Lacey Luzzi: Sauced: A humorous, cozy mystery! (Lacey Luzzi Mafia Mysteries Book 4)

by Gina LaManna

  “Put your shirt on, and let’s hit the road,” I said.

  “Nope to the first, Amen to the second, sista,” she said.

  That’s how we ended up in a crappy old Chevy Lumina with me at the wheel, a naked ex-cop in the front seat of the car and a man tied up with excessive amounts of rope in the back. I begged Meg to lower the gun a little bit, so it wasn’t sitting right on the dashboard.

  “Not necessary,” she said. “After all, I was a cop. I’ll just show them my badge if we get pulled over.”

  “Do I want to know where your badge is?” I asked, looking over at her. She wore painfully little clothing except for her pants, which she’d already started to roll up to the knees.

  “Don’t ask if you’re not ready to hear the truth,” Meg said.

  “Preach,” Grease Ball chimed in from the back.

  “Stop it, please,” I said. “I’m driving. I gotta concentrate, here.”

  “Can you please take the vest off of me?” he asked.

  “Nope. We gotta make your bindings invisible in case anyone sees you all trussed up back there like a Halloween turkey,” Meg said. “Just like we glamorized you for your photos. I almost uploaded it to my Facebook account, but Lacey would have killed me.”

  I nodded.

  “You have turkeys for Halloween?” the man in the back asked.

  “I have turkeys for every national holiday,” Meg said. “Halloween, St. Patrick’s Day, Martin Luther King day, Earth Day, both the winter and summer solstice, my quarter birthday—”

  “What’s your name?” I jumped into the conversation, hoping to stall Meg’s unending list of holidays. She had some occasion or other to celebrate most days of the year. In fact, she was the only person I knew who managed to celebrate four hundred and sixty-two holidays during a calendar with only three hundred and sixty-five days.

  “I’m not saying anything,” he said.

  “You are,” Meg said. “When you use your mouth to speak a sentence, it means you’re talking. That counts as saying stuff.”

  “I’m not giving you any details,” he said. “You still don’t know my name.”

  “Fine,” I said. “You don’t have to deal with us. But when you see where we’re headed, you’ll wish you’d talked when you had the chance.”

  “What are you doing, bringing me to the police station?” He gave an evil-ish laugh. “No way. I heard you say she’s an ex-cop. You two don’t seem like you much care for the rules, anyway. You wouldn’t risk getting in trouble yourselves.”

  “Not the police,” I said.

  “Who else?” he asked with confidence. “It’s gotta be the police. But what are they going to say? I didn’t do anything wrong. You guys trespassed on my land, and held me hostage with my gun and took my four-wheeler for a joyride. They’re gonna laugh you straight out of the building,” he said, shaking his head. “They’ll turn around and arrest you. I can see why they fired her.”

  The cocky smirk on his face, the way he leaned back with a pleased expression, the way his shoulders sat relaxed while mine were more tense than a bungee cord stretched to capacity, all made me want to slap him. But I didn’t.

  Instead, I smiled in the rearview mirror, feeling angry enough to spout steam from my nostrils and grow a set of fangs. My knuckles clenched the wheel, and it took every bit of restraint to react calmly. “That’s why we’re not going to the police, silly,” I said. “We’re going to see my Family.”

  ** **

  “I’m not waiting in the car,” Meg said. “He’s tied up. Let’s just roll the windows all the way up, and hopefully he’ll pass out by the time we get back.”

  “Put a rag or a sock in his mouth,” I said. “We’ll only be inside a minute, but I don’t want him screaming. He’ll ruin everything.”

  “He already ruined my hair,” Meg said, shaking her mane. “And he’s about to ruin my vest. I need my vest back, buddy, and I’m not liking the fact that you forgot to tell me you have dandruff.”

  “I don’t have dandruff,” he said. “And you just told me not to take off the vest.”

  “Right.” Meg rolled her eyes. “It just snowed in July – inside the car.”

  “Give her the vest,” I pleaded. “Please.”

  “I’ve grown fond of it,” Grease Ball said, giving his hair a toss worthy of a wannabe Herbal Essences model.

  “You hear that?” Meg asked. “He says he’s grown fond of it. Well, I got one way to deal with this, buddy.”

  “What are you doing?” I asked my friend. I remained seated in the driver’s seat, while she balanced the gun in the passenger’s seat. Ying alternated between sitting on Meg’s lap, mewing with happiness, and staring menacingly at Grease Ball. The cat gave no sign of recognizing her own home, though we parked less than a block from Anastasia’s house.

  There’d been a small outlet just before her driveway where we were able to pull over and park. The car remained tucked away and mostly hidden; good enough for our brief stop.

  I was thankful for the witchy shrubbery lining the road that helped block the captive in our vehicle. It would be rather unfortunate if we dipped inside for a short moment, and at the same time a brave dog walker decided to venture out on this sweltering afternoon. If anyone accidentally noticed a backwards-kidnapping in progress, she or he might get the wrong idea and call the cops on us. As a reminder – we were not the bad guys. Grease Ball started it.

  Meg grunted and groaned as she kicked her shoe off. A fairly unpleasant scent began drifting from her half of the car, but I didn’t dare roll down the window in case our captive began to scream before we could properly keep him quiet.

  “I didn’t actually mean you have to knock him out,” I said, plugging my nose. “Sheesh.”

  “You know what they say about booze,” Meg said. “They say you sweat it out your pores. Well, I was drinking a lot of tequila last night before you came to my bar, Lace.” She turned to face Grease Ball. “Then you made me walk a freaking marathon – the kind without a lunch break and a beer tub – so to say my feet have a little bit of sweat on them is probably adequate.”

  “Gross,” I said for both Grease Ball and me. The man’s face showed utter horror.

  “It’s up to him,” Meg said. “He can hand over the vest easily if he’d like, so I don’t gotta climb back there and take it with force. I don’t wanna mess up my hair anymore, and I can already feel my butt-scratch starting to itch.”

  I blinked.

  “Pun not originally intended, but now that I think about it, pretty freakin’ funny,” she said, slapping her leg with one hand and a chuckle, as the gun bounced dangerously on her lap. “Anyway. Hand over the vest and you get one of Lacey’s socks in your mouth. Don’t hand it over, and my tequila infused tube sock will gladly rent out your mouth-space for an hour.”

  “I have an extra pair of socks I keep in my trunk for emergencies,” I added, hoping to make his decision easier. “They’re clean. Freshly laundered. I used to work at a laundromat.”

  “Take the dang vest,” he said without hesitation.

  “You’re being too nice,” Meg said, scoffing at me. “Now that you offered your clean pair of socks, you’re gonna have to wash two dirty pairs instead of one.”

  I shrugged. “The curse of the Minnesota nice.”

  I climbed from the car, retrieved the socks from the trunk, and handed them over to Meg. She inserted them sorta gently into his mouth, then ensured that the man’s words were muffled and his bindings were fastened tightly. At my insistence, she made sure he could breathe, but only after a good amount of arguing.

  “We don’t have all day,” I said. “We have to get the sauce, figure out the whole fireworks thing with Anthony, and deal with this guy.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Meg said. “Plus the barbecue starts at seven, and I was considering showering. I haven’t decided for sure, ‘cause dudes seem to like the whole wild woman look, but…hmmm…”

  “I thought the barbecue wasn’t un
til tomorrow,” I said, turning to Meg.

  “Yeah, well, it wasn’t until tomorrow,” Meg said. “But Clay texted me and told me Carlos moved it up to tonight.”

  “When did he tell you that?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “While ago.”

  “Meg! That would’ve been helpful to know,” I said. “I have a deadline to get the sauce back before the barbecue starts.”

  “Well your deadline just became tonight. At seven,” she said, shifting a bit uncomfortably. “Sorry, Charlie.”

  “But Carlos never moves the barbecue,” I said, more to myself than to anyone else.

  Meg leaned over. “Nora had the invites printed with the wrong date on them or something. I think he’s just doing her a favor so she doesn’t get upset.”

  “I didn’t get an invite,” I frowned.

  “Well, consider yourself invited. Tonight at seven,” she said.

  I pulled her from the car, leaving off the fact that Meg had passed wild woman status back at the shack. She was approaching a whole new level of…well, I couldn’t actually think of a fitting description. We were in uncharted territory here.

  Then again, I wasn’t a beauty queen myself. The slight odor of tequila hung in the air around us, our clothes drenched with sweat from our hike to the shack, our hair decorated like a bird’s nest with stray twigs, fluff, and leaves, and our clothes tattered and skin scratched. Then there was the issue of Meg’s bullet wound. Though only a surface wound, it should still be looked at by a professional.

  “You’re back,” Anastasia said, whipping the door open before we’d set one foot on the staircase. “Where have you been this whole time? The sauce nearly burned.”

  “If you tell me that the sauce is crisped and inedible…” I shook my head, hearing a rustle as if I had a crown of leaves lining my scalp.

  “You ladies look terrible,” Anastasia said. “And where is your sock?”

  I glanced down at my feet, realized they were still clad in socks and that she wasn’t talking to me, and then looked over to Meg. She had one shoe on, one shoe off, and Ying slung over her shoulder.

  “Long story,” Meg said. “But I’m in extreme pain right now, all for this sauce. So if we can just get the jars and be on our way…”

  Unlike the previous instances, Anastasia didn’t invite us into the house first. “Do you have what I’m looking for?”

  “Lady, I already thought we bonded over being psychics. Where is your trust?” Meg shook her head then pulled the phone from her pocket. Ying leapt off of her chest and scooted past Anastasia’s ankles into the house. “I got a huge butt-hole because of this photo.”

  “That would be a scratch. Just a scratch on her rear end,” I clarified, worried that Anastasia would want to call the police if she found out the truth. “Minor skin wound. Nothing that major.”

  Anastasia didn’t react to our chattering, however. Her mouth was agape at the photo. “This – this is him?”

  “Yeah,” Meg said. “A real turd. Not a pleasure to meet him.”

  “Ever seen him before?” I asked. “He’s up to no good, clearly.”

  “He’s…he’s so tied up in this photo,” she said. “Is he all right?”

  Now that I looked at it, he did look a little uncomfortable in the photo. His lips were set in a grimace, his arms were awkwardly tied behind his back, and the large gun was sitting on his lap. Meg’s over-sized vest hung over his shoulders and made him look like a Grizzly.

  “He shot at us,” I said. “So we had a reason to tie him up. Can we please get the sauce?”

  “Will he be all right?” she asked. “Where is he now?”

  “Look, Miss Seeing Eye,” Meg said. “I am all for twenty-one questions. I’m all for Guess Who. I’m even okay with Monopoly about once a year. I love games, I really do. But not right now. Right now, I want sauce and a shower.”

  “Your sauce – yes,” she said. “Come in, come in.”

  “She’s so distracted,” I muttered to Meg. “She has to know who he is.”

  “I got the same vibe,” Meg said. “This whole thing is weird.”

  “What’s going to happen to him?” Anastasia asked, slowly picking up a box full of sauce.

  I looked into the box, counting six large jars. “These aren’t burned?”

  “They’re perfect,” she said. “Just as you sampled before. Now about—”

  “It’s none of your business,” Meg said. “It’s not like you know him, anyway.”

  Anastasia wrung her hands, looking suddenly frail in her draping black robes. She looked the part of a confused grandmother instead of a woman who’d sent us to investigate a man who’d aimed a round of bullets at us.

  I didn’t let up eye contact with the woman, however; the good ol’ Sugary Senses told me not to step foot out of Anastasia’s place until I got some information.

  “His name is Oleg,” she said finally. “I saw him at the—” she turned and looked around, as if someone would be listening. “At the grocery store.”

  “Why do you know his name then?” I asked. Math wasn’t my strong suit, but something wasn’t adding up. Nothing about today was adding up, from the switch in barbecue time to the events of our witchy friend.

  “He, uh, he works there,” she said, her eyes staring at her feet.

  “Well, thanks for the sauce,” I said, giving Meg the eye. I was getting to the point where I didn’t really care about Anastasia’s information, quite frankly. Plus, she was Horatio’s grandmother – we could find her again if we couldn’t get answers from the Grease Ball himself. At the moment, I was more focused on getting home to the barbecue. I was tired, hungry, and exhausted.

  This whole thing had gotten out of control. I needed to talk to Carlos about Dave’s Special Sauce and see what he was playing at – I simply couldn’t believe that he made everyone jump through these hoops as some sort of hazing rite of passage. In fact, I was beginning to seriously doubt Dave had ever existed.

  Why had he sent me on a wild goose chase, then?

  Besides the sauce, I needed to talk to Anthony. I desperately wanted to get Grease Ball – or Oleg – off my hands. Carlos and Anthony would know what to do; they might be Family, but they weren’t ruthless. They’d get to the bottom of the matter and figure out the best course of action with which to proceed. Probably they’d scare Grease Ball enough with this whole debacle, and then let him go with a slap on the wrist and a warning to get rid of the guns.

  Next, I needed to seriously talk to Horatio about his grandmother. Anastasia was a whole separate issue.

  But since speed was of the essence and Meg needed medical attention, we didn’t have time to go through Anastasia’s hesitant explanations at the moment. We needed answers, a shower, and a hamburger. In reverse order.

  “Don’t hurt him,” Anastasia said. “Please.”

  “Lady, if we wanted to hurt him, we would have,” Meg said. “In fact, we cat-napped Ying for an hour and you didn’t even notice. I treated that guy like a king.”

  “It’s a she,” Anastasia said, looking a bit sheepish. “Ying and Yang look a lot alike. It’s hard to tell them apart sometimes. I would have noticed eventually.”

  “Then I treated her like a queen,” Meg said. “More than I can say for your man A-Leg out there. He treated me more like a rhino than a queen. He called me fat.”

  “I’m sure Oleg didn’t mean it,” Anastasia said, her hands wrung tighter than a sopping wet dish towel. “Make sure he’s okay. Are you bringing him to Carlos?”

  “Look, you won’t answer our questions,” I said tiredly. “Why should we answer yours? A deal’s a deal. You got your picture, we got our sauce.”

  “I didn’t expect you to take him,” she said. “Just leave him here.”

  “I can’t do that,” I said. “He knows our names, and I think he has a personal vendetta against us now, thanks to you. If it weren’t for your interference, we wouldn’t have even gone to the house on Sixty-sixth! We thought we
were just going to say hello to a new neighbor for you.”

  “But—” her lip shook, and it was all but obvious she had some sort of personal connection with the Grease Ball in the back of our car.

  “Look, clearly you know Carlos,” I said with a sigh, waving my hand dismissively. “And anyone who has ever heard of him will say one thing about him. He’s fair. He’s got a lot of downfalls, but one thing he’s not is rash.”

  “What will he do?” she asked, her voice lilting up in a mixture of fear and curiosity.

  “Probably just scare him,” I said. “Tell him not to come near us again. Ask him a few questions.”

  “Really?” Anastasia asked, sounding almost disappointed. “Well in that case, good; take him.”

  “Good?” I asked, looking at Meg.

  Meg gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Carlos isn’t in the habit of making unnecessary messes. Grease Ball is unnecessary in my mind.”

  “So he won’t be hurt?” Anastasia asked.

  I shook my head. “I really don’t think so. But we’re going to head out now, if that’s okay.”

  “Pleasure doing business with you,” Anastasia said, pumping my hand as I stepped from the door.

  “Nice meeting you, fellow psychic,” Meg said. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you soon. Get it? Get it?”

  Anastasia waved with a smile that said not really, but was friendly, all the same.

  Chapter 13

  “Was that weird or what?” Meg asked.

  “I wonder how she knows him,” I said. “You think we’ll get it out of Grease Ball when we get back to the car?”

  “I think so,” Meg said. “After all, I still got my other sock.”

  “Seemed to work well enough last time,” I said.

  “We—” Meg started, but was interrupted by the ring of my phone.

  “Probably Anthony,” I said. “I’ll answer and let him know we’re coming back. Go check on our friend.”

  I clicked to answer and fished out my keys, all in one motion. Meg snatched them from my hand and whistled Mary Had A Little Lamb – the only song she could perform – on her way to the car.