Macho Man Murder

by Leslie Langtry

  I just had to hand over the pizza and head to Bitsy's room, where I could knock and say I was delivering a pizza to her too. Hopefully, she'd open the door, and I could shove my way in. It would work. I mean, who doesn't open a door for pizza?

  The door to 701 flew open, and to my complete surprise, Riley was standing there. His mouth dropped open, and he reached for the pizza, but I shoved him backward and pushed my way into his room, closing the door behind me.

  "What are you doing here?" we both said at the same time.

  Riley took the pizza and grinned. "I didn't realize times were so tough that you had to get a job."

  "They aren't," I said, looking around. "It's just you, then?" I certainly didn't need to see a naked woman lounging on the bed.

  He nodded and offered me a piece of pizza. I took it, of course, because it was pizza.

  "Why are you here?" I had to ask, even though I wasn't about to give him my reasons for being here.

  "It's part of that case I'm investigating." He took a bite out of the slice he was holding.

  That was weird. Riley never ate fast food. I looked at the slice in my hand. Giant slabs of veggies crisscrossed a little bit of cheese.

  "Veggie? You ordered a veggie pizza?"

  He nodded. "Yup, with gluten-free crust made out of cauliflower."

  I tossed the piece back into the box as if it was a slice of poison. "That's unnatural! It's a crime against humanity!"

  Riley shook his head. "It's pizza."

  "No. It isn't. That's unholy. And because you just tried to poison me, I'm going to have to know about this case you're working on."

  Did it involve Bitsy? Or had the CIA contracted with him to find her? If that was the case, he took his time and slept with her before reporting in. Or was he trying to find out if Hilly killed Wally? Did he know what room she was in?

  "Client/investigator privilege. I already told you that," he said. "Why are you here delivering pizza?"

  "Amateur detective/Chechen thugs privilege," I invented.

  "That's not a thing," Riley said.

  "It totally is. Tell you what. You tell me what your case is, and I'll tell you what I'm doing here."

  If he took the bait, he had far more to lose than I did. After all, he already knew I was looking for Bitsy. But I had no idea what his case was.

  "Why don't you go first?" Riley asked.

  "Because I asked first. That's a thing too."

  Riley finished his piece of pizza, then wiped his hands on a napkin and opened a bottle of water.

  "Okay. I'm working for a client who's trying to trace some merchandise."

  "Like a fence? You're working the wrong side of the law now? Dealing in stolen merchandise?"

  He set the bottle of water on the nightstand. "It's not like that."

  "Explain it then."

  Riley got up and walked over to me, stopping just a few inches away. The man oozed sex. And he was trying to use that to mess with me.

  His voice was husky. "You know, it's just you and me—alone in a hotel room."

  My voice was threatening. "You know I can break your arm in two seconds."

  He laughed and backed off. "I'm just kidding. I have no intention of cheating with you on Rex."

  "Dammit, Riley," I growled. "I'm losing patience here."

  He sighed and sat down on the bed. "I was hired by a man who's looking for something he deems to be extremely valuable. It's not stolen. It's just missing."

  "And you traced whatever it is here?"

  He shrugged. "I have a hunch."

  "And it's the same case that had you at the Cornhole?"

  "Yes." He was reverting to one-word answers.

  "And does it involve Bitsy?"

  The one-word answer was reduced to a shrug. I'd hit a wall with Riley. Oh sure, I could break his arm, but that wouldn't get me anywhere.

  He studied me. "Now why are you here?"

  Oh hell. Why not. "Bitsy has a hotel room on this floor. I'm pretty sure she killed Wally."

  I explained what Ahmed had told me.

  Riley frowned. "That's bad. When an agent goes rogue, they become irrational and dangerous. I don't think you should approach her without backup."

  He thought she was dangerous! "What did she tell you when she showed up?"

  "Just that she was passing through, heard I was here, and stopped by. She said she'd always had a thing for me."

  I rolled my eyes. "Which you fell for and exploited, naturally."

  "The two of us are grown, consenting adults, Wrath. If she was here to kill Wally, why didn't she just leave afterward?"

  I thought about this. I didn't like the answer I came up with. "Ron and Ivan? Maybe she's taking them out too."

  Riley shrugged. "Would that be so bad?"

  Riley had been an excellent handler for the CIA. He'd never crossed a line or broken the rules as far as I knew. And he was repeating what Hilly had said earlier. When you're in the business, people die. It's a fact of life that I had personally avoided thinking about until now. And now that I was, I didn't like it.

  "Yes, it would. Ivan and Ron are getting released tomorrow. And they're going to be staying at my place. I'd rather not clean up another crime scene."

  "Very sentimental." Riley laughed.

  "Well, that and there's another reason." I told him about the two men's impending nuptials.

  He whistled. "Wow. Rex must be pissed."

  I didn't answer that. Mostly because he was.

  "I remember her assignment in Greece." Riley stared into space. "It was pretty simple. She wasn't there for more than a month. Not like Chechnya."

  Whoa. If Riley had worked with her too, I was going to kill him right here with the pizza box. "You were her handler?"

  He shook his head. "No. I just heard about it. She was doing the housekeeper thing there too. Embedded with two drug runners. But it wasn't very long."

  There was some satisfaction in the fact that her undercover work was cleaning up after these jerks. "Do you think it was revenge for something they did to her?"

  "No. Bitsy can handle herself. If I had to guess, I'd say she snapped. She was pretty weird back at my house. Wanted to do some strange things, if you know what I mean." He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

  "Like sleeping with you?" I asked. He laughed. "What I want to know is why go on this killing spree?"

  "Some people just flip out when they leave. Maybe she didn't get a good retirement plan. Maybe the dominatrices in HR drummed her out for another reason."

  "You think she's doing this to get back at the Agency?"

  He shrugged. "It's possible."

  "Well, you've been very helpful. But I have to go see if she's there. So bye."

  "Wait. I'll come with you." He stood up from the bed.

  I shook my head. "You might trigger her into wanting something kinky. I'd better do this myself."

  "This doesn't have to do with you wanting revenge for her taking credit for your work, does it?"

  Yes. "No. I'm a professional. I get it." I didn't. But he didn't have to know that. Besides, it was a way to avoid scrutiny should I accidentally throw her out of the seventh-floor window.

  "I'm going to stand in the hall outside the door, if you don't mind. Shout if you need me."

  He was coming along whether I wanted him to or not. "Suit yourself." I went over to the door. "But only if I really need help." Then I slammed the door behind me.

  Yeesh. Bitsy can take care of herself. Well, so can I! I didn't need Riley to come to my rescue.

  Standing in front of Bitsy's room, I took a deep breath and knocked. "Pizza."

  "I didn't order any," came the reply.

  "Are you sure? It says this room number."

  The door opened a crack. "No. Now go away."

  I kicked open the door, grabbed Bitsy by the arm, and closed the door behind me.

  Her eyes grew wide. "Merry? What are you doing here? How did you find me?"

  I forced her
to sit on the bed. She was wearing a nightgown and slippers. Clearly she wasn't planning on going anywhere.

  There were so many questions I wanted to ask her. One was more important than the others. I'd start with that.

  "Did you kill Wally?"

  The fear in her eyes was replaced with something meaner. She went from zero to crazy in a split second.

  "Do you know how much I hate you?" Venom metaphorically dripped from her lips.

  That caught me off guard. "You hate me? It should be the other way around."

  Her voice grew louder. "I had to clean up your mess in Chechnya! It wasn't my assignment! I was sent as backup. I never got the good assignments, and for some stupid reason, the CIA always made my cover a cleaning lady!" She was screaming now, fists clenched at her sides.

  "Like I had anything to do with that! And it wasn't my mess. It was the vice president's mess. I never wanted to leave the Agency! I'd planned to retire from there." What the hell? Why was I defending myself?

  "Oh, you expect me to believe that? Are you kidding?" Her fury was mounting.

  "You took credit for my work and filmed me fleeing that bar!" I matched her anger.

  Bitsy laughed. It was a mean, twisted laugh. I was pretty sure she'd killed Wally. But was I sure I could take her in on my own? Crazy people are scary because you don't know what they'll do. Normal reactions you could predict weren't going to fly with someone like her.

  "Yes!" She stood up. "Yes! I took credit! That should've been my case! And I leaked your video to the CIA, not Riley! I can't believe people think it was that idiot! Even in revenge, I can't claim credit!"

  "You killed Wally, and you're sticking around, which means you're planning to kill Ron and Ivan?"

  "Merry! Are you alright?" Riley's voice came from the other side of the door.

  With a roar, Bitsy charged into me, knocking me to the floor. I reached for her, but she ran straight to the window, where she picked up a chair and hurled it through the glass. Then she dove out of the seventh-story window.

  I ran to open the door for Riley, then raced to the windowsill. She wasn't there, clinging to the outside of the building. She also wasn't dead on the pavement below. Where had she gone?

  Riley joined me at the sill. "Where is she?"

  "I don't know," I said as I scanned the lot below.

  He leaned farther over the edge. "She went out the window?" Then he pulled back, and I heard him walking around the room.

  "Yup." I heard car tires pealing out. "Look!" A dark SUV tore out of the parking lot.

  I pulled back and turned toward Riley. "We have to…"

  Riley was gone.

  Figuring he was hot on her tail, I searched the room. All of her stuff was here. She was going to have to come back. Riley probably went after her. Better him facing her wrath than me. The drawers were filled with clothes, but I didn't find anything.

  The closet was clean, and so was underneath the bed. I went through her suitcases very carefully. You can hide anything in a suitcase. I once hid an entire croquet set in a carry-on in Mumbai.

  The bathroom was the last place I checked, carefully pouring out tiny bits of her shampoo and other toiletries. I came up with nothing. No neon sign saying I did it.

  Not that that was evidence. Bitsy would've had ample opportunity to ditch things. At least I was sure that she'd killed Wally. Now I had to stop her from killing Ron and Ivan.

  Her raging at me was unexpected. As far as I knew, I'd never mistreated her. But now I was wondering if she was here not just to take out Wally and his goons, but also me and Riley. Well, if that was the case, at least I was on to it.

  Ignoring the cheerful blonde at the desk, I made a beeline for my car. I got in and started it up, but something seemed off. My spy-dy senses were tingling as I looked into the back seat. There was nothing there. I wouldn't have put it past Bitsy to hide back there, ready to strike. It could've been another car we'd seen pulling out of the lot.

  I turned back in my seat and sighed. I was imagining things. There was nothing there.

  Uh-oh. I turned to the back again. The two bags of comic books were gone. So was the one on the front seat. There really was nothing there. Beetle Dork had flown the coup.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I drove home, furious with myself. I'd left the comic on the front seat for anyone to see. My doors had been locked and there'd been no sign of tampering, but a CIA agent like Bitsy would have had no trouble breaking in. So she was the brains behind Beetle Dork?

  It wasn't a stretch to think she knew about Honduras. Bitsy hated me, so it made sense that she'd tried to humiliate me. The only question was if Harold had been involved. If so, which one of them was B.E. Nuff?

  Harold was down on his luck. I could see him taking the comic book off the market so that he could command ridiculous prices by doling out the comics one at a time. Maybe Bitsy felt double-crossed by Harold. Did that mean he was in danger too? I wasn't sure I'd go to Bladdersly again to protect him.

  Harold was too big to be the hoodie I'd seen at the dumpster. I was probably wrong in assuming that it was a man. Bitsy could easily have been the person in black at the Cornhole.

  I was thinking that Harold had double-crossed Bitsy by deciding to take the book off the market. He'd have dumped them where he thought no one would find them, and it was a great spot, except for the fact Bitsy had murdered Wally there.

  She wanted to embarrass me, so she'd want the comic out in the public spotlight where, at some point, she would announce that I was Beetle Dork.

  Argh! Now she was missing, albeit with Riley chasing after her. And her next victims were getting out of jail tomorrow—free for her to murder at will. I had to get home and sleep so that I could keep an eye on those two the next day.

  At home I texted to see if Riley had caught her. He texted that she'd gotten away. He said he'd talk to the woman at the front desk to have the window fixed, and he was keeping an eye on her room to see if she came back.

  I still had no idea how she managed the jump through the window. Maybe Riley would inspect the outside of the building on his return. I climbed into bed and yawned. I didn't need to know how Bitsy escaped. I just needed to prove that she was the killer.

  "Thank you for your statement," Sheriff Carnack said once I'd handed him the piece of paper.

  I sank into the chair, feeling a weight lift off my conscience. "What happens now?"

  Jane smiled. "They go free. And I find them a good immigration lawyer."

  Was that something I had to pay for too? Not on your life. It was in the twins' hands at this point.

  "Did you turn them in?" I asked the sheriff.

  "No. I just didn't have the heart to do it. They really are nice guys, if a bit clueless. Mrs. Monaghan here told me she's working on it, so instead of getting entangled in a government inquiry, I decided she could handle it. Besides, I've got my hands full with a counterfeit ring in Bladdersly."

  He pointed to some cash on the desk. It looked real until I spotted that the president's pictures on the bills were all images of Samuel L. Jackson. Typical for Bladdersly. Those losers probably thought the actor was a president.

  I thought about what Carnack had said. "Nice guys? You think those two are nice guys?"

  "And they adore you. You're all they talked about."

  And that's when I realized that Sheriff Carnack knew these guys were foreigners but he had no idea what they'd done back in Chechnya. And I sure wasn't going to be the one to tell him.

  The sheriff made a call, and within a few minutes, Ron and Ivan walked into the lobby with huge smiles on their faces.

  "Little sister!" The two men enveloped me in a group hug, and I was helpless to do anything about it.

  "Alright!" I shouted. "Let me go, please." I turned to Jane. "Thank you for everything. I'm very grateful."

  She waved me off. "It really was nothing. Your statement took care of everything."

  I somehow doubted that. This woman was supe
r smart. My guess was there was a lot more to it that I'd see on a bill in the near future.

  "We go to your house now?" Ivan asked.

  I herded them into my van, and once they were buckled up, we drove away. Five minutes later we pulled into my driveway.

  A huge sign was spread across the garage door. It read, Welcome Home From Prison!

  Fantastic. A couple of neighbors stood in their yards staring at us. Maybe they'd think it was a joke. Randi and Ronni weren't there. Had they just hung the sign and left? I tore it off the garage, rolled it up, and dumped it in the garbage bin.

  "Hey!" Ron frowned. "I want to save that!"

  "Not happening." I looked around.

  There was no sign of Bitsy, but that didn't mean anything, considering her training. Hopefully she wasn't on a roof somewhere with a sniper rifle. Between the welcome sign and the potential for the guys to get gunned down in my front yard, I was afraid our neighbors might stop inviting us to barbecues.

  That wasn't the only reason. In late spring, someone had decided to have a block party. I made the mistake of bringing Leonard. Which meant Philby demanded to go. I thought nothing of it until she slapped a baby and took her pacifier, trotting around like she was a toddler. When your cat looks like Hitler, baby slapping and paci stealing is a bit of a no-no.

  "Come on." I pushed them up the steps. "Let's go in."

  "Wow!" Ivan said. "Very nice place. You and nice husband live here?"

  I pointed at the house across the street. "We live there. I still own this one, and you'd better not make a mess."

  I gave them the tour. To my surprise, Ron suggested that Ivan get the cushy guest room because, with Wally dead, Ivan was now the head honcho. Both men were thrilled with the accommodations, which oddly made me feel warm inside.

  "Where's your suitcases?" I wondered. "You must have brought luggage."

  "No," Ron said as he sat on my bed, now his bed, and bounced up and down. "Wally said we would shop at a place called Wallymart when we got here."

  Ivan nodded. "We never got to go there. They gave us toothbrushes and deodorant in prison."

  "Well, you weren't really in prison. Just the county jail." I didn't mention that they still could end up there if the authorities discovered who and what they were. Seemed like that would put a damper on things.