Lizz Lund - Mina Kitchen 02 - Christmas Bizarre (7 page)

“
Sidekick
,” we all replied.

“Whatever.
You stay on your side, and I’ll stay on mine.” Myron turned on his heel and marched back to his mall gig.

“Who do you supposed hired him to work Christmas?” Sheree asked.

“Scrooge?”

Barry shook his head. “You really worked with that guy?”

“Yep.”

“You better travel incognito.”

I stared down at my booties and vest full of Sparkle, and re-arranged my hat. “No problem.”

I grabbed my coat and plodded back toward the mall entrance, along with a few hundred of my colleagues.
The crowd lined up to exit was actually longer than the ‘Mail-It-2’ line. Then I realized I had bills to pay, and mail, if I wanted to keep my own lights on at home.

“What’ll it be, Toots?” The Vito clone stood behind the counter, waiting on me.

I stared at him.

He shrugged. “Sorry about the little skirmish in your driveway. Family business, if you know what I mean.”

I gulped a bit.
“Sure. Completely understandable.”

“So what’ll it be? You got some goodies you want wrapped?”

“Just a book of stamps, thanks.”

“One book of stamps, coming right up!
You want the Virgin, or the Snowmen?”

“Either one, thanks.”

He looked me up and down. “No offense, but you don’t look like no Virgin. Snowmen it is.”

“Huh?”

“I got a sense for these things.”

“All right, here you go.
Take your break. Here is your lunch, such as it is.” Myron came up from behind me, plopped a paper bag in front of Buddy, then turned and stared directly at me.

“You again! I told you to keep your distance!”

“Hey, you keep your trap shut! This here’s a paying customer!”

Myron squinted his eyes and sniffed.

“That’ll be $9.20
, Miss.”

I handed him my credit card.

Buddy shook his head. “I’m sorry Miss, we only take cash. Good thing though, with the power down and all.”

“Oh, right.” I fumbled around in my pocketbook for an eon and eventually found a ten dollar bill – I was thankful Hilda gave
us our tips in cash.

Buddy handed me the change.
“Thank you, come again.”

I stepped to the side to let the person behind me get served while I
attempted to re-pack my handbag, spilling the contents of my wallet everywhere.

“Oh, please go on break! You can’t seriously think to eat that putrid stuff here, in front of
people, can you?” Myron hissed at Buddy, just after he processed the next shopper.

“To each his own.”
Buddy opened up the wrapper, removed the bun and bit into what looked like a raw meat patty. Ick!

He
chewed, considering Myron. “You might want to be careful how you talk to me. You never know if I’ll get out of control.”

Myron frowned.
“That’s completely ridiculous.”

“I’m just saying.”

“And you might want to be careful about who you befriend in this town.”

“How do you mean?”

“That woman – who bought the stamps.”

“Nice kid.
Vito’s neighbor. Could come in handy.”

Myron shook his head.
“Trouble. All kinds of trouble.”

“C’mon? Whaddaya mean?”

“She cost me my job.”

“But now you got me, right? See, everything happens for a reason.” Buddy gulped some more
raw meat down.

Myron shuddered, then noticed the next person in line.
Then he saw me. “Are you
still
here?”

“Just leaving!”
I swung around and smacked right into James. And his lunch.

James
was, as usual, tall, blonde, muscular and perfect. Nary a wrinkle on his clothes, or a mussed hair. He probably looks ready for a GQ photo shoot in his sleep. Hence, the soup splayed across his chest was more than a jot out of character.

James shook Miso soup off his hand.
“Well, I shouldn’t want to surprise you.”

“Sorry!”
I grabbed some tissues from my handbag and pawed at him. “Oh wow, I’ve spilled all your soup!”

James peered inside.
“No, I’ve still got a good bit left. And I’ve a Sushi roll. No worries.”

“I didn’t burn you, did I?”

James shook his head. “Heavens, no. I got it outside the mall. By the time I got across the parking lot it was tepid.”

“Well, that’s too bad.
It looks like a pretty nice lunch, though.”

“Yes, well, I’m celebrating a bit.
Actually, it’s rather good that you ran into me.”

“Ha, ha.”

He looked at me. “Oh, yes. I get it.”

“What’s up?”

“Actually, it looks like you will be a very busy girl after the holidays. Particularly around Valentine’s Day.”

“Really?”
I wondered idly what kind of busy he meant in connection with Valentine’s Day, and felt my face flush a notch.

“We’ve got a tremendous amount of massage party bookings.
I was planning on emailing them to you this weekend, so you could get started with your menus.”

“That’s great! Thank you!”
And it was great. It wasn’t as great as my fantasy, but my checkbook would be ecstatic.

James shook his head and smiled at me.
“Fine. I’ll be in touch later, then.”

And he walked away toward his massage booth.
Well.

I headed back toward the
van, the smell of Miso soup hanging heavily in the air. Well, actually it was hanging heavily on me - I’d dumped more on me than on James. Which made me hungry. Well, you know what they say about Japanese food - you’re always hungry right after you wear it.

I hopped
inside, making sure to turn the radio on before I even attempted to start her up - wearing frozen soup would be very uncomfortable. I thunked my head on the wheel in time to “I Wanna Hippopotamus for Christmas” while I wondered about the dry cleaning bill for my Sidekick duds. I supposed I was going to have to visit Lickety-Split Laundry and Mrs. Phang after all. It would be interesting to do dry cleaning business with them, now that they were actually a dry cleaning business.

Last summer, Mrs. Phang and Vito enlisted the senior crowd at St. Bart’s for some not-too-kosher prescription sales, using
my basement for storage and the dry-cleaning business as a front. It actually did run as a dry-cleaners, it’s just that the prescription drug sales made a bundle more profit. They bailed out of that jam, and jumped head-long into the legitimate business, just before they got busted. I guessed things were doing okay since the doors were still open.

I pulled up
into my garage. I opened the door to a cacophonous rendition of “Roll Out the Barrel!” played by what sounded like a brigade of accordions.

“
Vito!”
I mean, who else could it be?

Nothing.
Not even Vinnie.

“VITO!”

Footsteps thundered hastily up from the basement. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, Toots.” Vito hurried to turn the volume down.

“What
are you doing in the basement?”

Suddenly Miriam appeared, a bit disheveled and flushed.

“Never mind.”

“Hey, don’t go so fast.”

I looked at Vito, then I looked at Miriam.
She was hastily re-arranging a lime green and purple polka-dotted velour costume complete with matching lime green and purple jewelry. Lots of it.

“We was just counting inventory, for the bizarre.”

“Bazaar.”

“Yes!”

Vito consulted his shoelaces.

“But I think we’re all caught up and in good shape now!” Miriam exited out the front door, minus her shoes.

“Look, it’s not what you think,” Vito began.

“LA-LA-LA I can’t hear you.”

“Seriously, there was no hanky panky going on in your basement.”

“TMI.”

“I’m 66 years old for Crissakes!”

I stared levelly at Vito.

“I know, I know.
I’m Polish. And Jewish. We’re passionate people. But I swear, on Marie’s grave, there was no funny business going on in your house.”

I put my hand
s on my hips.

“Miriam wore spikes to impress me.
They did. But they hurt her feet. We was just counting supplies for the bazaar.”

I held up a hand.

The door knocked. I figured it was Miriam looking for her lost spikes. I opened the door to find Bauser, Norman and Jim.

Bauser and Norman got fired
from EEJIT the same day I did. Or rather, Bauser and me got fired, Norman quit. But, as we found out, Norman could quit because he has more inherited bank accounts than Pee-AY has pork and sauerkraut for New Year’s. Go figure. About the pork and sauerkraut, I mean.

Jim is Bauser’s three-legged pooch.
He’s good at sitting pretty but only just before he hits the floor. His heart is in the right place. His legs, not so much.

“Wazzup?”
Bauser asked, while Norman held Jim up.

“Just the usual.”

Norman peered in. “You mean something’s on fire again?”

“No, nothing that ordinary.”

The boys shuffled in carefully.

“Hey, fellas.
How’s tricks?” Vito lumbered at us, his dishtowel back in place over his shoulder.

Bauser held Jim up with his knee. “Great! We’re going to have a business lunch!
Wanna come?”

I sighed inwardly, a tad jealous.
“Congrats. Where are you working?”

“Anywhere we want!”

“Come again?”

Norman cleared his throat.
“Actually, we’re working for us.”

I stared
at them blankly. Vito clapped and let out a whoop. “That’s great! You’re in business for yourselves!
Mazeltov
!”

“You’re setting up your own company?”

Norman shook his head. “Actually, we’ll probably start out as a partnership. Or an LLC. After we figure out a name. That is, after we figure out a business.”

“You don’t know what you’ll be doing?”

“Not specifically. But it will be an online service of some kind. We’re trying to narrow it down.”

I shook my head.
“So what’s the lunch about?”

Bauser stepped forward.
Jim slid down. “To figure out what kind of a business we want to launch.”

Vito nodded.
“That makes good sense.”

I looked at him.

“Taxes.
You can write off a business lunch— legit.”

I rubbed my face and wished I would wake up.

“So, you want to come to lunch?”

“At eleven?”

“We want to beat the rush.”

Vito stepped forward.
“Hey, that would be just great. I still gotta Swiffer for Mina, and that doesn’t work out so good when she’s around.”

I stared at him.

“I mean, Vinnie goes all over the place, following you. When you’re not here, he’ll just nap. See?”

I sighed.
“Well, I’ve got to go to Lickety Split anyway.”

Bauser and Norman looked at Vito.

“No, no, no! We’re legit now. Mrs. Phang only does laundry and dry cleaning now, honest.”

Bauser shrugged.
“Okay. Let’s go.”

“Wait a minute! I gotta change!”

“You look all right.”

Norman sniffed.
“Maybe we should go to Lucky Palace, instead of PizzaNow?”

“Why’s that?” Bauser asked.

“I smell Chinese food. That always makes me hungry for Chinese food.”

I explained about the soup as I raced up the stairs.

Vito got started with the Swiffering as soon as we were out the door. There was a large black pickup truck in the driveway. “You got new wheels, too?”

Bauser shook his head.
“Nope, that’s Norman’s ride.”

“Helps with the horses,” he explained.

“Does it have heat?”

“Of course. Why?”

I explained about the
van as we clambered inside. We followed Norman’s nose and wound up at Lucky Palace.

“Come in! Come in! Party of uh, three? Wait…”
The cheerful hostess’ smile turned upside down at Jim.

“He’s a service dog,” Bauser explained.

She scowled at Bauser. “You not blind.”