A bag of vibrators. Helen dropped it. She had a sudden searing vision of Fred in his HOME OF THE WHOPPER underwear and Ethel in a flag-draped negligee.
“Where’s Helen’s money?” Margery said. “Don’t make me use this.” The gun was right in Fred’s face, and this time Helen didn’t care if she fired it. “What did you do with it?”
“It’s gone,” Fred said. “We went on the gambling boats.”
“You blew my money gambling?” Helen thought of the brutal hours she’d worked to earn that cash. Now it was all lost. Only suckers played the gambling boats. The Mertzes might as well have dumped her hard-earned money in the ocean.
“Open your wallets,” Margery said. “Get them out. Right now.”
“What? You can’t do this.” But Fred and Ethel fished out their wallets and handed them to Margery. She looked through Ethel’s fat wallet first, pulling out a driver’s license.
Then she searched Fred’s wallet.
“There’s two sets of ID in here,” Margery said. “Are you Fred and Ethel Mertz—or John and Mary Smith?”
“Our real name is Smith,” Ethel said. “But it’s so common. It was embarrassing when we checked into a motel. We had trouble cashing checks. We got tired of the jokes and changed our names.”
“You’re
“We never watched that silly show,” Ethel said haughtily.
“I named myself for Ethel Merman. He’s a Fred MacMurray fan.”
“So why aren’t you Mr. and Mrs. Fred MacMurray?”
“That would make us into a joke,” Ethel said. Helen gave up.
“Quit gabbing,” Margery said. She seemed to have borrowed her dialogue from late-night movies. “Phil, will you search their car for cash?”
Phil pulled everything out of the Mertzes’ Chevy, even the backseat. He checked the glove box, the wheel wells and the spare-tire compartment. He felt under the seats and dash. He even took off the door panels. Helen went through every box and suitcase in the car. They didn’t find another nickel.
Helen’s thirty-two hundred dollars was gone for good.
Margery found five hundred dollars in the Mertzes’ wallets. She extracted a twenty.
“That will pay for my broken lamp,” she said. “Here, Helen, the rest is yours. I’m sorry I couldn’t get it all back.”
“I never expected to see this much,” Helen said.
“Hey, how are we going to buy gas?” Fred said.
“In my day,” Margery said, “people worked for their money. You might try it.”
Phil announced that the car search was over. “What can they take with them?” he asked.
“They can keep the suitcases with their clothes,” Margery said. “But I’m confiscating all those tourist T- shirts. People think Florida is tacky enough without Fred and Ethel wearing those shirts back home.”
Margery also kept a citrus juicer and a blender, both in the original boxes. “Those are ours,” Fred insisted.
“Show me the receipts,” Margery said.
“I didn’t keep them,” he said.
“Then I keep these,” Margery said. “I’ll use them to make me some interesting drinks. Screwdrivers with fresh orange juice. Margaritas and strawberry daiquiris. Lighten up, Fred.
Fresh fruit is good for you. Alcohol is a preservative.”
Fred and Ethel bristled like wet cats.
Finally, they were allowed to get in their car. “Don’t ever come back,” Margery said. “Do you understand?”
Fred and Ethel had all the expression of crash-test dummies. They nodded but said nothing. Fred started up the ghostly white car. The foggy night quickly swallowed it.
Helen, Margery and Phil watched the crooked couple disappear.
“Whew, glad that’s over,” Margery said. “This thing is heavy.” She tossed the gun onto the concrete. It spun crazily, like a lethal party game. Helen and Phil leaped backward as the barrel pointed in their direction.
“Careful,” Phil said.
“It’s OK,” Margery said. “It’s not loaded. Never was. I don’t even keep bullets in the house.”
“Margery, that doesn’t make any difference. You have to treat every gun like it’s loaded.” Phil was a shade paler.
“I hate guns,” Margery said.
“Maybe you should start packing oven cleaner,” Helen said.
Chapter 23
Margery stood like a triumphant queen in her purple robe, with a crown of red sponge curlers. Her enchanted kingdom was restored. She had banished the trolls, Fred and Ethel.
Her plundered treasures were back in apartment 2C.
The Coronado was in deep-night quiet. The other residents slept as if under a spell. White fingers of fog wrapped themselves around the palm trees and snagged on the bougainvillea spikes. The pool lights glowed, magical in the mist.
Phil gave a small, neat yawn, like a cat. Helen was afraid he would disappear into the fog, along with his wizard weapon. Phil had been invisible for more than a year. It could happen again. She blocked his way. “You owe me an explanation.”
“I don’t owe you anything. And I can’t tell you anything,” he said.
Helen could feel the heat from his bare chest. The odd, hazy moonlight turned his hair to spun silver “Margery will vouch for me.”
Her landlady pulled her purple robe tighter to ward off the chill, then picked a loose curler from her hair. “Listen, Phil, if you told me, you can tell her. She’s in the middle of it, anyway. It’s better if she isn’t blundering about, causing more trouble.”
“Thank you for that vote of confidence,” Helen said, stiffly.
“Come back to my kitchen. We can get warm and talk, Margery said. “I’ll make some coffee, unless you’d rather have a drink.”
They settled for decaf and warm brownies at Margery’s kitchen table.
“These brownies are terrific,” Phil said. “Are they homemade?”
He ate neatly. Helen’s ex-husband, Rob, had dropped crumbs all over the table and the floor, like a messy child in a high chair.
“Nuked them with my own two hands,” Margery said.
“Now, why don’t you quit wasting your breath praising my box brownies?”
“I’m not sure where to start,” Phil said.
He was stalling. “Let’s pick up where we were the other night,” Helen said, helpfully.
“Good idea. Take off your top.” Phil grinned.
Helen flushed red with anger and disappointment. The man was a slob after all. “That was below the...”
“Belt?” Phil raised one eyebrow.
“That was beneath you.” Helen wished she didn’t find that eyebrow so sexy. She was suddenly aware she wasn’t wearing anything under her short robe. “You were a gentleman at the Mowbrys’ party. Now you sound like a pig.”
“Helen, since you were half-naked when you met the man, it’s difficult to take the high moral road,” Margery said.
“I was undercover,” Helen said.
Margery snorted like she’d run the Triple Crown. Phil started talking, possibly to cover his embarrassment— and Helen’s. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
He apologized neatly, too, Helen thought. He could have said he was tired and it was late. But Phil gave no
