Okay, you’ve got to understand something. Back in my single days, long before I ever met Stacy, I used to have this dream. I was with this beautiful woman and we were laughing, and everything was perfect. It was a euphoric feeling. But then I’d wake up and realize it was just a dream, I hadn’t met this wonderful woman. I was heartbroken, overcome with a feeling of deep loss. When I tried to remember what she looked like I could never put a face to her. Until I met Stacy. From the moment I first set eyes on her—cracking that poor SOB’s kneecap—I knew she was the woman from my dreams. Of my dreams.
I tell you this now to explain what I did next. For, in spite of the fact that I knew everything she’d said was probably just a crock of shit, I leaned forward and kissed her. It was a long, loving kiss, familiar and comfortable. As the kiss ended we folded naturally into a tender hug. She felt so good in my arms, I found myself squeezing her tightly, subconsciously willing her never to leave. “I’ve missed you,” I whispered.
“You don’t have to. Not anymore.”
“What? You mean go out? Start dating again?”
“I was thinking more about working together.”
I got this uncomfortable tickling at the base of my spine.
“Working together, how?”
“On this case, the Gravesnatcher. I’m sure if we told Captain Rocket that we’d settled our personal problems, and that you insisted I be reinstated, she’d have to agree.”
I felt like I’d just woken up from that dream. “You bitch.”
“What?”
“What, what? Admit it, the only reason you’re here, the only reason you gave me that soul-searching confession, was to get me to talk to Mary Rocket.”
“I did come here hoping to enlist your help. But everything I said, I meant. And the kiss, I meant. Like this one ...” Another kiss, as sweet as the first, maybe a touch more urgent, from Stacy.
“Well,” she said as our lips parted. “Will you talk to her?”
The last thing I needed right now was Stacy hanging around. First of all, she’d probably figure out I lied to Mary Rocket about the location of the drop. Second, she was too personally involved in the case. She was so embarrassed by the fiasco at Magic Land I wasn’t sure she’d be able to make cool, rational decisions.
Her lips brushed my cheek. “Please ...”
“No.”
I felt her go rigid. “No?”
“I can’t, Stacy. Captain Rocket will never let you back on the case.”
“Just tell her you need the best help available, someone who knows exactly how you work, how you think. Someone who’s got a vested interest in your not getting hurt.”
Then I realized I had nothing to lose. There was no way Mary Rocket would say yes. Why not be a gentleman, keep Stacy happy and tonight’s prospects alive. “All right,” I said, brushing my lips across her cheek. “I’ll talk to her.”
She brushed her lips across mine. “Thank you.” Then she was out of my arms and heading for her purse on the couch.
“I’ll keep my cell phone on. Call me once you get hold of her.”
“Wait a minute, where’re you going?”
“I’ve got a date. I’m taking Irving to Spago’s for dinner.”
“You’re leaving me for a date with Piccolo?”
“It’s his birthday.”
“But what about ... us?”
“There’ll be an ‘us’ once you get Captain Rocket to say yes.”
“Are you saying that if Captain Rocket says no, there is no us?”
“Let’s just say I’ll be much more motivated once I’m back on the task force.”
“Forget it, Stacy. We’re talking about our relationship here. It has to be bigger than a decision by Captain Rocket. Hell, it has to be bigger than the Gravesnatcher. Bigger than anything!”
“Relationship? Who said anything about a relationship?”
“You did. Or your lips did. If you didn’t want to get back together, what was the big confession all about? The kisses?”
“I can be sorry about what led to the divorce without wanting to move back in with you, can’t I? And I hope I can sleep with you without putting a ring back on.”
“It feels like blackmail.”
“It is.” She crossed back to me, gave me a peck on the cheek.
“You get a yes out of Captain Rocket and I’ll be back with my lock picks.” With that, she breezed out the door.
I tried to put Stacy out of my mind as I assembled the bomb. But it was tough. After all, she’s the one who’d taught me how to make it.
A feeling of dread engulfed me as I rolled out a six–by-three inch rectangle of C-4, made a circuit out of the leg wires of an electric blasting cap, made a loop switch, and attached a nine-volt battery.
Dread because emotions I’d long since buried wrapped around the outside of my brain and began to peak over the top of my parietal lobe. Shame. Regret. Remorse. Guilt. The same emotions that had bombarded me after the divorce. Emotions I dulled with booze and finally vanquished with a finely honed hate of Stacy. I made her the enemy. Stacy’s disconnect during my emotional collapse after the disastrous frame of Ernie Wagner became my justification for jumping Lisa’s bones. My justification for concluding the divorce was long overdue. My justification for wondering if I’d ever really loved Stacy in the first place.
I opened the backpack and slipped the bomb inside. It wasn’t armed yet; I’d have to attach a string to the loop switch and connect it to the zipper. Once done, the bomb was ready.
When the Gravesnatcher unzipped the backpack, the string would be pulled taut, the loop switch would be thrown, the circuit would close, the sudden jolt of electricity would fire the blasting cap and that would trigger the C-4. BOOM.
BOOM. That’s what Stacy’s visit had just done to my emotional equilibrium. Blown it up. When I realized how much I wanted to kiss her, how much I wanted to hold her, how much I wanted to be with her, I realized how much I still loved her. Or, should I say, I finally admitted to myself that I still loved her. For, you see, I still had that dream about the perfect woman every so often, and yes, it was always Stacy.
As I folded the deadly backpack under my arm, I made a promise to myself. After the Gravesnatcher case was closed, I was going to win Stacy back.
The Best Laid Plans
It was magic hour as I reached Lisa’s gate. A dazzling, iridescent sunset smeared itself across the sky thanks to a volcanic eruption half a world away in Papua, New Guinea. Sixty-three people had been killed when the Rabaul volcano blew, spewing ash and dust into the stratosphere. And thanks to the jet stream, the dust and ash residue from that killer volcano was treating the rest of the world to a month of fabulous sunsets. The irony that is life.
I buzzed the gate, no answer. I buzzed again. Nothing. Shit, this was not good.
I got out of the car. The wall around Lisa’s property was eight feet high. I jumped, hoping to grab onto the edge of the wall and pull myself over. But it was too high.
Fuck. This was bad and getting worse.
I got back into my car, pulled up until the front bumper was touching the wall, then got back out of the car and carefully climbed onto the hood. My front end was still mashed, thanks to the Gravesnatcher’s hit and run, but the hood itself was okay. I didn’t want to dent the delicate metal, but two metallic groans and a loud POP told me the body shop was going to have even more work to do. It was worth it, however, because I could now easily reach the top of the wall. I pulled myself up and over, hit the ground hard but I stayed on my feet, and raced for the house.
Hillary’s Prius was parked in front, along with the dark blue Lexus I assumed belonged to the bitch manager, but Lisa’s ivory 280 was gone. Shit. Fuck. Piss.
I tried the front door. Locked. A side window, locked. I circled the house, trying all the windows. Nothing. The sliding glass doors leading from the pool to the living room were also locked. Then, looking through the glass doors, I noticed a body lying on the floor near the wh
ite couch. All I could see were two legs sticking out, one of them bent at a gruesomely unnatural angle. Oh, my God, Hillary, I thought.
In a move seen on innumerable TV shows, I grabbed an iron lawn chair and hurled it at the sliding glass door. But life is life, not a TV show, so the fucking chair just bounced off.
Now I was mad. I pulled my gun, aimed for the edge of the glass where the door handle and lock would be, and fired three times. Three small holes appeared as the glass spider webbed but didn’t shatter. The three holes formed a pattern big enough to punch my hand through. I did, felt around for the lock mechanism, found it and unlocked it. I slid the door open and rushed to the body.
I’d expected to find Hillary. I didn’t. It was the manager, Joan Hagler. She had a split lip, a black eye and—judging from the akimbo angle of her leg—a broken tibia. I pressed a finger to her carotid, got a strong pulse. I also got a shock when I saw all the blood on my hand. I’d shredded the skin punching through the glass.
I was looking around for something to wrap my hand in when I noticed the room. It was a wreck. A chair was turned over, the glass coffee table was shattered, and there was a gaping hole in the TV. With a start I realized I could smell gunpowder.
That’s when I saw the bullet holes in the wall leading up to the TV. I counted four of them. Number five must’ve hit the screen.
My thoughts reeled from Lisa running away to Lisa and Hillary dead, killed by the Gravesnatcher. I called out: “Lisa! Hillary!”
Silence. Damn it. “Lisa! Hillary!” I heard something, not a voice but a banging. Thump. Thump. Thump. I followed the sound into the huge kitchen and to a pantry door.
THUMP. THUMP. I yanked it open to find Hillary on the floor, a gag in her mouth, her hands tied behind her.
“Where’s Lisa?” I blurted.
She answered, but it came out, “mmmm mm mmmmm mmm,” because of the gag. I pulled it off. “She got away. I am so fired, right?”
“Lisa locked you in the pantry?”
“Yes.”
“Who beat up Hagler?”
“Mostly me.”
“And who shot up the living room?”
“Me and Hagler, but Lisa helped a little.”
“The overturned chair? The broken coffee table?”
“Ditto, all three of us. You know you’re bleeding?”
I spotted a roll of paper towels, pulled off a few sheets and wrapped my hand. “The Gravesnatcher wasn’t here? Just the three of you?”
“That’s right, just a good old fashioned cat fight.”
I undid Hillary’s hands. “It was going great at first,” Hillary explained, untying her feet. “Lisa was real sweet, like a normal human being. I had expected this movie goddess number but no, she was, like, so there. We talked about her career, poor dead Hudson
King, and the very much alive Jake Gyllenhaal who she dated for a while and I think is so hot, but to be honest he’s no Leonardo DiCaprio. But I should’ve been suspicious because the whole time Lisa is throwing these, like, really furtive glances at her manager. How is she, by the way?”
“Unconscious.”
“She is such a bitch. This is all her fault if you ask me.”
“I am asking you.”
“Oh, right. Well, underline the bitch part. So about an hour ago Lisa and I were sitting in the living room watching a video of Heartache, that movie she did with Nicolas Cage last year. Lisa and Joan exchange another one of those looks and Joan excuses herself. Says she’s got to go to the bathroom. Like a total dunce, I let her. She comes back a few minutes later holding a gun, this giant .45 automatic.
“Joan says to Lisa, ‘I called the airline, we’re booked on the eight o’clock.’ Then Joan says to me, ‘Sorry, little miss bodyguard, but they only had two seats available. Now, stand up.’ I did, never taking my eyes off that cannon.
“ ‘I’m sorry,’ Lisa says to me. ‘Tell Gideon I’m sorry, too.’
“ ‘Fuck Gideon,’ the manager says. ‘This is all his fault. You have any rope, Lisa?’
“ ‘In the garage.’
“ ‘Get it. And bring something to gag goldilocks.’ Lisa runs out and Joan says to me, ‘I’ve got a message for your boss. Tell that SOB that I’ll get him for this. He is personally responsible for disrupting Lisa’s career arc. And the longer she’s forced to be in hiding, the more money I’m going to sue him for. In fact, I’ll sue you, too, Blondie, right down to your black roots. You’re going to regret the day you ever met Gideon Kincaid.’
“First of all,” Hillary said, interrupting her story. “I’m a natural blond. I hate chemicals of any kind and would never soak those poisons into my hair. Second of all, I love working for you, especially now that I’m an operative. She can sue me for a hundred billion dollars and it won’t change how I feel about you. So, in spite of this little setback, I hope you don’t fire me.”
“You’re not fired,” I said, picking up the phone and dialing 911. To my surprise they answered immediately. I reported an unconscious woman with a broken leg, gave the address and hung up. “You were saying ...”
“Right. So Lisa comes back with the rope and stuff. ‘Tie her hands behind her back,’ the manager says. I suddenly realize that to do that Lisa has to walk in front of me, between me and the manager, between me and the .45. And when she does I grab her, using her as a shield, and shove her, hard, into the manager. They both go down and the gun skitters over toward the bar. I dive for it, but so does the manager, and we both end up with our hands on it. We wrestle back and forth and she must have her finger on the trigger because BANG, it goes off.
Lisa screams and BANG, BANG, BANG it goes off again. The TV blows up, more screams from Lisa, but I finally manage to get a leg behind the manager and I shove her back, over my leg. She goes down. Now I’ve got the gun, but just for a second because the manager’s leg whips me and I go down.
The gun goes flying again as the manager jumps on me and we go rolling around on the floor knocking over a chair, breaking the coffee table. I’d had fights before in my karate classes, but it’s different when it’s for real. It’s hard to remember all those cool moves, and the ones I did remember didn’t work too well. I’m going to have to talk to Chang about that. Anyway, I finally got the upper hand. I was sitting on her chest, ready to pop her one, when I feel this hard poke in my back and Lisa says, ‘Standup or I’ll shoot.’ I turn around and Lisa’s got the gun and this terrified look in her eyes. Now I’m terrified that she’s going to shoot me by accident. So I stand up.
“The manager grabs the rope and ties my hand behind my back, and she’s so mad at me she pulls the rope really hard. She’s ranting and raving, calling me, like, every name in the book. By the time she ties my feet and gags me, she’s practically foaming at the mouth. Then she takes the gun from Lisa and aims it at my head.
“ ‘What’re you doing?’ Lisa asks her.
“ ‘I’m going to kill her,’ the manager says. ‘The cops’ll blame the Gravesnatcher.’
“ ‘But you can’t kill her,’ Lisa says.
“ ‘Watch me,’ the nutzoid manager says and cocks the gun.
“Lisa screams no, grabs the Golden Globe statue from the table and hits the manager in the face with it! The manager falls back over the couch, and there’s this horrible CRACK sound as she lands. But she doesn’t move. ‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,’ Lisa keeps saying. She’s totally freaked now. She picks up the gun, tells me to get in the kitchen. I hop down the hall, into the kitchen and she sticks me in the pantry. I figured she would’ve gone back and taken care of the manager, but I guess not. She must’ve panicked and run.”
“Did she take the money?”
“I don’t know. It was in the study.”
“Show me.”
Hillary led me down a hall, around a corner and into a wood paneled study. In the middle of the rosewood desk was a three-foot- high stack of hundred dollar bills.
“This case goes from one fucked up mess to another,” M
ary Rocket said, angrily limping around the study. I stood behind the desk, Hillary next to me. Through the window I could see the paramedics load the now conscious and loudly complaining manager into the ambulance. Since the paramedics had revived her, Joan Hagler had threatened to sue me, Hillary, Lisa, the paramedics, the ambulance company, the police department and the Gravesnatcher.
One of the task force detectives, Gabriel Ruiz, poked his head into the room. “There are thirty-two flights scheduled to take off from LAX at eight o’clock. We’ll have someone at every gate.”
“You don’t have much time,” I said, glancing at my watch. It was seven forty-five.
“A lot of those flights have already boarded,” Mary Rocket said. “Coordinate with airport security, search every aircraft. We’ve got to find her.” Ruiz left.
When 911 got my call they alerted the closest fire department paramedic unit and police dispatch. Lisa’s address was on the Watch List because of the Gravesnatcher case so the operator notified Captain Rocket. Because the Gravesnatcher might be watching the house, and since his note said ‘No Cops,’ Mary Rocket and Ruiz were smart enough to show up in a second ambulance, both dressed as paramedics.
“What do we do if we can’t find her,” Mary Rocket asked me. “Will the Gravesnatcher still show up if Lisa’s not there?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll go with you,” Hillary said. “I can wear a wig, some of her clothes.”
I shook my head. “Good idea, but you’re too short.”
“I can wear heels.”
“Seven inch heels? You’re five two, Lisa’s five nine.”
“No problem,” Mary Rocket said. “We’ll find a five nine policewoman.”
I knew a five-nine policewoman. A couple of hours ago I’d kissed her. This was almost too good to be true. “How about Stacy,” I said. “She’s five nine.” Mary Rocket scowled but I plowed ahead. “She’s perfect, Captain. She knows exactly how I work, how I think.” I couldn’t believe I was actually quoting Stacy’s words to me. Fate had given me the opportunity, so why not?
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