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AN HOUR LATER, I PULLED Gertie’s Cadillac curbside. Ida Belle hopped in the car. “Drive.”
“I’m on it,” I said, turning right on Main Street.
“Thanks for picking me up. What do we have so far?” A covert operative to a fault, Ida Belle looked the part after spending the night in jail. “And why are you looking at me like that?”
I checked the rearview mirror. Gertie thinned her lips and shook her head. “Not worth the battle when she’s fought in wars.”
Instead of jumping into the fire with fighting words, I made the mistake of prolonged staring. Ida Belle patted her hair before jerking down the sun visor. She immediately groaned. “Great. I appeared before the judge like this? No wonder they set my bail so high.”
“They would’ve denied it if you’d shown up in your pink and blue curlers,” Gertie said. “At the very least, you spared them that.”
Ida Belle turned around. “If you don’t mind, put a lid on it. I’ve been up all night listening to end times discussions and gossip about our preachers.”
“What kind of discussions?” I asked.
She frowned at the mirror. “Banana pudding conspiracy. According to one Wasteland resident, Sinful’s pastors pay Francine to keep her doors open. It’s a lie, by the way, but these people believe it. Some say the banana pudding wars keep the faithful in their pews until the end of each Sunday sermon.”
“Folks believe that?” I sounded like a native.
“That is the rumor, yes,” Gertie said, leaning forward. “But Baptists don’t put any stock in rumors except on Saturday and only when we don’t have other plans.”
I laughed. “Guess the Catholics and Baptists have plenty to talk about now.”
“How quickly we forget the details of possible imprisonment. If your boyfriend hadn’t been there to save you, we would’ve been cellmates.”
I trembled at the thought. For a former CIA assassin, lockup was a scary place to be. “Ahmad could easily bribe a trustee. I could slip and fall in the shower or eat peanut butter and poison or cyanide and bananas...”
“And there she goes,” Gertie said in an exasperated voice. “Remind me to throw Carter from a train as soon as the opportunity presents itself. I knew he shouldn’t have told you about Hamburg.”
I immediately shifted the rearview mirror. “What’d you say?”
Ida Belle whistled. “Now look who’s standing in the warzone.”
I screeched, “Gertie, how could you? You knew?” I cut my gaze at Ida Belle. “You both knew?”
“We made the decision to sit on the information until we could tell you together.”
“Why wait? Hamburg has already left behind a body.”
“Guy was Hamburg’s brother. And my source says Hamburg left his DNA on the murder weapon. He had motive and opportunity. Should be an open and shut case. For my sake, I hope that’s right.” Ida Belle winced. “For yours, I hope the guy develops a conscience and turns himself in.”
“Why would that matter?” I asked.
“My source says he has a list and a mysterious Stiletto Killer at the top of it.”
“Who is this source?”
“I never give names. You know that.” A beat later, Ida Belle added, “Guess I can make an exception. He’s a guard at the pen.”
“You weren’t in the pen,” said Gertie. “You were locked up in county.”
“Have you ever been locked up in Wasteland? It’s awful, like something you’d see on television. We sit around and play cards all day. When we have smoke breaks, which are minutes of additional free time since none of us smoke, we eat candy bars and talk about what might have been.”
“I can’t wait to hear what dreams you saw flash before your eyes in a matter of eight hours,” Gertie said.
“The card games are brutal.”
“I knew there was a reason behind the long face. How much did you lose?”
“Thirty bucks. I wrote an IOU. Gal doesn’t want her money. Told me to take care of her momma if she gets shipped off to Alcatraz.”
“Alcatraz closed in 1963. And as far as I know, it was an all-male institution.”
“It’s a figurative expression, Hebert.”
“One day behind bars and you’re already talking thug-speak and hanging with new friends.” Gertie exhaled. “Another day and you would’ve been penning your first book about life on the inside. What will become of you if you get thirty years to life?”