The Hitwoman and the Mother Load

by JB Lynn

  Now I’d like to tell you that I know some super cool sleeper hold like they use in professional wrestling, but I don’t. (Then again, those guys don’t either, they’re just better trained actors.)

  So the effect of my jumping on the orderly’s back was the equivalent of waving something in front of a bull. All it did was make him mad.

  He shook me off, sending me falling to the floor.

  I jumped back up, and grabbed his arm to stop him from injecting Angelina.

  For a scrawny guy, he was surprisingly strong and I panicked that despite our best efforts he was going to succeed.

  So I used the move BettyJo Jackson had used on me years earlier.

  I’ve gone up against some genuine badasses in my time, but nothing I’d ever experienced was as potent as BettyJo’s attack.

  I chomped on the orderly’s arm.

  One bite, that’s all it took for him to release his captive.

  And she took full advantage of his distraction by driving the hypodermic into his thigh.

  I knocked the needle loose before she could inject him with the entire dose of whatever was in it.

  His eyes rolled up and he collapsed.

  “That wasn’t part of the plan,” Piss meowed.

  “You bit him,” God complained. “How utterly barbaric.”

  I shrugged. I’d been six when three-year-old BettyJo had bitten me. I’d never forgotten its effectiveness.

  I bent down, rolled the orderly over to make sure his airway was clear and felt for a pulse. I was relieved to find one.

  Looking up at Angelina, who was breathing heavily from the struggle, I tried to figure out what to do. This had been a simple retrieval mission and now a man had almost died.

  “We’ll take him with us,” she declared.

  I frowned.

  “We can’t leave him here,” she said. “We’ll end up charged with attempted murder.”

  “It was self-defense,” I argued.

  “For me, maybe. But no one’s going to believe me. And you…”

  “She’s right,” Piss said.

  “Is that your cat?” she asked, bending over to pet Piss.

  “How the hell are we supposed to get him out of here?” I asked aloud.

  “Laundry cart,” Angelina replied without hesitation.

  “Laundry cart,” God agreed.

  I nodded. I could see how we could use the cart to get him out of the building, but I had no idea what to do with him afterward.

  Chapter Twelve

  Stealing a laundry cart was easy.

  Getting the orderly into it was hard.

  Sneaking out of the facility was easy. (And here I’d admired my father’s ingenuity in liberating my mother.)

  Figuring out what to do next was hard.

  We put the orderly, who, thankfully, was still breathing, in the trunk of the car, and, retrieved the dog, who was quite disappointed she didn’t get the chance to provide a distraction.

  “What now?” I asked everyone once we were back in the car.

  “This was your non-plan,” Piss reminded me.

  “But she was right about the timing,” God countered.

  Considering how rarely he said anyone did anything right, I beamed beneath his praise.

  “What did my father say to do?” Angelina asked.

  I shook my head. “He didn’t. He just wanted you out. Can’t you just call him?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t have his number.”

  “I understand.”

  “You do?”

  “I don’t have a way to contact my father either.”

  “Maybe you can hide me at your house until you can contact him.”

  I shook my head. “I live with eight other people, one of whom is Angel and another is a U.S. Marshal.”

  “And you work for my father?” she said incredulously.

  “I saved your son’s life once,” I murmured.

  “You’re the femme fatale?” Her voice cracked with skepticism.

  I let out a short laugh. “I was wearing a black dress because I’d just come from my sister’s funeral.”

  “They’re going to be figuring out what to dress you in for your funeral if you don’t do something soon,” God reminded me.

  “I’ve got a plan,” I said, driving a familiar route. “We’re going to the hospital.”

  Leaving Angelina, the cat, the dog, and the orderly in the car, I walked straight through the front doors of the hospital where Katie had stayed after the car accident that had left her in a coma.

  Despite the late hour, I walked with a sense of purpose, which meant that no one on shift looked at me twice.

  I made a beeline to Dominic Delveccio’s room.

  A bodyguard I didn’t know sat outside the door. He stood up as I approached to block my entrance.

  “I need to talk to Gino,” I told him.

  “Now?”

  “It’s important.”

  “He’s sleeping.”

  “Are you his nursemaid or something?” I mocked. “I think he’ll survive missing a couple of minutes of beauty sleep.”

  “Let her in,” Gino called. “She’s the one who wiped the floor with Vinny.”

  Amusement and respect warred in the bodyguard’s eyes as he stepped aside.

  I paused when I entered the room to allow my eyes to adjust to the low light. Dominic was asleep on one bed, while Gino sat propped up on the other bed, his flickering TV providing the only light in the room.

  “What’s up?” my favorite of Delveccio’s bodyguards asked.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked the man who’d been shot by one of the Cupid Killer’s arrows.

  “Goin’ home tomorrow, but I don’t think you dropped by just to check on me.”

  “I need you to get a message to your boss.”

  “Shoot.”

  “I need you to tell him that I’ve got the package he requested, but he didn’t give me a delivery location.”

  “Okay.”

  “Can you call him now?”

  “You think this package is worth me waking the boss up in the middle of the night?”

  “I do.”

  Gino stared at me for a long moment. Finally he shrugged and said, “It’s your funeral.”

  He pulled a cell phone out from beneath his pillow and dialed a number. I waited impatiently, trying not to tap my foot.

  “Yeah, boss, it’s me,” Gino said finally. “The ball buster is here and she says she got that package you wanted, but you didn’t tell her where to drop it.”

  He listened for a long moment. “Yeah. Okay. Okay.”

  “Oh,” I interrupted, remembering the man in the trunk of my car, “and tell him that I have some trash I need disposed of too.”

  “Hear that?” Gino asked.

  He listened for a moment longer and disconnected the call. “Fifth and Beethoven,” he said to me. “You know where that is?”

  I nodded.

  “He said he’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “Thanks.” I turned to leave.

  “You seen Vinny?”

  I stopped and turned around. “No.”

  “Boss hasn’t been able to find him, so watch your back,” Gino warned.

  I nodded. “I will.”

  “He’s a sneaky son-of-a-bitch. Always was. Good luck.”

  “Thanks.” I hurried from the room, back out to the parking lot, and into the car.

  “Well?” Angelina asked.

  “I contacted your father. He’s on his way to come get you.”

  She surprised me by giving me a tight hug. “Thank you. Thank you. If there’s anything I can do…”

  “I don’t suppose you know where my mother was headed, do you?”

  She shook her head.

  “I had to ask.” Putting the car into gear, I drove toward the meeting place.

  After watching the tearful reunion between Delveccio and his daughter, God sniffed, “Maybe it’s not such a bad t
hing having Armani rub off on you.”

  “I still think it would be better to make a plan,” Piss griped.

  “Hungry,” DeeDee whined.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jack and I had decided to meet at noon the next day, which gave me plenty of time to knock some things off my To Do list.

  At least it should have, if all hell hadn’t broken loose at the breakfast table.

  Aunt Susan, in some misguided attempt to try to fix the family’s problems, had made a giant brunch replete with everyone’s favorites. While Angel, Marlene, and Aunt Leslie seemed to enjoy the feast, I noticed that Katie, Susan, and Griswald all seemed to be sulking as they picked at their food.

  DeeDee sat in the corner watching everyone intently, hoping to get some fallen crumbs.

  Not that I was any better than them. When Katie refused each and every single thing I offered her and then asked to be served her favorites by Marlene, I slipped into my own depressed funk.

  “Someone bought the Dunkleman’s place,” Susan announced unhappily. She gave me the evil eye as she said it.

  “That’s nice,” I murmured, unsure of why her wrath was directed at me.

  “What’s the point of you working at a real estate office, if you can’t let us know that the place next door is for sale?”

  I looked to Griswald, hoping he could calm her, but he didn’t look up from his plate.

  “For one thing,” I reminded her, trying to sound calm, “I haven’t been at the real estate office because I’ve been too busy trying to keep The Corset afloat.”

  Susan looked unimpressed by the argument.

  “And for another, I didn’t know you’d care if it was for sale.”

  “Of course I’d care!” she snapped back.

  “She’s always wanted to buy it,” Leslie supplied helpfully.

  I hadn’t known that. Not that I could imagine it would have mattered. Susan had recently confided that she was running out of money to pay Mom’s loony tune bills. I kind of doubted she had enough spare change lying around to buy another house.

  Thankfully the doorbell rang, sparing me from having to reply.

  “Door at the someone’s,” DeeDee barked excitedly.

  “Quiet,” Susan and I commanded at the same time.

  Angel leapt to his feet to answer the door, leaving the rest of us to wait in anticipation.

  A moment later, Detective Brian Griswald strolled in.

  I groaned, knowing his arrival only meant one thing. Trouble.

  “Margaret,” Aunt Susan chastised.

  “Sorry,” I muttered.

  “How nice to see you, Brian,” Susan said with a forced smile. “Care to join us?” She swept her arm to encompass the table overloaded with food.

  “No thank you, ma’am.”

  His gaze settled on his uncle who was sitting back in his chair, his expression neutral.

  “I just thought you should know that Mary Lee was spotted late last night.”

  “Thank heavens!” Leslie declared.

  Her sister didn’t look nearly as pleased. “Spotted how?”

  Brian’s gaze flicked from her stern countenance to his uncle’s.

  Griswald gave him the briefest of nods, permission to continue.

  “During the commitment of a crime, ma’am.”

  “She was with that no-good excuse for a man, wasn’t she?” Susan raged. “Archie Lee is—”

  “Hey!” I interrupted sharply. “Little ears at the big table.”

  Susan glanced in Katie’s direction and shook her head. The little girl was watching everything with wide-eyed interest.

  As much as I wanted to find out what my parents were up to, I didn’t want Katie hearing about it, so I said, “Come on, Katie. We’ll go play in your room for a while.” I stood up.

  “You’re not my mommy!” she shrieked. “I don’t have to listen to what you say.”

  I stood there for a moment, frozen, unsure of how to react to this, her latest tirade. No doubt if Teresa was around, she would have known how to handle it, but I didn’t have those kinds of instincts. “This is a grown-up conversation.” I pitched my voice low, trying to appear in control.

  “You aren’t the boss of me,” she declared.

  “Quiet!” DeeDee barked. It was nice to know at least someone in the room was on my side.

  Katie blinked, startled.

  All eyes were on me and I hesitated, unsure of what to do.

  Angel, however, had no uncertainties. Standing, he picked Katie up, straight out of her chair.

  She let out a yelp of surprise, as he carried her away.

  Once they were gone, Susan asked Brian, “What has Archie gotten her to do this time?”

  “They robbed someone at an ATM,” the police detective replied carefully.

  “Oh my!” Leslie covered her heart.

  Suddenly I knew without a doubt that my Scrabble tiles didn’t mean, “Pot moms” but “Stop Mom”. The problem was I had no idea how to do that.

  “Were they caught?” I asked hopefully.

  He shook his head. “No. The robbery was recorded on the bank’s security camera.”

  “Was anyone hurt?” Marshal Griswald asked.

  His nephew shook his head.

  “Thank heavens for small miracles,” Leslie said.

  “Just dumb luck,” her sister snarled. There was no mistaking the animosity on Susan’s face.

  For the sake of both my parents, I hoped they were caught by the police and not by my angry aunt.

  “Anything else we should know?” Griswald asked.

  “They only stole enough to buy themselves a couple of ice cream cones,” Brian revealed sheepishly.

  “Ice cream!” DeeDee barked excitedly.

  “Ice cream cones?” Griswald parroted.

  His nephew shrugged. “They even offered to bring the guy his change back from the twenty they took.”

  Leslie started to chuckle.

  “It’s not funny,” Susan snapped.

  Leslie kept laughing. “Yes it is,” she wheezed.

  The rest of us, except for Aunt Susan who looked like she was about to spontaneously combust, started to chuckle too.

  The story was ridiculous.

  “I just wanted to give you a heads-up about that since they’ll no doubt be playing the footage on the news,” Brian said.

  “Of course they will,” Susan griped.

  Griswald tried to comfort her by patting her arm, but she jerked away.

  “The cone caper!” Leslie shouted before succumbing to gales of belly-shaking laughter.

  Smirking, Brian left, leaving the rest of us to consider the food in front of us. It appeared that no one had much of an appetite after the latest development.

  Susan fixed me with a glare. “You have to do something about that child. She’s willful, disrespectful, and turning into a full-blown brat.”

  While I didn’t necessarily disagree with her assessment, I felt obligated to defend my niece. “She’s been through a lot. She just needs a little time. I’m going to call her therapist and see what she recommends.”

  Susan nodded and looked away, as though looking at the biological evidence of her sister’s misplaced love was too much for her to bear.

  “The two of us will clean up,” Griswald offered. “The rest of you get on with your day.”

  I jumped out of my seat, eager to take him up on his offer.

  Running downstairs, I immediately called Doctor Donna. According to her voice mail message she was out gallivanting through time and space. I left her a message anyway, outlining the latest developments in Katie’s behavior and practically begging her to call me back as soon as possible.

  Then, after making sure both the door to the kitchen and the storm door were locked, I settled on the couch to read Darlene’s journal. With DeeDee sprawled out on one side of me, Piss curled up on the other side, and God sitting on my shoulder, I felt supported as I slowly flipped through the pages.