Froggy Style (7 page)

B
efore I could reassess my life choices and/or get my ass kicked by a one-eyed biker with a bunny fetish, Lollie grabbed the string of my sweatshirt and dragged me across the room. She opened a door and practically tossed me inside. She flipped on an overhead light and gestured to a dentist chair in the center of the room. “Have a seat.”

I did, taking time to glance around, checking for the closest emergency exit. A mirror hung on the ceiling, giving me a clear view down Lollie’s tank top. No wonder Tweedle had so many tattoos. Hell, if it wasn’t for my fear of needles, I might return for a few more myself. Miss Bliss was one hell of a beautiful, stacked woman.

Lollie caught me staring and yanked up her top. I sighed, returning my attention to the rest of the space, which was tidy if not a bit cluttered. Art in various tribal designs with flaming dragons, black knights, and swords filled the walls. A machine about the size of a tuffet sat next to the dentist chair, a bunch of levers and cords attached at random intervals. Lollie played with various dials and smiled as the machine responded to her touch.

The phone on the wall next to the tattoo machine started to ring. Lollie held up a finger. “I have to get this.”

I motioned for her to answer, not in any great hurry to have a needle jabbed into my skin again and again, even by a woman as beautiful as Ms. Bliss.

“The Rose. Lollie speaking,” she said into the mouthpiece. “Yeah, he is.... No . . .” She paused to listen. “I said no!” she added with greater emphasis. “Fine, whatever.” She hung up with a sigh.

“Problem?” I asked.

“Not really.” She shifted from foot to foot. “My sister. She’s getting married soon, and she’s a little nervous.”

“Understandable,” I said.

“I guess.” She cracked her knuckles, one by one, sounding like mini-gunshots in the silent room. “So where do you want it?” she asked, almost as if we were discussing something as unimportant as the weather instead of the placement of a very real and permanent design branded on my flesh with a super-large and sharp needle.

Have I mentioned the extremely large size of the needle?

“Beauty better give great head,” I muttered under my breath.

“What?” Lollie tilted her head to the side, showing off the soft white skin of her throat. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

“Nothing . . . How about here?” I pointed at the left side of my chest, right above my heart, where a large birthmark that looked remarkably like the letter “B” marred my otherwise flawless skin.

Lollie nodded. “Take off your shirt and let’s get started.”

Slowly, as if locked in a nightmare, I peeled off my sweatshirt and lay back against the cold leather of the high-backed chair. My face flushed and my stomach clenched.

Lollie moved her chair next to me, a large, pink tattoo gun in her hand. Except it didn’t look much like a gun, not in the “blow your brains out” sense. Rather it resembled a futuristic torture device with interchangeable vials.

“No. No. No. It can’t be,” she mumbled to herself, her eyes locked on the birthmark.

“What’d you say?” I struggled to sit.

“Nothing,” she said, pushing her hand against my chest. “Lie back.” Her foot pressed a pedal and the tattoo gun whirled to life.

I let it go, my full attention on the gun in her hand. “Shouldn’t you . . . um . . . disinfect my skin or something. . . ?”

“Naw,” Lollie said with a smile. “What’s the worst that could happen?” She started forward, the gun looming larger and larger.

I shrank back in the chair. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea. . . .”

“Shh . . .” Her finger pressed to my lips. “It will be over before you know it.”

My heart thundered in my chest and my breath came in short gasps. Visions of long, pointed needles danced through my vision, growing larger and larger. Squeezing my eyes shut to ward off the image, I tried not to hyperventilate.

The gun touched my flesh.

“Nooooo!” I lurched up, knocking the tattoo instrument from her hand. It clattered to the floor. Blood-red ink leaked from the chamber, pooling in a circle on the shiny tiled floor.

“I can’t do this,” I said, scrambling from the chair and holding my arms in front of me to ward off her and her super-large needle.

“Relax, Kermit.” Lollie gave a small laugh. “No needle.” She picked up the empty gun and jabbed it toward me. “See? Now get out of here before you do get hurt.”

Rage boiled in my gut. “That was your idea of a joke? Funny. But we’re far from done, mademoiselle.” Grabbing her arm, I yanked her to her feet, accidentally knocking over the tattoo machine next to her. It hit the ground with a crash. Broken bits flew off in all directions. I winced at the damage, but rage kept my mind on my mission. “I’m done playing around. Where’s your boyfriend? Where’s Spindle?”

Her eyes narrowed, moving from the busted machine on the floor to my face. “Let me go. Now!”

Rather than obey her order, I tightened my grip, feeling her delicate skin bruise under my fingertips. “I give the orders now, Ms. Bliss. Tell me what I want to know. . . .”

The fight suddenly left her and she trembled in my arms. I dropped her arm and shoved her away, disgusted with myself. This wasn’t me. I didn’t manhandle semi-innocent maidens, unless they asked nicely. Even then I used the safe words “Rub-a-dub-dub, hands off my nub.”

Lollie snorted with laughter, easing any feelings of lingering guilt I experienced. “Give it up, Kermit. You’re not the physical type. Now get out of here and you might live to see your next birthday.”

Not much of a consolation when one considered I’d be spending it waist-deep in flies and murky pond water. I glared at Lollie. “You don’t understand, madam—”

“Oh, I understand perfectly,” Lollie said, her tone soft.

“I’m sorry, Kermit. Maybe you’re confused. Pre-wedding jitters or something. I don’t know. But you’re barking up the wrong rose bush.”

I frowned, suddenly unsure. Was Lollie right? Was I just suffering from cold feet about my upcoming wedding? “Wait.” I held up my hand in question. “How’d you know that I’m getting married?”

Her thin shoulders lifted in a shrug. “You must’ve mentioned it earlier.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Then your servant did.”

“I don’t think so.” I took a step toward her, our bodies mere inches apart. Her scent, a combination of ink and strawberries, rose up, tickling my senses. I wanted nothing more than to give into my primal urge and take all that she offered. But I resisted. After all, I was a soon-to-be-married man. Not to mention, Ms. Bliss would likely geld me with the tattoo gun in her hand. “So if I didn’t mention my upcoming nuptials and my manservant surely didn’t, that leaves only one option.” I lifted Lollie’s chin with my hand. Her eyes met mine and she swallowed. “Spindle,” I said. “Where is he, Lollie?”

“How many times do I have to say it? I don’t know anyone by that name.” Her eyes flashed with true anger. Shit. Unless she was a first-class actress, and I’d dated a few, Lollie Bliss was telling the truth. So where did that leave me? One step closer to a pair of frog legs, that much was true.

Lollie pushed me away. “I think it’s time for you to leave.”

“But I—”

“Now,” she added, shoving me toward the door. I allowed her to prod me along, pausing at the threshold of the shop. Her hand pushed at my chest, but I didn’t budge. Rather, I grabbed her arm and yanked her body against mine. Her nipples hardened under the fabric of her tank top. An inferno of passion swept through me. There was something between us. Something dark and dangerous. I leaned down to take possession of her mouth. She responded in kind, lifting her lips to meet mine.

“Ow!” I yelped, spinning to face my attacker, a tiny redheaded woman with an extremely large and sharp needle in her doll-like hand. “What the hell—”

Red tilted her head to the side and batted her oddly long eyelashes. “What?”

“You stabbed me,” I said, pointing to the needle and then to the pin-sized hole in the side of my sweatshirt.

The midget scowled. “Did not.”

“You did so!”

She shook her small head.

“Damn it.” I turned back to Lollie. “She stabbed me. You saw . . .” I looked around only to find Lollie Bliss had vanished. When I turned to question Red, she had disappeared as well.

There I stood, alone, in the doorway of an empty tattoo shop, a pinprick of blood seeping into the elastic of my boxer shorts.

As first dates went, I’d had worse.

 

I strolled out of the Rose a few minutes later, my mind filled with questions. Questions like, was Lollie telling the truth about Spindle, and if so, who had I hired to kill my bride? And more importantly, just how much mead would it take to get Ms. Bliss into bed? Sleeping with Lollie wasn’t cheating until I said “I do,” right? I made a note to ask Karl, if he ever bothered to make an appearance.

Boots scraped against the sidewalk, dragging me from my fantasy. A down-on-his-luck woodsman carrying a bottle of whiskey and a rusted ax approached. “Hey, buddy,” he slurred. “You got a light?” He waved a bent cigarette in my direction.

“Yeah.” I dug in my pockets, pulling out a pack of matches, and lit his cigarette. The tip flared to life, illuminating the woodsman’s eerie jade eyes. Familiar eyes. “Do I know you?” I asked.

“Don’t think so,” he said. “You in the union?”

I shook my head.

He preened, tossing his hair back like Neverland’s Top Model. “Maybe you saw my spread in
Woodland Animals Weekly
.” He flexed his biceps under his flannel shirt.

Again I shook my head. “Sorry. I missed that one.”

His smile dropped. “Oh. Well . . . thanks.” He lifted the lit cigarette. “You’re a prince,” he said and stumbled away.
Not for long, my good man.
Not unless I found whoever I’d hired to kill my bride and soon.

I fingered the matchbook in my hand. The same one from the other night at Old Mother Hubbard’s All Bare Cupboard. A flash of ink caught my eye. There, on the inside cover, behind the unlit matches was a scrawled phone number.

Frog! All this time I’d had the answer to my problem tucked away in my pants. Sadly, the opposite was usually true. I pulled out my p-Phone and quickly punched in Spindle’s number. My luck was changing. I could feel it. The phone rang once. Twice. Then a voice answered. A very familiar voice.

“The Rose. This is Lollie. How can I help you?”

“F
rogging bitch!” I stabbed the End button on my phone and turned toward the Rose, intent on doing Ms. Bliss incredible amounts of bodily harm.

A noise clattered behind me. I swung around to face the sound. Yet before my eyes could adjust to the darkened night, something heavy whacked me in the back of the head. I hoisted my arms to ward off another brutal hit to my noggin, but my feet tangled in a discarded newspaper.

I was falling, grasping at anything to steady myself. My fingers caught something. Something silky. Something soft.

A flash of metal caught my eye a few seconds before it also caught the side of my head. I dropped to the sidewalk, my vision growing gray and then black.

 

“Sir? Sir!” a voice patty-caked through my head.

I winced, trying to focus on the sound, struggling through layers of darkness to reach the words. I knew they were words, formed by tongue, lips, and vocal cords. Words with meaning. Even if, at that moment, I had no concept of anything other than pain. It tore at my sense, ripping me from the soothing blackness of unconsciousness.

Something cold touched my face, forcing me to jerk my eyes open, a task that took a great deal of willpower. Every movement hurt from my eyebrows to the tips of my littlest piggy. I vowed never to take blinking for granted again.

Like a cartoon, bluebirds with extremely large teeth flew in a circle above my head. A huge pink orb loomed in and out of my vision, growing slowly into focus. Karl. My manservant. And his really big, bald head.

What was he doing here?

And where exactly was here?

I couldn’t remember anything, let alone how I’d ended up in a garbage-strewn alley with my head pounding like a diddled fiddle. My last memory was of arriving at the Rose. I raised my hand, glared at the piece of torn black leather fabric in it, and then gently stroked the teacup-sized lump on my temple.

A fuzzy memory surfaced.

Someone had hit me!

I said, “Someone hit me,” to Karl.

“What did you do to deserve it?”

“What!?” I nearly shouted, causing my head to throb even more than the bright sun burning overhead. I considered puking on Karl’s shoes, mostly out of revenge.

Yet my malicious manservant was far from finished. Crossing his arms over his chest, he made tsk, tsk sounds through his teeth. “Well, sir, it’s not surprising when one considers your personality. Heck, I’m amazed it doesn’t happen much more often.”

“Hey,” I protested.

“If you lie with sleeping dogs—”

“What’d you say?” I grabbed Karl’s arm and he helped me to my feet. The world spun and then righted itself.

Karl’s lips thinned. “I said, if you lie—”

“That’s it!” Without waiting for my manservant, I rushed forward. Everything came back to me in a flash. Ms. Lying Bliss. The matchbook. A flash of metal. Pain and finally blackness.

“Sir,” Karl shouted from behind me. “Wait.”

I didn’t slow. I had to find Lollie. She was the key to this whole sordid thing. When I located her, I’d force her to call Spindle off, thereby saving my bride. If she refused, well, I’d call on a power greater than myself, Elly, my all-knowing and all-seeing fairy godmother, as long as you caught her before happy hour—otherwise she was just a gin-soaked bar slut with wings.

“Sir,” Karl yelled again.

“I don’t have time for a lecture right now.” I kept walking, weaving back and forth like the drunken woodsman from last night. Something stirred in the back of my brain. Something about the woodsman . . .

“But, sir,” Karl insisted.

I stopped and spun to face my argumentative servant. “What?”

Karl lowered his gaze.

I stomped my foot. “What is it?”

“Um . . . sir . . . ,” he started.

“Spit it out already.”

“Your pants,” he said.

“Frog it, Karl, this is hardly the time to discuss my wardrobe.” I pulled at my sweatshirt. “We have to save Sleeping Beauty from a certain death.”

“But, sir,” he said. “You’re not wearing any.”

I looked down, and sure enough, my pants had vanished, along with my wallet and my p-Phone, as well as the only piece of evidence against Lollie Bliss, the matchbook. “Shit!”

Karl motioned toward the black limo at the edge of the alley and sighed, as if my lack of pants was a foregone conclusion. “Don’t worry, sir. I always carry extras in the car.”

 

After pulling on a pair of Levi’s from Karl’s secret stash of trousers, I explained how Lollie had lied, manipulated, and ultimately tried to murder me last night.

“Maybe we should see a doctor about your head injury,” he said, waving two fingers in front of my face. Apparently not satisfied by my growl of warning, he poked at the lump on my head.

I pushed him away. “I’m serious. Lollie played me. I bet she was the one who hit me too.”

“Didn’t you say she was inside the building at the time?” His lips puckered as if he didn’t believe a word I said. “How could she possibly strike you, sir?”

Fucking Karl and his use of logic. I rubbed the back of my neck. “I don’t know. Maybe she slipped outside after our . . .” I stopped. The less Karl knew about my attraction to Lollie and our botched kiss, the less time I’d have to listen to him lecture me about my lack of moral fiber. I ate a bran muffin for breakfast each morning, what more did Karl want?

“After your what, sir?”

“Never mind.” I waved him off. “Just trust me on this. Lollie Bliss is the spawn of a wicked witch. I’m sure of it. If she didn’t smash my head in, she damn well knows who did.” My guess was Spindle.

I was really starting to hate that supposedly imaginary guy.

Karl patted my hand. “Sure, sir. That’s what happened. Now, why don’t you have a nice lie-down on the leather seat?” He motioned to the backseat of the limo.

While the soft, plush seat looked mighty inviting, I couldn’t give up now. “Forget it.” I closed my eyes and gathered my strength. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” Karl said.

I glanced in the rearview mirror, noting the Humpty-shaped lump on my forehead and the greenish bruise surrounding it. Thankfully, rather than detract from my good looks, it merely gave me a more rakish, rapscallion sort of appeal that played well with the demented princess crowd.

“I’ll live,” I told my concerned servant. “Now, take me to the Rose. And hurry.”

Karl elevated an eyebrow, but didn’t comment. Instead, he hefted his pudgy frame into the driver’s seat and took off, throwing me against the sun-warmed leather of the backseat. Two seconds later, the limo screeched to the curb. I flew forward, mashing my face against the privacy screen.

“We’re here.” Karl hopped out of the vehicle and opened my door. “Watch your step, sir,” he said with much too much glee.

Stifling a few choice curses, I staggered from the car, wiping away a trail of blood leaking from my nostril. “You might’ve mentioned we were across the street.”

He nodded. “I might’ve.”

I ignored him in favor of far better game. My sights were set on Lollie Bliss. Nothing could deter me, except, apparently, the locked front door of the Rose. I knocked on the glass. “Hey! Open up.”

On the other side of the glass the red-haired midget, looking much too chipper for eight in the morning, beamed and waved. Ever the idiot, Karl waved back. I pounded harder, rattling the door frame.

The midget tilted her head to one side and cupped her hand over her ear as if she couldn’t hear me.

“I said open the damn door.”

Rather than do what I asked, she closed the blinds in my face.

“Shit!”

“I believe the establishment is closed, sir.”

“Really?” I glowered at Karl. “And what gave you that bright idea?”

Rather than shrink under my sarcasm, he grinned. “The sign, sir.” His finger pointed to a red and white Closed sign hanging in the window.

Before I could pummel Karl for his mockery, Tweedle, the overgrown biker from last night, came around the corner. He stopped when he saw me, his eye darting back and forth. “Hey,” he said as if just recognizing me, “you’re that guy.”

I nodded.

“Man, you pissed Red off bad last night,” Tweedle said, shivering in the burning-hot sun. “After you left, she called you all sorts of names.”

“Charming.”

“That ain’t one of them.”

No doubt. In all fairness, I’d called her employer much worse, and I’d meant every utterance. I focused my attention back on Tweedle. “Have you seen Ms. Bliss today?”

“What’s it to you?”

Plastering a sincere smile on my face, I took a step forward, all unassuming frog prince. “We were supposed to meet. Here. A few minutes ago . . . to . . . ah . . . finish my tattoo.” I tapped my chest for show. “I guess I missed her.”

Tweedle nodded, his triple chins bobbing with every movement. “Yeah, Lollie met with some guy and then took off on a bike.”

Spindle, I bet. “How long ago?”

“Like, an hour ago.”

“Any idea where she went?”

He shrugged his massive shoulders. “She said something about a job in that gated community on the hill.”

A lump of fear formed in the back of my throat. Beauty lived in the Old MacDonald gated community; her palace overlooked his farm to be precise. Prime Cin City real estate, if one could stand the stench of heated baa baa black sheep shit all summer. “Did she say what the job was?”

“Nope,” he paused to scratch his blubbery chin, “but she brought her gun.”