CHAPTER 14
Myra Jones had always been a little bit on the weird side. As if being weird wasn't a curse in itself her lazy eye tic thing going on made her look weird too. And with only an 8th grade education? She was blessed to be working at Dollar Tree.
Weird but reliable. That was Myra Jones.
While she liked everything that got sold in the store the scheduling of her work schedule would often fickle more than a handful of power balls. To make matters worse her entry level position was another "Feast Or Famine" job making it harder to collect any government "perks" on the side. One week a big paycheck. The next something under a hundred bucks. Feast or Famine. Needless to say Myra Jones spent a lot of her free time at check cashing and western union stores.
Every week faithfully she wired twenty bucks to her older brother still in prison for burglaries she was convinced that he didn't do. Myra came from a very poor, poor family. Nobody had ever taught her how to get a drivers license. Not that Dollar Tree would ever pay her enough money to save up for a respectable vehicle. The bus tokens sure weren't getting any cheaper.
Myra was already clocked out from her eight hour shift and just waiting for her 33 year old deadbeat boyfriend drowning up to his ears in back child support from previous relationships to come pick her up. He was extremely controlling and the only thing he really permitted her to spend money on was her cellphone. Myra picked up a Hello Kitty cellphone cover that looked totally awesome from the shelf and held it up to the light for further examination. She studied it for a while and then quickly phoned Eric her boyfriend.
He picked up on the second ring. "Hello?"
"Hey babe it's me. Is it gonna be a while yet before you get here?"
"Another hour at the very least. I gotta pick up my mom from her AA meeting first and that's not over for another half hour."
Myra hated days like this. "Can't you just pick me up first then your mom?"
"Nope cuz then mom would have to wait a few minutes at this point. It's her car. Her rules. If I can get this loan next week might be able to buy that station wagon on Brimmer."
Myra wasn't really listening much. She heard these excuses millions of times. She'd rather take the bus but it had stopped running at this hour. She held the cellphone case up to the light once again.
"Hey babe I found this really cool Hello Kitty cellphone case in the store can I buy it?
"No" Eric replied sternly.
"Babe it's just one dollar. I just got paid today. Come on please?"
Eric had a $400 top of the line Samsung phone that he claimed was a necessity along with 12 Gigs of data he faithfully burned up every month. A lot of Myra's paychecks helped pay for his phone. Just last week he had bumped her plan down to the $15 monthly plan because he was concerned about her talking to other men on Facebook. He barked once more into the phone.
"I told you Myra no. And I don't want you buying any more chewing gum either. Put the cellphone cover back on the shelf. I'll be over to pick you up in an hour."
Myra duteously placed the Hello Kitty cellphone cover back on the shelf.
Jeez just one dollar She thought to herself, Was her jobless boyfriend ever gonna give her a chance to breathe?
When she turned around she almost screamed. Somebody had managed to sneak up on her. Somebody evidently was watching her.
A stoic man in a dark suit stood in front of her blocking her from exiting the shopping isle. He was holding the Hello Kitty cellphone cover and had a dollar bill wrapped around it. Myra's gaze enlightened and she ever so lovingly accepted the gift. When she unfurled the dollar bill from the case she noticed a business card land on the floor. She quickly picked it up not even remotely afraid of exposing her melon like cleavage. The man said not a word but stood their momentarily making sure the business card got picked up from the floor.
Myra inspected the business card.
DIRTY BIRD IS ON THE LOOSE
34.568456743 -76.764899054
Immediately the WTF? Bubble cloud popped over her head as the confusion set in. That's when Myra suddenly remembered the jitterbug Facebook rumors spreading throughout the town about Dirty Bird's messenger.
The man in the suit spun around to walk away without ever saying a word but Myra was one of those type of girls that was the total opposite of shy. With her unusually large breasts she always had the ability with getting away with being confronting. She stepped around the agent now blocking his exit.
She spoke in her playful girly girl voice of a Barbie doll wannabe. "Just hold on a second there mister. I know who you are. I've just recently read about this on Facebook. Something about a strange man walking into people while they're at work and handing them a business card with some kind of code I think. Supposedly the address leads to some sort of bench at the mall? Some kind of deal where if you sit on the bench and reach your hands down below there's like an envelope with $500 dollars and a brochure to an island?"
The agent said not a word but rather tried to escape. Myra had been working at Dollar Tree for five years. The golden rule about "the customer is always right" didn't apply here cuz she knew she could get away with things. She used her floppy arms and enormous breasts to block the man from leaving. She did find him quite attractive but if he wanted to skate out on her without explaining things first he would have to get frisky with her to get around her.
"Hey mister I'm talking to you!" She said using all her strength to push her arms out and turn herself into a human wall.
But the agent still said not a word. He tried to get around her without getting physical. He was having no success. Myra was really hoping he would get frisky with her and continue to push into her trying to escape. Instead the agent focused on keeping her from looking too deep into his sunglasses. His head was looking like a bobble head at this point.
Myra's dickhead ponytailed boss caught a good look at what she was doing "off the clock". He gave her a good tongue lashing anyways.
"Myra Jones! What are you doing to that poor man? Let him get around you right this instant!" Shouted her manager.
As soon as the first arm went down the agent slipped past her but Myra managed to caress his shoulder as he slipped past her as if she was a hopeless blind woman that just wanted to touch the exterior of a man. Somehow it seemed as though the agent managed to completely make himself disappear as nobody witnessed him exiting the store. He was just that good at being a ghost. Years in the service under clandestine black ops missions had made him that way. Until he completely lost all of his hearing due to an IED in Afganistan. Dirty Bird was more than happy to hire him. He was always fond of America's elite group of Ghosts.