Page 10 of Love vs The Ooze Monster!
Mrs. Patten kept talking. Obviously. “Gangsters are terribly violent. And they’re no longer content with the outskirts of Volstead. Now, they’re inching into the center, with these speakeasies. My husband’s grandfather founded this town, you know. Mr. Patten would be appalled to see what it’s become.” She glanced towards the mantle. “Wouldn’t you, Mr. Patten?”
The oil painting of Mr. Patten didn’t respond.
Mrs. Patten didn’t seem to mind. “In my day, the good people wouldn’t have put up with this bootlegging nonsense.” Her posture was straight as a lamppost, thanks to the creaking corset she wore beneath her old-fashioned dress. “We drankwine, made from wholesome berries, and we were all the better for it.”
“Wine is outlawed by prohibition, too.” Norris reminded her.
“That’s why god-fearing folks stockpiled bottles of it, in their own cellars, back in 1919.” Mrs. Patten retorted staunchly. “Because we have respect for law and order.”
Mabel drank her tea and didn’t say a word. Her reputation was secure and unimpeachable, thanks to never taking on the Irving name. Her connection to Lew’s syndicate had already gotten her fired. If Mrs. Patten found out about it, she’d be evicted, too. …But only after a long, dull lecture about sin and liquor and why Mabel was still single at her age.
“Dave, my new beau, is a policeman.” Frances chimed in, because she felt the need to speak the name of the current man in her life every forty seconds or so. Her hair was perfectly styled in lovely finger curls. Mabel had no idea how she managed it. Her own straight hair refused to cooperate with the current fashion. “Dave says it wasn’t usual gangsters who attacked O'Shaughnessy’s place.”
“Well, who else could it be?” Mabel asked practically. “Patrick O'Shaughnessy owed a lot of people money for hooch he never paid for.” Not Boyd’s operation, because Mabel always made sure she got paidbeforeshe authorized any deliveries. Other syndicates around town weren’t so professional. “You rip-off a gangster, you get rubbed out.”
All three of them shot her mystified looks.
Drat.
“Or so I heard at church.” Mabel mumbled.
Mrs. Patten gasped in bigoted dismay. “Oh my… Are youCatholic?”
Frances snorted and leaned in closer across the high polished coffee table. “Well, Dave says he thinks it was some kind of vampire who killed them folks at O'Shaughnessy’s. Like that new movie from Germany. Nos-fer-something-or other.”
Mabel arched a skeptical brow. “A vampire?”
“Vampires suck blood, though.” Norris didn’t seem convinced of Dave’s theory, either. “These people weremelted. What was left of them was covered in some kind of ooze. Like sticky and acidic and orange. Burned straight through some of the body bags.”
Frances’ eyes widened.
Mabel frowned. “Ooze?”
“I think it was the fairy folk.” Norris declared with a wise nod. “My grandma always used to say all of Nevermore County’s strange happenings happened because of them. Remember when they stole Wheeler Pond?”
“Very true, but also inappropriate.” Mrs. Patten insisted. “Talk of death, and melting, and ancient curses by the subnaturals are not good for the digestion. Remarks at teatime should be confined to pleasant topics. Gardening, for instance.” She smiled, once again seizing control of the conversation. Teatime was a battle she intended to win. “I planted white peonies out back. They’ll be just delicious in tea and their so soothing for rheumatism.”
Frances, Mabel, and Norris all expressed halfhearted interest in the new additions to the vast and territorially-guarded garden. That was all it took to set Mrs. Patten off on a ten minute speech about flowers. The woman loved to hold court.
“Why are you not drinking your tea?” She asked Frances, suddenly recalling that other people were in the room. “You never seem to drink tea. Do you not care for tea?”
“No, Idon’tcare for tea, actually. I tell you that every week.”
“Well, youshouldcare for it. A lady must sometimes…” The doorbell finally rang, blessedly interrupting her. “Oh.” Mrs. Patten checked the watch pinned to her lapel and frowned. “I wonder who that could be.” She got to her feet and bustled out of the parlor.
Mabel eyed the window and contemplated escape. Confined spaces bothered her and Mrs. Patten’s formal parlor often felt stiflingly small. She could feel the walls closing in on her.
The landlady came bustling back in, jarring Mabel out of her growing claustrophobia. Boyd was on her arm. What the hell washedoing here?
“Miss Harrison, you have a caller!” Mrs. Patten was visibly thrilled with that news. Marrying Mabel off was her fourth favorite hobby, after teatime, talking to her dead husband, and flowers. “You didn’t tell us you had a young man, naughty girl.” Chuckling to herself, she settled back down on the curvy Victorian sofa. “And such a handsome one, too.”
Drat.
Hewashandsome.
Against her better judgment, Mabel’s eyes drank him in. Boyd looked exactly like a gangstershouldlook. Clever and modern and powerful. A lifetime on the docks had given him muscles in all kinds of interesting places. He was tall, with russet-colored hair and striking blue eyes that never stayed still. He was usually studying his surroundings for danger, focused on some new bootlegging do-dad that interested him, or staring right at a person to get a read on them. Because there was always a smile on his perfectly-sculpted face, his constant accumulation of information was overlooked by most everyone.
Mabel saw it, though.
