by JB Lynn
“Maggie?”
I turned slowly in the direction of the voice.
“What’s wrong?”
Zeke stood a few paces away, worry lines creasing his forehead. Armani was wrong. He wasn’t “cute.” He’d done “cute” as a teenager, now he was just ridiculously handsome in a movie star kind of way. I couldn’t totally stop crushing on him just a little, even knowing he was gay, was my sworn enemy, and was trying once again to steal my best friend.
“Maggie, what’s wrong?” he asked again, concern deepening his tone.
I busied myself with bending to pick up my fallen keys. I couldn’t tell him how monumentally unfair it was that he was gay and I didn’t want to give voice to my fears about Katie. What was it Aunt Susan always said? The best defense is a strong offense? “Are you stalking me, Zeke? First you go to where I work and now you’re here. I spent the whole day waiting for you to show up.”
A devilish glint flashed in his eyes, a grin dancing on his lips. “Were you disappointed when I didn’t?”
I grabbed my keys. “Annoyed, but not surprised. You never were the responsible kind.”
His eyes narrowed and his smile vanished at my attack. “I needed to talk to you.”
I stood up slowly. “About what?”
“The bridal shower. I think Alice is expecting one this weekend.”
I leaned back weakly against the car. “This weekend?”
“Well, the wedding is next weekend, so this would be the only chance.”
“There’s no way . . .”
“And I think she’s expecting a bachelorette party.”
I closed my eyes.
“So,” he said in a rush, “I was thinking we could do the shower this weekend and the bachelorette party on Wednesday night.”
“I can’t.”
“We can do it Tuesday or Thursday.” He moved closer as he spoke. “We can just make a quick trip to Atlantic City to one of the casinos. She won’t be drinking because of her condition, so it should be a pretty short night.”
I watched him with grudging amazement. He’d done this when we were kids too, cheerily bulldozed his way through a conversation, as though he could achieve the desired outcome through pure strength of will.
When he paused to take a breath, I said hurriedly, “I’m not doing a shower or a bachelorette party. She’ll understand.”
He stared at me, shocked. “But she’s your best friend.”
“Don’t try to put this on me.” I poked his chest with my finger. “I’m not the one who saddled everyone with this ridiculous time frame.”
Zeke looked down at where I’d poked him. “It’s not like she did it on purpose.”
“There you go again,” I muttered, shoving at his chest with the palm of my hand.
Caught off guard, he stumbled backward a step.
“You always take her side. You’re always kissing up to her.”
He considered me for a long moment, but didn’t refute my accusation. Instead he asked, “Why won’t you do the shower or party?”
“Because”—I waved an arm at the hospital—“I can’t drop everything just because she got herself knocked up and still wants all the white wedding crap. She doesn’t get to have everything go right for her while everything goes wrong for me.” The unfairness of it all hit me in the solar plexus and I found myself gasping for air with tears running down my face. “I can’t do it. I won’t do it.”
I sensed Zeke step toward me and held up my hands to stop him.
“You’re not going to hit me, are you?” he asked. “You’ve already poked and shoved me.”
Guiltily I covered my face with my hands and sobbed.
Somehow I found myself leaning on his shoulder. Catching a whiff of his aftershave, something bright and fresh with notes of sandalwood, made me cry harder.
“I’ll take care of everything, Maggie,” he soothed. “I’ll plan everything and decorate and order the food. All you’ll have to do is show up.”
I could have hated him even more in that moment when he said he’d take on all of the bridesmaid duties, but I was just so relieved that everything wasn’t falling to me that I was filled with gratitude. “Th-thank you,” I said on a hiccupping sob.
“Hey!” a Neanderthal boomed. “The boss wants to see you.”
I jumped away to find Vinnie, Delveccio’s muscle-head nephew, frowning at me from a few paces away.
“Who the hell are you?” Zeke countered, stepping between us protectively, like he couldn’t see that Vinnie could bench press him with just his pinky.
Vinnie ignored him. “Now.”
“I’ll be there in a couple minutes.” I wiped away my tears.
“Who the hell is this guy?” Zeke asked, every muscle in his body tense, looking surprisingly alpha male.
Vinnie looked him up and down, deciding whether he could take Zeke. Considering he pumped iron and Zeke primped tulle, I didn’t think it would be much of a fight.
While part of me still hated Zeke, he had just offered to shoulder most of the bridesmaid duties, so I didn’t want anything to happen to him.
I jumped between the two men.
“The boss said—” Vinnie began.
“And I said I’ll be there in a couple minutes,” I interrupted. “Leave.” I made a shooing motion in his direction.
He glared at me, the veins in his neck bulging.
I glared right back. “Now.”
Grudgingly he turned away and trudged toward the hospital.
Zeke turned to face me. “Who the hell is that?”
“A family member of one of the patients.” Technically that was true, so I wasn’t lying.
Zeke eyed me suspiciously. “And who’s his boss?”
“His uncle. The boy’s grandfather. We’ve sort of bonded.” Again, not a lie. “His grandson isn’t much older than Katie.”
“I’ll go back inside with you,” Zeke offered.
“Thanks, but . . .” I said slowly. I needed to talk to Delveccio about killing Garcia and I was pretty sure bringing along Zeke would be in direct violation of Patrick’s Don’t Get Caught rule. “Thanks, but I can do this on my own.”
“Are you sure? That guy looked sketchy.”
“Sketchy?” I teased. “There’s something I haven’t heard in a while. I seem to remember you telling Alice that Louis Lauer was sketchy.”
“And I was right.”
I nodded. He had tried to warn Alice about her boyfriend when we were fifteen. Alice hadn’t listened. Louis, like most of her loser boyfriends, had broken her heart. He probably would have broken her arm too at the Spring Semi-Formal our junior year, if Zeke and I hadn’t gotten her away from him. The Monday afterward, Zeke had shown up to school with a black eye he refused to explain. I was never sure if it was his dad or Louis who gave it to him.
“What do you think of Lamont?” I asked.
“I think he doesn’t like me.”
“I don’t like you either.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.
Zeke didn’t appear hurt or angry. In fact, he smiled. “I guess I’ll have to work my way back into your good graces, starting with planning this shower.”
I stared at him, not knowing how to respond.
“Anything you don’t want at the shower?”
“Games.”
“Games?”
“I hate those lame-ass games people insist on. They’re like grown-up versions of Pin the Tail on the Jackass.”
“Okay. No games. You sure you don’t want me to go in there with you?” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the hospital.
“Dead sure.”
“You’re the boss.” He crossed the space between us and pressed a kiss to my cheek, whispering in my ear, “You are going to like me.”
I stared at him dumbfounded as he winked at me and then strolled across the parking lot.
Once he was out of sight, I returned to the hospital for my meeting with Delveccio. The whole way to
the cafeteria, I mentally rehearsed how I was going to convince him to give me some money in advance of the Garcia job, but I completely forgot my speech when Aunt Leslie accosted me before I reached the mobster.
Well, she didn’t so much accost me as she almost ran me over with a loaded wheelchair.
“Hey,” I protested, having barely escaped with my toes intact. “Watch where you’re going.”
“What are you doing here?” she asked, but before I could reply, she patted her wheelchair passenger on the shoulder and said, “Bertram, this is my niece Maggie. She was my rock bottom. Maggie, this is Bertram.”
“Hi,” I said weakly to the wizened old man who had a death grip on the arms of the wheelchair, wondering how many people my newly clean aunt told I was her rock bottom.
“What are you doing here?” Leslie asked again.
“I was visiting Katie.” I tried to assess whether she was chemically impaired or just all-naturally wacky.
She gave me the same look right back. “Why else would you be at the hospital?”
“But you just asked . . .”
“I meant,” she said with exaggerated patience, “what are you doing in this wing?”
I couldn’t very well tell her that I was there to talk to a mobster about killing her twin’s ex. “I was hungry and they have great chocolate pudding. What are you doing here?”
“I’m a Candy Striper!” She did a little happy dance that looked a lot like the hokey pokey. “Of course they don’t call it that anymore, but that’s what I am. It was my sponsor’s idea that I do something in service to others, so here I am.” She leaned toward me. “And guess what? I’m good at it.”
Having witnessed her wheelchair-driving skills, I wasn’t so sure about that, but I didn’t want to be the one to burst her “service to others” bubble. “That’s great.”
“Well I’ve got to get Bertram back to his room, but it was nice seeing you,” she said as though I were an old neighbor she’d run into at the grocery store. “See you soon.”
I had to jump out of the way as she and Bertram careened wildly away. I looked down to make sure all my toes were still attached.
When I looked back up, I saw Vinnie standing at the cafeteria entrance glaring at me. “The boss doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
Ignoring him, I strode past and made my way to where Delveccio sat. As usual, his shirt was unbuttoned almost to his belly button.
“Sorry I made you wait.” I slid into the seat opposite him.
He swept his gaze over me and I knew what he was thinking. The first time we’d met, I’d come to the hospital straight from Theresa’s funeral and had been wearing a black dress and high heels. He preferred my femme fatale look to my “blending in” jeans and polo shirt. Little did he know that the little black dress only came out of the closet for funerals or really promising dates. I hadn’t had a promising date in years, despite what Aunt Loretta thought about Paul.
Finally Delveccio said, “Vinnie said you gave him lip.”
I shot a dirty look at the bodyguard on the opposite side of the room. “He rubs me the wrong way.”
Delveccio chuckled. “Me too. You want a pudding?”
I nodded.
The mobster flashed two fingers at his muscled henchman. “Did you decide about the Garcia thing?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, you’ve decided? Or yes, you’re going to do it?”
“Both.”
“Our mutual friend seems to think giving you the contract is a bad idea.”
I made a mental note to tell Patrick to stay the hell out of my business. “What do you think?”
“I like you. You want it, the job’s yours.”
“I want an advance,” I blurted out, which was so not the way I’d rehearsed asking the mobster for money.
His gaze narrowed. “What for?”
“Expenses.” I held my breath as Vinnie arrived with our chocolate puddings.
He put them down and walked away.
“Spoons!” Delveccio boomed.
Vinnie flinched and scurried away.
“I swear they were scraping the bottom of the brains barrel when they created that moron,” Delveccio griped.
Considering that his mother, an Atlantic City showgirl, named her identical twins Tony and Anthony, I was pretty sure the DNA pool of his family tree was a kiddie pool, not Olympic-sized. I kept that thought to myself. Instead I said, “So what do you say? Will you give me an advance?”
He waited until Vinnie had placed spoons and napkins in front of us before he answered. “You are one ballsy chick.”
“Thank you.”
“Since you did me a solid with Gary the Gun, I’m considering your request.”
The solid referred to the fact he hadn’t paid me for offing the hitman and had ended up with a two-for-one deal when I’d killed his son-in-law.
I forced myself to eat a bite of creamy, chocolaty goodness while waiting for his decision.
“How ’bout I front you a quarter of the fee?”
“What’s the fee?”
“A hundred . . . minus my brokerage fee of fifty percent.”
I almost choked on my pudding. He was pocketing fifty grand while I took all the risk and did the work?
He watched me steadily, waiting for me to call him on the unfairness of the deal.
I did the calculations in my head. A quarter of fifty thousand dollars was a little over twelve . . . that had to be enough to retain a lawyer. “Okay.”
He blinked, surprised. “Okay?”
I nodded.
“Tell you what,” he offered. “Since you’re not being a whiny pansy ass like a lot of guys I deal with, if you earn the bonus, I’ll let you keep the whole thing.”
“Bonus?”
“You do the job in the next twelve days and if you do it publicly, there’s an extra hundred in it for you.”
“Hundred thousand?” I practically squeaked.
“Yeah. It’s good money, but only if you don’t get caught.”
Chapter Nine
“HE AGREED TO the deal,” I shouted as I entered my apartment.
God didn’t answer me and I realized I wasn’t being greeted by a chorus of “Gotta! Gotta! Gotta!” from Doomsday. That’s when I remembered she was gone. The pain of loss shot through me. Knees weak, I stumbled, catching myself on the wall, my hand brushing against her leash hanging there.
I missed her. I missed the eat-me-out-of-house-and-home, grammatically challenged dingbat so much it hurt.
“I’m going to look for the beast. Want to come along?”
Again God didn’t answer me.
“Seriously? You’re giving me the silent treatment?”
Nothing.
I stalked into the kitchen, ready to have it out with him. I stopped short when I realized his terrarium, sitting smack in the middle of my kitchen table, was empty, the lid slightly ajar. I wouldn’t have thought the scrawny guy would be strong enough to move it. Bending down, pressing my nose to the glass, I double-checked whether he was hiding beneath the driftwood he liked to recline on.
No lizard.
I grabbed the kitchen table for support as a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach made the world spin. “God?” I whispered.
Not him too. He was the only . . . friend I could confide in and count on in the midst of my crazy life.
“Godzilla?” I shouted.
When he didn’t answer, I knew he wasn’t in the apartment.
“Where did you go?” I wondered aloud, even though I was pretty sure I knew the answer.
Hurrying back toward the front door I grabbed Doomsday’s leash off the wall. Throwing open the door, I bounced off a chest.
Not a piece of furniture, but the chest of a man. A well-muscled, buttons-stretched-to-their-limit kind of chest.
“Going somewhere, Maggie?” Paul Kowalski, wearing his police uniform, looked amused as I stumbled backward, carefully catching myself against the wall.
> “What are you doing here?” I didn’t know if my breathlessness was a result of my hurrying, crashing into him, or because I was startled.
“I was coming to see you.” He flashed his most charming smile.
At least I would have found it charming when we’d first met. Now it seemed to have a slightly predatory gleam that had me tightening my grip on the leash. “You could have called.”
“And you could have screened my call.” He reached out and straightened the family portrait I’d recently rehung in the foyer.
This was the third time Paul had been in my home. The first time I’d been ready to have sex with him (until God had reminded me I’d had a gun tucked under my mattress). The second time I’d been grateful for his help as he’d helped me deal with my Aunt Leslie who’d passed out on my doorstep. But this time . . . this time I wanted him gone, because this visit just didn’t feel right.
“Sorry,” I said with as much fake cheer as I could muster. “If you’d called, I could have told you I was on my way out.”
“Where are you going?”
“To look for my dog.”
“You don’t have a dog.”
“I do now.” At least I hoped I did. I had to find her first.
He focused on the leash I held for the first time. “What kind of dog?”
“A Doberman.”
His smile wavered a little. “Why’d you get a Doberman?”
I shrugged, figuring it was safer than telling the police officer that the dog had belonged to a hitman I’d killed with a leg of lamb.
“Anyway,” he said, seemingly undeterred by my desire to get rid of him. “Your Aunt Loretta said you need a date to the wedding.”
“Did she?” I made a mental note to duct tape Loretta’s painted lips closed.
“So I thought you and me, some dancing, some romance.”
“That’s sweet,” I said slowly, “but it wouldn’t be fair to you. I’m going to be swamped with maid of honor duties.” Behind my back, I crossed my fingers to offset the lie. Zeke was the one taking care of everything. “And Lamont’s best man isn’t getting in until the day before . . .”