“I’ll take care of it. From now on, I take care of anything like this. No more Xavier.”
“What do you mean, ‘from now on’? You think there’s going to be more of this?”
“It’s possible.” Shane rolled the dead man over on one hip, found his wallet, and flipped it open. “Wallace Macy.” He pulled out five crisp one-hundred-dollar bills and frowned.
Well, he wasn’t the only one frowning. He should be having her evening. Jesus wept.
Shane pulled out his fancy phone and punched in a number. “Carpenter,” he said into the phone. “I have some woodwork.” He listened for a moment, then flipped it shut.
“Who is Carpenter?”
“He’s a man of many talents.” He looked up at her, and she remembered she was naked. “You might want to get dressed. He’ll be here in twenty minutes.”
“Is he going to try to kill me?”
“No.”
“Already I like him,” Agnes said, and went into the bedroom.
She picked up her sundress, patted Rhett, straightened the bed, went into the bathroom, took off her glasses, washed her face, and combed her hair. Then she threw up until it felt as though she’d lost everything she’d ever eaten in her entire life.
When she was done, she splashed cold water on her face again and realized she’d been crying the entire time, ever since Shane had fired those two shots into the dead guy, ever since she’d seen those two holes in his forehead.
“Two holes,” she said to her reflection. “I almost killed Taylor. Just like that. Only that didn’t seem real. This was real. I could have done this. Oh, God.” She put her forehead on the cold mirror and swallowed hard and tried to think what the hell had happened to her life. She’d been writing a successful food column, and engaged to a terrific chef, and living in a great house, and now she was sleeping with a killer, and somebody was trying to take her house, and she’d almost killed her fiancé…
“Ex-fiancé,” she told her reflection. “I’m pretty sure that’s over.”
And then there was the flamingo wedding.
She started to laugh. She couldn’t help it, she had to, and then she couldn’t stop, even when Shane knocked on the door and said, “Agnes?” she still couldn’t stop, and he rattled the door but she’d locked it, so he kicked it in and came in and held her and said, “It’s okay,” and she held on to him and said, “I know,” and cried and then after a while she stopped, and he kissed the top of her head and patted her back, and she said, “That was bad,” and he said, “Yeah,” and she said, “I won’t do it again,” and he said, “I thought you meant the shooting,” and she said, “That, too,” and let go of him and got dressed and put on her glasses.
When she had herself together again, she went out to the kitchen and got Rhett a dog biscuit in case he’d been traumatized. “At least it won’t ever get any worse than this,” she told him. He seemed comforted by that.
Then as Brenda’s goddamned son of a bitch ugly black grandfather clock gonged midnight in the front hall, she went out onto the porch to wait for somebody named Carpenter to come and clean the blood out of her kitchen.
wednesday
cranky agnes column #75
“It’s His Fault You’re Fat”
Heartache often drives us to consume things we wouldn’t otherwise, such as an entire pint of Caramel Pecan Perfection high-fat ice cream, covered in ganache, the crack cocaine of frozen dairy. Twelve hundred calories per pint, six hundred and eighty of which are fat calories, but it only dulls the pain for the moment, there’s that carb fog while you’re standing at the sink shoving it in your face, and then it’s over and you feel… used. Like a cheap pickup the Dove people seduced and abandoned in your kitchen, leaving you with sticky hands and an empty cup and a still-broken heart, except now you’re mad at Dove, too.
Shane could hear Carpenter whistling inside the house, a good sign. He could also feel Agnes shivering beside him on the porch swing, not a good sign. He still wasn’t sure what had happened with Taylor to set her off with the meat fork, but he knew that being shot at by a strange man shortly after having angry sex, shortly after having tried to kill your fiancé, shortly after having a dognapper point a gun at you was a bad night for anybody, even a woman as tough as Agnes. Although she’d certainly been up for the sex. Energetic woman, Agnes. He hadn’t been surprised when she’d come unglued there at the end of it all, but he had been surprised that she’d managed to get it all over with in about ten minutes. Energetic andefficient. One in a million.
She shivered and he put his arm around her.
“So you and Carpenter,” Agnes said. “You’re like, partners?” She shifted on the swing so she could look up at him through those ridiculous red-rimmed glasses. Her lips were very close, and her curls brushed his neck, and she was warm against his arm, and she was bra-less in that strappy dress, squished against him…
“Okay, then,” Agnes said when he didn’t answer her. “Who do you work for?”
“We work for a very special organization,” Shane said, trying to sound noble.
“That sounds so… UNICEF-ish.” She looked back toward the kitchen. “It’s not UNICEF, is it?”
Carpenter came through the screen door, a body bag over his shoulder, and Agnes’s big eyes got wider. “I’ve got the package ready for removal and the scene cleaned. I’m sure you checked the wallet and saw the half a dime. Not a professional. Four shots-overkill, don’t you think?”
“I was annoyed,” Shane said. The shithead fucked up my afterglow.
Agnes looked from one to the other. “I was just going in,” she said. “Very nice to meet you, Mr. Carpenter, thank you for cleaning up my kitchen.” Then she got up and left, taking her warmth with her.
Shane stood, too.
Carpenter said, “What does she know?”
“Now, nothing,” Shane said. “Shortly, probably too much. She’s in the middle.”
“Wilson won’t like it.” Shane stood, silent
“You would make a good department head,” Carpenter said. “I would enjoy working for you.”
“With,” Shane said. “This job could end it.”
“This job could make it. Wilson told me Casey Dean’s hit will be here.”
Carpenter considered that. “Casey Dean is a professional. He’d never have anything to do with this-” He shook the body bag ever so slightly.
“True,” Shane agreed. “So something else is going on.” Carpenter looked back inside to Agnes, who now appeared to be talking to the wall over the table. “What about her?”
“Someone appears to want her dead.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You sure she was the target for this guy?”
“Not positive.”
“Is it our business if she is?”
“It’s my business.”
Carpenter nodded back toward Agnes. “There’s a kid in the basement. Connected to this?” He jerked the body bag on his shoulder as if it were full of feathers and not dead meat.
“I don’t think so. This guy was coming to shoot. The kid was like another one who came last night, after something.”
Carpenter looked thoughtful, as if he were calculating something, and Shane was taken aback when he said, “I understand she cooks.”
“Yes.”
“I am often hungry in the morning.”
Shane paid attention. “She makes an excellent breakfast”
“Perhaps I should come for breakfast.”
“That would be… new.”
Carpenter nodded. “A good partnership is flexible.”
“Wilson might not like it.”
“Wilson is retiring,” Carpenter said. “You are in a complex situation. And I am often hungry in the morning.” He touched a finger to his forehead in a salute and readjusted the body bag over his shoulder. “Be centered.”
Then he was gone and Shane went inside to see what Agnes was saying to the wall.
Agnes had gone inside and watched as Carpenter talked to Shane with the body bag over his shoulder as casually as Palmer had talked to Maria with her dress bag over his shoulder. She looked at the basement door and then back to Shane and Carpenter and then back to the basement door, and then she went to the wall, leaned over the table blocking the door, and pushed open the door a crack.
“Hello?” she whispered.
“H’lo?” came a cautious whisper back.
“So who are you?” Agnes whispered.
“I heard shootin’,” the boy said, his voice a soft drawl. “Yes.”
“Damn.” There was a moment of silence, then, “Listen, I got my rights.”
“No, you don’t,” Agnes said, annoyed at his lack of groveling. “You attacked me in my house. I hit the last kid who attacked me with a frying pan.” And then there was the meat fork, she thought, shuddering at the memory of the blood running down Taylor’s neck. “Now who the hell are you?”
The boy sighed. “I’m Three Wheels Thibault.”
“The kid who died here last night was named Two Wheels Thibault. Relative of yours?”
“Cousin,” Three Wheels said.
“Well, I’m sorry for your loss,” Agnes said, and added hastily, “I didn’t kill him.”
“He were a dickhead. Always callin’ names. Actin’ like a big shot. Pokin’ fun. Made me mad, you know.”
“No,” Agnes said. “I wouldn’t know about that.” She looked over her shoulder at Carpenter and Shane, who were still talking. That wouldn’t last long. “Can you climb up out of there?”
“No, ma’am, I tried.” The boy summoned up some outrage. “I think I hurt my ankle. I’m gonna sue that guy who dropped me in here.”
Agnes looked back again at Shane and Carpenter. Shane looked roughly the size of a grain elevator. Carpenter was bigger. “Three Wheels, these are not men who get sued.”
“Think they’re better’n everybody else,” Three Wheels groused.
“No, it’s because anybody who might sue them stops breathing,” Agnes said, acknowledging what she’d been trying to ignore about Shane’s career choice.
“Oh,” Three Wheels said, all grouse gone. “That was the shootin’ thing?”
“Yes.”
“They with the mob? My grandpa used to work for the mob.”
“Who’s your grandpa?”
“Four Wheels Thibault”
“Four Wheels?” Agnes said, and had an out-of-body Two Wheels- Three Wheels-Four Wheels-I-Just-Had-Sex-with-a-Professional-Killer-and-Almost-Died-Three-Times epiphany. “Jesus Christ. Never mind. Who sent you to kill me?”
“Grandpa. ‘Cept I weren’t supposed to kill you, just supposed to get the dog with the collar on’t He said it’d be easy. You was supposed to be alone.”
“Yeah, well, bad luck for you,” Agnes said, and then Shane turned back to the house, and she said, “You be quiet,” and shut the door and stepped away from the wall, realizing as she did that, while she didn’t know the kid she had imprisoned in her basement well enough to trust him, she didn’t know the man she’d just had sex with at all.
Shane came through the door braced for whatever Agnes was up to now. She said, “Is Carpenter gone?” a little more loudly than necessary, leaning much too casually across the basement door, and he thought, Wonderful. She’s bonded with the kid in the basement.
“Yep.” Shane closed the back door. “And so is Macy.”
“That was an interesting conversation,” Agnes said. “‘The package.’ ‘Not a professional’? ‘Half a dime’?”
“The body. Not a professional killer. Five hundred dollars.” Shane jerked his head toward the porch, changing the subject. “So you want to move out there for the night? Carpenter said he’ll have the electricity back by morning. Until then, it’ll be cooler out there.”
“Sure.” Agnes took a deep breath. “Okay, so the kid in the basement. He’s just a kid. I don’t think he was trying to hurt anybody.”
“He had a gun, Agnes.”
“He says he was only after Rhett. I’m sure he didn’t mean any real harm. I think we should just let him stew down there for the night, talk to him in the morning, you scare him, make him see the light. That’ll be plenty enough.” She turned and went past him toward the housekeeper’s room, and then stopped and turned back when he didn’t follow. “So you coming to help carry stuff?” She looked nervously toward the basement door.
Shane sighed. “Agnes, I’m not going to hurt him.”
“He just came to get Rhett,” Agnes said, pleading with him from behind her glasses.
She wasn’t wearing a bra under her dress; in fact, he was pretty sure she wasn’t wearing anything under her dress. He was tired, but not that tired. “What else did he tell you?” he said, trying not to give away that she could probably get pretty much whatever she wanted from him.
Agnes sighed. “His name is Three Wheels Thibault, and his grandpa, Four Wheels, who used to work for the mob, sent him to get the dog. The kid last night, Two Wheels, was his cousin who always picked on him. He says he hurt his ankle when you dropped him in the basement and he was going to sue you but I talked him out of it. I think he’s bluffing.”
“What’s his favorite color?” Shane said.
“Blue,” Agnes said.
He shook his head. “You sure you’re okay?”
“No. People keep trying to kill me.”
“And I keep stopping them,” Shane said.
“And don’t think I’m not grateful,” Agnes said. “You’re getting a really nice breakfast tomorrow.”
“Make enough for Carpenter,” he said. Agnes blinked. “Really?”
“That a problem?”
“No,” Agnes said, her brow furrowing as she thought about it. “No. He seems like a good guy. I mean, his skill set is upsetting, but so is yours, and I’m for you. People are trying to kill me and you’re saving me, so I’m definitely for you.”
Shane nodded. “All right, then.”
“So come help me get the pillows,” Agnes said. “Do not shoot Three Wheels. Save yourself for Grandpa Four Wheels, who sent both boys.”
“I’m not going to shoot Three Wheels,” Shane said, exasperated. “What do you think I am?”
“A hitman,” Agnes said. Shane nodded. “Good call.”
Agnes wrapped her arms around herself. “You could have lied to me, you know.”
“I’m guessing that’s when you pick up the meat fork,” Shane said, and pointed her toward the bedroom.
“I’m giving up meat forks,” Agnes said, and she sounded as though she meant every word of it.
“We’ll see,” Shane said.
Half an hour later, Agnes lay curled into an insomniac fetal position on her back porch under a sheet, trying to take stock. The man she’d planned on marrying was not only married to another woman, he was trying to cheat her out of her house with the other woman, and she’d almost killed him in retaliation. The Southern-Italian wedding of the season that she’d planned with meticulous care was now going to be a flamingo-themed pink-fest. Two different men had shown up with guns and pointed them at her tonight, for reasons that appeared to involve her dog, and one of them had definitely intended to kill her. A man the size of a truck had just removed a body from her kitchen. An underage kid named after a tricycle was trapped in her basement, because the hitman she’d just had angry sex with wanted to talk to him in the morning. And her column still wasn’t done.
She was definitely turning over a new leaf. Her next fiancé was going to be a nice, steady, nice, regular nice guy, a non-lethal, non-lying nice guy. A good guy.
Agnes shifted on Shane’s air mattress. She was definitely not sleeping with the hitman again. That was just insane. The whole concept of “messy breakup” alone could-
“You sure you’re okay?” Shane said, half asleep beside her now.
“Yes,” Agnes said.
Which wasn’t a lie. She was exhausted, but she wasn’t angry or fr
ightened or insane anymore. If she’d been this calm when they’d had sex, she might have noticed some of the details. It was a shame she’d missed that.
She shifted again.
“Something wrong?”
“No.” But it would be really nice if you wrapped your arms around me. And then did some stuff. To keep my mind off some other stuff. And make me so tired, I pass out. And then tomorrow, I’llbe sane and never sleep with you again.
“You scared?”
“No,” Agnes said. “You’re here.”
“What then? I’m trying to get to sleep, and you’re tense as a board.”
“Yeah,” Agnes said. “About that.”
“Whatever it is you need, I’ll take care of it in the morning.” He stretched over and kissed her forehead, and she lifted her chin to catch his mouth, putting her hand on his cheek and kissing him back, and after a minute, he pulled back. “Agnes?”
“Well,” she said in a reasonable voice. “It’s morning somewhere.”
He rolled over on his back and stared at the porch ceiling. “You’re an odd woman, Agnes.” He sighed. “You have any special requests? Anything you like?”
“Men,” Agnes said. “Men who save my life and then make me come on my back porch.”
“I can do that,” Shane said, and put his arms around her, and Agnes sighed and began to concentrate on the details.
They were very comforting.
Shane woke feeling naked and exposed. And content. He cracked an eye at the mop of dark curly hair lying across his chest, which he knew was a mistake, because he should be checking the perimeter first to see what had wakened him. He was making a lot of mistakes lately.
He looked over at Rhett and noted that the bloodhound had his head up, which he took to be a sign of high alert for the dog. Probably the apocalypse coming, and the Four Horsemen were pounding toward the bridge over the inlet right now. With luck, it would collapse under them. Shane slid out from underneath Agnes and realized he was very exposed. A sniper could take him out easily.
Agnes and the Hitman Page 12