Wicked Appetite

CHAPTER FIVE

We left the building and crossed the sidewalk to Glo. She was waiting in the car, head back, eyes closed, hooked up to her iPod, singing at full volume. Diesel rapped on the back side window, and Glo jumped in her seat.

“Make a mental note,” Diesel said to me. “You don’t want to get caught like that by Wulf. He’ll be all over you in a heartbeat. Stay vigilant when I’m not with you.”

It seemed to me I might be in more danger from Diesel than from Wulf. Wulf only popped up twice, and he left right away. I couldn’t get rid of Diesel, and I really had no way of knowing if he was a good guy or a bad guy.

Diesel looked down at me, and I suspected he knew my thoughts. His eyes darkened ever so slightly, but aside from that, his expression was unreadable.

“What happens if we find this Stone?” I asked him.

“I hand it over to the BUM, and they put it someplace safe,” Diesel said.

“Suppose Shirley doesn’t want to give it to you?”

“I persuade her to change her mind.”

“Would you steal it?”

“That wouldn’t be my first choice.”

“And Wulf?”

Diesel opened the car door for me. “Wulf will do whatever it takes to get what he wants.”

We got into the SUV, Diesel plugged the key into the ignition, and we went silent at the sight of a woman walking toward us on the opposite side of the street.

“Is that Cupcake Shirley?” Glo asked, leaning forward from the backseat.

“Yep,” I said. “It’s Shirley.”

Shirley was alone, carrying an oversize purse and a take-home bag from a local restaurant. She had short, curly brown hair and a pretty face. I placed her at late-thirties. She was average height, and her weight was average for a woman who could eat thirty-six cupcakes in a single sitting. She was wearing a flower-print tent dress and low heels.

A silver Camry pulled up next to Shirley, and the guy in the passenger seat rolled his window down and called out to her. We were too far away to hear his words, but Shirley looked annoyed and shook her head no. There was a brief conversation, then Shirley turned and resumed walking. The guy got out, ran after Shirley, and grabbed her by her arm. Shirley spun around, coldcocked him in the face with her purse, and kicked him square in the crotch. The guy stood stunned for a moment, dropped to his knees, and went fetal. Shirley continued on her way.

“Ow,” Diesel said.

The Camry driver got out from behind the wheel, dragged his passenger back to the car, and they took off.

“I know this is weird, but I’m pretty sure those were the men in the photo,” I said to Diesel.

“What photo?” Glo wanted to know.

“Diesel was looking for something in Shirley’s apartment just now, and while we were there, I saw a photo of her and another woman and those two men.”

“Get out!” Glo’s voice shot into Minnie Mouse range. “You were in Cupcake Shirley’s apartment? What were you looking for? Is she a thief? A spy? An Internet porn star?”

“She’s a Glutton,” I said.

“Yeah, but you can’t hold that against her,” Glo said. “Did you get what you were looking for?”

“No.”

“You should go back and confront her and demand that she hand it over. And if she won’t hand it over, I could put a spell on her. There’s a whole chapter in my book on making people spill the beans.”

I looked over at Diesel. “What do you think?”

“The spell might be fun.”

“I wasn’t talking about the spell. I was talking about confronting her.”

Diesel pulled the key out of the ignition. “We could try that, too.”

Three minutes later, we were all at Shirley’s door.

“What’s the plan?” Glo asked.

“This is going to be the Lizzy Show,” Diesel said, back on his heels. “Lizzy is going to explain to Shirley how she shorted her a cupcake.”

“Works for me,” Glo said. “And what are we trying to get?”

“The Gluttonoid,” Diesel said.

I did a giant eye roll. “Good grief.”

Diesel grinned at me. “You don’t like Gluttonoid?”

“You just made that up.”

“Yeah,” Diesel said. “You got something better?”

I turned to Glo. “You know how when you go out to buy new shoes and you don’t exactly know what you want until you see it? The thing we’re looking for is sort of like that.”

Diesel rang the bell, and Shirley opened the door and peeked out at us.

“Hi,” I said. “We’re from Dazzle’s. I’m the cupcake baker, and you probably know Glo.”

Shirley smiled wide. “Sure. I know both of you. I love Dazzle’s. I’m thinking about increasing my cupcake order.”

She looked beyond me to Diesel, and her eyes glazed over a little, like she’d just seen the mother of all cupcakes.

“This is Diesel,” I told her.

“ ’Lo,” Shirley said.

I pushed past Shirley and eased myself in. “I wanted to talk to you about the cupcakes.”

That got Shirley’s attention off Diesel. “What about them? You’re not going to stop making them, are you? I couldn’t get through the day without them. I save them for bedtime.”

“I just wanted to tell you there’s a cupcake missing. I dropped a cupcake on the floor while I was filling the boxes, and I didn’t have any extras. I meant to put a note in with your order but forgot. So we stopped by to tell you.”

“Was it chocolate or carrot cake?”

“Chocolate.”

“I love the chocolate ones,” she said.

Glo followed me in, and in my peripheral vision I could see her head swiveling around, scoping out Shirley’s apartment.

“Yowza,” Glo whispered.

“It looked like you had a scuffle with a man just as we were driving up,” I said to Shirley. “Are you okay?”

“That was my idiot stepbrother, Mark. I haven’t seen him in seven years, not since my Uncle Phil died, and now all of a sudden he’s following me around, asking for stuff.”

Holy cow. She coldcocked her stepbrother. I had the guy pegged for a mugger or random pervert. “What kind of stuff does he want? Is he, you know, dangerous?”

“I don’t know. My parents divorced when I was four, and my mom and I moved to Seattle. I never saw my stepbrothers or my cousins until Uncle Phil died. I came back for the funeral and never left. How strange is that, right?”

“So you lived here in Salem for seven years, but you never saw your stepbrother after the funeral?”

“I guess everyone was mad because I was in the will. No one was real friendly to me.”

“What did Uncle Phil leave you?” I asked her.

“It’s a secret. All the inheritances were secret, and we were told we’d have eternal bad luck if we revealed what we got.”

“Wow,” Glo said. “Eternal bad luck would be for a long time.”

“Yeah. And now idiot Mark wants my inheritance. He says he’s a collector. Fat chance he has of ever getting it. He couldn’t pay me enough. Him and his brother, Lenny. Too bad I didn’t get a chance to kick Lenny in the you-know-whats. Except Lenny would probably like it. From what I can see, Lenny is a real glutton for punishment.”

“That’s an odd choice of words,” Diesel said.

“It’s a figure of speech,” Shirley said.

I was watching Glo from the corner of my eye. She was feverishly thumbing through her book, her teeth sunk into her lower lip in concentration.

“Eureka,” Glo said. “Here it is. Ibis by honor. Tongue tie not. Freely speaketh. Truth told, I command magpie Shirley More.” Glo snapped her fingers twice and clapped her hands once. She pointed at Shirley, closed her eyes, and chanted, “Shirley. Shirley. Shirley.”

Diesel had eyebrows slightly raised. “Have you ever cast this spell?”

“No,” Glo said. “But I’m pretty sure I did it right.”

“Glamma bamma,” Shirley said.

We all turned to her.

“I wiggum big dick do flammy stick,” she said. “Eep! Lick stick rubba dubba.” Her eyes got wide, and she clapped her hands over her mouth. She shook her head. That wasn’t what she meant to say. “Gooky ball. Big gooky ball!”

Shirley was talking gibberish. My first thought was stroke. My second thought was psycho mushrooms. My third thought was so outlandish I didn’t even want to articulate it. My third thought was that Glo had done it.

“Holy cow,” Glo said. “What happened? She wasn’t supposed to talk gibberish. It was supposed to be a truth spell.”

“Are you sure you read the spell right?” Diesel asked Glo.

“I read it straight from the book. I was supposed to have powdered yak brain, but I couldn’t see where that would make a difference. I mean, we were in a crunch situation here, and I didn’t have any yak brain.”

Shirley glared at Glo. “You fart foreskin!”

“Criminy,” Glo said. “That’s harsh.”

“Okay,” I said to Glo, “assuming Shirley isn’t yanking our chain, and you actually cast some sort of spell… how about removing it.”

Glo had her nose buried in her book. “There doesn’t seem to be an anti-spell here.”

I looked over at Diesel.

“I’ve got nothing,” Diesel said. “I don’t do spells.”

Shirley looked panicky. “Scooby booby,” she said.

“Maybe it’ll wear off,” Glo said. “Some of these spells are temporary. The book isn’t always specific about length of time.”

“Hear that?” I said to Shirley. “Good news. The spell might wear off.”

Shirley flipped me the finger.

“More good news,” Diesel said. “She knows sign language.”

Shirley pulled her middle finger back and extended her index finger.

“One minute?” Glo guessed.

Shirley nodded. She whirled around and went into the bedroom.

“Maybe she’s going to come out with the secret inheritance,” Glo said.

I cut my eyes to Diesel. “This isn’t going well, is it?”

Diesel blew out a sigh.

A moment later, Shirley marched out of her bedroom with the tent dress billowing around her. She raised her arm and pointed a gun at us.

“Eat poop and clock,” Shirley said.

I spun around and ran for the door, shoving Glo in front of me. Bang, bang, bang. A bullet embedded itself in the wall and a chunk of plaster fell to the floor. We flew flat out, down the stairs, through the small lobby, and across the street with Diesel behind us. We jumped into the SUV, and Diesel wheeled away.

It had all happened so fast. My heart was pounding, and I was scramble-brained. This was the first time I’d ever had a gun aimed at me. And as if it wasn’t awful enough, I’d been shot at by one of my cupcake customers.

Diesel didn’t seem to be overly bothered. He’d been the prime target, bringing up the rear, but he was looking calm behind the wheel.

“Are you okay?” I asked him.

“Yeah. She’s not much of a marksman. And even if she’d tagged me, I’m not easy to kill.”

Okay, I guess that explained his composure. He wasn’t easy to kill. Unlike me. I was a wimpy human held together by skin and dumb luck.

We got halfway down the block, and Glo leaned forward. “Now what?” Glo wanted to know. “Is it still happy hour?”

I stared at Glo. “Happy hour? Are you serious? How could you think about happy hour? We were just shot at. We could have been killed. And we left a woman talking nonsense. And happy hour ended hours ago.”

“I guess that was my bad,” Glo said, “but honestly, I didn’t think yak brain would make a difference.”