Authors: Janet Evanovich
“I don't shoot people for a living. I almost never shoot people.” I thunked my head against the wall. “I hate fix-ups. Fix-ups are always awful.”
“Can't be any more awful than that bozo you married,” Grandma said. “Only one way to go after that fiasco.”
She was right. My short-lived marriage had been a fiasco.
There was a knock on the door, and we swiveled our heads to look down the hall.
“Eddie Kuntz!” I gasped.
“Yep,” Grandma said. “That's his name. He called up here looking for you, and so I invited him to dinner.”
“Hey,” Eddie said through the screen.
He was wearing a gray short-sleeved shirt open halfway down his chest, pleated slacks and Gucci loafers, no socks. He had a bottle of red wine in his hand.
“Hello,” we said in unison.
“Can I come in?”
“Sure you can come in,” Grandma said. “I guess we don't leave handsome men standing at the door.”
He handed the wine to Grandma and winked. “Here you go, cutie.”
Grandma giggled. “Aren't you the one.”
“I almost never shoot people,” I said. “Almost never.”
“Me too,” he said. “I hate unnecessary violence.”
I took a step backward. “Excuse me. I need to help in the kitchen.”
My mother hurried after me. “Don't even think about it!”
“What?”
“You know what. You were going to sneak out the back door.”
“He's not my type.”
My mother started filling serving dishes with food from the stove. Mashed potatoes, green beans, red cabbage. “What's wrong with him?”
“He's got too many buttons open on his shirt.”
“He could turn out to be a nice person,” my mother said. “You should give him a chance. What would it take? And what about supper? I have this nice chicken that will go to waste. What will you eat for supper if you don't eat here?”
“He called Grandma cutie!”
My mother had been slicing up the chicken. She took a drumstick and dropped it on the floor. She kicked it around a little, picked it up and put it on the edge of the plate. “There,” she said, “we'll give him this drumstick.”
“Deal.”
“And I have banana cream pie for desert,” she added to seal the bargain. “So you want to make sure you stay to the end.”
Be still my heart.
I TOOK MY PLACE at the table, next to Eddie Kuntz. “You were trying to get in touch with me?”
“Yeah. I lost your card. I put it down somewhere and couldn't find it. So I looked you up in the phone book . . . only I got your parents. Good thing, too. Granny told me you're hard up for a man, and it turns out I'm between women right now, and I don't mind older chicks. So I guess this is your lucky day.”
The chick made a valiant effort not to stab her fork into Eddie Kuntz's eyeball. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
“I got a call from Maxine. She said she had a message for me and it was coming by airmail tomorrow. I said tomorrow was Sunday, and there was no airmail on Sunday, so why doesn't she just tell me the message. Then she called me some names.” He gave me a face like Maxine had hurt his feelings for no good reason. “Real abusive,” he said.
“Was that it?”
“That was it. Except she said she was going to make me squirm. And then she hung up.”
* * * * *
BY THE TIME we got to the banana cream pie I was feeling antsy. Nowicki had called Kuntz, so Nowicki was alive, and that was good. Unfortunately, she was sending him airmail. Airmail meant distance. And distance was bad. Even more bothersome was the fact that Eddie Kuntz's napkin was moving on his lap without benefit of hands. My first inclination was to shout “Snake!” and shoot, but probably that wouldn't hold up in court. Besides, as much as I disliked Eddie Kuntz, I could sort of identify with a man who got a stiffie over banana cream pie.
I scarfed down a piece of pie and cracked my knuckles. I glanced at my watch. “Gee, look at the time!”
My mother gave me her resigned mother look. The one that said, So go . . . at least I got you to stay through desert and now I know you had one good meal this week. And why can't you be more like your sister, Valerie, who's married and has two kids and knows how to cook a chicken.
“Sorry, I have to run,” I said, pushing back from the table.
Kuntz paused with his fork midway to his mouth. “What? We leaving?”
I retrieved my shoulder bag from the kitchen. “I'm leaving.”
“He's leaving too,” my father said, head bent over his pie.
“Well, this was nice,” Grandma said. “This didn't go so bad.”
* * * * *
KUNTZ DANCED behind me when I opened my car door. Up on the balls of his feet. Lots of energy. Tony Testosterone. “How about we go somewhere for a drink?”
“Can't. I've got work to do. I need to finish up a lead.”
“Is this about Maxine? I could go with you.”
I slid behind the wheel and cranked the engine over. “Not a good idea. But I'll give you a call if anything turns up.”
Look out world. Bounty hunter in action.
The diner was less than half filled when I arrived. Most of the people were lingering over coffee. In another hour a younger crowd would straggle in for desert or fries after the movies let out.
The shift had changed, and I didn't recognize the woman working the register. I introduced myself and asked for Margie.
“Sorry,” the woman said. “Margie didn't come in today. Called in sick. Said she might not be here tomorrow, either.”
I retreated to my car and rummaged through my bag, searching for the list of family and friends I'd gotten from Kuntz. I ran down the list in the fading light. There was one Margie. No last name, no phone, and for address Kuntz had written “yellow house on Barnet Street.” He'd also added that Margie drove a red Isuzu.
The sun was a thin scarlet smudge on the horizon when I got to Barnet, but I was able to spot the yellow bungalow and red car. A woman with a heavily bandaged hand stepped out of the yellow house to fetch her cat just as I crept to a stop at the curb. She grabbed the gray cat when she saw me and disappeared behind her door. Even from the curb I could hear the bolt being thrown.
At least she was home. My secret fear had been that she'd disappeared and was sharing rent with Maxine in Cancun.
I hitched my bag onto my shoulder, plastered a friendly smile on my face, marched up the short cement walk and knocked on her door.
The door opened with the security chain in place. “Yes?”
I passed my card through to her. “Stephanie Plum. I'd like to talk to you about Maxine Nowicki.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I have nothing to say about Maxine. And I'm not feeling good.”
I peeked through the crack in the door and saw she held her bandaged hand to her chest. “What happened?”
She looked at me slack faced and dead eyed, obviously medicated. “It was an accident. A kitchen accident.”
“It looks pretty bad.”
She blinked. “I lost a finger. Well, I didn't actually lose it. It was on the kitchen counter. I took it to the hospital and got it sewed back on.”
I had an instant vision of her finger lying on the kitchen counter. Little black dots danced in front of my eyes, and I felt sweat pop out on my upper lip. “I'm sorry!”
“It was an accident,” she said. “An accident.”
“Which finger was it?”
“The middle finger.”
“Oh man, that's my favorite finger.”
“Listen,” she said. “I gotta go.”
“Wait! Just one minute more. I really need to know about Maxine.”
“There's nothing to know. She's gone. There's nothing more I can tell you.”
* * * * *
I SAT in my car and took a deep breath. From now on, I was going to be more careful in the kitchen. No more fishing around the garbage disposal looking for bottle caps. No more flamboyant whacking away at salad greens.
It was too late to hit any more people on the list, so I headed home. The temperature had dropped a few degrees, and the air getting sucked through the sunroof was pleasant. I cruised across town, parked behind my apartment building and swung through the rear entrance.
Rex stopped running on his wheel when I walked into the living room. He looked at me, whiskers twitching.
“Don't ask,” I said. “You don't want to know.” Rex was squeamish about things like chopped-off fingers.
My mother had given me some chicken and some pie to take home. I broke off a chunk of the pie and gave it to Rex. He shoved the crust into his cheek pouch, and his shiny black eyes almost popped out of his head.
Probably I'd looked like that earlier today when Morelli had asked for a doughnut.
* * * * *
I ALWAYS KNOW it's Sunday because I wake up feeling apologetic. That's one of the cool things about being a Catholic . . . it's a multifaceted experience. If you lose the faith, chances are you'll keep the guilt, so it isn't as if you've been skunked altogether. I rolled my head and looked at the digital readout on my clock. Eight. Still time to make late mass. I really should go. My eyes grew heavy at the thought.
Next time I opened my eyes it was eleven. Gosh. Too late to go to church. I heaved myself out of bed and padded to the bathroom, telling myself it was okay because God was willing to forgive little things like skimpy church attendance. Over the years I'd evolved my religion and constructed the Benevolent God. The Benevolent God also didn't care about such trifles as cussing and fibbing. The Benevolent God looked into a person's heart and knew if she'd been naughty or nice in the grand scheme of things. In my world, God and Santa Claus did not micromanage lives. Of course, that meant you couldn't count on them to help you lose weight, either.
I stepped out of the shower and shook my head by way of styling my hair. I dressed in my usual uniform of spandex shorts and halter-style sports bra and topped it off with a Rangers hockey jersey. I took another look at my hair and decided it needed some help, so I did the gel, blow-dry, hair spray routine. When I was done I was several inches taller. I stood in front of the mirror and did the Wonder Woman thing, feet spread, fists on hips. “Eat dirt, scumbag,” I said to the mirror. Then I did the Scarlett thing, hand to my heart, coy smile. “Rhett, you handsome devil, how you do go on.”
Neither of those felt exactly right for the day, so I took myself into the kitchen to see if I could find my identity in the refrigerator. I was plowing through a Sara Lee frozen cheesecake when the phone rang.
“Hey,” Eddie Kuntz said.
“Hey,” I answered.
“I got the letter from Maxine. I thought you might want to take a look.”
* * * * *
I CRUISED over to Muffet Street and found Eddie Kuntz standing on his minuscule front lawn, hands dangling loose at his sides, staring at his front window. The window was smash city. Big hole square in the middle. Lots of fracture lines.
I slammed the door when I got out of the car, but Kuntz didn't turn at the sound, nor at my approach. We stood there for a moment, side by side, studying the window disaster.
“Nice job,” I said.
He nodded. “Square in the middle. Maxine was on the softball team in high school.”
“She do this last night?”
Another nod. “I was going to bed. I turned the light off and CRASH . . . a brick came sailing through my front window.”
“Airmail,” I said.
“Yeah, goddamn airmail. My aunt is apeshit. She's my landlady. Her and Uncle Leo live in the other half of this piece of crap. The only reason she isn't out here wringing her hands is on account of she's at church.”
“I didn't realize you were renting.”
“What, you think I'd pick out these paint colors? Do I look like one of those poofie guys?”
Hell no. Poofie guys don't think a rip in an undershirt represents a fashion statement.
He handed me a piece of white paper. “This was tied around the brick.”
The letter was handwritten and addressed to Kuntz. The message was simple. It told him he'd been a jerk, and if he wanted his property back, he was going to have to go on a treasure hunt. It said his first clue was “in the big one.” And then a bunch of mixed-up letters followed.
“What does this mean?” I asked him.
“If I knew I wouldn't be calling you, would I? I'd be out on a goddamn treasure hunt.” He threw his hands into the air. “She's wacko. I should have known she was wacko from the beginning. She had a thing about spies. Was always watching those stupid Bond movies. I'd be banging her from behind, and she'd be watching James Bond on the television. Can you believe it?”
Oh yeah.
“You snoop around, right?” he said. “You know all about being a spy? You know about cracking codes?”
“I don't know anything about being a spy,” I told him. “And I don't know what this says.”
In fact, not only didn't I know anything about being a spy, I didn't even know much about being a bounty hunter. I was just bumbling along, trying to pay my rent, praying I'd win the lottery.
“So now what?” Kuntz asked.
I reread the note. “What is this property she's talking about?”
He gave me a minute-long, blank look. “Love letters,” he finally said. “I wrote her some love letters, and I want them back. I don't want them floating around now that we're broken up. There's some embarrassing things in them.”
Eddie Kuntz didn't seem like the type to write love letters, but what do I know? He did seem like the type to trash an apartment. “Did you go to her apartment looking for the letters?”
“Yeah, but the apartment was all locked up.”
“You didn't break in? You didn't have a key?”
“Break in? You mean like bash down the door?”
“I walked through Maxine's apartment yesterday. Someone has torn it apart.”
Again, the blank look. “I don't know anything about it.”
“I think someone was looking for something. Could Maxine have been keeping drugs?”
He shrugged. “Who knows with Maxine. Like I said, she's screwy. ”
It was nice to know Maxine was in the area, but aside from that I couldn't get too excited about a note I couldn't read. And I definitely didn't want to hear more about Kuntz's sex life.