Fat Assassins (The Fat Adventure Series) Read online

  She knocked on the door.

  “What?” he grunted, “I’m busy!”

  Minnie pushed the door open as he minimized a webpage covered with half-naked women and Cyrillic writing.

  “It’s me,” she said sweetly.

  “Well, come on in. What can I do for ya, honey?”

  Being in the office with both of them gave me the creeps. Their sickening flirtation reinforced the rumors of fraternization.

  “It’s Shasta. AGAIN. She’s refuses to maintain store standards.”

  “We can’t have that!” He spun back around to his computer, printed a document and handed it to me. “Read and sign it.”

  I scanned the performance summary.

  Robert Lydel is formally counseled for inappropriate relations with local civilian, Tamera Watkins, on company property during official work hours. An associate reported Robert engaging in lewd acts in the produce storage area during the night shift after he did not respond to multiple calls. Corrective Actions: Performance Improvement Plan with three month evaluation periods.

  “Um, I think you gave me the wrong paperwork,” I said, handing the paper back to him.

  “Oh.” He turned it face down on the desk and printed a new one. “Here you go.”

  It looked like a generic template for insubordination. I signed it so I wouldn’t have to listen to anymore droning about my lack of respect and substandard work quality.

  I just risked my life to protect a buggy full of crap and this is the thanks I get.

  I tried focusing on the financial freedom of my winning lottery ticket, but my anger began shaping into a diabolical plan for revenge. After they finished their lectures I walked out of the office ready to put my plan in motion.

  Maybe all those years of watching Ulyssa taught me some tricks or maybe some of the roofie was still in my system because I was getting ready to cause mass psychological chaos in our local Wal-Mart.

  “Attention Wal-Mart shoppers!” I chimed over the PA system. “Please visit our produce section, where you’ll find oranges 50% off the regular price. While you’re there, be sure and thank Rob, our produce manager for the discount since he was fornicating on ‘em.”

  A wave of people dead-stopped and pivoted their carts toward the produce section.

  “As an extra bonus today, I’d also like to inform Wal-Mart shoppers that Minnie, our associate manager, is cheating on her husband with Bobby Ray, our store manager. To celebrate their adulterous relationship, take an additional 25% off condoms. You can never be to safe when you’re screwing the boss.”

  The wave stopped again, torn between rushing the discounted oranges and condoms, or waiting for the next discount announcement.

  The tweedles elbowed their way through the crowd eyeing me with serious intent.

  “Put the handset down. Nobody has to get hurt,” Bob said, placing his right hand on his taser holster.

  “Are you kidding?” I asked in disbelief.

  Bob gave a subtle nod to Billy, who shuffled left just out of my view. I spun towards him as he raised his arms, leveling his pistol style taser at me.

  I stared at the red laser dot on my chest, raising my hands in surrender.

  A thunderous pop echoed as Billy pulled the trigger, launching the wired taser probes at me.

  The voltage vibrated through my body as the first probe hit my rib cage and the second lodged in my left breast. Clinching the mic, my body shimmied and shook as I emitted a Chewbacca scream. “MMMWWWAA--AH-AH-AH-AAHH--AHH--AAAAAHHHH!” echoing through the store speakers.

  My upper body instinctively curled around the impact areas as voltage pulsed down the wires. Bob yelled something, but I couldn’t hear him over my scream and the repetitive popping sounds of the taser.

  Two more probes struck my right hip, spasming my leg muscles as I tilted towards the floor. I tried to scream again, but a stream of drool dribbled down the side of my face instead. The cold, hard Wal-Mart floor logo welcomed my face to the floor as I lost consciousness.

  Furious whispers and an overpowering rose perfume drew me out of my comatose state.

  Oh, no! We’re in Minnie’s office.

  “Technically, she didn’t do anything illegal! I can’t believe you taze’d her! And both of you idiots tazed her at the same damn time! You coulda killed her! If she wasn’t so fat I bet we’d be feeding her through a straw now!”

  The tweedles stood silently at attention, while Minnie paced in front of them.

  “I’m not even supposed to have subcontracted security staff, it’s against company policy! Damn-it-to-hell! This could be a huge lawsuit against Wal-Mart and I COULD LOSE MY JOB!”

  So the tweedles had been hired without corporate approval. Good to know.

  “Ma’am! I was just trying to get her to stop talking, ma’am.” Minnie turned her full attention to Tweedle Dee, waiting for more information. “I guess I got caught up in the heat of the moment. It must’a been that National Guard training I went through back in ’78 cause I went straight into combat mode!” He accentuated his words with a flying crane kick that knocked the computer monitor off Minnie’s desk.

  Not to be outdone, Tweedle Dumb jumped into the fray “And there ain’t a-no-way I was-a-gonna let Billy use deadly force without me. I mean, we could get awards for apprehending such a dangerous criminal. You think they’re gonna give us a key to the city? Cause I always wanted one of them big keys! I’d put it on a necklace and wear it around like Flava-Flav. Hotties can’t resist the bling!”

  Minnie turned completely red and her body started convulsing like she was about to internally combust.

  A raspy guffaw escaped my lungs.

  She turned her radiating, bloodshot eyes on me.

  “YOU’VE created quite a problem, Shasta.” She took a menacing step towards me. “If you go quietly, we won’t press charges for your slander.”

  That’s the best career advice you’ve ever given me.

  I was massaging creme onto my taser burn marks and staring at the winning lottery ticket when Ulyssa got home from work. She didn’t usually work weekends, but the construction company is under the gun to finish a big government project.

  Government contracts have been a mainstay in the Nitro economy since the government built a large ammunition factory here during World War I. The effort didn’t do much for the community, except inspire the town name, because the first shipment of gunpowder was its last. When the war ended, the government moved out and chemical companies seized the opportunity to use the facilities for manufacturing. Now we have a chemical valley in Nitro. Eventually, the Environmental Protection Agency started cleaning up the valley.

  Miller’s was one of the construction companies selected to support the EPA contract and Ulyssa helped draft the proposals for an initiative to reduce the environmental ‘footprint’ of the region. Nobody in town knows what an environmental ‘footprint’ is, but they do know it means high dollar contracts and lots of work.

  It looked like the long hours were wearing on Ulyssa when she came in, rubbing her temples. She dropped her purse on the table and sank down into the other end of the couch with a big sigh.

  “I got fired!” We both exclaimed at the same time.

  “You too?” We started laughing and crying.

  It took forever to regain our composure enough for me to finish explaining what happened at Wal-Mart.

  “You can’t be serious!” she said, shaking her head.

  I pulled my sweatpants down over my hip so she could see the taser burns.

  “OMG! Are you okay? You should sue their asses! That’s illegal!”

  “It’s still sore, but I’m okay. I could probably sue them, but I reckon they could probably counter sue me for slander. I’m sure nobody will be buying produce there for a while.” I smiled, imagining Billy Ray trying to explain the sudden profit losses to corporate. “So, what happened with your job?”

  “Rick’s wife, Sheila, started getting suspicious because he’s been worki
ng all these weekends. So, she started snooping around and found extra sets of utensils in his glovebox. You know how he likes to steal the utensils from Outback steakhouse... says he can’t find knifes like that anywhere else... anyway... so she found six sets. They hadn’t been to Outback in a long time and the even number of sets made her even more suspicious, so she bought one of them lint rollers and ran it over his truck seats. I still can’t decide if she’s smart or crazy, but she found a bunch of long, dark hairs. So, she confronted Rick with her ‘forensic’ evidence last night. And he told her he’d been having an affair with me!”

  I exhaled and stared at her while the question hung in the hair.

  “Of course, I’m not having an affair with him! You know I don’t mess around with married men. I believe in karma and that kinda stuff will come back around to you later. He didn’t want to tell her he’d been seeing, Emma, Salvo’s wife. You saw them last night, there’s no doubt that he’s alley cat’ing it with her.”

  “He’s a coward!” I said, in her defense.

  “Can’t say I really blame him for not telling everyone it’s Emma though. Salvo’s his best crane operator, but he’s a nutter and he’d probably kill him. Rumor has it he’s a weapons dealer on the side too, so he’s probably got loads of guns.”

  I’m glad he didn’t find them at the bar. He would’a blown it up, for sure.

  Her eyes got watery as she continued, “Shelia came storming into the office this morning and started screaming at me in front of the whole crew. Calling me all kinds of names and accusing me of seducing her naive husband. She stood there screaming until Rick told me he’d have to let me go and I could pick up my last check next Friday. It was humiliating, but I was too stunned to do anything so I just packed up my stuff and left. By this time tomorrow the whole town is gonna think I’m a ho!”

  “It looks like we both picked the wrong day to swap personalities,” I said, wrapping a comforting arm around her, “at least we’ve got enough money to keep us going for a little while, thanks to our winning lottery ticket!”

  She sniffed.

  “C’mon let’s go get a beer and burger at Buck’s. My treat!”

  Tater walked up to the table as we were polishing off our greasy cheeseburgers. “Hey cuz!”

  I jumped up from the booth and gave him a big hug. “I’m glad to see you! That was the best birthday present ever! You have no idea how awesome it turned out to be... me and Ulyssa got fired today and that ticket is going to save us!”

  “Glad you liked it! I thought you might get a kick out of it! I just wish I could have been there to see your face!”

  “Huh?”

  “You didn’t think it was funny?” His grin faded as a look of confusion passed across my face.

  “You read the back of the ticket for instructions on how to claim your winnings, didn’t ya?”

  I grabbed the ticket out of my pocket as fear started twisting knots in my stomach. Flipping it over, I read out loud. “To redeem this ticket, visit the Joker’s Wild Lottery Office Open Mon-Thurs, 10AM-3PM. 254 Nowhere Drive, Make Believe Land, Utah 11223. Make Believe Land?”

  Tater took a step backwards never taking his eyes off me.

  “This doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand...”

  “It’s a fake ticket, cuz! I saw it on the Internet and thought it would be funny...”

  The bar grew silent except for the sound of my breathing. Tater inched toward the door afraid to break eye contact with me. He spun to run out the door as realization settled on my face.

  “I’M A-GONNA KEEL YOU!” I screamed, running toward the door like a hillbilly at a yard sale.

  I burst through the bar door, following him into the parking lot.

  “Don’t even think about leaving! I’m not done whooping your ass!”

  A crowd flowed out of the bar chanting, “FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!”

  Tater was trying to unlock his truck as I kicked him square in the seat of his overalls. He yelped and ran to the other side of the truck. Every time I inched closer, he‘d scoot further away. I chased him around the truck yelling obscenities until I had sweat running down my face and my curly blond hair had frizzed into a Brillo pad. I stopped, leaning against the tailgate trying to catch my breath.

  “I’m sorry, cuz! I didn’t mean to mess up your life,” he said, “I thought you’d think it was funny... I wanted to tell you at the party... but you didn’t open it... then I just fergot!” He took a tentative step towards me. “You’re smart. You’ll figure something out!”

  “I have too. I don’t have a choice.” With the fight exercised outta me - I was exhausted and just wanted to go home. “But don’t think you’re off the hook. You owe me!”

  Tater wasn’t the smartest guy, but he had a gentle heart and he looked close to tears. I gave him a hug so he wouldn’t start crying in front of his buddies. The bar crowd headed back inside, disappointed there wouldn’t be any bloodshed today.

  Ulyssa walked over and said, “Let’s go home. We’ll figure this out.”

  I nodded, following her to the car.

  We both sat silently on the drive home, trying to think of options.

  How are we going to survive? The way this town gossips, nobody will hire us after today.

  After four days of job hunting and Ramen noodles, we still didn’t have jobs. I don’t know what’s worse - the constant rejection or the water weight gain from our new diet. By Friday, we were desperate for money and Dairy Queen.

  We planned our paycheck pick-up to start with Wal-Mart while Minnie was on her lunch break, then visit Miller’s at noon while the crew was out for lunch. The plan went smoothly until we ran into Rick at the office.

  He looked at Ulyssa sheepishly, “How’s it going?”

  “What kind of idiotic question is that? I’m broke and unemployed because you’re too chicken-shit to tell your wife who you’re really screwing!”

  Yay! Ulyssa’s back! And she’s mmaaaddd!

  “I know,” he said, “and I feel real bad about that... I even gave you an extra week’s pay. Kind’a like a severance package.”

  “Well, I don’t know how to thank you! I’m glad my reputation is worth $300 to you. I mean that really speaks volumes for your character.”

  She seemed seconds away from punching him in the face, so I intervened. “Just give her the check, so we can get back to job hunting.”

  He fumbled around in the desk, extracting an envelope. “I really am sorry about this Ulyssa. You are a great girl and I know that you’ll bounce back from this.”

  She leaned forward snatching the envelope from him.

  “A lot of folks have been apologizing to us lately, haven’t they Shasta? Everybody’s got a case of the ‘sorries’, maybe it’s a pandemic or something.”

  I nodded in agreement as she continued.

  “Does it feel good to apologize after destroying someone’s life? Maybe everyone does it because it makes them feel better for their shitty situation... hhhmmm.”

  She took a step back and turned to face me.

  Rick breathed a sigh of relief.

  “You tired of folks telling us ‘they’re sorry’? Cause I am!”

  Damn. She’s got that crazy, redneck look she gets when she’s been shooting whiskey.

  Quick as a flash, she spun back around and dropped a huge right fist into Rick’s nose. She must have channelled all of her rage into that single motion because his nose crumbled under her fist like play-doh. Bluish circles immediately appeared under his eyes and blood stained his shirt.

  He flinched as she leaned closer and whispered. “I am really sorry but... I’m sure you’ll bounce back.”

  He sat stuttering, blood gushing from his nose.

  “One more thing, you try to press charges and I’ll tell Salvo you’re screwing Emma. Let’s just call it even.”

  Twenty minutes later, we sat nestled in the Pinto’s fuzzy, pink seat covers contemplating our predicament over Dairy Queen blizzards.
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  “Well, we could try to find a job in Charleston. Nobody knows us there and it wouldn’t cost too much in gas if we carpooled,” Ulyssa said, in between bites of Cheesequake. “Charleston is a big city though and I have no idea where to start looking for jobs.”

  “Mitchell’s cousin got a real good job in Charleston as an image consultant using the Internet. I think he used Craigslist or something like that... what do you think?”

  “Couldn’t hurt. Any ideas where we could get a computer?”

  “The only one I’ve ever used is at work and I don’t think Minnie would let me back in the office to use it to job hunt.”

  “Ha. Same here. I won’t be welcomed back after blooding Rick’s nose.”

  “Maybe an Internet cafe?” I asked.

  “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

  “We could ask Mitchell?” I was running out of ideas.

  “Hmmm. Maybe.”

  We sat for a few minutes lost in thought, scraping the last of the ice cream from the blue cups. The noise of the spoon dragging across the bottom of the cardboard cup reminded me of cutting class in high school. Most kids at our school would ditch class to go smoke pot in the woods, but we’d hide out behind the library eating Blizzards.

  “Hey! What about the library? They probably have a computer or might know where we could find one.”

  “Nice!” Ulysaa handed me her empty Blizzard cup and started the car. “We’ll stop by there on Sunday!”

  “We heading to Buck’s for a beer?” I halfheartedly asked.

  “I don’t want to. You?”

  “No. I’d rather save the money for the festival tomorrow.”

  “Get a move-on!” Ulyssa banged on my door as she grumbled down the hallway after her shower. “We’ve got a three hour road trip ahead of us!”

  I groaned and rolled off the bed. I wasn’t convinced it was worth driving all the way to Marlington for a RoadKill Cook-Off, but it was too late to change my mind. Sam had been nagging us about it since she saw it on a Food Network show last month. She’s hoping they’ll be serving the armadillo and roadrunner tacos.