Homemade Sin (42 page)

“Just bring us four of the most expensive entrees on the menu,” Death said.

When Dee Dee moved on to the next table to take Jones' and Bella's order, Jones slid a small note across the table to her.

Dee Dee's eyes grew wide as saucers as she read the note. She stuck her hand in her apron pocket and wrapped her fingers around the vial of Borko powder, wondering how to dispose of it.

“I think I'll have the fugu today,” Jones said, ignoring Dee Dee's reaction.

“I think I'll pass,” Bella said.

Dee Dee scribbled his order on her waitress pad and walked trance-like to the sushi bar. She saw Cutter peering through a crack in the kitchen door and stepped over to him. “The cops know,” she whispered through the crack.

“What happened?” said Cutter. “Did that cop say something?”

Dee Dee placed the note in Cutter's hand. “I know it was you,” he read aloud.

“Are they going to arrest us?” Cutter said.

“It's one cop,” Dee Dee said, “and if he had any real proof he'd be arresting us right now. Hang tight, I'll take care of it.” She smiled at him through the crack. I have to get rid of this voodoo powder, she thought.

Dee Dee had plates lined up at her sushi station for the four men dressed like tourists at the back table. She gazed around the room to make sure nobody was looking as she covertly retrieved the vial of Borko powder from her apron pocket and dumped the entire contents onto the slab of fugu she was cutting. She plated the orders for the four yachtsmen and brought the plates to their table.

As she strode back to the sushi table, a nattily dressed man approached her. Dee Dee discreetly dropped her hand holding the vial of Borko to her side.

“Do you remember me?” Winfrey Pinth Merrmian said as he approached. “I was in here a while back. I wrote a very complimentary review of your culinary skills in the Saint Petersburg Beach Times. The Snooty Foodie …?”

“Oh yeah,” Dee Dee said, as she opened her hand and let the vial drop into the trash can beside the sushi table. “Wasn't there another man in here with you before?”

“Oh yes, my constant dinner companion,” Winfrey said, placing his hand over his heart, “may he rest in peace.”

“He died?” Dee Dee said.

“Unfortunately, yes. I'm afraid it may have been something he ate.”

“What happens to people after they leave here isn't my problem,” Dee Dee said, waving a long sharp knife at the man. “If you're thinking about suing me, forget it. I got no money for you to sue me out of.”

“No, no,” Winfrey said. “I'm not here to take your money. I'm here with a proposal to make us both extremely rich.”

Dee Dee plated the final fillets of Borko-laced fish to make up Jones's order. “I'll be right back,” she said as she headed for the table where Jones and Bella were sitting.

Dee Dee sat the plate of fugu in front of Jones and smiled. “Bon appetite,” she said as she turned back toward the sushi bar. Under her breath she said “More like rest in peace.”

“I believe this little restaurant is ripe for a franchising opportunity,” said Winfrey, as Dee Dee returned to the sushi table. “I see Fugu Lounges all over the country. It could be the biggest thing since the Cracker Barrel.”

“I don't own the place,” Dee Dee said. “You'll have to talk to Roland, the guy over behind the bar, he's the owner.”

“I have already spoken with him. He doesn't share my enthusiasm for the project, but he said that you were the force behind this little restaurant motif and that if you wished to pursue this opportunity he would be most amenable.”

“What does that mean?” Dee Dee said.

“Simply that I would bankroll franchising this restaurant and you would be my full partner in the enterprise. We would start with other locations in Florida first, open a Fugu Two on the east coast, perhaps Miami or Boca Raton. I actually have my eye on a little place in West Palm that has recently come up for lease. Then we work our way up the east coast. Open Fugu Lounges in all the major cities, Daytona, Savannah, Atlanta, Charleston, Richmond, New York.”

”Let me think about it,” Dee Dee said.

Winfrey reached into his jacket pocket and produced two envelopes with a flourish. Dee Dee could see her name written on one, in a fine calligraphic hand. Roland's name was written on the other. Winfrey selected the one marked Dee Dee and handed it over to her. “Something to consider while you are thinking,” he said.

Dee Dee slipped her fingernail behind the flap of the envelope and ripped it open. She stood slack jawed, staring at a check for three hundred thousand dollars. Before she could fully absorb the amount written on the check, Jones waved her over and asked to pay his bill.

“But you haven't touched your food,” Dee Dee said.

“I'd like a to-go box,” Jones said and winked at Dee Dee. “I think I'll have this analyzed. See what the boys in the lab can find.”

Dee Dee heard a gagging noise from across the dining room and noticed the four men who had eaten the Borko-laden fugu were in the early throes of the zombie powder. They were twitching and moaning, noses running, eyes rolling back in their heads.

“Pssst,” Dee Dee heard Cutter whisper and saw him crook his finger at her through the kitchen door.

“What the hell is going on?” Cutter said. “Those guys by the window are acting like they got some voodoo powder.”

“I told you that cop is on to us,” Dee Dee said nervously. “So I had to dump the powder, I dumped it into the food. And the cop is going to have his analyzed. When he gets the results we're both going to jail.”

“You dumped the powder in the food! You've created more zombies!” Through the crack in the door, Cutter watched the four touristy diners convulse.

With Dee Dee distracted, whispering through the kitchen door to Cutter, Jones slipped over to the sushi table and dug the vial of Borko out of the trash. As he slipped the empty vial into his pocket, Hussey stormed through the door, scanning the room for Dee Dee and Cutter.

“Oh shit, more trouble,” Dee Dee said as she watched Hussey enter the bar, scouring the room with her eyes. Dee Dee ducked into the kitchen and joined Cutter peering from the crack in the door.

“Hussey, honey!” Roland said, moving around the bar toward her. He threw his arms around her and pulled her close. “Jones told me you got out! Are you OK? What happened?”

Hussey hugged him back and planted a distracted peck on his cheek. She looked over his shoulder, and continued checking the room. “I'll explain later,” she said, as her gaze came to rest on two sets of eyes peeking out from the kitchen door, like a two-headed totem pole. “Right now I'm a woman on a mission.” She stepped around Roland and made for the kitchen door.

Pulling her head inside the kitchen Dee Dee said. “She saw me! She's going to kill me! I have to get out of here!” Before Cutter could object, Dee Dee had disappeared through the back door into the alley. Moments later Cutter heard tires squeal on pavement. He peeked out of the back door in time to see a car speed away with Dee Dee in the passenger seat.

Hussey was distracted from her pursuit of Dee Dee by a muffled gurgling noise and glanced over toward the source at corner table. “I'm too late,” she thought as she stared at the table of four men with their faces in their plates, bubbling saliva into their fugu.

Hussey approached the table and placed her hand on Death's throat to feel a pulse.

“It's the girl,” Death mumbled just before he passed out.

“Zombies?” Bella said to Hussey from her table.

“That's what it looks like to me,” Hussey said. “Dee Dee did it again, didn't she? Now the question is – are they Mambo zombies or Borko zombies?”

“Does this help?” Jones pulled the empty vial from his pocket.

Hussey examined the vial: Borko. “Yes, this is the stuff,” she said, her eyes wide. That's Mama Wati's old zombie powder, not my stuff. Borko is irreversible, it fries brains permanently.”

“She must have dumped the bottle in these folks' food as well as mine,” Jones said.

“I hope you didn't eat anything,” Hussey said, looking him up and down for zombie signs.

He winked. “No, but I have enough voodoo-powder-laced fugu for the folks in the lab to analyze. And there should be enough residue in that vial to match to the fish. I saw Dee Dee drop this vial in the trash. I got her.”

“Should we call the paramedics?” Jones said as he watched the men at the window table periodically twitch and jerk.

“No point,” Hussey said. “There's nothing they could do. All you can do for them now is take care of them, make sure they don't hurt themselves.” Hussey gazed past the comatose diners and spied Cutter peeking through the kitchen door. When her gaze fell on him, Cutter's face disappeared.

“There's something I need to do,” Hussey said to Bella and Jones. As she strode purposefully toward the kitchen Hussey made a side trip behind the bar. She reached up and removed the silver runcible spoon from its hook. With vengeance written large in her grin, Hussey held the spoon up to show Roland. “This time I'm not using a vulture foot,” she said as she disappeared through the door into the kitchen.

Hussey surveyed the kitchen looking for Cutter. “Where are you, you sniveling worm?” She noticed the cooler door was slightly ajar and strode toward it. She found Cutter cowering behind a box of lemons in the back of the cooler. When he realized Hussey had found him he stepped out from behind the lemons and faced her, a guilty, remorseful expression on his face. Cutter knew he had to sweet-talk Hussey like he'd never sweet-talked before or she would kill him.

“First you lose all my money, then you trick me into making a zombie, you lie to the police and get me arrested. Any last words before I castrate you with this runcible spoon?” Hussey brandished the spoon and tried to rein in the rage in her voice.

“I did it all for you,” whined Cutter, taking a step back from the spoon-wielding Hussey.

“What?” Hussey said. “You lost my money and had me arrested for me?”

“I only went along with Dee Dee's plan to get your money back,” Cutter said. “Making those people into zombies wasn't my idea. She forced me to help her. I thought if I got your money back you'd forgive me, at least talk to me, and maybe we could start over, be together again. And I did deposit my winnings in your account, almost paid you back all of it. After all we've been through, and all we've meant to each other, we deserve to give it another try. We were meant to be together.”

Well, Dee Dee is a bitch, Hussey thought. And I know she is capable of that … maybe he's being sincere. It's only money and he was my first love … he's admitting he screwed up … “And getting me arrested?” Hussey lowered the spoon a little, beginning to soften.

“I had to do that,” Cutter said, on the defensive. “Dee Dee would have killed me if I hadn't backed her up; you don't know her … she's vicious. And now Dee Dee has run off and I'm going to be arrested for murder. Florida has the death penalty. They're going to strap me into the electric chair and make me ride the lightning.”

“Where did Dee Dee go?” Hussey said.

“The last I saw of her she jumped into a hot pink corvette with that food critic. They were headed south.”

“Well, you're not going to jail for murder,” Hussey said, letting her hand that held the spoon drop to her side. “Nobody died. The race car driver and the boxer are alive, actually better than before. The Mambo powder cured their psychological problems.”

“Then your powder works!” gushed Cutter. “That's so great! And if it wasn't for me tricking you into using it on the driver you'd never know that it works on people. I actually helped you!”

“I guess that's true in a twisted sort of way,” Hussey said. “I'm probably going to make a lot of money from the formula, a lot more than you lost.”

“And us? Can we try again?”

“Jeez Cutter,” Hussey shook her head, “I don't know …”

“It was always you,” Cutter cut her off. “I need you,” Cutter pleaded “Sure, the sex with Dee Dee was awesome, a lot better than you, but I need someone like you, someone settled, stable, comfortable and now we are going to be rich from your formula.”

The only word Hussey heard after ‘better than you' was ‘we' as in ‘we are going to be rich. The manipulating weasel was just trying to get his hand on the money, she realized. “That's it you slimy, conniving shit!” Hussey brandished the spoon again and stepped toward him, “I'm going to castrate you with this runcible spoon!”

Nikja heard the screams coming from the beach and rushed to the window to investigate. He stood, staring out of the window of his beach hotel in amazement, as beachgoers ran screaming in terror toward the motel, running ahead of a clown who was being chased by a werewolf, which was being chased by a greyhound wearing a number on its back.