Once Upon a Spy (Humorous Cozy Mystery) (2 page)

Izzy furrowed her brow, also processing this information. “That means she must be a he, right?”

“Or an it?”

Just then, a soft tapping sound could be heard, coming from somewhere behind Yvonne. She whirled around, half expecting another crazy person joining the party. The only sight that met her eyes, though, was that good old garbage truck.

She gestured with her head at the apparent source of the tapping sound. “Did you hear that?”

Izzy shrugged. “Probably a rat.”

The sound of the tapping had a strange effect on the mysterious gun-wielding man. His eyes lit up, and he suddenly became animated. “Open that! Open the truck!”

Yvonne held up her hand. “Sorry. Not allowed. It’s a garbage truck. If we open it, garbage will come out.”

“Yes. Garbage should go in. Not out. It says so right there in the manual.”

“Get him out of there!” hollered the man.

With a deep sigh, Yvonne walked over to the instrument panel located at the back of the truck. She hated to break the rules, but when crazy people start waving guns around, options dwindle. “I still think it’s wrong.”

“Open it!”

She punched the button to open the truck’s back panel. As it slowly released its hold on its contents, she half expected the rat Izzy had mentioned to jump out at her, so she stepped back. To her surprise, no rats emerged, but a skinny little man in a rumpled suit did.

“You stupid woman!” he squeaked the moment he laid eyes on Yvonne.

In a reflex action, she hauled off and punched the impudent fellow in the face. His head snapped back, and he fell down on a bed of garbage.

“Frank!” cried the crazy man with the gun, and launched himself at Yvonne.

Before he had the chance to come anywhere near her, she’d raised her right hand, and smacked him in the face. And even though she was careful to avoid his damaged nose, he still howled with pain the moment her fist connected.

The next moment, he was down and she quickly took the gun away from him.

He gazed up at her, surprise etched on his face, then his eyes glazed over, and he was out again.

Izzy joined her to stare down at the body. She shook her head sadly. “What’s wrong with these people?”

The mangy dog seemed to share their observations, for he waddled up to them, carrying something between his teeth. It blinked in the early morning light. Then he dropped it at Yvonne’s feet, and flopped down on his haunches once again.

“Looks like you have a friend for life,” remarked Izzy with a smile.

“I don’t want that mutt.”

“No choice in the matter, I’m afraid. He’ll follow you to the ends of the earth now.”

“Crazy mongrel.” She picked up the shiny object and held it out in front of her. It was a nice-looking gold bauble, and the letters held a certain meaning to her, though she couldn’t immediately tell what it was.

Izzy slung her hand before her mouth. “Oh my God!” She relieved Yvonne of the trinket and stared at it with amazement etched on her face. Then she pointed at the unconscious Richard Gere wannabe at their feet. “This guy? He’s CIA!”

Yvonne was disappointed. “CIA? You mean he’s a spy or something?”

“That’s exactly what he is. Look at the badge. It says so right there!”

Yvonne squinted at the badge once again. “Central Intelligence Agency,” she read aloud. She stared down at the man and gave him a gentle prod with her foot. “He doesn’t look so intelligent.”

Just then, the other guy reappeared from the heart of the truck. With some effort, he held out a similar badge in his left and a similar gun in his right hand. “CIA,” he managed to croak. “You’re both under arrest for the attempted murder of my partner and I!”

“Me and my partner,” corrected Izzy.

“Huh?” The man’s gun shook in his hand, his temporary sojourn in the back of the DSNY garbage truck not yet fully digested.

“You said ‘my partner and I’ whereas the rules of grammar dictate it should be ‘me and my partner’.”

“Who cares about grammar!” screeched the overwrought CIA agent.

“Well,” said Izzy censoriously, “if we don’t care about grammar, we’re no better than the beasts in the field, are we?”

“Shut up!” yelled the man while he gave the prostrate body of his partner a prod with his foot.

A banana peel dangled from his right ear and a discarded sardine skeleton from his left, but he didn’t seem to mind. Yvonne wondered if the hairy growth under the man’s nose was a mustache or also a piece of trash.

“Matt!” he hissed, giving his partner another prod. “Are you all right?”

Yvonne, wanting to be helpful, knelt down beside the fallen government official. “Matt!” she yelled, giving the inert body a vigorous shake. “Matt! Wake up!”

“Stay away from him, you—you—you
vixen
!” screamed the man. “You’re the one who did this to him—to
us
!”

Yvonne shrugged. “Only trying to help.” She directed a look of censure at the man. “Now why were you hiding inside the garbage truck in the first place? What were you hoping to accomplish?”

The question seemed to galvanize the other man. He shook from stem to stern, appearing to do the Shimmy Shake. Then, suddenly, a twitching nose appeared from his collar.

“Aaaargh!” screamed the man as he stared into the beady eyes of his shirt-mate.

Izzy gazed on the scene with a pleased expression. “See! I told you it was a rat.”

The rat, which seemed as surprised as its host, bared its teeth to give a startled screech, then leapt to freedom by crawling onto the agent’s shoulder, and took the great leap into the abyss. Scurrying away in the direction of the recently emptied out dumpster, it quickly disappeared from view. Rats are notoriously shy, and this one didn’t seem eager to break the mold.

The upshot of all this shaking and twisting was that the man’s gun hand had lost its firm grip on the government issue pea shooter, which fell to the ground and skittered away until it came to a stop against Izzy’s well-clad foot. Even when working, Izzy liked to look her best, and today she had opted for a pair of black low heels complete with ankle strap.

Reaching down, she picked the gun from the floor and held it out between thumb and index finger.

“Um, Frank is it, right? You dropped your gun, honey.”

Eyeing her suspiciously, Frank took the gun from her, and then seemed uncertain how to proceed, staring at Izzy as if seeing her for the first time.

“Thanks,” he said automatically.

“You’re welcome.” She turned her smile up to full wattage, and the effect was immediate and devastating. Frank’s Adam’s apple bobbed, his jaw dropped, and his tie hitched up. Izzy, apart from being blonde and petite, was strikingly pretty.

“So you’re a spy, huh?” she said, starting to make easy conversation. “Is that a fun racket to be in?”

A soft groan saved Agent Frank from having to answer this question.

“What happened?” moaned Agent Matt as he opened his eyes.

Yvonne hovered over him. “Your friend called me a bad name so I punched his lights out!” She made sure to accentuate every syllable, for the two men struck her as particularly dumb. “Then you attacked me so I punched
your
lights out!”

Joe’s eyes went wide, and he sat up so quickly, his head almost collided with Yvonne’s. He eyed her like a crazed animal. “You stay away from me, you hear!” he yelled out. He then searched around for his partner. “Frank? Are you all right? Frank!”

Frank, who was still captivated by Izzy’s smile, blinked and snapped out of his temporary stupor. “Huh?”

“We have to call for backup! Call for backup now!”

“Sure.” Frank reached for his ear, but instead of the ear piece he was apparently trying to locate, all his fingers met was the banana peel. He shook his head sadly. “I seem to have lost my communicator, Matt. You call for back-up.”

“I lost mine when this—
person!
—knocked me out the first time.” He held up his hands as he slowly scrambled to his feet, his eyes never leaving Yvonne’s. She quite enjoyed the sensation of being the sole focus of this handsome man’s attention. “Look. We’re government agents. You can’t do this to us!”

Yvonne was surprised. “Do what? We’re just doing our job. Matt.” She liked the sound of his name. Matt. Probably short for Matthew. A good old-fashioned Catholic name. She nodded approvingly.

“You don’t have to do this!”

“But we have to. If we don’t, they’re gonna fire our ass.”

He looked a little crazed again. Roving eyes and all.

“Please! Why are you doing this? Who are you working for?”

Once again, Yvonne wondered if the blows this man had sustained might have caused permanent damage. Or perhaps he’d never been too bright to begin with. She gestured at the truck. “DSNY, Matt. It says it right there on the vehicle.”

Matt looked from Yvonne to Izzy, then to the decal indicated. He shook his head dazedly. “Oh, you’re good,” he finally said. “You’re very good.” He narrowed his eyes at Izzy. “At least give me your names. Before I go, I want to know who licked me.”

“Yvonne Assenheimer.”

“Izzy Superczyński.”

Joe’s eyes turned sad. “I knew it. Russian, huh? I thought we had an agreement. Never heard about detente? We’re supposed to be working together now!”

Yvonne had no idea what the man was going on about, but decided that what he needed now more than anything were a hot beverage and a donut. “Izzy? Do we still have some coffee?”

“Oh, plenty, hon.” She gave her a comical look. “Lemme pour you a cuppa.”

“It’s not for me. It’s for Matt here. I think he needs it more than me.”

Confused, Matt watched as Izzy disappeared inside the truck and came out with a thermos of coffee and a cup. Then his eyes widened when he saw that his partner Frank was still holding his gun. While Izzy was pouring, he sidled over to Frank, and grabbed the gun from his hand.

“Hey! That’s mine!”

Izzy held out the cup. “Here, Matt. A cuppa joe.”

With a vicious snarl, he swung the cup from Izzy’s hand, the scalding hot beverage hitting Frank in the face.

“Owwww!” howled the unfortunate agent.

“Hands up, you bitches!” thundered Matt, leveling the gun at Yvonne.

Peeved, Yvonne hauled off and swung her fist at the offending agent. Moments later, Matt went down for the third time that morning.

Izzy, Yvonne, and Frank stared down at the fallen agent.

“I don’t think I like him, V. He keeps talking smack.”

“Matt does sometimes have a foul mouth,” agreed Frank.

“Nobody calls me a bitch. Not even Richard Gere’s younger brother,” was Yvonne’s stated opinion.

Just then, all hell broke loose. From every direction, very big black-clad men swinging very big guns sprang up like a sudden rash, while a voice boomed over an intercom, “Everybody hit the floor! Now!”

Before they had a chance to react, black hoods were placed over Yvonne and Izzy’s heads, their hands yanked behind their backs, and they were unceremoniously slung onto the floor of a van. The sliding door was slammed shut, and next thing they knew, they were propelled against the back of the van while it roared away from the alley with screeching tires.

“Iz?”

“Uh-huh?”

“Are you all right?”

“I don’t know. I think we’re being kidnapped, V.”

“I think so too.”

“Shut up, bitches!”

With a grunt, Yvonne stomped her booted foot in the direction of the voice. With satisfaction, she felt her boot connect. There was a crunching sound and then a big body dropped to the floor with a dull thud.

Izzy giggled. “Well done, V.”

“Nobody messes with a New York City sanitation worker,” grunted Yvonne.

“There’s something about this I don’t understand.”

The voice was somehow very familiar, but Yvonne couldn’t place it immediately. She was still wearing the black hood. The thugs who had kidnapped both her and Izzy had dragged them from the van—seriously scraping Izzy’s nice new shoes in the process judging from her friend’s loud laments—and had strapped her to a chair.

“Um. Hello? Who’s going to pay for these shoes! Cause I’m pretty sure they’re totally ruined now! Hello? Hel-
lo-oh
!”

In spite of their predicament, Yvonne had to laugh. Whoever these thugs were, there was no way in hell Izzy would let them get away with this. Her friend was a mild-mannered girl, but when someone touched her shoes, she could turn into an avenging angel, raining down hellfire on the culprit.

“What?” Another voice sounded in the darkness.

“If they’re really Russian spies, why is it we’ve never heard of them?”

“Duh. Cause they’re good at what they do? If they weren’t aces, we’d have heard of them by now.”

“I guess you’re right.”

Spies? Did these people really think they were spies? Where did they get that idea?

“They think we’re spies,” loud-whispered Izzy, who’d come to the same conclusion. She now noticed Izzy’s voice was coming from right behind her. She wiggled a bit and stretched out her fingers against her constraints. To her relief, she found herself touching Izzy’s fingers. They were strapped back to back. She gave her friend’s digits a tight squeeze.

“Yeah. Hilarious, right? Can you imagine? Us? Russian spies?”

“Actually, I can. Like Angelina Jolie? In Salt? Hot to trot and lethal as hell? And the pay. Oh, man. I bet they’re being paid a packet.”

“Better than garbage disposal?”

“Sure. A lot better. You know? When this is all over, I think we should consider changing jobs.”

“Shut up!”

That familiar voice again. Oh, hell. She just wished she could see who it was. And then, suddenly, she did. The hood was yanked away, and she found herself blinking against a sudden harsh light shining into her eyes. When finally her eyes had adjusted, she saw that Matt himself stood facing her. She gasped in shock when she saw him. Apart from his damaged nose, the agent was sporting a black eye and a big bruise on his left cheek.

“Matt! What happened to your face!”

The face in question darkened. “
You
happened, you…” He didn’t finish his sentence, but merely rubbed his damaged cheekbone. Yvonne’s hands were tied behind her, and a table divided them, but he still eyed her warily.