Read Death, Taxes, and Hot Pink Leg Warmers for Free Online Page A

Dallas school district.”
    Whirr. “I told him not to take that job,” Suong said, waving the vacuum over the heads of her daughter and son-in-law.
    The couple did their best to ignore her.
    “We thought a job with the school district would be safe,” Lien said, bouncing the baby on her knee.
    Her mother snorted, rolled her eyes, and sucked another crumb from her grandson’s shirt. Whirr.
    “I’d already left my job to stay home with our son,” Lien continued. “With the cost of day care it didn’t make sense for me to continue to work.”
    “I told her I’d watch the baby.” Suong scowled. “But she wanted to babysit him herself.”
    “Mom, please,” Lien said, looking up at her mother. “It’s not called babysitting when it’s your own child. Sit down and let us talk.”
    Suong harrumphed but settled back on the edge of her chair, the vac still held at the ready.
    Eddie snagged a cookie from the tray and carefully raised it to his lips, taking a clean, crumb-free bite.
    “Show-off,” I whispered.
    “We saw an ad in the local paper.” Trang opened a large envelope and pulled out a copy of the Garland Texan, a community newspaper circulated in the northeast Dallas suburb. He handed the newspaper to Ackerman.
    Eddie and I read over Ackerman’s shoulders. The back cover featured a full-page ad that read STOP FORECLOSURE NOW! WE’LL SHOW YOU HOW! CALL GSM, INC .— YOUR FRIEND IN DEEDS.
    The ad promised desperate homeowners relief from their mortgage debts without loss of equity through what they called a lease-buyback program. Of course the men behind GSM had no intention of keeping their promises. It was all lies, lies, and more lies.
    “Did you meet with someone from GSM in person?” Ackerman asked the couple.
    “No, they did not,” Suong spat. “Stupid, stupid, stupid! I told them not to buy the house in the first place. Why would they want to live somewhere else when they could live here with me?”
    I had a sneaking suspicion why they’d want their own place.
    Trang and Lien exchanged glances.
    “I saw that!” Suong jabbed the vacuum at her daughter and son-in-law. “Ungrateful! You should thank me! I put a roof over your heads!”
    She may have put a roof over their heads, but if the woman kept henpecking the couple they’d probably soon put a gun to those heads.
    Eddie took another bite, but wasn’t so lucky this time. A trio of lemon-flavored specks fell to his blue silk tie.
    Suong was on them in an instant.
    Whirr. Whirr. Whirrup!
    The end of Eddie’s tie disappeared into the vacuum.
    He looked down. “That can’t be good.”
    Suong attempted to turn the vacuum off, but the gadget seemed to be malfunctioning and wouldn’t stop. The suction pulled the vacuum closer and closer to Eddie’s neck, sucking his tie tighter and tighter around his throat. Given that Eddie had dark skin I couldn’t tell if he was turning purple, but judging from his bulging eyes I suspected his air supply was constricted.
    “Help!” Eddie gasped, fighting for air, his hands clawing at the tie that had become a noose around his neck.
    I grabbed the vacuum from Suong’s hands, pushed her aside, and tried to pull the device away from Eddie. My efforts were futile. The next thing we knew, a burning smell emanated from the device and smoke poured out of the end under Eddie’s face.
    Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Flames shot out of the end of the vacuum, licking Eddie’s chin.
    Heat seared my hands. “Aah!” Reflexively, I released the hot appliance and covered my mouth and nose in terror.
    The blazing vacuum hung like an odd, oversized pendant from Eddie’s neck. He opened his mouth as if to scream, but with no oxygen in his lungs he managed only a choking sound. He slapped at the flames, but couldn’t put them out. Luckily, his tie burned clear through and the vacuum fell to the rubberized flooring, giving off a death rattle before finally falling silent.
    Whirr-whirr-whirr  … irr  …