“Goodnight Fiona! Goodnight, Blanche, good night, Dorothy, good night Sam, goodnight….” Rose rambled on.
“Rose do you have to say goodnight to every single human being on the face of God’s earth!?” asked Dorothy.
“Of course! It’s the only polite thing to do,” Rose insisted. “Back on the farm, daddy always told me to say goodnight to everybody in the house, and to God, and to the cows and sheep and chickens! Because they might not be there in the morning.”
“Rose, was your father secretly Ingmar Bergman?” Dorothy asked.
“No, he was Swedish,” Rose said.
“Uncanny,” grumbled Michael into his fist. “I’m turning off the light. Everyone stay safe. And don’t do something that will draw them to our location, like ordering pizza.”
“I assure you, I won’t,” Dorothy declared as Blanche sighed ought her anguish as dramatically as a Williams heroine.
“Suits me,” Blanche said, squirming back onto her side with forlorn angst.
“Same here!” added Rose. She turned over to give Sophia extra room.
“Hey, this bladder’s ninety years old – I either get up in the middle of the night or we spend the morning with a bottle of Downey.” Said Sophia, who opened her purse and took out a brass flask. She toddled over to Sam, handed it over, then toddled back to her spot on the bed. Sam passed it to Michael, and Michael handed it off to Fi – who eventually handed it off to Blanche.
“Fine,” Michael grumbled. He watched Fi slip into space beside Rose and Sophia and took his spot beside Sam, relaxing against the cold, hard ground. “Good. Night. Girls.”
Dorothy didn’t realize that her mother had swiped some libations from Carlitos until Blanche sleepily handed her the flask. She reasoned that she’d confront her mother about it when she woke up, hiding the now drained item under her pillow. There were, she reasoned, worse ways to go to sleep – in fact, the sound of Benny Goodman felt almost pleasant reverberating under her ear as she fell asleep.
Waking several hours later to the pulsing throb of a nightclub in full flower wasn’t exactly the best of situations – but it was better than getting shot at.
***
Much later, in the late morning light, Michael gathered the team together after a round of morning ablutions. Sam brought them breakfast, and Michael announced his plan.
“Blanche and Sam will pose as newlyweds….” He began.
“I already love how this little talk’s going,” Blanche grinned.
“….And you’ll be the least successful gamblers in the history of the world.” He tossed a handful of carefully counterfeited dollar bills onto the kitchen counter. “It doesn’t take much to conjure up a few dollar bills,” Michael said nonchalantly. “You just need some spare paper, magnetic ink, and some well-placed friends in the US treasury…”
Sam eyed the cash and raised an eyebrow.
“Choice, Mikey.” He grinned at the bill, turning it over between his palms. He pointed to a microscopic detail; a very tiny, almost entirely invisible, beer stein positioned right next to Benjamin Franklin’s lips. “Bet ol’ Benny wishes he could have a cold brewskie wherever he is right now, huh?”
“I’m sure heaven has lots of beer,” Michael pointed out.
“It had better, or it wouldn’t be heaven! Heh.” Blanche glowed at his terrible, terrible jokes but everyone else let out a deep groan of discomfort.
“While they’re inside – WITH wires,” Michael said heavily until Fiona rolled her eyes, “Fiona, Sophia and I will be breaking into the back room and making our way into this guy’s safe. Do we even have a name for the leader of the outfit?”
“He’s Vito Sardinia, some no-name Tony Montana wannabe,” Sophia said. “He’s got weak ankles and a toupee that looks like a goat’s behind.”
“As long as they buckle when he goes down I don’t care what kind of ankles they are. By the time Blanche and Sam are done losing their money…”
Dorothy cut in suddenly, “wait a minute – you want my mother to help you crack a safe? MY ninety-year old mother?!”
“And why not?” Sophia asked. “I’m as quick as I’ve always been, and I throw one hell of a left hook!” She frowned. “Now, where did I put my mug…”
“They’re in your hand, ma,” Dorothy said, silently begging Michael to see what she meant.
“We need her anyway,” Fiona said, almost apologetically. “Sophia’s the only one who knows where the safe is. Besides, she told me she knows how to pick a safe with a bobby pin and a wad of chewed gum.”
Dorothy glared at her mother. “Don’t you look at me!” cried Sophia. “You know I learned everything Uncle Nunzio had to teach me!”
“Uncle Nunzio was a burro salesman with hairy elbows and a Dionne Warwick fetish!” Dorothy glared. “And don’t you try to tell me that it’s Uncle Vito again.”
“Believe what you want, Dorothy. I’ve got connections. Okay, maybe it wasn’t Uncle Nunzio! Maybe it was Mussolini!” She glared at Dorothy. “Why does it matter?! The point’s that I can take care of myself. So? We’ve got the brains and the guts to get out of this single-handed!” Sophia cajoled. “We’ll just need a little faith, a little planning time and a whole lot of faith in what we can do.”
“Fine, but if you pull your back trying to climb through a window, don’t come crawling to me for help.”
“Right, that’s Blanche’s job,” piped up Sam, earning him an elbow in the ribs from Fiona. “What?! If I didn’t say it you know damn well one of the girls would have.”
“Oh, I don’t mind when you say it, big boy.” She leaned into his side again, and Sam reached for his morning beer and slugged it down in a gulp.
Rose had been involved in baking up a tube of cinnamon rolls; Michael didn’t know how she managed to do it, but she had transformed his makeshift shelter into some kind of Suzy Homemaker paradise. “Did somebody call my name?” She grinned and tossed her oven mitts onto the stove.
“Did you add jellybeans to the tops of those rolls?” Michael wondered.
Rose nodded enthusiastically and reached for the tiny plastic sleeve of white icing. “And I’m going to add some licorice whiskers, and little almond ears if I can find any…” she dug into the brown sack of groceries she’d begged Sam to buy for her and frowned. “Michael, do you have any sliced almonds?”
“Afraid not. I must have left them in the cabinets in my last safe house,” Michael said.
“Oh well,” Rose said, carefully bending over the rolls and sculpting the breakfast snacks into a different sort of treat. She soon surfaced with a bunny rabbit. “Isn’t it cute?”
“Charming,” Michael said flatly. “We’ll need you to keep an eye at the back door, Dorothy….”
“Mister Hippity Hop senses there’s a gloomy gus in the room!” Rose said, making her makeshift rabbit hop, sprinkling the counter with icing and tiny rainbow sprinkles. She hip-hopped the ‘rabbit right up to Michael.’ “Uh-oh, it looks like we found the gloomster!” She giggled and handed the roll over to him. “Here, you look like you need a smile, Michael.”
Michael gave her a pained smile before taking the roll in and taking an extra-large bite out of it. “Thank you,” he said, and quietly spat out the jellybeans when she turned her head. “Rose, we’ll need you to be the lookout. That means you have to hide and use the radio to report back to us if anything looks suspicious.”
“I can do that,” she said happily. “And if they try to attack you, I know how to shoot!”
Michael’s features collapsed in confusion. “Don’t let her shoot a gun,” Dorothy said.
“Why not?” Fiona wondered. She had obvious, clear opinions about firearm ownership – and that opinion was that every human being on the planet ought to be able to fire a gun.
“Once upon a time out house was robbed. Rose replied to that pressure by purchasing a hand gun.” Dorothy continued, “one unforgettable night I woke to the sound of a gunshot, and by the time I got to the living room there it was, lying all over the carpet – the remains of Blanche’s favorite antique vase.”
“Yeah, I’m not going to leave her a gun,” Michael said.
“Hey, maybe we should…” Sam suggested.”
“I loved that vase,” grumbled Blanche, pouting and turning her head to the window.
“She did you a favor,” muttered Sophia. “That thing was ugly.”
“Are you losing your mind?” Michael asked. “Do you want to cause us another liability on this job?”
“I’m just trying to be practical,” Sam said. “Extra firepower is good firepower, even if it’s only a distractionary device.”
“I’m with Sam.”
“See?” Sam preened. “Wait, you are?”
“Is that so hard for you to believe, Sam?” Fiona asked. “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”
“Nice, Fi. Do you have an analogy about how crazy Irish bombers are right every day at noon?”
“No fighting in front of the guests,” Michael interjected, and Sam and Fiona slunk back from each other and kept eating the mounds of food Rose planted on their plates.
“What did you say, old woman?” growled Blanche.
“Nothing, nothing, that was one gorgeous vase,” said Sophia, grabbing a cinnamon roll.
“Chew it slowly, ma,” Dorothy said. “Don’t let her shoot if you don’t wanna end up with a bullet hole in your forehead. If you have to give any of us a gun, I’ll take it.”
“Really, Dorothy?” gaped Blanche. “I thought you hated guns.”
“This is as special occasion,” Dorothy declared. “I’m willing to hate the gun slightly less than I normally would just to get all of us out of this situation alive.”
“Fine,” Michael grumbled. “You can play backup. I’ll put Rose behind the wheel. Rose, are you willing to play getaway driver?”
“Uh huh!” She said, and starred dishing out plates of noodle kugel. “Nobody’s leaving this apartment without trying a good, healthy portion of my flugeltuben!” She started slicing up and plunking down large amounts of the noodle dish and then passing them around.
“You’re going to drag this out, aren’t you?” Michael’s smile remained pained as Fiona pretended to fuss over him exorbitantly and fondly.
“Do you have a problem with that, Michael?” Fiona teased.
“The center doesn’t open for an hour,” Sam pointed out. “We’ve got a little time. Gotta make it look cas, Mikey – super uber cas.”
“Have another cinnamon roll, honey,” Fiona teased, holding up it up to his lips.
Michael took a large and completely reluctant bite of the pastry, his eyes as coldly murderous as they ever were when he was facing down some fearsome Russian wetwork operator.
***
An hour later, the entire company took their places in their appointed slots – some more slowly than others.
“I don’t believe you felt the need to make a pit stop at Fernando’s Hacienda,” Michael said into the the radio, prepping his rifle and readying himself to lead the charge to the back door.
“A lady must look her best,” came Blanche’s voice. “And I won’t be at my most stunningly gorgeous in some ratty old rags.”
“Those were 200 dollar Dior slacks,” Dorothy said. “The only thing ratty about them is the fact that they were worn for four minutes before being dropped on the deck of the USS United.”
“That never happened,” insisted Blanche. “It was the USS Impervious.”
“Sam, keep a close eye on her,” Michael ordered. Silence greeted him. “Sam?”
A belch loudly wrecked the silent . “Sorry, Mikey – I was just trying to shove down some more of this cinnamon roll before we got into character.”
“Sam, stay focused.”
“I’m on it, Mike. Where’s Fi?”
“Right here.” He felt a flare of heat and looked over his shoulder to see Sophia stub out a match and Fiona hold a torch aloft, pleased with the bright orange glow they’d produced between the two of them. “Her blowtorch says hello.”
“Heading inside to position one. Stay cool, everybody,” said Sam. A few moments later Michael could hear the clinking of glasses and the pleasant nothingness of happy conversations; then the roll of the dice and the spin of a wheel. Sam begun the art of petulantly playing a drunken, aggressive loser while Mike and Fi bent to their work with speed and diligence.
“The trick,” Michael said, narrating to Sophia for wont of something more interesting to do, “is to melt the lock without making it seem too obvious. You have to be very careful not to destroy the general integrity of the lock. If we had some CO2 on hand we could have finished it off pretty easily, but Fiona used our last canister fighting off a thief on Sunday. So we chose fire over ice.”
“Pft, back in my day all you needed was a hairpin and a little luck.” Sophia’s eagle eyes took in their every action as they slid into the makeshift office created to keep an eye on the casino’s dirty dealing. Michael didn’t even need to unlock the door; it was wide open. The three of them entered it and Fiona and Michael dug their way through the piles of file boxes and stocks of old Christmas decorations to get to a small portable safe, so dark and heavy that it was barely visible in the debris.
“That works well enough right up to this day,” Michael said. “But you can’t pick this kind of padlock with those kinds of pins.” Michael squatted down and prepared to spin the dial. “What was the combination, Sophia?”
“Easy! 8675309.” She snickered. “He’s got a thing for Tommy Tutone, the big dope.”
Michael made no big fuss over that observation, continuing to twist the lock to the combination’s correct location. With a click, then entire works slid open, and Michael dug through the pile of money inside to dig out the contracts.
“Found it,” he said.
“How are you gonna make a copy?” she asked Michael.
She saw Fiona bend over the documents, making a careful mimeograph. “There’s a way to do this without carbon. You take the filter out of a marker and….”
“Spare me the story,” said Sophia. “Just get the pages copied so we can get out of here,” she said.
“You sound nervous.” And Fiona sounded amazed by the idea.
“Not nervous, just cautious. Unlike somebody here, I don’t have a weird death wish.”
Michael smiled. “I death wish is the last thing I’ve got. I’m going to save your friends and this community center, Sophia. I promise you that.” Over his walkie talkie, he heard Sam shouting about his rights as an ‘American-Floridian citizen’. Then there was a loud clatter. “Murray,” said an unfamiliar voice, “take him to the back and teach him that nobody messes with our little organization, dig?”
“Chaaarrlie!” drawled Blanche dramatically, but with a mild note of actual fear that set Michael on edge. He helped Fiona mend the safe back into working order before rushing the door and leaning against the jam, listening closely to the approaching footsteps.
As Michael and Fiona dragged Sophia to relative safety behind the pile of boxes, they watched Sam tumble into the room.
Sophia made a sound of alarmed outrage at the state of her friend when she glimpsed the look on his face. Sam had already taken a couple of punches to the head and neck area, judging from the bright patter of blood that dotted the front of his shirt, and one of his eyes had taken on a slight swell. Even though two large men in dark suits with closely-cropped but greasy haircuts loomed over him, their knuckles bruised. But still he managed a smile.
“Hey. You missed a spot.”
He deliberately swung wild and took a boot to the chest. Michael cocked his trigger as they closed in on Sam with kicks to his ribs. But Fiona grabbed his other hand and pointed to her purse, then quickly prodded through the stock of supplies she’d brought along.
While Fiona dug into her bag, Sophia muttered Italian curses and gave Michael the evil eye. He offered an apology with his grip; if they alerted the guards to their position Sam would likely be murdered with impunity. Fiona rested her bag on the ground and finally came up with her desired prop. Michael shot her a look of mingled annoyance and admiration as she loaded a homemade flashbang pack from her purse.
Two minutes later, the room filled with a blast of confusion-inducing smoke. Michael subdued one guard in hand-to-hand combat; Fiona placed another in a chokehold that sent him flailing to the ground. The last, to everyone’s surprise, fell to a well-placed swing from Sophia’s purse straight to his balls. The smoke cleared to reveal three ticked off guards all bound face-down to the floor.
Sam had staggered to his feet a few moments later, observing the disaster before him with silent approval. “Guess the cavalry’s still got their golden touch. Good work, guys,” he said. His voice was a hollow echo, he seemed sweaty and exhausted.
“That was too risky,” Fiona grumbled. She carefully opened the door and peeked out into the hallway. “Where did you leave Blanche?”
“Last time I saw her she was on her knees begging them to let me go ‘on the honor of a beautiful daughter of the south.’ They had no idea what she was talking about.”
“Huh. That’s usually a problem Rose has,” observed Sophia thoughtfully.
“Let’s get to the rendezvous point and worry about everything else later on,” said Fiona.
An easy enough thing to agree to. Their exit wasn’t as quick as the one they’d performed earlier, but thankfully, The car –and the rest of the women – remained intact and waiting outside.
Blanche made a sound of pure horror at the sight of Sam’s bruised face – she spent the entire drive home dabbing at his cuts while Dorothy castigated Michael for letting her mother fight the good fight against those callous guards.
“She’s ninety two years old!” cried Dorothy as Sam drove briskly but unevenly, trying to dodge Blanche’s hands. “What if she had gotten hurt?”
“That’s not a problem – because she didn’t,” Michael said.
“And then you have the nerve to tell me that!” She glared at Michael.
“Pussycat, why won’t just trust me?” Sophia pouted. “I handled myself just fine in there, ask Michael and Fiona!”
“She was sort of magnificent,” opined Fiona. “I think she crushed that fella’s balls with her purse.”
“Ball crushing aside, I’d rather you not risk my NINETY YEAR OLD MOTHER’S HEALTH.”
“And I,” said Fiona, “think that sort of thing ought be left up to your mum. Befitting a woman who strangled Benito Mussolini with piano wire.”
“THAT NEVER HAPPENED!” Dorothy screamed.
“Pipe down, wouldya Pussycat? You’re ruining my story.”
“So now it’s just a story?” Fiona asked.
“It’s not just a story – it’s a great story,” preened Sophia. “One of my best.”
“Fi, that never happened and you KNOW that never happened,” said Michael. “Stop pressing the woman to give you Intel she doesn’t have.”
“Oh come on, Michael, look at that woman’s face,” she pointed at Sophia. “That’s the face of a lioness! Tell me you don’t believe she could rip a Nazi apart with her bare hands.”
Sophia batted her eyes at Michael. “You know anyone else my age who could make a bomb out of cooking grease and ashes fresh out of the oven?”
Can’t say I do,” Michael said.
Fiona just smirked and grinned at Sam. “Oh no you don’t, Tinkerbelle. I ain’t as old as Sophia yet. No offense, ma’am.”
“None taken, ya old lush,” Sophia growled.
““Sam, get us to ma’s house,” Michael said, tapping Sam’s shoulder.
“Sure thing, Mikey.” Sam pulled away from Blanche’s tickling fingers and kept his eyes on the road, determined to get them to point b without ending up getting them all killed. “Everybody stay calm, we’ll draw up a final plan once we get there.”
Silence filled the Charger’s cab. “Well, I learned something,” said Rose abruptly. “Do you know that if you don’t take the safety off of a gun it won’t fire? I didn’t know that!”
Dorothy stared at Rose for a good minute before delivering a comment. “No, Rose. Why don’t you tell us more about how you almost GOT ALL OF US KILLED?”
“Oh Dorothy, I wouldn’t have gotten all of us killed!” laughed Rose. “I’m not that bad of a shot.”
Dorothy rolled her eyes and said to Michael, “And now you know why they don’t have guns in Saint Olaf.”
That stirred up a passionate response in Rose. “And they don’t! We just don’t believe in them. Oh, Saint Olaf is a wonderful place, with so many nice people and happy smiling faces. We don’t believe in weapons, or stealing, or even being mean for just a little while.” She paused to consider her words, then admitted, “Only there was that one time Ollie Stroop robbed the grand cheese emporium with a cowbell.” She shook her head. “They buried him alive in curds for that one.”
The Charger shrieked to a stop. “Golly,” Michael said flatly. “We’re here.”
***
Madeline’s house was a beautiful but somewhat claustrophobic suburban pile at the end of a normal workaday street. It reminded Dorothy of their own house – only far less spacious, and in a neighborhood that didn’t contain gardeners or extravagant gardens; no, it was firmly middle class, filled with happy people who were cheerfully willing to look the other way at the sound of an explosion or a wailing siren. You couldn’t buy loyalty like that, even in Brooklyn. Ah yes. That was what Dorothy was really reminded of - the homey quaintness of Brooklyn as she’d known it as a child; neighbors calling to each other, requesting recipes and complaining about garbage strikes while children screamed our their joy over a game of shared tag, and outside of the window anyone could hear the faint tweeting of birds decorating the blooming branches above.
She smelled Madeline’s cigarette before sensing her physical presence, and by then she was ready for the question when it came. “Any false flags?”she asked, peering around Dorothy’s shoulder.
“Just a black van circling the block.” She stood on her tiptoes and peered out. “No, it’s gone now. And it’s towing a pizza truck.”
Madeline was smiling a thin-squeezed smile of social politeness when Dorothy turned around. “Can I get you anything? Cup of coffee? A little soda?”
“If you have tea, I’ll take it,” Dorothy sighed, settling at Madeline’s kitchen table. “I have to give it to you, Madeline – I don’t know how you manage to put up with this sort of thing day in and day out.”
“I don’t,” Madeline admitted. “But after all this time I’ve just gotten used to it. One day Michael will ask me to pretend I’m somebody’s great aunt with a drinking problem – then the next day he’ll have Sam here watching over me like a hawk. It’s a hard life to live – and sometimes I wonder if Michael will lose his in the process –but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. For the first time in fifteen years I’m on talking terms with both of my sons because of this burn.”
“I guess the government giveth and the government taketh away,” Dorothy deadpanned.
“I guess you could say so,” said Maddie. She flicked her cigarette into a small china tray – and noted Dorothy’s hungry expression. “You used to smoke?”
The question made Dorothy nod. “Occasionally. And often with a vainglorious hunger.” She watched Maddie puff of the cigarette and swallowed. “How long did Michael say he’d be taking at that warehouse?”
“It’s usually a ten minute trip,” said Madline. “If they take any longer I’m supposed to go to Disney World and wait by the statue of Walt.”
“Hmm. It’s been fifteen minutes now,” Dorothy worried.
“Give it another hour. In the meantime, why don’t we watch Designing Women with the girls in the living room?”
“All right,” Dorothy sighed. For the hundredth time since this little debacle had begun, she regretted having quit smoking years ago. She yearned for a good smoke.
In the living room Rose, Sophia and Blanche lounged on Madeline’s wicker couch. On the television set Julia Sugarbaker ranted about The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia and Sophia chuckled under her breath.
“Boy, if I were Julia I would’ve kicked that broad’s kiester,” she declared.
“Ma, you couldn’t kick a wet noodle’s kiester.”
“You should have seen that thug from yesterday! He fell over like a sack of potatoes!”
“Well, Fiona might have said so but I can’t say I believe her. She’s got an inflated opinion of your talents,” Dorothy said.
“So? Maybe It’s fun to be admired for once in my life! Maybe it’s great to be seen for my inner tiger.” She frowned at her cup of tea. “Pussycat, this is cold, could you bring me some more?”
Dorothy’s opinion was drowned out by the sound of a special report pealing to life from the TV set. The women turned their eyes toward the newscaster, who reported an explosion on the 405 and a car fire. The women shared a collective gasp at the sight of the flaming wreckage.
“Is that Sam’s Cadillac?” Sophia asked. Blanche gasped softly and clutched at Rose’s forearm as the idea washed over and through her consciousness.
“I think it is!” Rose said. Instantly Madeline broke into tears, and Rose comforted her while Blanche looked to Dorothy, mouthing ‘what do we do’?
Dorothy knew exactly what to do. She kept her ear pressed to the set, carefully listening for words like ‘victims’ or bodies or casualties. But she heard nothing. And immediately she knew what had to be done.
“They’re still alive,” she declared. “The fire’s not burning that high – there would be remains left. Michael’s glove compartment has been treated and is fireproof; the police would be calling Madeline right now.” Dorothy’s arrogant expression, bourne of many afternoons
“But if they’re not dead then they’re out there somewhere!” Blanche growled. “What are we going to do to save them, Dorothy?” she worried.
Dorothy didn’t need to weigh her options for very long. The idea came blazing out of her lips, fully born and ready to be shared. “Take our car back to the rec center and nose around until we find something.”
“Are you crazy?” gasped Blanche. “We’re not trained detectives?”
“Maybe not. But with my brains, Rose’s stubbornness, ma’s purse, Madeline’s experience and your....”
“Stunning good looks? Absolutely irresistible charm and impeccable manners?”
“I was going to say your easiness, but when you put it that way.”
“Dorothy!” boomed Blanche.
“It’s too late to complain now, Blanche. The five of us are bound for downtown Miami.” She stubbornly raised her chin and reached for Madeline’s keys. “And we’re going to find our friends before they get hurt.”
***
Unsurprisingly, the rec center was deserted by the time they arrived – well, to the naked eye. Sophia knew how to get around their façade; down around the back and this time Dorothy and Rose guarding the door and Madeline and Sophia requesting a ‘meeting’ with Johnny. “If I get thrown out on my ear,” Sophia told her daughter as the two older women entered the back hallway together, “tape Kimmel for me while I’m in the hospital.”
They were remembered; in fact, Johnny was surprisingly conciliatory toward them, considering the violence Sophia had wrecked upon his guards. Maybe they didn’t know she was the one with the deadly purse, or maybe they didn’t care; either way Madeline and Sophia were audibly cautious to Blanche’s ear as she sat in Madeline’s car and waited to provide an emergency evacuation. Johnny sat them down. He asked them what they wanted.
“Our friends back,” Sophia said.
“Nice. But you don’t got any bargaining chips here,” Johnny replied. “The house is full and all the cards are coming up Johnny, you dig?”
“Right. Sure. Oh, Johnny?” Sophia was pouring it on like a vase of hot acid, and Dorothy raised an approving eyebrow at her toughness.
He chuckled. “What, Missus Petrillo?”
“Would you mind looking over these papers?” asked Madeline. The sound of a sheaf of papers rustling as they hit the desk sounded. “I think there might be something in there that’s interesting to you, but I’m not sure.” A long pause. “Something about you laundering money for a cocaine smuggling outfit and using the money to run an illegal underground betting parlor? The one we happen to be sitting in, I think.” Dorothy heard Madeline flick her lighter on, then inhale deeply as she took in a lungful of smoke. There was another echo – one of a finger tapping a trigger. Dorothy clutched her cell phone, but heard Madeline’s voice echo forth sarcastically. “Nice of you to offer, boys, but I’ve already got a light.”
“How did you….”
“We have friends in high places. And most of them don’t have to shoot people to make a point, but they’re not above it,” Madeline said.
“But I don’t…You ain’t gonna leave this room alive!”
“So what?” Sophia growled. “The cops are already out looking for you!”
“That’s right,” said Madeline. “We made copies of those files! They’re all over the city, and in the hands of some of our friends – and they won’t be afraid to go to the cops if anything happens to us!”
“So no matter what you do to us you’re going up the river,” said Sophia.
There was a long pause. Finally, Johnny said. “You want to negotiate?”
“I want my friends back. I want you to pay people what they owe. And I want you to stop rigging the games. Let people win once in awhile!” Dorothy could hear the impassioned gesture in Sophia’s tone.
“All of that can be arranged – but tell me, ladies – who are your friends?”
“A tall guy in a nice suit, a girl with long hair, and a chunky guy who smells like beard and has permastubble,” said Sophia.
“Can’t say where the hell they are, ma’am. Last time I saw a man fitting that description my guys were beating him to a pulp.”
“That’s Chuck,” Sophia said. “And don’t gimmie that malarkey. We all know you’re the one keeping them somewhere.”
“I’m telling you the truth. Your friends aren’t anywhere in our club – you’re welcome to look….erm, providing that our deal stays under the table and your friends don’t tell the police about my double-dealing, of course.”
“Oh come on – everybody saw that car crash on the bridge. The only person who would care enough about them to crash their car would be somebody who knew we were lurking in the…bushes….you really didn’t know we were trying to take you down, did you?”
“Nope. Thanks for rubbing it in.”
Sophia and Madeline exchanged murmured concerns. The next words were Sophia’s. “Hey, pal – new deal. Everything else we asked for goes –and you help us find our buddies.”
There was a brief pause. “I’ll loan you my armored truck. That work for ya?”
“That and one of those guns your buddy there’s holding. We wanna look intimidating! A purse and a couple of knives ain’t gonna cut it. Without it, we’ll look like Betty Crocker.”
“All right.” A blast of static. “Vito! Bring big blue around.”
As if on cue, a car fishtailed into the parking lot, its headlights temporarily blinding Dorothy. They belonged to an enormous black SUV being driven by a man who was twice Dorothy’s height and double her size. He rolled down the window, gave her a curt nod. “You Mister Johnny’s friends?”
“No, we are,” said Sophia, triumphantly emerging from the building with Madeline at her feet. “Let’s roll, Pussycat,” she added, leaving a flabbergasted Dorothy to trail along in her wake in utter confusion. “Who are you, and what did you do with my mother?” she wondered.
***
They ended up scouring the western side of town while repeatedly making stops to check and double-check that they didn’t lose Rose and Blanche, who trailed behind in Madeline’s car. They circled every known hang-out, warehouse, and hiding place that Madeline could call to mind before Dorothy came a sudden realization; one she whispered to Madeline when they made a stop at a greasy spoon to fill the car’s gastank.
“They’re trying to keep us from finding out where the three of them are,” Then she glanced over her shoulder to make sure that Blanche had Vito thoroughly distracted by her cleavage – and by a rack of trucker hats with filthy slogans printed on them.
This time Madeline had a worthwhile idea. “I’m going to try Michael’s cell phone one more time –but this time I’m going to let it ring twice, then hang up. It’s our old distress signal. If the tracer Sam put on this phone is worth anything we should be able to track them and figure out where they are.”
“I’ll keep Rose and Ma out of the way,” said Dorothy.
“What was that?” Rose asked from beside her. She’d been so thoroughly hypnotized by the rack of pies before her that she’d tuned out Dorothy’s voice.
“Never mind,” Dorothy said. “I’ll run interference.”
And Dorothy was surprised by how easy it was to do just what she said she would do. Criminals were just like any other man, and if you fed them and paid them close attention they were willing to overlook any little problem or background incident if they were being fed, listened to and babied. It worked with Stanley, and it worked on these goons. When Madeline re-appeared Dorothy was occupied, carefully feeding the lot of them slices of pie. Rose was literally spooning blueberries into Vito’s mouth while making sputtering airplane noises.
She scribbled down the coordinates for Dorothy on a napkin in lipstick, then casually tried to pass them to her without gaining further attention.
Dorothy read the words, scratched out boldly in shades of blood red:
“8th Street Pier.”
***
They had to ditch their guard, misdirecting him to drop them off at a fleabag motel in the center of town. Madeline showed Blanche, Rose and Sophia her hunch; they were either in a warehouse there or under the pier, but that was where her son and his friends were stationed.
Under the cover of darkness, they inched along toward the pier. And then, carefully, slowly, they checked every single warehouse, split into two teams – Rose and Madeline and Dorothy and Blanche, with Sophia playing lookout. Blanche, naturally, couldn’t resist complaining a bit about the station into which life had thrust her.
“I swear if I have to look at a dead body I’m going to kill someone.”
Dorothy paused. “Good, Blanche. Be sure to say that again in a well-lit place filled with police officers.” She watched her friend kneel in front of the next doorframe.
“What are you doing?” Dorothy asked.
Blanche grinned and showed Dorothy what she’d fished out of her pocket. “Bobby pins. I used to use them to sneak into my room all the time. There was the one occasion with a beautiful, strapping boy named Louis. He was from Tennessee and you know farm boys – they love it al fresco. I came home with straw layered all through my victory rolls, I was a sight…Anyway, I used my little bobby pin to unlatch my bedroom window and no one was the wiser. Except for Virginia. I had to bribe that motor mouth with a whole months’ worth of desserts…”
“I don’t and I didn’t, but I’ll try to remember my Hee-Haw-eese,” said Dorothy. She watched her friend struggle for a minute before intervening again. “Blanche, I know they make things bigger down in the south, but I doubt your bobby pins are big enough to pick the lock on…” she trailed off as the lock gave way and Blanche reached down and pulled the door up and open.
To both women’s surprise, a figure sat in the shrouded darkness. Dorothy shone her pocket flashlight into the face of the figure and saw Sam’s slightly-bruised visage frowning back.
“Oh Sammy,” Blanche cooed, trotting over, “Did they hurt you? Here, put your head on my plush bosom while Dorothy unties you.”
Dorothy rolled her eyes but quickly bent to unbind Sam. He started struggling against her working hands the moment she tried to help – but noticed that that seemed to be the end result of whatever Blanche was trying to do to him.
Then came a static-bedaubed voice. “Rose to Dorothy, Rose to Dorothy!” Dorothy managed to turn on the radio with the tip of her finger.”
“I’m here, over.”
“….No, this is Rose,” Rose said. “We think we found Fiona and Michael, but there’s a problem.”
“What problem?” Dorothy asked.
“They’re tied to a support beam and the tide is coming in.” Sam immediately started bucking against the chair, and Dorothy elbowed his kidney so she could finish her work.
“Rose, can you get to them?”
“Almost! We’ve made a chain but I can’t quite reach them. But we could if we had somebody with longer arms.”
“We found Sam – we’ll be right there.” Dorothy said.
“This reminds me of the time Saint Olaf was visited by the Kleinkechtmuller circus….”
Dorothy cut her end of the communication as she loosened the last knot. Sam came free with a tug and Dorothy stood to hear Blanche cooing to him.
“…And then I’ll go antiquing for a cute little sex cage and…oh, you’re loose!” He spat out his gag.
“That’s what she said,” Sam replied. “And I don’t think you should do any decorating, Blanche. Sophia was right – that vase was ugly as sin!” Sam said. His raw wrists came free from his bounds, and then he shot up from the chair. He reached for his ankle and patted his holster. “Great, Sophia’s buddy snagged my Walther. Did either of you girls bring any firepower?”
Dorothy snapped her fingers. “Gosh, I would have but the NRA just closed its stand on my streetcorner.”
“All right,” said Sam. “We’ll have to use brute force.” He nudged Blanche behind him. “Follow me and keep your eyes peeled.”
So they did, keeping in a careful and neat line behind him until they found Rose and Madeline. Or half of Madeline. The other half of her was dangling over the edge of the pier while cursing.
Sam took charge of the scene. “Who’s the best at untying knots? Who has the longest reach?” Soon they’d formed a human chain and were able to reach the knots binding Michael and Fiona to the pier.
Dorothy could barely see the young couple as the spat out the waves of encroaching salt water and Rose untied their raw wrists. Then they were emerging, somehow elegant and yet red-faced, flopping onto the wooden floor with a grunt and a moan. They collapsed together, the whole group of them, before confronting their next move.
“What’s the plan, Mikey?” Sam asked, when he’d filled his lungs with oxygen.
Michael reached into the sodden breast pocket of his jacket. He pulled it out and squinted down at the sunglasses he’d retrieved before putting them on. “Fi?” he said.
The redhead produced a tiny bomb from her front pocket, a wicked glint in her eyes. “Where in the world did you get that?” asked Rose.
“It gets terribly boring when you’re tied to a chair in a dark warehouse for ten hours,” Fiona said sardonically. “Michael and I are used to working in unison, so it wasn’t terribly difficult to fashion a bomb from the little supplies I had in my purse.”
Sam groaned, Madeline rolled her eyes and Michael coughed. “We planted it before they tried to drown us,” Michael said.
“Luckily, I have a sharp ear – those warehouses aren’t theirs. They belong to another mob.” Fiona lovingly stroked the ignition switch. “They were planning on killing us and pinning the whole thing on them.”
“Killing two birds with one stone,” Fiona drawled. “Get on with it, Michael, I want to set these off before I catch a chill.”
“Do you mean to tell me that they tried to double cross us?” Rose gasped.
“No, Rose,” Dorothy said, “they were going to use Sam’s body as a festive greeting card for the Sandinistas. WHAT DO YOU THINK THEY WERE TRYING TO DO?!”
“Ladies,” Sam said, gently herding the women back up the pier and further away from the wired buildings. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but the further away from the big boom we are, the healthier it’ll be for all of us.”
Once they were several feet away Fiona set off the explosion. The entire group of them could feel the heat of the flame and hear the concussive booms going off as they strolled toward the safety of the cars.
The second round of explosions took them all by surprise and flattened them to the ground. Fiona shrugged when Michael shot her a pained glare. “The C4 might have been riper than I thought.”
“Yeah, riper,” Sam growled. “Fi, you’re on my trick hip.”
“Oooh! Does Sammy want someone to rub the hurt away?” Blanche purred as he let out a nervous laugh.
“I’d love to know what that accomplished,” complained Dorothy. She looked up to see her mother sitting behind the wheel, watching impatiently for them to climb into the car.
“Those explosions are going to be traced back to someone,” pointed out Fiona.
“Turning them on one another’s the quickest, easiest way to get them off your backs. They’ll do each other in…”
“And when they do,” Sam said. “There’ll be some ‘concerned citizens’ ready to put them behind bars for good with a simple phone call. It’ll involve a little bit of recon, but it’s nothing me and Mikey haven’t done before.”
The girls – bedraggled and damp – all turned to look at Sophia. The older woman kept a stiff upper lip. “I’ll take it,” she said.
“Good. NOW CAN WE GO HOME!?” Dorothy asked.
“I’m driving,” Michael said, giving Sophia a baleful look. “For some reason, I think you’d be even deadlier than Fi.”
“Oh you don’t know the half of it,” said Dorothy as they all assembled, ready to leave the conflict behind them.
***
A few months later, the girls were resting on their lanai after work, each of them lost in their own private thoughts. They hadn’t heard from the little gang of thugs since Michael’s intervention, so Dorothy could only presume that the ruse had worked just as the boys said it would.
“You know,” Rose said. “Sometimes I wonder if they’re still out there helping people. Thanks to them I get a little misty every time I see an explosion.”
“I’m sure they are,” Dorothy sighed. “Blanche would know, but she’s not divulging her secrets.”
“Ladies don’t tell,” she pointed out loftily. “Mostly because Sam signed me to an exclusivity clause.”
That was when they heard the doorbell ring. Rose was elected to get up and answer the door, but she soon came back with a manila envelope – which she instantly handed to Dorothy.
Soon Dorothy held the contents of the envelope in her hands, temporarily amused into silence. “Dorothy? Honey, what’s in it?”
“Courtesy of M. Westen and S. Axe, The holder of this certificate is entitled to enter Wolfie’s Deli at any time during normal operating hours, present this certificate and be rewarded with an unlimited supply of…”
“What?” Sophia
Dorothy rested the documents triumphantly against her knee. “Cheesecake!”
THE END