This forced Joe to follow her. “Well, Meg? What’d you see? Where are they?”
She turned to him and looked surprised to see him following her so closely. “Calm down, Joe. It was just Mrs. Warden, the property manager, on her daily rounds. No doubt she’s looking for young people who think life is fun. We all know that’s got to be nipped in the bud.”
“Hey, Meggie, leave off.” Maury’s voice was mildly scolding. “Vera Warden ain’t so bad, once you get to know her.”
Meg mouthed yikes at Joe and sat on the end of Maury’s bed. “I’m sorry, Maury. I forgot you like her.”
“Meg. About the mob…” Blatantly ignored, apparently the only one here concerned for their collective safety, Joe stood there, exasperated.
Meg looked up at him questioningly. “There’s no mob around. In fact, nothing is going on outside.” She shrugged. “And Larry, Moe and Curly aren’t much for chitchat.”
“Goldfish never are.” Joe glared at her, trying his best to convey, without actually saying it, that if the bad guys weren’t at the door, she should be at her post.
“Oh, look at you, General Rossi. May I please have a blindfold and a last cigarette before I’m shot?” When he didn’t relent, she rearranged her features into that of the misunderstood heroine and raised her chin. “I’ll have you know I came back here for a very good reason, Sergeant Bossy Britches.”
Ignoring his demotion in rank, Joe said mildly, “Which you are now going to tell me, right?”
“Right. I realized the bad guys might be sneaky enough to park on the other side of the complex, and I’d never see them until they walked right up to the door. Which would be too late. Or they could come around the back way and very quietly cut out the glass around the lock on the patio doors in the dining room and enter through there. If they did that, they could easily grab me before I ever heard them. I didn’t think you’d want that.”
“So to save me that anguish, you came back here.”
“Exactly.”
“You know what I think?”
Meg looked up at him through her thick eyelashes. “You’re going to tell me, aren’t you.”
“I am. I think the truth is, you were bored and you just wanted to see what we were doing back here.”
“You are so cynical, Joe.”
“But I’m right, aren’t I?”
She ignored that, turning her attention instead to Maury’s overflowing suitcase. “What’s all this?”
“Uncle Maury’s packing. He’s running away.”
Meg slumped in on herself, a pose of long-suffering. “I thought we just decided those guys aren’t real threats.”
“No, we didn’t. You decided they aren’t, but now I believe they are. And, by all appearances, so does my great-uncle, who should know.”
Meg sat up, crossing her arms under her breasts—and drawing Joe’s attention there, as always. So it was true. A pack of hungry hyenas could be on their heels, and he’d still notice her breasts. When she spoke again, he mustered the decency to raise his gaze quickly.
“Relax. I’m not getting involved, either. He’s the one packing.”
“Like you’d let him go off on his own. You know how this is going to work out, Joe, so stop him. Stop him now.”
Taking offense, Joe stood up straighter. “What do you think I’ve been trying to do all this time? Watch this and see how far I get.” He turned to his uncle—or to where he’d last been—only to see the old guy was no longer in the room. Damn it! He appealed to Meg, who smiled tightly and pointed to the open doorway of the adjacent master bathroom.
“Thank you.” Joe pursued Maury as far as the bathroom’s threshold. There, he found the elderly man scraping a heap of toiletries off the shelves and into his arms—or into the sink when he missed. “Uncle Maury, do you really believe you can give these guys the slip? I don’t know how they found you…Hey, how did they find you? You’re not in the phone book, and you said they were from New Jersey. So…I’m assuming you weren’t pen pals?”
“Nothin’ like that. But it don’t matter. They got connections, Joey. Maybe they found me on that worldwide spiderweb thing. Anyways, what difference does it make? They found me.”
“And that’s my point. They found you here, so the odds are, they’ll find you wherever you go. Why not stay and face them down?”
The old man snorted an abrupt laugh. “Because of what you just said—‘face down.’ That’s how I’d end up. But, look, since I dragged you and Meggie into this, here’s the truth.”
At last. Joe tensed, preparing himself to hear the worst.
“See, they want what they want,” his uncle said, “and I ain’t got what they want. Leastwise, not no more. Or not like they think I do. They won’t be happy about that, neither. So, bottom line? I ain’t too keen to see ’em.”
Joe listened, waiting for enlightenment, only slowly realizing that, apparently, his uncle’s highly uninformative speech was done. Joe slowly breathed in and out, trying to contain his temper, all the while watching his uncle pluck from the medicine cabinet shelf a much-squeezed tube of some kind of ointment, consider it and finally hold it out to Joe.
“You ever tried this here stuff before?” Joe was very pleased to be able to shake his head no. “Well, don’t. It burns. Bad.” He set it back on the shelf and then searched Joe’s face. “Aw, come on, kid. Cheer up. It’s okay. Swear to God, I ain’t runnin’ from those guys who dogged you all weekend. They don’t scare me.”
His hands in his pockets, Joe leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, a casual pose that belied his worry. “Well, they scare me.”
“Hey, Joe, I’ll protect you, honey,” Meg called out from her perch on the bed. “The big, bad men like me, remember?”
Joe half turned in the doorway to reply. “Vividly, my little morsel.” Seeing her grin, Joe winked at her, then returned his attention to his uncle. “Okay, Uncle Maury, so you’re not running. Fine. Then, what is all this packing about?”
Loaded down with enough deodorant and aftershave to supply an entire professional football team, Maury stopped in front of Joe, apparently wanting by. “Excuse me. I got to put this stuff in my suitcase. And the truth is, I’m going to Las Vegas. So are you and Meggie. My treat.”
“We’re going to Vegas?” Meg called out excitedly.
“No, we are not,” Joe assured her, as he again turned sideways allowing his uncle to pass. Once Maury was no longer between him and Meg, Joe could see her bottom lip rolled out in a stubborn pout.
“You’re not the boss of me, Joe. You can stay here all you want, but I’m going with Maury.”
Joe heaved the sigh of a martyr. “No one’s going anywhere, Meg.” She made a show of ignoring him as she set about pulling out and folding the clothes Maury had tossed willy-nilly into his bag. Like there would be points given for neatness. Great. Now he had two of them in denial. And open rebellion. “Anyway,” he said to the evasive old man, “what’s so important out in Vegas?”
“Most people go for the gambling and the showgirls.”
“That’s why I’m going,” Meg declared. When Joe raised his eyebrows and stared at her, she amended, “Well, the shows, for sure. I want to see Celine Dion. And that guy who sings ‘Danke Schoen.’”
“Wayne Newton,” Maury supplied as he dumped his toiletries into the suitcase and hurried over to the chest of drawers, where he pulled out a stack of folded underwear and made for the bed again. “What about you, Joey? You going or not? I think you should.”
Joe flopped on the bed behind Meg and stretched out full length, his hands over his head. “Sure, why the hell not? I give up.”
Meg turned to him and rubbed his belly affectionately. “Oh, honey, relax. Look at you trying to be our big hero and keep us all alive. And you’ve done a great job. We are all still alive.” She grinned. “So far.”
“Thanks,” Joe said dryly, pleased to feel her touch, and wishing it were a little lower.
Maury interrupted the mo
ment by clapping his hands vigorously. “Okay, Joey, Meggie, come on, get up, enough foolin’ around. We ain’t got all day.” Joe’s snort of protest was met with Maury’s own. “What? Ain’t I been packin’ this whole time you been standin’ around yappin’?”
Though still lying flat on his back, Joe rolled his head until he could see his uncle. “I find I can’t argue with that, Uncle Maury.”
“About time.” Maury directed his attention to the contents of his suitcase. “Something don’t look right here, Meggie. Help me see what it is.”
Ever cooperative, she sorted through his bag. Joe wondered if she had any idea what they were searching for.
“Never mind. Now I know. I forgot my medicines.”
“Uncanny, Maury. I was getting ready to say that,” Meg said.
“That’s my girl.” Maury scooted back into the bathroom and again made a lot of noise rummaging around in there.
Joe turned on his side and put his arm around Meg’s slender hips. She favored him with a quick, welcoming smile before continuing to neaten his crazy uncle’s suitcase. Toiletries on one side, clothes on the other. Watching her, Joe said, “So, you really think we’re not in any danger?”
“No. But you do, don’t you?”
“I do. Something’s going on with Uncle Maury, Meg. Someone has him scared. He hadn’t mentioned needing to pack or going somewhere for pleasure, or any other reason, until we finished telling him our Mafia tales.”
“Still, Joe, just because he hadn’t told us about it doesn’t mean he didn’t have this planned. Don’t you get it? This is phase two of his big game—a surprise spring-break trip to Las Vegas. He said as much himself. And the proof of that is those Mafia impersonators haven’t shown up here, Joe. And why haven’t they? Because they’re not supposed to. Their part was over once they scared us back there. Now, doesn’t that make sense?”
Yes, damn it, it did. It made complete sense, but Joe was just stubborn enough not to want to reverse himself again…so quickly. “Maybe.”
Meg chuckled, holding up a big, wide pair of his uncle’s boxers for his inspection. “White with red hearts all over them. I wonder if Maury has a lady friend out in Las Vegas?”
Before Joe could formulate a response, Maury hustled back into the room with two bottles of medication and about twenty pounds of shaving apparatus in his arms, which he dumped into the open suitcase. Meg made a distressed sound, seeing all her work wasted. But when Joe’s uncle lifted the hem of the Hawaiian shirt he was wearing, exposing his rounded little belly, and pulled out a huge handgun, which he carelessly tossed into the open suitcase, Meg cried out and jumped away from it.
“Son of a bitch, Uncle Maury!” Joe shot up off the bed, his every muscle locked rigidly into place. “You can’t take that thing on an airplane. Or anywhere.”
“You’re right. Not without extra bullets.” The old man patted his shorts pockets, then his shirt pockets, as if he expected to find the ammunition in one of them. Then he looked from Meg to Joe. “What’s wrong with you two? Is it the gun? Relax. We ain’t goin’ on no airplane. We’re taking The Stogie. Your bags are still packed, right?”
The surreal quality of it all kicked in and had Joe saying, obediently, “Yes.”
“Where are they?”
“In The Stogie’s trunk—”
“Good. Where’s she parked? In the garage?”
“No. Out front.”
“Even better,” his uncle said, heading back toward his chest of drawers.
As if belatedly pushed from behind, Joe shot forward and reached around Meg to get the gun from the suitcase. Meg scrabbled backward on the bed, evidently determined to put more distance between her and the gun. He pulled the weapon out of the suitcase, handling it gingerly.
Just then came the sound of the doorbell being rung…and rung and rung. An angry battering on the front door followed, accompanied by muffled shouts Joe couldn’t quite make out. But the gist was, they’d better open up right now.
“ROTTEN BASTARD,” Maury growled. “He’s here already.” He scooted into his walk-in closet’s confines and disappeared.
Terrified, Meg jumped up from the bed, her palms pressed against her cheeks. Her gaze locked with Joe’s. “Oh my God, Joe, it’s the Mafia! I knew it! What are we going to do?”
Joe narrowed his eyes. “We’re not going to do anything, but I’m going to do exactly what I should have done the first time they—”
“What are you talking about?” Meg’s gaze fell to the gun Joe still held in his hand. “What do you think you’re going to do?”
The pounding on the door stopped as suddenly as it had started. In the profound silence that followed, Meg met and held Joe’s eyes. “No more pounding on the door isn’t necessarily good news, is it?”
“No.” Joe looked around the room, listening.
“Do you think they left?” Meg whispered.
“No, but I’m going to make certain they don’t.”
To Meg’s horror, Joe pivoted around to face the open bedroom door and took one step in that direction—
“No!” She launched herself at his back, tackling him as she grabbed him from behind and wrapped her arms around his waist. Joe staggered forward. Holding him tightly around the torso, Meg pressed her cheek against his warm, solid back. “If you think for one minute, Joe Rossi, that you’re going to open that door to those men, then you’re going to have to drag me along with you and get us both killed.”
Joe reached around himself and tried to tug her away, pulling unmercifully on her T-shirt. “Come on, Meg, let go.”
“No,” she wailed, clinging to him.
“For God’s sake, they could come bursting through that door at any minute.”
“Who cares?”
“What the hell are you doin’, Meggie…Joey? This ain’t no time to be playin’ around.”
Meg had forgotten about Maury, who was just now exiting his closet. Since Joe was facing the door to the hallway and Meg was behind him with her head turned to the left, she could see Maury clearly. Not that this was a good thing. Her heart stuttered and very nearly stopped. In his hands, the elderly man held the biggest shotgun she had ever seen in her life.
“Jesus Christ, Uncle Maury! Where the hell did you get that thing?”
Looking mighty grim and determined, Rambo Maury said, “Outta my closet, Joey, where’d you think? You two kids stay here. This is my trouble.”
“Like hell it is,” Joe drawled, reminiscent—to Meg’s stupidly crazed mind—of John Wayne.
Without warning, he twisted violently, no doubt trying again to dislodge her. But Meg danced with mincing steps right around with him, a full three-sixty still holding tight.
“Come on, Meg. Seriously. I can’t let my eighty-year-old uncle go out there alone—”
A boom-boom-boom of pounding hit the front door again and stopped Joe’s struggling. Under her cheek, Meg felt the muscles in his back contract with tension. Then someone tried the doorknob, testing to see if it was locked. Apparently, it was because the room didn’t fill suddenly with hit men and ricocheting bullets.
“You know what, macho guys? Neither one of you is going out there.” Meg was putting her foot down. “I mean are you just plain crazy or what? Those men are professional killers. Put your weapons down and go talk to them. At least that way you have a chance.”
Maury just looked sad. “Meggie, girl, you can’t talk to this guy. There’s no reasonin’ wit’ him. He’d nail your knees to the floor just for sneezin’ too close to him.”
Meg shook away that mental image but the terror remained. “Then we have to get out of here right now—” she cried, her voice cracking. “You’re done packing, Maury, so grab up your luggage and let’s go out the back patio doors. We can be gone before they ever know it.”
“We can’t go out the back, Meggie. Joey there parked The Stogie right out front where our company is.”
Meg could have clobbered him hard for doing such a stupid thing.
“My God, Joe, what were you thinking?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe when we got here I was thinking my uncle might have been kil—”
“Wait! Brilliant idea forming,” Meg announced. “We’ll go out the back, sneak over to my side of the complex and take my car!”
“I like it.” Maury looked from her to Joe to his open suitcase on the bed and then resettled his gaze on her. “That’s a real good idea. Why don’t you and Joey close up my bag there and go out the back door? I’ll follow you to your place.”
“Right,” Joe said, the sarcasm in his tone as thick as molasses.
And Meg added, “Do you really think we’re that stupid, Maury?”
“Look, you kids gotta let me do this. This guy don’t care about nothin’ but his property—”
“You mean the keys and what they go to, right?”
Maury stared, rather blankly, at his nephew. “Keys?” Then, his expression cleared. “Oh, you’re talking about the wise guys from this weekend.”
That didn’t sound right to Meg. Then she recalled Maury had said him and he a minute ago, not them and they. Uh-oh. “Maury,” she said slowly, “who are you talking about?”
Before Maury could answer, if indeed he’d been going to, Joe butted in. “I hate to butt in, but I figure we have about thirty seconds before we’re the lead story on the evening news. So tell me, Uncle Maury—and I mean right now—what the heck is going on. What’s all this stuff about The Stogie and these keys? You have their money, don’t you? Talk fast.”
Surprisingly, Maury did. “I used to have it. Anyhow, it ain’t theirs. It’s their grandfather’s. What happened was, back in the sixties, my, uh, former associate had to go to prison—on a technicality—so he asked me to hold this wad of dough for him until he got out and could send for it—”
“That’s who these guys are?” Disbelief rang in Joe’s voice. “Three brothers sent down from New Jersey to take care of their grandfather’s business?”
“Two of them are brothers and one’s an associate of theirs—at least that’s what they said through the door last Friday night. See, Freddie Ferlinetti—that’s the old man—got out of the slammer. I never thought he would. I thought he’d die before that happened, the old bastard. But guess what? He didn’t. And guess what else? I ain’t got his dough no more.”
Blind Date Page 16