Free Ticket to Nowhere Chapter 14

A Stark Mystery

My mind was reeling. And it wasn’t just the minibar and hotel bar booze. I would kill for some powdered sugar donuts right now. I was trying to piece together a puzzle that was made up entirely of pieces from different puzzle boxes.

Even my gray-haired aunt Lucille Interlock couldn’t have pieced it together on her best day. And on her best day, there wasn’t a puzzle made she couldn’t put together, given enough time and an ample supply of beef jerky and lemonade.

But here were the pieces I had.

I had just narrowly escaped death from a magical stuffed wolf named Toto, thanks to the tag team of Rambo Lion — a lion impersonator and lawyer for Gwen De Toit — and the munchkin Fred. Who had just put a pair of frozen bullets into the brain of Toto. Which was a good thing, seeing that my Guns R Us standard-issue slugs were worthless.

Krystal Kelly — who, when she is not stealing book manuscripts and passing them off as her own, does PR for some bizarre gang of corrupted Wizard of Oz characters who have some form of mind-deluding powers — was sprawled out on the floor whimpering.

One thing I had going for me was the manuscript for “Under The Jack Rabbit Moon,” which I had stuffed in the back of my trousers. The manuscript Gwen DeToit was paying me to find.

But Fred suddenly seemed to be turning on me. Perhaps the two of them were planning to cut me out. I needed to defuse the situation quickly.

“Sorry about the Lolly-Pop Guild crack, Fred. I’m a littled juiced up. I owe you big time for saving my keister just now.”

“Forget it. Grab the dame, and let’s get out of here before someone from the Wiz gang finds out we have the book.

I took Kelly by the arm and lifted her off the floor. Then I smacked a set of handcuffs on her. She immediately began sobbing and said, “Please don’t hurt me.”

“The act won’t work this time, Darlin’. I’m wise to you now.”

“You don’t understand. I had to steal the manuscript, so I could get into the convention. I knew Gwen would hire you to track down the manuscript and bring you here. And I need your singing skills to take out Oz.”

“I don’t care. I want no part of a gang of singing movie characters. And the very top of my list of things I never want to do is to get into some form of twisted sing-off in Kansas. So zip it, Dollface.”

I had no idea if the dame was telling the truth, and I didn’t care. I had everything I needed to wrap up this case, collect my final payment, and be done with this Kansas/Wizard of Oz freak show. I was ready to grab the cash, click my heels, and wake up in my fleabag home. Where things are rotten, but at least rotten make sense.

All we needed to do now was get out of the hotel and give the book back to De Toit.

What could possibly go wrong?

Continues in Chapter 15…

Previous Chapters:

Chapter 1 • Chapter 2 • Chapter 3 • Chapter 4 • Chapter 5 • Chapter 6 • Chapter 7 • Chapter 8 • Chapter 9 • Chapter 10 • Chapter 11 • Chapter 12 • Chapter 13