The Hitwoman's Juggling Act

by J. B. Lynn

  I drove to the hotel, fervently hoping that Jack Stern had left. Leaving God to stretch out on the warm dashboard of the car, I took everybody else inside. I knocked tentatively on the door to the room.

  “Just a sec,” Armani called from inside.

  I took that as a good sign, but I still closed my eyes when she opened the door, not wanting to see anything that I shouldn’t.

  “Hey, chica,” she said cheerily. “I guess the white mouse gave you the message.”

  Nodding, I opened one eye, to see whether it was safe, and Armani stood there, fully clothed. I opened my other eye.

  “I’m starving,” Armani complained.

  “Hungry!” DeeDee barked loudly.

  “Inside bark,” Piss reprimanded. She slunk inside the room and curled up underneath one of the beds.

  “I’ll bring you back some food, I promise,” I told DeeDee. Grudgingly, she entered the room and took up residence on the bed, directly above Piss’s head.

  “Let’s go,” I told Armani.

  She grinned. “I have so much to tell you.”

  I flinched. “Can it wait until I’ve had some coffee?”

  We went to the nearest diner and settled in. I was just grateful to have a steaming cup of caffeine, but Armani, like my animals, seemed ravenous. She ordered eggs, oatmeal, and a blueberry muffin. Not unusual for breakfast. Except for the fact that when they arrived, she crumbled the muffin over the eggs and mashed oatmeal into it.

  I averted my eyes, fighting the urge to gag, but part of me was happy she was getting back to normal. One less thing for me to worry about, I hoped.

  “You should eat something,” she said, chowing down on her desecrated food.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Doesn’t matter if you’re hungry,” she opined. “You really need to eat something.” She waved the waitress over and requested a toasted blueberry muffin. I took that to mean she didn’t have enough crumbs in her eggs.

  “So, you sent Jack to be my babysitter,” she said finally.

  I answered carefully. “Not a babysitter,” I muttered. “I just figured…”

  “Best idea you ever had,” Armani said enthusiastically. “He was awesome.”

  I nodded, hoping she wasn’t going to go into details. My own love life was pathetic, and hearing about her sex life wasn’t going to make me feel any better.

  “Guess who I saw yesterday,” I interjected, hoping to change the course of the conversation.

  “Zeke,” she answered with such authority that I was caught off-guard.

  “How did you know?”

  “I had a dream about him,” my friend revealed.

  “A psychic dream?” I asked hopefully.

  She shrugged. “My mojo is definitely coming back. I can feel it.”

  “That’s great,” I enthused. I wasn’t always the biggest fan of Armani’s psychic powers, but they made her happy, and they had helped me numerous times in the past.

  “I need new tiles,” she said.

  “I seem to remember suggesting that,” I murmured. “We’ll stop at a store and get you some.”

  She shook her head. “No, they have to be special tiles.”

  “What does special tiles mean?” I asked, not liking the sound of that.

  “I have to get a feeling from them.”

  “What kind of feeling?”

  “I can’t explain it,” she said. “It’s like porn…”

  The waitress arrived with the buttered blueberry muffin and raised her eyebrows at the mention of porn. She put it down in front of Armani and hustled off as though we’d somehow infect her with our evil ways.

  Armani chuckled. “Psychic feelings are like porn,” she explained. “You know it when you feel it.”

  I nodded like that made sense.

  She pushed the blueberry muffin across to me. “That’s for you. Eat it.”

  Not having the strength to argue with her, I nibbled at it. I had to admit that it tasted good, and I soon wolfed the whole thing down. On the way out, I picked up an egg sandwich for DeeDee.

  After the diner, we drove along as Armani searched for the perfect store to buy her new Scrabble tiles.

  It wasn’t as if I had nothing better to do with my time — among other things, I had to watch over Boy, keep the social worker from taking Katie, and figure out who was threatening my family, but I thought it was important that I help my friend.

  “There!” she shouted suddenly. “Stop there.”

  I pulled into the parking lot of a dingy-looking thrift shop. “Here?”

  She nodded excitedly. “They’re here, I can feel them.”

  I wanted to ask her how she could possibly feel anything from outside the store but decided not to engage her in anything that might result in an argument. Together, we walked into the shop, which was a mixture of old house goods and used clothing. She made a beeline for the back, ignoring the middle-aged woman behind the cash register who let out a cheery, “Good morning.”

  I smiled an apology at the cashier. “She’s a woman on a mission.”

  The woman shrugged. “We get those more often than you would think.”

  I cut through the racks of people’s old treasures and discarded belongings, and found Armani digging through a pile of board game boxes at the back of the store.

  “It’s here.” She grinned like a cat on catnip as she spilled boxes here and there.

  I glanced back at the cashier to see if she was upset by the mess that was being made, but she didn’t seem to be reacting.

  Finally, Armani pulled out a box. “Here it is.” She ripped off the lid and stared at the wooden tiles contained within.

  “Uh,” I began slowly. “Not to put a dampener on your parade or anything, but what makes you think all the little parts are in there?”

  She glanced up at me. “What do you mean?”

  “What if it’s missing letters? What if you can’t get the right messages because you’re missing and X or a Q or a Z or—”

  “Non-believer!” She shook her finger at me like a priest shaking a cross at a vampire.

  I stepped back. Obviously, my common sense was not wanted.

  Clutching the box to her chest, she hurried up to the cashier. I remained behind to try to make some semblance of order out of the boxes of board games that she’d laid waste to.

  By the time I’d finished, she was waiting impatiently by the front door. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”

  I wondered if Benny was rubbing off on her, too. As we walked back to the car, Armani oohed and ahhed as she moved the tiles in the box.

  “What are you going to carry them in?” I asked.

  “Can you please stop being so logical,” she asked, more than a tint of annoyance in her voice. “They will provide.”

  “They?”

  “The spirits, the voices, the universe.” She slammed the box shut for emphasis.

  “Okay.”

  “You should trust more,” she said. That seemed funny to me since the last few days she was certain her mojo was gone and was never coming back.

  “Everything will work out in the end,” she said.

  I wanted to believe her, I really did, but this was my life we were talking about.

  28

  The second we were back in the car, Armani began to shake the Scrabble box like somebody trying to get the last bit of parmesan cheese out of the container. She shook it high; she shook it low; she shook it in circles, she shook it back and forth and then she presented it to me. Lifting the lid, she said, “Choose.”

  I’m not going to say that I felt an inordinate amount of pressure in my choosing, but I was really afraid that Armani would lose her mojo again if I didn’t pull something good. So, I may have closed my eyes, and I may have concentrated pretty hard as I pulled my seven tiles. I laid them out, and Armani began to move around the letters, trying to make sense of them.

  D D F G I I T

  “FD Digit,” she cried out victor
iously.

  “What’s that mean?” I asked.

  “9-1-1.”

  I glanced around nervously, looking to see if there were any cops in the area. “Let’s do another.”

  She dumped the tiles back into the box and performed the whole shaking ritual again. I picked seven more, not bothering to concentrate this time.

  A D D E E H R

  After a few moments, she declared with a grin, “He dared.” She seemed pretty satisfied with herself. “I need a nap. I had a long night,” she told me with a wink.

  Not wanting to hear about her escapades with Jack Stern, I nodded and began to talk about finding Brian Griswald.

  By the time I’d reached the end of the story, Armani was laughing so hard tears were streaming down her face. “Chica,” she wheezed, “you have an amazing life.”

  “Amazing isn’t what I would call it,” I told her. I thought cursed was probably a more apropos description.

  We returned to the hotel room to find all of the animals sleeping.

  Even DeeDee, who was supposed to be ravenously hungry, was snoring.

  “You guys are an impressive alarm system,” I said in a tone that was just a bit too loud.

  Startled, they all jumped up.

  “Hungry!” DeeDee reminded me, eyeing the paper bag with the egg sandwich.

  “I didn’t forget you,” I assured her. I started to unwrap the sandwich.

  “You forget me all the time,” God groused.

  “Oh, shut up, you ate,” Piss said snarkily.

  I fed the dog and watched Armani kick off her shoes and lie down, holding the Scrabble box to her like it was a beloved teddy bear.

  “What are we up to next, sugar?” Piss purred, winding her way between my ankles.

  I shrugged. Like Armani, I really wanted a nap, but I had too much on my plate. “Let’s go,” I said to the animals.

  Armani gave a tired wave as we all filed out of the room. Benny even trotted behind, bringing up the rear.

  “How about I give you a lift out to the car?” I asked. The last thing I needed was for the hotel’s housekeeping staff to think they had an infestation of vermin.

  “Okay. Okay. Okay.”

  I bent down and scooped him up. In some ways, he was quickly becoming my favorite. He didn’t make demands on me and he never complained about anything.

  “Shotgun!” DeeDee barked.

  Startled, I dropped to the ground, almost dropping the mouse in the process. Looking out for the gunman, I crawled backwards.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” God asked slowly, like he didn’t think I could comprehend him otherwise.

  “Gun,” I whispered.

  “She just wants to ride in the front seat,” God explained.

  Embarrassed, I jumped to my feet and once again almost dropped the poor mouse. The little guy didn’t complain, though.

  “You’re losing it, Maggie,” the lizard said. “Since when do you think the dog is going to offer any kind of useful warning?”

  “It’s not like I’m not under threat,” I told him.

  “Technically, it’s Katie who’s under threat,” he reminded me.

  Him uttering those words made the knot in my stomach tighten. I didn’t know how to protect her because I didn’t know who my enemy was.

  “What do you think I should do next?”

  “You’re asking me?” The lizard sounded surprised.

  “Well, I don’t have any ideas,” I told him. “I thought maybe—”

  Before I could finish my sentence, Gino, Delveccio’s bodyguard, jumped out in front of me.

  “Ahhhhh!” I screamed. I jumped into what could best be described as a wannabe ninja pose.

  Gino, to his credit, managed not to laugh, though I did see a smirk as he raised his hands defensively. “Boss wants to see you.”

  I relaxed into a more normal stance and asked, “Wouldn’t it be easier if you just gave me a cell phone or something, then you wouldn’t have to come find me all the time?”

  Gino shrugged. “I like getting the chance to get out. And I like to see which of your pets is with you at any given moment.” He surveyed the menagerie, none of which had made any attempt to defend me against him. They all had better sense than me.

  “I assume he wants to see me now?” I asked, a note of impatience threading through my tone. It’s not like I didn’t appreciate Delveccio’s help, especially since I needed people to look after my family, but I really didn’t have time to be running his errands. I had problems of my own to solve.

  “That’s an understatement,” Gino said gravely. “Come on. I’ll take you in my car.”

  I stared at the animals. “I’m not going anywhere without them.”

  Gino surveyed the crew again. “All of them?”

  I nodded.

  He shrugged. “My car needs to be detailed anyway. Come on.”

  We followed him to a dark sedan.

  As we walked, I muttered under my breath to DeeDee, “Shotgun.”

  Even the dog knew not to argue with me. DeeDee and Piss piled into the back seat while I took the front passenger seat.

  Gino began to drive. “There’s something you should know.”

  My stomach dropped at his tone. Whatever he was going to tell me was a warning, of sorts.

  “Okay,” I said slowly.

  Gino glanced sideways at me as he spun the steering wheel. “It’s not my place to tell you this. If the bosses found out…”

  “I’m good at keeping secrets,” I promised.

  He nodded. “You must be. Otherwise, you’d never be allowed in the house.”

  I nodded that he spoke the truth.

  “By the way, how’s our girl?”

  “Good.”

  “That kid hustles cards like nobody I’ve ever seen,” Gino said with a chuckle.

  We drove along in silence for a couple of minutes.

  Finally, I had to remind him, “You were going to tell me something?”

  He nodded. “The package you delivered, was a little, um...damaged,” he said carefully. I knew he was talking about Boy’s stepfather, Frank Griffith, but I didn’t know what damaged meant.

  “Like the kind of damage you’d report to FedEx, hoping for a refund?” I asked.

  “It made the secondary party’s job a little more challenging than expected,” Gino explained.

  I had not damaged Boy’s stepfather, but I couldn’t say the same for Patrick.

  I remained silent, not telling Gino that, trying to figure out what I would tell Delveccio if he asked.

  “But did they get the information that they wanted?”

  Gino shook his head. “That’s not for me to know.”

  I realized he was driving me back to the warehouse where the Delveccio brothers have their Skee-Ball arcade set up. I wondered if they had any zeppole. I was pretty hungry. All I’d had to eat for quite a while was that blueberry muffin.

  As though he read my thoughts, Gino glanced over at me. “You’re looking kind of peaked.”

  I chuckled. “I haven’t heard anyone use the word peaked since my grandmother, and she only used it as an insult.”

  “I didn’t mean it as an insult. I was just going to say there was some beef jerky in the glove compartment if you’re hungry.”

  “Hungry!” DeeDee barked from the back seat, despite having just devoured an egg sandwich.

  The loud bark startled Gino, and he almost drove off the road. The car lurched wildly as we swerved out-of-control.

  “Inside car bark,” Piss reprimanded as he regained control of the vehicle.

  I opened the glove compartment, took out the package of beef jerky, and ripped open the plastic packaging. I offered half of it to Gino. He shook his head, so I tossed it to the dog and chowed down on the other half. It was chewy, and salty, and certainly not one of my favorite foods, but it was probably good for my brain to get some protein into me. I was having a lot of trouble figuring things out. And I had the feelin
g I was going to need my wits about me.

  29

  When Gino pulled into the alley that led to the Skee-Ball arcade, he said, “I think maybe the animals should wait in the car. The bosses, they aren’t really pet people. You know what I mean?”

  I nodded. We left Piss and DeeDee in the back seat, but I didn’t tell him that I had a lizard in my bra and a mouse cupped in my hand. We were almost to the door when my cell phone buzzed. I glanced at it. “I’ve got to take this.”

  Gino looked at me incredulously. “You know they’re waiting for you, right?”

  I nodded and held up my phone. “But this is a U.S. Marshal who’s checking in on me, and if I don’t answer, he’ll panic and send people to look for me and then…”

  Gino held up a hand to silence me. “Answer it.”

  I answered the phone. “I know I forgot to call.”

  “That’s understandable considering the run-in you had with my nephew this morning,” Griswald said. More than a little bit of annoyance tinged his tone.

  “I’m sorry about that. I’ll talk to Leslie.”

  “No,” Griswald said forcefully. “I’ll talk to her.”

  I felt a wave of pity for Aunt Leslie. Griswald was a nice guy, but he was a by-the-book man and finding out that his wife’s sister had drugged his nephew was not going to go over well with him. Leslie was in for a rude awakening, I suspected. I must admit, I was a little relieved that I wasn’t the one who had to try and rein her in, for once.

  “But that’s not the reason I’m calling,” Griswald continued.

  “Is Katie okay?” I asked worriedly.

  Across the alley from me, Gino looked up from thumbing through his cell phone, concerned.

  “Katie’s fine,” Griswald reassured me.

  I gave Gino a thumbs up. “Susan?”

  “She’s fine.”

  I waited, deciding it was easier to let him say what he had to rather than running through the other dozen people I was worried about.

  “I did some research on Doctor Oliver,” the U.S. Marshal told me. “It turns out, she’s one of the sisters of Steve, “the Shark” Sincero.”

  It took me a second to put everything together. The protein had not done much for my brain. “The one who blew up the B&B?”