“Okay, so you were saying?” said Scarlett as she leaned in. “Something about flies, right?”

She gave her friend a look. “I didn’t even speak feline this time. Just plain English.”

“Oh, so that’s why I understood. I thought I’d finally gotten the knack, as you say.”

Vesta sighed, and decided that maybe there was no use to this thing. Maybe it was, as her granddaughter always claimed, a genetic thing that couldn’t be taught. If they could teach it, by now Tex should have gotten it, or Chase, or even Alec. But no—only the women in her family could understand their feline darlings, with men being excluded from taking part in the great feast of reason and the flow of soul as they conversed up a storm with their cats.

More flies now descended on the scene, and as she gaped at them, she saw that there were hundreds of them—maybe even thousands! Or millions!

“What is going on!” she cried as she got up. Flies were all over the place: on her clothes, on her head, in her hair, on her purse!

“It’s an invasion!” said Scarlett, pushing her chair back. Other customers also got to their feet, all expressing their dismay at this sudden takeover by the collection of flies.

Several waiters came hurrying out of the bar and used their towels to get rid of the flies, but the creatures simply flew up and then settled down again.

“Let’s go,” she said. “Before we get eaten alive—or covered in fly crap.”

“We haven’t paid,” Scarlett reminded her.

“And we’re not going to!” said Vesta. “If they can’t even protect us from these horrible beasts, they don’t deserve to get paid.”

She walked off the terrace and saw to her surprise that Chase and Odelia were escorting a bunch of people to squad cars. All four of them had their wrists cuffed behind their backs and looked deeply unhappy.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Can’t talk now, Gran,” said Odelia.

“But… that’s Tex’s bug spray guy!” she said, pointing to one of the people under arrest. She recognized his picture from the YouTube video she had watched. Also, the fact that one of the police officers was carrying a giant mock-up of a fly was a dead giveaway. “Good for you,” she told her granddaughter. “People like that should be arrested. Selling bug spray that doesn’t work—it’s a crime!” She now understood why there were so many flies in the hotel. The manager had probably used the bug spray these people were selling and more flies had come—just like Tex with his chinch bugs.

Which gave her another one of her bright ideas—she was on fire today!

“Hey, were they guests of the hotel, by any chance?”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t stay and chat, Gran. I have to get these people to the station.” And with these words, her granddaughter was off after her husband and the line of arrestees.

“Let’s go,” she told Scarlett.

“Where are we going?” asked her friend.

“To get us a couple of cans of bug spray,” she said, and set foot for the entrance to the hotel. “I’ve just had a great idea.”

“Uh-oh,” said Scarlett. “I mean,” she quickly amended when Vesta shot her a dirty look, “that’s great news!”

CHAPTER 15

Garland McNerlin didn’t know where he had to pay attention first. Guests were complaining, his staff needed him, and those horrible flies were everywhere! Pooping on the walls, pooping on the dining room tables, pooping on the gleaming surfaces in the kitchen—not so gleaming now after hordes of those bugs had passed through. All in all, it was as if he was living through his own personal disaster movie, and he didn’t have The Rock to save him! If the Star survived this ordeal, he’d send a prayer to Saint Julian, patron saint of hotel keepers!

“They’re everywhere, sir!” said Christel, his receptionist, a young woman who hadn’t been in the job for more than six months but was still doing an admirable job under difficult circumstances. First a murder, now this. When would this horrible day end?

“We have to do something,” he said as he watched the buzzing of the insects with a panicky eye. His guests were either calling the front desk or complaining to him in person, and he couldn’t be seen doing nothing!

“But who do we call?” asked Christel.

“The exterminator, who else?” But then he remembered that those bug people had dropped by the hotel a couple of days ago and he had signed a contract for a substantial quantity of their bug spray. The problem was that it hadn’t arrived yet. Maybe they had brought a couple of cans with them for their demonstration today? He remembered the police had put them up in one of the rooms after the murder of that prince, and they had even put their giant fly in there for the time being. So maybe they had also stored their product in the room? He certainly hoped so!

And so he hurried off in the direction of the elevator, hoping to find that little stash and empty a couple of cans of the stuff into the lobby to get rid of the pesky pest.

The elevator took forever to arrive, so he decided to take the stairs. Halfway to the third floor he regretted this rash decision, as his heart was pumping like mad and his legs were trembling from the exertion. He still arrived there in one piece and made a beeline for the room where the police had put the bug people before they had been carted off in the paddy wagon. He held his key card against the sensor and the door clicked open. Much to his surprise, he found himself face to face with two elderly ladies he recognized as regular clients of the hotel. Reading from left to right, they were Vesta Muffin and Scarlett Canyon!

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“We could ask you the same thing,” said Vesta in that belligerent fashion that was a hallmark of the lady’s irascible personality.

“I’m the manager,” he reminded her, puffing out his chest a little.

“And I’m a guest of the bug people,” said Vesta.

He piped down immediately. “You wouldn’t happen to know if they brought along some samples of their bug spray, would you? We’ve got a fly emergency on our hands.”

“I know all about that. Those flies are everywhere. And you should be ashamed of yourself, Garland,” she added as she poked his chest with one of those bony fingers of hers.

“It’s not my fault!” he cried, the injustice of this remark stinging him like an adder.

“It’s your hotel, so you must have done something to attract those flies,” she said, and there was a certain logic in what she was saying, he couldn’t deny.

“Look, where is that bug spray?” he asked, feeling that it wasn’t in his best interest, or that of the hotel, to waste a lot of time standing there and arguing.

“They’ve been arrested, you know.”

“Who’s been arrested?”

“Why, the bug spray couple, of course.”

“Do you know if they left their samples behind or not?”

“It doesn’t work, you know.”

“Doesn’t work? What do you mean?”

“My son-in-law tried it on some bugs that have been using our backyard as their personal restaurant, and instead of getting rid of them, more are arriving. Our backyard is full of them.”

“Nonsense,” he said. “It’s bug spray. It kills bugs. It says so on the label.” And since he refused to listen to this annoying old woman even one second longer, he started looking for the cans of bug spray surely these salespeople must have brought along with them. He finally found a suitcase full of them and smiled. “Found them!” he cried.

“Give me a couple of those,” said Vesta.

“Why? I thought you said they didn’t work?”