Fat Assassins (33 page)

“You’re hair smells real earthy. Like one of them fancy New York shampoos or perfumes.”

“I smell like dirt. Not perfume.”

“Whatever it is….it’s dang sexy. Like one of the appledizacs.”

“Aphrodisiac.” She corrected him.

“Yeah. That’s it. You’re so smart.” He gave her a longing look and she stared straight ahead ignoring him. He pulled the truck into our driveway. “Here ya are.”

“Thanks Johnny. We sure appreciate the ride.” I said, climbing out of the truck.

“No problem. I’d do anything for my girl.” He shifted in his seat trying to kiss Ulyssa as she was scrambling to get out of the truck.

He got a mouthful of her hair. “Mmmm. It even tastes earthy.” She jumped down from the truck and slammed the door. He sat there with starry eyes watching Ulyssa as we went into the trailer.

“I spent the whole night dreaming about shovels, meteors and hotplates. Woke up feeling like I hadn’t slept a wink.”

“Tell me about it. I dreamt about being a professional assassin and riding motorcycles everywhere.” Ulyssa said.

“Maybe we’ll get motorcycles one day. Not to be assassins or anything.” I clarified. “It just looks like fun riding them.”

“Maybe when we win the lottery we can afford to buy one.” She laughed.

“Sorry, that didn’t come out right.”

“Haha. Very funny.” I threw a pillow at her. “Speaking of money, how are we going to collect from Nicolo? He won’t come back to town with all the law enforcement here.”

“I don’t know. We don’t have much money left, so I hope he hurries up.”

“Do you think he’ll know it was us and not one of the other assassins?”

“I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to wait for him to contact us.”

“Do you think the FBI will figure out what happened?”

“I sure hope not. Shasta….”

“What?”

“It’s a little early in the morning for an inquisition.”

“Oh, sorry. I’m still jittery from almost being murdered.”

“One blended mocha coming right up.”

We spent the morning drinking our blended mochas and watching the news. There wasn’t any information on Marcus, but the FBI had arrested a group of Mexican drug dealers near Charleston last night. Information about a meeting between the dealers and an American distributor was the result of a four year undercover sting operation. Officials weren’t releasing names or personal information on the suspects yet because they haven’t been able to locate the American contact.

“Do you think those were the Mexicans that Marcus was supposed to meet?”

“I think so.” Ulyssa answered. “I can’t believe someone named Jesus was running drug operations. We’re lucky that you freak out under pressure and say silly stuff. Otherwise Marcus wouldn’t have believed your story about being hired by the Mexicans.”

All we have to do now is collect our payment and keep a low profile for a few months until all the Federal agents leave town.

Any hope of returning to a normal life was squelched by a late afternoon visitor. “Hey Cheri! How have you been?” I asked, genuinely pleased to see her.

“Doing pretty good. How ‘bout y’all?” She asked, stepping inside the trailer.

“We’ve had some adventures since we last saw you, but life is good. You want a blended mocha?”

She looked at our frosty drinks longingly. “I cain’t honey. I have to watch my calories. If I gain weight, they’ll fire me. But I appreciate the offer.” She pulled an envelop from her zebra print jacket. “Nicolo had this delivered to the club this morning with instructions for me to bring it to you.” 

Ulyssa took the envelop from her. “Thanks. We’ve been waiting on this.”

“Well, I better get back to work. Saturday is our busiest day. Don’t be strangers!” She gave each of us a hug. We stood at the door and waved as she disappeared in her brown Mustang.

Mitchell waved at us from across the street where he was working on his race car. “Hey there! Who was that hottie?”

“Just a friend of ours.”

“C’mon. Hook me up!” We laughed and shook our heads at him.

We shut the door and ripped open the brown envelop open excited to see a pile of cash, but there was only a single piece of paper with one sentence.

Showboat Casino in Atlantic City on Monday

~ N.

“What? He wants us to drive to Atlantic City to meet him?” Ulyssa exclaimed.

“He’s going to kill us. We know his secrets and he probably doesn’t want to pay us.” I walked back to the bedroom and grabbed my gun and holster. I pulled it on over my Hello Kitty pajamas and walked back into the living room.

“I don’t understand. We did the job. Where’s our damn money?”

“Pull it together.” It’s amazing how confident I felt when I was wearing my Desert Eagle, even in pajamas. “We have to go to Atlantic City, but we need to be prepared to wage war against him and his goons.”

Ulyssa just stared at me.

“We’re going to roll into Atlantic City like gangbusters! We’re not going to give him the opportunity to get the drop on us. They’ll underestimate us and we’ll be prepared. So, we use that to our advantage.”

“Hell yeah!” She ran back to her room and reappeared with her gun pulled across her hot lips pajamas. “We’ve stared death in the face and survived. I’m not afraid!”

“We’ll need to get a few things in order before we leave. Just in case we don’t come back. We’ve got two days to say our goodbyes and get to Atlantic City.” She nodded solemnly. “We’ll go to Buck’s tonight and say goodbye to our friends. Tomorrow we can stop by your parents’ house for lunch, then my parents for dinner. That way we can be on the road for Atlantic City tomorrow night and drive in shifts.”

“Sounds good. We’ll need to make a list of supplies to pick up along the way.

We can’t buy them all at one store or it might alarm the store clerks.” I grabbed a pen and paper. “Rope?”

“Yes! Just like the Saints! You can always use rope. We’ll need duct tape too.”

“Okay. We’ll need some of those twisttie thingies, so we can make homemade handcuffs.” I added it to the list. “How are we doing with ammo?”

“We have plenty of ammo.” She set the boxes on the table. “We haven’t really used any.”

I tapped the pen against my lips. “What else?”

“Backpacks? To carry all the stuff?”

“Oh. Good call. We should take some plastic tarps too. Just in case.”

“Snacks?”

“Yeah. We’ll pick up some snacks. It’s not a road trip without snacks. We’ll need a cooler too!”

“Hacksaw?”

I stopped writing. “What?”

“Hacksaw. You know….in case we need to get rid of a body.” 

Bletch.
 

“I’m not sawing up a body!”

“Okay. How bout matches and lighter fluid? That would be better than the hacksaw. We should probably get a couple of knifes too.”

“Tape, twistties, backpacks, plastic tarps, snacks, matches, lighter fluid, and knifes.” I ripped the paper out of the notebook. “I think that’ll do it.”

“Do you think we should do a will?”

“I hadn’t thought about it.”

“We could download one from the Internet and leave it in the trailer so someone can find it, if we don’t come back.”

“We’ll stop by the library tomorrow morning and print out a couple wills. I think that should do it for tonight. We should get ready if we’re going to Buck’s.” I looked around the bar with fresh eyes. I’m sure gonna to miss this place and our Saturday karaoke tradition.

We grabbed a couple beers from Buck leaving him a good tip and settled into our usual table. It was still early and the bar crowd was sparse. Recorded music filled the bar while everyone waited on karaoke. Sam was the first from our crew to show up. She seemed in good spirits as she joined us at the table.

“Guess what? I’m now the lead pharmacy technician!”

“Woohoo!” We hooted, raising our bottles to toast her good fortune. Mitsy and Mitchell joined the celebration an hour later. Ulyssa even let Johnny join the table with minimal complaint. Bubba was the seventh person to pull up a seat at the table. He’d arrived early for karaoke without Becky and seemed pretty upset. The group immediately started needling him with questions trying to find the source of his melancholy.

Ulyssa was the first person to figure it out. “Did you and Becky break up?” He dropped his head.

“Poor Bubba! What happened?” Mitsy asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Was she seeing someone else? We can beat her up if you want.” Ulyssa offered.

“Hell yeah.” Sam agreed.

“Nobody messes with Bubba” Ulyssa declared.

Everybody looked at me, waiting for me to join in the lynch mob.

I shrugged. “We don’t even know if it was her fault. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be.”

“What the hell?” Ulyssa protested my pacifism.

“No, she’s right. It wasn’t Becky’s fault. Technically.” He said.

“Well, we’re going to kick her ass unless you tell us what happened.” Sam was already ready for a fight.

“It’s kinda embarrassing.”

“It’s okay. We won’t judge.” Mitsy patted his hand.

“Well, she keeps these cases of Beanie Weenies in her truck. For when she’s driving and wants a snack.” We all nodded. Beanie Weenies were a staple of Southern snack foods. Right up there with Spam and Vienna Sausages. ”Well, they give her gas real bad. I understand that everybody gets gas occasionally, but this was just unnatural.” 

We all tried to choke our laughter. 

“So, I gave her an ultimatum. Me or the Beanie Weenies. She picked the Beanie Weenies!” 

We couldn’t contain it any longer. We all started howling with laughter. 

He gave us a pitiful look. “I knew you guys wouldn’t understand. She was ‘the one’.”

“Aww. I’m sorry Bubba.” Mitchell said.

“Don’t worry. I saw the way she adored you. She’ll be back.” I added.

“Really? You think so?”

“Yes. She loves you. You probably just embarrassed her with the whole gas thing. Give her some time to cool off.”

He brightened a little. “I sure hope so. I’ve never met another woman like her before.”

“Women are complicated creatures.” Johnny patted him on the back. “Let me buy you a beer. What the hell! I’ll buy a round for the whole table.” Everyone immediately declined his offer. “C’mon. I already apologized to Shasta for roofieing her! When are y’all going to let it go?” That caused more grumbles.

“Fine. Here’s the money.” He handed me a wad of cash. “Shasta can make the drink run and I’ll pay for it.” That got him the cheers he had been looking for. I took orders and made my way to bar.

“Two Michelob Lights, one rum and coke, one 7&7, one Budweiser, one Zima, and a shot of Tequila.” Buck poured the shot of tequila and started pulling the beers from the refrigerator.

“Is the tequila shot for you?” A soft voice whispered behind my ear. “I have fond memories of the last time you drank tequila.” I felt chills run all over my body at his nearness. I only had a few days left in Nitro and all I wanted to do was kiss him. But, I’m an assassin and I cared too much about him to entangle him in my web of deceit. He put his hand on my hip only inches away from the Desert Eagle strapped to my torso.

“Things have changed.” I pulled away. Buck glanced back and forth between us when he sat the rest of the drinks on the tray. I gave him a ten dollar tip. It was Johnny’s money anyway.

“What’s changed?” There was a steely undertone in his voice. “You mean Agent McCallister?”

Instead of answering, I grabbed the tray and walked away. He followed me to the table.

“You can have my seat, Deputy. I’ve got to get the machine setup anyway.” Bubba grabbed his drink from the tray and headed for the stage.

Ulyssa raised her eyebrow and I shrugged.

I felt Eric grow ridged next to me and mumble. “I should have known he’d show up.”

I turned to the door and saw Jake standing there wearing his casual clothes. I had to admit he was dead sexy when he wasn’t in a suit. He was wearing a long sleeved black, button-up shirt with the top two buttons undone. It was borderline sleazy/sexy. I decided it was sexy because he wasn’t wearing a gaudy gold necklace. His designer jeans looked like they were tailor made for his frame.

Every girl at the table sighed, agitating Eric and Johnny.

“I cain’t believe y’all think that damn Yankee is sexy!” Johnny pouted. Eric just sat there silently watching me, trying to figure out if he had a chance. Jake stopped by the bar for a drink before making his way over to our table.

“Sorry, no more room.” Johnny said.

“It’s alright. We can just pull up another table.” Sam hopped up and started shoving another table over to join ours. “Move Johnny!” Johnny got up and scooted the chairs out of the way a split second before Sam would have crushed him between the tables.

“There we go. Now everybody can sit here.”

“Thanks.” Jake pulled a chair up on the other side of me. He sat his Heineken down on the table. “I don’t think I’ve met everyone.” He extended his hand to Sam, Mitsy, then Mitchell. “I’m Special Agent Jake McCallister.”

Mitsy and Sam sighed again.