Bull's Eye: Confessions of a Fake Psychic Detective #3

Chapter 16

"After-dinner mint?" Vince says back at the bunker. He stretches his hand toward Zandra. The two of them and Jo sit beneath the sterile fluorescent lights and finish up "chow." Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, kipper snacks and expired peaches from a can form both the menu and Zandra's stomachache.

Seriously? A mint?

Zandra's relieved to see it's a tin of mint chewing tobacco, and not Gene's peppermint calling card. Smoking is prohibited inside the bunker, although the ventilation does a decent job of circulating air. Zandra opts for the chew.

Been awhile since I dipped. Stuff tastes like shoe-scrape. Mint settles the stomach, though.

She's handed a spitter, an empty sports drink bottle, while Jo turns the FM radio hanging on the wall from weather to classic rock. It's the only music station that comes in.

She's too quiet sometimes, that Jo. Never said a word during supper. It's not stoicism. It's something else.

"Don't worry. The suppers can get a lot worse," Vince says. "Trust me."

Zandra spits into the bottle. "I just hope you've got toothpaste down here, too."

"Loads of it. Plenty of mouthwash, too. That stuff doubles as an antiseptic. In a pinch, you can distill the alcohol out of it and make yourself a Crest martini, too," Vince says.

"Drink it straight if you need to," Jo says, finally speaking up. It doesn't sound like a joke, though.

"And do you, Jo, need to?" Zandra says and wipes the brown spittle clinging to her chin onto her sleeve.

My poor, poor sleeves.

Jo ignores the question and helps herself to a fat pinch from Vince's tin.

OK, then.

"Tell me about the murders," Zandra says.

Vince and Jo sit up straight in their seats.

"We're close on about a dozen of them. The problem is time. This isn't a big operation, as you can see, and splitting our focus 12 ways means we won't be able to deliver the goods before Gene inevitably becomes governor," Vince says.

Inevitable?

Vince seems to sense the question in Zandra's mind. He answers it without skipping a beat. "He's got the most money of any candidate or potential candidate. Because money creates its own orbit, he's getting endorsements without even trying. And it's not even campaign season yet."

"Makes sense," Zandra says. "He's also got the most pull."

"And the least pushback, unless you count us," Jo says.

Two political mercenaries, a "psychic," a helicopter and a bunker full of survival shit. No wonder they stock tobacco.

"The thing is, we don't necessarily need a dozen murders. We only need one, so long as it's big. Fortunately for us, we found the perfect corpse," Vince says.

Jo rises and strolls to the far end of the bunker out of Zandra's view.

Wait. They have a corpse?

Jo returns with a manila folder.

OK, good. So that stink down here really is from the kippered fish.

"Julia Topaz," Jo says and hands the folder to Zandra. "She was Gene's personal assistant for the past 18 months. Handled all his personal and business affairs. Sort of like a chief of staff. Twenty-seven years of age when she took the job."