Size Matters (Handcuffs and Happily Ever Afters) (24 page)

“No,” Moon-Unit replied.

“Then they’re not using their real names,” Edith said without a shred of doubt in her voice.

Holy hell, what had we gotten ourselves involved in? Stan and Stuey weren’t Stan and Stuey? Heidi Kugelschmooson didn’t exist? WTF? Wait. A. Minute.

“Mariah, give me the wallet,” I insisted, reaching over the seat.

“Aww, come on, I said I would return it,” she moaned.

“You said no such thing,” I reminded her. “I told you that you were going to return it. Hand it over. Now.”

She reluctantly gave me the wallet. My hands shook, but I was sure I was onto something. I opened it. Motherhumpin’ assclowns, there was a shitwad of hundred-dollar bills inside, but that wasn’t what I was after. I frantically rifled through the cards. Got it! I pulled Stuey’s license out and an icy chill blasted through my body, which did absolutely nothing to improve my hangover.

“Try looking up Herman Stooshman,” I said, examining the license. “He’s from New York and the birthdate is 6/26/70.”

“Herman what?” Moon-Unit asked.

“Stooshman,” I repeated. “S-T-O-O-S-H-M-A-N.”

“Is that the only one you’ve got?” she asked.

“Yep.”

“Good enough. I’ll get right on it.”

“Moon-Unit, you old lunatic, I’m sending you another link from my phone. I’ll send the security clearance separately,” Edith yelled. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“That you’ll kill me if I say where any of the information came from,” she stated in a logical fashion.

“You got it,” Edith said, satisfied with Moon-Unit’s answer. I had a sick feeling she wasn’t kidding. Rich was positively sweating next tome.

“Do I get to keep the wallet?” Mariah asked excitedly.

I looked down at the wallet in my hands. This news definitely changed the plan. I had no idea what the right thing to do was, but for now . . .

“Yes, you get to keep it until I tell you otherwise.” I handed it back to her, grabbed another doughnut, and mentally cussed out David Hasselhoff. This whole fucking thing was his fault.

T
he rest of the morning was uncomfortably bizarre. Rich had advised that we act as if nothing was amiss. I was such a sucky liar, I stayed as far away from Stuey and Stan as I could. Unfortunately, Heidi Kugelschmooson was another story. She was on me like white on rice.

“So, Kristy, what exactly do you do in Minneapolis?” she asked. She was wearing a dress that defied gravity. I was sure she had used titty tape, or at least I hoped she had. I could almost see her nipples. Eww.

“I run a women’s shelter,” I said and focused on patting down trees for pubes in the area we were searching. I snuck glances at her when I was sure she wasn’t looking. No sign of her dark brown hair and icy blue eyes, only her cleavage. Why didn’t she exist and what was she hiding? It certainly wasn’t her boobs.

“That’s wonderful. Are you involved with anyone?” she asked, pretending to examine the bark for Bigfoot’s private hair.

“Thank you and yes,” I replied. What was this? Twenty Questions?

“Is it serious?”

“Um, sure.” Good God, was she going to ask how big his thingie was?

“Have you ever been married before?”

“Why would you ask me something like that?” I stopped and confronted her. Her prying was strange, it was like she was . . . oh my God,
boobs
. All I could see were
boobs
. It was everything I could do to keep my eyes on her face. Did she still think I had something going on with her Stuey? I mean Herman.

“Just curious.” She smiled, shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly.

“Well, Miss Curious, your questions are a little too personal and I don’t think they have anything to add to any article you may or may not be writing. How would you like it if I asked you all sorts of unnecessary questions?” Crap. I probably shouldn’t have said any of that. Damn it, I needed a handler. I couldn’t be trusted not to spill the beans. I frantically glanced around for a good liar to save me from myself. The only person nearby was Rich. I couldn’t imagine he was very good at lying.

“Have at it, Little Miss Sunshine,” she challenged, narrowing her eyes.

WTF? Was she daring me? I knew I should walk away. That was exactly what I should do. Yep, I would walk away and I wouldn’t talk to her for the rest of the day. I still wasn’t firing with all cylinders due to the evil vodka juice I’d thrown back last night . . . Walk away.

“Why are you disguising yourself? And if you were going to choose a wig, why would you choose one that looks like a blond helmet? It’s highly unattractive and so 1990. And just so you know”—I leaned into her—“the brown contacts aren’t fooling anybody.”

Fucktard, that was definitely not walking away.

I expected her to deck me or at the very least, insult the hell out of me. I couldn’t have been more wrong . . . She laughed. Not derisively. She laughed with delight.

“You’ve got spunk, little girl.” She clapped me on the back. “I think I like you.”

That was not a normal reaction to being insulted . . . not by a long shot. Although, for some unknown reason her approval thrilled me. WTF? She could be a busty axe murderer and I was happy she liked me? I needed to get out of this place. The only thing keeping me from running back to Minneapolis from Duluth on foot was the fact that I would see Mitch tonight. Two nights ago seemed like a hundred years.

After our unusual and unsettling bonding, Heidi seemed content to let me be. She stayed close to Stuey-Herman and laughed at all the jokes he told to her boobs. The rest of the morning went by uneventfully and at lunchtime we wandered back to the cabin in silence. Hugh, deep in thought, wasn’t even providing his usual midday Be-yoncé concert. I suppose one could be grateful for small favors.

“Hey, kids,” Stuey-Herman shouted. “Why the long faces? We’ll find that hairy bastard! I can feel it in my bones!”

“Did you find your wallet?” Mariah asked him. My breath choked in my throat for a moment, causing a coughing fit. What in the hell was she up to?

“No.” His mood changed from jovial to something slightly frightening at warp speed. “If any of you find it, I need it back. Do you understand?”

We all nodded and murmured yes. Shiny little Stuey-Herman wasn’t as sweet and mild mannered as I had thought. Although losing thousands of dollars could make anyone grumpy. Since we had the information we needed, maybe Mariah should drop the wallet as planned . . .

“No,” Rich said quietly, his voice so soft I was unsure if I had heard him correctly.

“What?”

“No, Mariah should not give the wallet back,” he said, taking my arm and putting a little distance between us and the rest of the group.

“How did you know what I was thinking?”

“Your pretty face is like an open book,” he said, smiling. “You’d be terrible at poker.”

“Trust me,” I giggled, remembering my disastrous game from the drunken evening before, “I suck at poker . . . and lying and cheating.”

“Just have Mariah hang on to it until we know more,” Rich suggested.

I nodded, took his hand, and we caught back up with the group.

 

Lunch was from Rose and Popo’s again. As expected, the old gals slipped out to do their thing. Everyone ate quietly and Stan’s mood was blacker than black. He and Stuey spent the entire lunch break arguing behind locked doors. Heidi ate her sandwich very close to the shouting match and kept fiddling with her hearing aid. Wait . . . She wore a hearing aid? How in the sacred and frightening name of David Hasselhoff ’s Speedo had I missed the fact that she was hearing impaired? Had I been so focused on her cleavage and her helmet head that I’d missed the fact that she had hearing issues?

Dang it, now I felt bad for being so mean earlier. Not that she hadn’t deserved it, but . . . I suppose I could try to be a little kinder to everybody. My sub felt like a lead ball in my stomach. I wasn’t sure if it was because the doughnuts didn’t like the sandwich or because my snarky behavior was getting a payback.

I closed my eyes and focused on Mitch. The man-butt of my dreams. Falling for a guy I’d known only a few days sounded more like a cheesy movie than my life, but it had happened. Thinking about him did crazy things to my insides and even more shocking things to my heart. I knew it could all blow up in my face, but I also knew I could die tomorrow . . . Whatever time I could have with Mitch would have to be enough. I would be devastated if he asked me to give up the shelter and turn my back on everything I’d worked so hard for. I loved him enough that I knew I would never demand he give up his dream for me. He was different from the other dorks I’d dated. Besides being able to make me melt into a pile of goo at his feet, he was kind and smart and funny and had a package that . . . shit, that wasn’t the important thing. Well, it wasn’t
un
important, but the size of his thingie and his abs and his butt and his thick shiny dark hair and his icy blue eyes and his oral talent and the way he smelled . . . those were just extras. Really, really niiice extras . . .

Stuey-Herman’s reentrance jerked me out of my fantasy world. I wasn’t sure if he’d been crying or if he was so angry his face had mottled. He buried his head in Heidi’s cleavage for a moment and pulled himself back together.

“We’re going to spend the next two hours or so searching for my wallet,” he informed us. Stan stood in the doorway behind him with no expression on his face whatsoever.

“What about the keys to the trailer?” Boo asked, reminding him that he had lost those too. He shot her a look that made the hair on my arms stand up. Mariah instinctively moved in front of her sister.

Stuey-Herman caught himself and laughed like Boo had made a good one. “Oh, don’t worry, little Boo. They were on the floor of the sedan. Thank you for asking.”

“You’re welcome,” she said from behind her protective sister.

“Allrightyroo, if you’re finished eating, let’s go find my fucking wallet.” He sounded like a cheerleader at a pep rally where it was okay to swear. We mutely followed him back out of the cabin and into the warm midday sun. I just had a feeling that the pesky lost wallet wasn’t going to show up. Call me crazy . . .

To everyone’s great surprise and intense,
maybe a bit overintense
, disappointment, after two hours of concentrated searching, we were unable to locate Stuey-Herman’s wallet.

“Goddamn it,” he shouted. “Where in the fuck is it?”

“Maybe you left it at Rose and Popo’s,” Mariah suggested innocently.

Did she have a death wish? Stuey-Herman froze and I watched his tiny pea brain try to retrace all his steps up to losing his wallet. He blew out a frustrated breath and gave Mariah a smile that didn’t come close to reaching his eyes.

“Nope, Stan got the sandwiches. He paid.”

“Are you sure Stan didn’t take it? Like as a joke or something?” Mariah’s serious face belied the evil twinkle in her eyes.

“That cocksucker,” Stuey-Herman hissed between clenched teeth. “I’ll be right back.”

He ran into the cabin and slammed the door behind him. The sounds from inside were horrifying. Muffled grunts and thuds . . . screaming and moaning. We all stood rooted to the ground. It sounded like someone was getting killed in there.

“Shit,” an ashen-faced Mariah mumbled. “I was just fucking with him.”

“What do we do?” Kim asked, visibly trembling.

“We do nothing,” Rich told us in a voice that brooked no bullshit. “If it gets worse, you will get into the van and leave.”

“How could it get worse?” Boo asked, moving close to her sister.

“Well, if you hear a gun go off, I’d suggest you move your lily white asses out of here,” Edith grunted, hopping back and forth from foot to foot like a prizefighter waiting to go into the ring.

The violence seemed to escalate and I wanted to cry. “Maybe we should drop the wallet. This is not worth it.”

“You have his wallet?” Heidi asked with an excited gleam in her eyes.

Oh, shitfucktardmotherhumpinswampassbutts, what had I just done? I might as well go knock on the door and hand it to him . . . I’d just told his freakin’ gal pal. If Stuey-Herman was willing to kill Stan over the wallet . . . what would he do to us?

“Come with me,” Rich said tersely to Heidi and the Baldies. “Mariah, give me the wallet.” He held out his hand and Mariah complied. “The rest of you get back in the van.”

“I’m not going anywhere!” an adrenaline-filled Mrs. C spat. “You go talk to Blondie and the Baldies and I’ll take care of everything here.”

“Roger that,” Edith said, doing push-ups on the ground at her twin sister’s feet. Rich gave her a long and hard stare that Mrs. C returned with no problem.

“Suit yourself, but if it turns bad, you get them into the van and out of here,” he said in a clipped tone. Heidi and her sidekicks followed Rich and the wallet to the back of the cabin.

“What’s he going to do?” Kim asked.

“Pay her off, I imagine,” Hugh guessed. “Why else would he want the wallet?”

“Do you think he’ll give it to her?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Mariah informed us proudly.

My stomach plunged to my feet. “Oh God, Mariah, what did you do?” I demanded, wanting to take her over my knee and spank her.

“I kept his license and some of the money,” she snickered.

“How much of the . . . No, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.” I paced back and forth. I wanted to jump out of my skin. How had we gotten into this mess and what in the hell was really going on? Wait... “Did you leave enough money in there for Rich to pay them off if he has to?”

“Yep, there’s a little over a thousand in there,” she said, refusing to meet my eyes.

That meant she had five to ten thousand somewhere on her body. I would not ask where. I’m sure it would gross me out and truthfully I wanted to forget about all of this.

“Should we call the police?” Boo asked.

“Quiet.” Edith put her hand up to hush us. “They’ve stopped. Act normal,” she hissed and resumed her exercise routine.

Was that normal? I was so confused and scared, I started doing deep knee bends and yoga breathing. Were we all going to die? Was I actually doing calisthenics with Edith so I could
appear normal
? I was going to have to go to a hypnotist to make me forget this past week when we got back . . . if we got back.

Stuey-Herman and Stan came out of the front of the cabin at the same time Rich, Heidi, and the Baldies came from around the back of the cabin. Heidi was focused and moving at a quick, almost masculine pace, but the minute she saw her shiny little paramour, the swing went back into her hips and the pout returned to her lips.

Rich looked pissed and the bald guys looked . . . bald. They rarely had much of an expression and they seemed to fade into the woodwork of wherever they were. Oftentimes I forgot they were even around and I still didn’t know their names. Weird.

Stan and Stuey-Herman were bloody. They both looked like they had lost the fight. Stuey had an ugly shiner developing and crimson blood spilled from Stan’s split lip and was dripping down his chin. Neither man was walking steadily and Stan’s arm appeared to be hanging at a strange angle. Moon-Unit needed to call back quickly. My gut said to go home, but I had a feeling no one else would agree. If all of this violence and bad behavior had to do with Bigfoot, I was going to have to come clean about the bible being fake. If I could convince my group that he didn’t exist, they might be willing to leave. I knew they were staying now to protect something that wasn’t really out there.

“Allrightyroo,” Stuey choked out. “Let’s head on back to the hotel. We have a huge day tomorrow.”

“Are you okay?” Boo asked, stepping forward and taking his hand.

Ohh, crapitty, crap, crap. I knew exactly what she was doing. Stuey looked down at her small hand clasped in his and actually seemed moved by her concern. He grimaced as he leaned into her and gave her an awkward hug. Boo reached up and gently touched his almost-closed eye.