She’d tried to be helpful when Cain had unjustly attacked Etienne, but did her “lover” appreciate her efforts? No. Etienne had threatened to gag her if she didn’t stop blabbing her opinions on everything from the repressed neuroses of hostile men to the psychoses of aberrant machoism. “I’d be willing to give you a free trial therapy session,” she’d even offered.
Etienne’s response didn’t bear repeating.
“Hey, I get paid big money for my advice,” she’d informed him haughtily.
“Your mouth opens more than a Tallahassee tart’s.”
Before she’d been able to respond to that crudity, Cain had proposed using his surgical expertise to suture her mouth shut. And she was pretty sure he hadn’t been kidding.
So she’d wisely chosen to spare them her wisdom…for a while. That was, until Etienne had pulled out a small trunk of disguises—beards, makeup, wigs. And costumes ranging from gypsy to military uniform. They’d whispered furtively, arguing over which characters they should portray.
They’d been especially unappreciative when she’d said, “I feel like I’m watching Dumb and Dumber trying to pull off a madcap gold heist. Well, Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest, if you include that yahoo back in Memphis. Yep, the Three Stooges of the Old South.” The other twin. Abel, was stranded back in Memphis due to their aborted plan, but they seemed to think he would make his way to New Orleans, where they would all meet.
Harriet had no idea why the two men were rushing now to change their clothing and appearance. They claimed some bad guys were hot on their trail, possibly even on this train, and that all their lives were in peril.
And somehow, for some crazy reason, Etienne blamed her for the whole mess. Geez! Apparently, her dreams were turning into adventure romps now, not just sexual fantasies.
Etienne had been about to release her ties a little while ago, after she’d told him he was her soul mate—God, I can’t believe I actually said that— until she’d heard him and Cain discussing their current peril, which stemmed from some dude named Jim Pope, the Secret Service, master spies, and Etienne’s incarceration in Andersonville Prison. None of it made any sense to her befuddled mind, but she’d made the mistake then of announcing that she knew all about Jim Bishop from Sweet Savage Love, although he hadn’t been the enemy in that book, of course.
Unfortunately, Pope was close enough to Bishop in Etienne’s dictionary to make him even more suspicious of her. Now the dimwit considered her his captive.
“Now what?” Cain asked, straightening. His head, as well as Etienne’s, almost touched the ceiling of the compartment.
“Cut my hair.” Etienne handed Cain a pair of scissors from the travel kit.
“The devil I will!” Cain stormed. “Have you lost your mind? We don’t have time. If we don’t get that gold to Texas by the end of the month, we’ll never finish this job. Then what will President Grant do—”
“Cain,” Etienne warned, looking toward her.
Both men turned to her, as if they’d forgotten she was there. Some fantasy!
“I still say we should toss her out the window,” Cain said.
“The idea’s gaining appeal by the second,” Etienne agreed. “But we need to know where she got her information. And what her role is in Pope’s organization.”
“The only pope I know is in Rome,” Harriet protested. “Any chance you guys work for Dumb Men, Inc.?”
They didn’t even acknowledge her comment, although Etienne and Cain did exchange a pained look. She was getting tired of being the extraneous person in this dream. It was as if they didn’t even care that she was there.
She soon learned otherwise.
As Cain quickly snipped Etienne’s thick black hair till it was collar-length and parted, incongruously, down the middle, he quipped, “So, did you check her tongue?”
“No.” Etienne laughed glumly. Then he added, “But she has an impressive posterior.”
Harriet gasped. “This is sexual harassment, mister.”
“Well, that’s even more important.” Cain glanced her way to see if he could perhaps see her backside.
“Show Cain your ass, honey,” Etienne suggested sweetly.
“Oh! You are revolting. I’m never going to let you touch me again. Never!”
“Hah! Wait till I bring out the buttermilk. You’ll be on me like catnip,” he taunted.
“In your dreams, buster. Not mine!”
Cain’s head was swinging back and forth like a pendulum as he watched the sharp exchange between the two of them. Amusement flickered in his dark eyes. “God. Etienne, I think you’ve finally met your match. Perhaps this woman is heaven-sent—a miracle sent to revive your dead…uh, spirit.”
“God would not be so cruel.”
Why was Etienne so disdainful of her? She knew better than anyone how to interpret hidden sexual signals, and this guy was sending zippo her way. He’d been telling the truth when he said he wasn’t interested in her anymore. “Let’s backtrack here a bit, guys. Start from the beginning. What’s this tongue and buttermilk business? Can I get in on the joke?”
“No,” Etienne stated flatly.
“Oh, it’s a man thing, huh?” she snipped. “Even in a dream, men have to play sexist games.”
“Why does she keep talking about dreams?” Cain asked.
“What sex games?” Etienne wanted to know.
“I said ‘sexist’ games, not sex games, you jerk.”
“Huh?” Cain put a hand to his head as if disoriented. “All I did was ask why she keeps talking about dreams.”
“Because this is a dream,” Harriet asserted.
“Because she’s a lunatic,” Etienne said at the same time, “or a bad actress.”
“Give me a break!”
“I’d love to break you. In two. Maybe later, sweetheart.” He smiled grimly.
She made a face at the back of Etienne’ s head, which Cain caught. He grinned at her.
In the meantime, Etienne had put on a clean, blue, collarless shirt and a black suit jacket, which he buttoned up priggishly in Pee-Wee Herman fashion. He left the same black trousers on, rolled up at the ankle, but he put his scruffy boots, along with his other clothing and one of the guns, into the satchel. He slipped the second gun into the back waistband of his trousers.
“Be careful that gun doesn’t go off accidentally and shoot you in the butt,” she advised.
A low growl emerged from deep in his throat. The glare he cast her way could have melted concrete.
“Now, Etienne, hold your temper,” Cain admonished. “There’s no time to kill her now. Wait till New Orleans.”
Well, that’s comforting.
Etienne inhaled deeply, obviously forcing himself to relax, then bent to stuff his big feet into a pair of new, black leather shoes, which were apparently too tight. “I’m gonna have blisters by the time we get to New Orleans.”
“Oh, goodie! They’ll match the ones on your behind if that gun goes off.”
“The only thing going off around here is your mouth,” he said with distaste. Meanwhile, he raked his newly cut hair behind his ears, which called attention to the silly part down the center.
“Do you know why dumb men part their hair down the middle?”
Etienne’s shoulders slumped and he closed his eyes as if praying.
“Why?” Cain asked.
Etienne’s eyes shot open and he scowled at Cain for encouraging her.
“Because their heads aren’t well balanced.”
“Notice that I’m not amused,” Etienne said.
“I’m not either, Etienne,’ Cain added ingratiatingly, and spoiled the effect by biting his lip to stifle its upward turn.
“Do you know that dumb men are proof that reincarnation exists?”
“Really?” Cain said playfully in perfect straight-man style.
“Oh, God!” Etienne moaned. “Please spare us.”
“No one could get that stupid in one lifetime.”
Cain hooted with laughter.
> Etienne moaned louder. Then, disgusted with them both, he proceeded to smooth his jacket front. Bending his knees, he hunkered down so he was eye-level with the mirror propped on the upper window ledge and gave himself one last check.
“Be careful you don’t split your pants,” she remarked acidly, staring at the fabric of his trousers pulled taut over his behind. But what she thought was, Man, oh, man!
At first, his face reddened with affront. But then he flashed her a knowing wink, and asked Cain, “Is this enough of a disguise? How do I look?”
“Like a nerd,” Harriet observed before Cain could answer. A handsome nerd, though, she added to herself.
“Fine,” Cain disagreed.
They both ignored her opinion. At least she thought they had till Cain added with mock sympathy, “I don’t think you look like a bird. Leastways, not much. Except perhaps a rooster.”
“I’ll show her a bird when I get her alone,” Etienne promised, his eyes blazing blue fire at her.
“What did God get when he crossed a dumb man with a rooster?”
“Aaarrgh!” Cain and Etienne both exclaimed.
“A really dumb rooster.”
“Do you really think she’s working with Pope?” Cain asked Etienne then as they gathered the rest of their belongings. “I mean, she is really strange.”
“If you think I’m strange, you ought to see how you all look from my viewpoint.”
“Probably.” Etienne shrugged, disregarding her cynical statement. “The Secret Service uses female spies all the time, as you well know.”
Secret Service? A spy? Okay, this has gone far enough. “Why won’t you listen to me, you lunkhead? I’m a psychologist, not a bloomin’ spy.”
“She says she’s a doctor…a mind doctor,” Etienne told Cain scornfully. “You two should have a lot in common, both being doctors and all. Maybe she’ll let you examine her…tongue.”
“Really?” A slack-jawed Cain addressed her. “You’re a doctor?”
“You’re a doctor?” Harriet echoed in amazement, then added before she had a chance to think, “What are you doing with him?”
“He’s my best friend,” Cain said simply. “More important, what are you doing with him?”
“I wish I knew.”
“Don’t you remember, honey?” Etienne recalled with an obnoxious snicker. “We’re soul mates.”
Harriet’s face heated with embarrassment. She’d been hoping he’d forgotten her words. “I take it back.”
“You can’t take it back,” he argued childishly.
“Yes, I can. A woman has the right to change her mind.”
“In less than an hour?”
“Tsk-tsk!” Cain contributed. “Will you stop? You remind me of Dreadful and Bob when they used to go at each other.”
“Who are Dreadful and Bob?” she asked.
“Childhood pets. A dog the size of a horse and a three-legged chicken,” Etienne told her. Then he shook his head from side to side as if he couldn’t believe he’d actually felt the need to answer her question. “You’re right, Cain. I’m wasting time. Now go get a linen sheet from the conductor. Or better yet, see if you can filch one from the linen storage area, without anyone seeing you.”
“A sheet? Why?” Cain’s wide brow furrowed with puzzlement.
“A shroud,” Etienne announced brightly. “For the corpse.”
He and Cain turned as one to look at her.
“Me?” she squeaked out.
Etienne pulled a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles out of his jacket pocket and put them on. He beamed at her, the picture of an adorable geek.
“You know what the good thing is about men who wear glasses?” she blurted out. Harriet knew her jokes were ill-timed and inappropriate for the circumstances, but her life was falling apart, and she feared she might cry if she didn’t laugh.
Etienne and Cain tilted their heads in question.
“When they take them off, you know they mean business.”
Cain frowned with confusion, but Harriet knew the moment Etienne understood her flip remark. His eyes turned a smoldering shade of dark blue.
And Harriet wondered what he’d look like when he turned to a woman and took off his glasses, intent on business.
Immediately composing himself, Etienne then posed next to Cain. The black man slouched his shoulders a bit in a subservient posture, gazing at Etienne, but never making direct eye contact, as if Etienne were the master, and Cain a mere slave.
“Well, Dr. Ginny? What do you think?” Etienne inquired, a rascally glimmer in his somber eyes.
“I think Dumb and Dumber just got even dumber.”
He wagged an admonishing finger at her. “Madam, let me introduce myself. I am Hiram M. Frogash, mortician. And this is my mortuary assistant, Hippocrates Jones.”
“Gawd!”
“Our speciality is”—he wiggled his eyebrows at her in a lascivious Groucho Marx-style, which caused his spectacles to slip down his nose—“female cadavers.”
A shiver of foreboding rippled over her skin.
“Oh, and did I mention I’m a taxidermist, too?” Then he crooked a finger at her. “Here, kitty, kitty.”
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Harriet huffed out, “Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest just added a new gang member. The dumb-ee. Me.”
She could barely breathe, wrapped snugly as she was in a linen sheet. Not to mention hanging over Etienne’s shoulder with her butt in the air. They were passing through the corridors of the railway cars to the freight car near the end. The only good thing was that they’d untied her hands and feet, with Etienne pocketing her panties and stockings.
“Shhhh,” he hissed. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
“Make way, make way. The undertaker is acomin’,” Cain called out to no one in particular as he spearheaded their macabre procession. It was after noon, and most passengers were in the dining cars toward the front of the train, but there was always the chance they might run into someone. So Etienne had compelled her to make a choice…either cooperate in their screwball caper, or he’d conk her on the head with his revolver.
Some choice!
“Stop jabbering. Cain, we’ll wait here while you check up ahead.”
“Yassuh, master, suh,” Cain replied sarcastically, then mumbled something that sounded like, “Up yours, master, suh.”
Meanwhile, Etienne leaned against a wall and used the time to clamp a palm over her tush, chuckling. “Have I told you, you have a wonderful ass?”
“About fifty times,” she muttered, “and if you don’t stop touching it, I’m going to dislocate yours. Geez, it’s hot in this sheet, and your shoulder is growing bonier by the minute. Can’t you put me down for a while?”
“No. And I’d be willing to wager you’ve let me touch it, and much more, in those dreams of yours.” His persistence on the subject of her tush was remarkable, especially for a guy no longer attracted to her.
Her silence spoke volumes.
So did his.
“Stop smirking,” she chastened him.
“How do you know I’m smirking?”
“I’m an expert on body language. I even wrote a book on it, Bodyspeak. I can tell by the posture of your body.”
“I thought you were an expert on women’s fantasies.”
“I am. I’m an expert on lots of things.”
“I’Il bet you are, darlin’.”
“You’re smirking again.”
“I know.”
“I swear, you’re at the top of the list in my next book.”
He said nothing.
“Don’t you want to know what my next book will be?”
“Not particularly.”
His supposed lack of interest didn’t deter her. “The MCP Scale: How to Identify a Male Chauvinist Pig.” When he still didn’t respond, she went on doggedly, “That’s why I know so many dumb-men jokes. I intend to weave them throughout the book.”
“What do shove-nest pigs
have to do with dumb men and scales? And how do you weave a riddle?”
“Shove-nest? Huh? Oh.” She laughed. “Not shove-nest. Chauvinist. A male chauvinist pig exhibits the ultimate in obnoxious, crude, swaggering, oversexed, egotistical behavior of all the male species. A walking ape.”
“Who says I’m oversexed?”
“And furthermore, since I’ve known you, you’ve done a whole lot of things that fall into a ten on my MCP rating scale.”
“A ten being the worst, I assume.” He didn’t sound at all offended by her assessment of him.
Before she could educate him further, Etienne’s body went tense, and he pushed away from the wall. Harriet heard rushing footsteps then, followed by Cain’s worried voice.
“The conductor’s approaching…in the next car…two government men boarded the train in Memphis…a search is on for three bank robbers,” he panted out.
“Bank robbers?” Etienne snorted.
“Bank robbers?” Harriet repeated into his back. Great! Now Steve was robbing banks, too.
“That’s the story Pope gave the railroad people in order to conduct a search,” Cain explained hurriedly.
Just then, Harriet heard a door opening up ahead, followed immediately by the crack of a sharp slap close by.
“That’ll teach you, boy. Where you been hidin’?” Etienne barked to Cain, easing smoothly into one of his dialect changes. “I told you to come back and help me carry this body.”
“What’s the problem here, folks?” another voice inquired.
It didn’t sound like the same conductor as before. Thank goodness! He might have recognized Etienne, despite his disguise. Though why I should care is beyond me.
“No problem now, sir. But there ain’t nothin’ worse than a lazy nigger,” Etienne remarked. “What he needs is a good whuppin’.”
Cain whimpered dolefully.
“Ain’t it the truth?” the conductor concurred. “Whatcha got in that sheet?”
“A corpse,” Etienne apprised him matter-of-factly as he hefted her off one shoulder and onto another while he reached inside his jacket. She had to bite her bottom lip to keep from crying out at the rough handling. “And the damn body’s growin’ heavier by the minute. Deadweight, you know?”