Agnes and the Hitman

by Jennifer Crusie

  “Hell, yes.” Frankie wiped his fingers on the napkins Lisa Livia had dumped by his plate. “You got a tux for me?”

  “You can use the Don’s,” Joey said with an undercurrent in his voice that Shane knew was important, but not as important as the fact that Wilson was lucking them over for some reason.

  The son of a bitch had known all along. What else had he known? What other games was he playing? And why was he playing games at all?

  “Plus if you show up in the open as Frankie Fortunato,” Agnes went on, “that’ll draw Casey Dean out in the open, too, so Shane can care of him, so that’ll finally be done.”

  “Good,” Frankie said, nodding as he reached for the turkey. “That’s good.”

  Agnes was on a roll. “Of course you might get shot, but you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.” She handed him a plate of deviled eggs. “Have one.”

  “Hey,” Frankie said, frowning.

  “And as for Lisa Livia, what did you do with the five million, Frankie?” Agnes asked, an edge in her voice Shane had never heard before. Maybe something about fathers lying to daughters, he thought now, maybe something about too many lies. “Because Lisa Livia needs some of it and you’re going to give it to her.”

  Lisa Livia sat very still across from Frankie, watching, her fork poised above her plate.

  “The five million. Oh, that’s a sad story,” Frankie said, mixing Irish and Jersey and sounding like a lying bastard.

  Rhett lifted his head and barked at the back door.

  “Already I know you’re lying, Frankie,” Xavier said from the doorway.

  An hour later, Agnes looked at the group crowded around her kitchen table stuffing their faces on a week’s worth of leftovers and thought, The Gang That Could Shoot Straight. One cop, two hit men, two mobsters, a mob princess, and a food columnist, plus an ancient bloodhound for a mascot; if Evie showed up, they could do Eight Is Enough. Without Evie, lucky seven. Please God.

  Shane pushed his plate away and then caught sight of her face. “Agnes?”

  My team. My family. “You okay?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  Frankie had spun them the sad story of how he’d lost the five million trying to swim across the Blood River in his escape from Brenda and her frying pan. He tried to make it an epic story of one man’s struggle against the flood, but it was basically one cheating goombah’s story of how his wife tried to kill him and he hit the road with five mil, which he lost because he couldn’t swim very well. The only thing that kept Agnes from killing him was that he was eating the entire time. You couldn’t kill somebody who was eating your food. There were rules about things like that.

  When Frankie was done with his tall tale, Agnes looked across the table to Lisa Livia. “So. How are you doing?”

  “I liked him better dead.”

  Agnes nodded. “I’m starting to be grateful to mine for staying dead.”

  “So, Frankie, the five million is gone,” Xavier said, shaking his head as she tried to offer him a deviled egg. “And you’ve just come home because you were so homesick.”

  “He’s come home to roll on the Don,” Agnes said, and Shane winced.

  “Could I talk to you for a minute?” he said, and she handed him the scalloped potatoes, figuring that would hold him for a while.

  “No,” she said. “Xavier isn’t stupid and he’s going to notice I’m missing from his jail and he’s not going to buy any ‘she has to put on a wedding’ garbage. In fact, I’m willing to bet that’s why he’s here now, to arrest me for breaking out of jail and probably to take you in, too, just from sheer exasperation. So I think we tell him what the hell’s going on.”

  She looked at Xavier. “Shane works for the government. He’s trying to keep Frankie alive to testify against the Don. Frankie wants to see

  Maria get married and then he’s going into the Witness Protection Program. He won’t testify until the wedding is over, so the wedding has to go off tomorrow, then he testifies, then the Don goes to jail and Frankie disappears, and Palmer and Maria go off to wedded bliss. Since Frankie is here, we’re going to use him to rattle Brenda. Nobody’s managed to make a dent in her so far, but Frankie showing up alive should do it. That might help you get a confession out of her that she killed Taylor, which you know she did.” She stopped for a minute, pretending to think, and did a quick survey of the assembled team. They were all looking at her with various degrees of admiration and relief. What, she thought You thought I was going to tell him that Shane was a hitman? Am I nuts? “I think that’s it,” she finished. “Any questions?”

  Xavier looked at Shane. “And you’ve known all of this from the beginning.”

  “National security,” Shane said.

  “Fucking FBI,” Xavier said.

  “Not quite,” Shane said. “But close enough.”

  “So why didn’t I get a visit from men in black suits telling me that I had to let Agnes go?”

  “You did,” Shane said. “I just don’t own a suit, and I don’t talk much.”

  “I’ll need to see some identification,” Xavier said, and Agnes thought, Oh, hell, but Shane took him aside while Joey and Frankie exchanged one of those glances again.

  Agnes poked Joey hard in the side. “What aren’t you telling Shane?”

  Joey pushed his plate away. “He don’t want to know.”

  “I have news for you,” Agnes said. “He wants to know. You explode one more bomb under him, he’s going to explode. I’ve never seen him lose it, but I’ve seen him when he doesn’t lose it, and he’s scary as hell. You tell him everything now, or-”

  “Okay,” Xavier said, coming back. “I’ll hold the arrest warrant.” He looked at Agnes. “You will not leave the jurisdiction.”

  “Hell, Xavier,” Agnes said. “I won’t leave Two Rivers. Do you have any idea what tomorrow-no, today, it’s Saturday already-is going to be like around here?”

  Xavier looked grim, which meant he had a good idea, and picked up his hat. “Good luck to you.” He turned for the door.

  “Hold it,” Agnes said, and he turned back. “You’re not going anywhere. I want Brenda arrested and in an orange jumpsuit by Sunday. We need you on this. Sit down and eat.”

  “Agnes,” Shane said.

  “We need a plan,” Agnes said. “And we need the law in on it. What do we need to nail Brenda Fortunato for good?”

  Xavier hesitated and then said, “Proof.” He sat down beside Frankie, next to the Venus, and took the bowl of ribs away from him. Frankie looked like he was going to protest and then shut up and reached for the coleslaw instead.

  Agnes passed him a fork as Shane said, “Okay, we need a plan. So part A is, Frankie walks Maria down the aisle tomorrow and scares Brenda so that she confesses all to Xavier. Good luck with that. Part B, Casey Dean sees Frankie, makes his move, and I… arrest him.”

  “Casey Dean is Shane’s bad guy,” Agnes said to Xavier.

  “And Shane’s going to arrest him,” Xavier said around his rib. “Would that be cardiac arrest?”

  Okay, Agnes thought, and reached for the deviled eggs. They were all eating and talking. She could eat now, too.

  “And then part C, Frankie and I discuss Lisa Livia’s inheritance,” Shane said, fixing Frankie with a look that said, You and me, Uncle Frankie.

  Frankie tried to look old and frail and innocent. “Ha,” Agnes said, and he gave up and passed the coleslaw back to her.

  “And if Brenda doesn’t freely confess to murder?” Xavier asked.

  “She’ll fuck up something else,” Shane said. “You be ready for it.”

  They all began to talk at once, arguing out the best plan, overlapping each other’s words as they reached over each other to get to the food, arguing and eating, Lisa Livia finally joining in as Carpenter pulled up a chair next to her, making Joey and Agnes scoot over, which brought her close to Shane.

  Right where I want to be, she thought, and watched to make sure everybody had enough
food. When the table was pretty much cleared she said, “Okay, here’s my last word: Nobody shoots anybody tonight. We’re a team now, one big happy family. We need each other. If everybody shows up here tomorrow breathing and with all working body parts, and I do mean everybody, I’ll make breakfast. Anything you want. But if anybody hurts anybody else on the team, I’m going to be upset. Understand?”

  Joey and Frankie looked in different directions.

  “And nobody wants Agnes upset,” Shane said.

  Joey and Frankie nodded.

  “Good.” Agnes shoved her chair back. “Now let’s all get some sleep. And somebody check on Garth, please.”

  “I’ll check on the lad,” Frankie said, getting up. “You’re not fucking Irish,” Joey said, getting up to go with him. “Family,” Agnes said, steel in her voice.

  “I can’t wait for the holidays,” Xavier said, and left them to their slumbers.

  Shane followed Agnes up the stairs to the second floor as she said, “Do you think any of this is going to work?”

  “It’s a place to start,” he said. “We’ll play it by ear-what’s wrong?”

  Agnes had stopped at the top of the stairs. “Maria and the bridesmaids are in three of the bedrooms up here, and Carpenter and LL are in the other one. We’ll have to use the housekeeper’s room again-”

  “Nope,” he said, and steered her toward the attic stairs, his hands on her waist.

  She hesitated and then went along, saying, “I suppose you’re right,” sounding exhausted. “That whole saving-the-attic-bedroom-as-commitment thing was dumb.”

  “Nope,” he said, letting his hands slide down to her hips, patting her beautiful round butt as she climbed in front of him. His world was going to hell, but Agnes still had a great ass and right now that was enough.

  She opened the door at the top of the stairs and then went into the bedroom on the right, and the moonlight flooded the room from the low windows, making it feel almost underwater, peaceful. The big low bed had looked inviting before, but now Agnes said, “Oh,” with an ache in her voice that was almost a moan, and he felt the same way.

  Shane looked at her in the dim light, round everywhere. “Long day.”

  “I need a shower first,” she said. “I was in jail.”

  “Been there,” Shane said, and watched her pad across the hardwood floor to the half-finished bath on the other side, telling himself that she was exhausted and they were both mind-fried from thinking about the next day until he heard the shower go on, and then he gave up being the Sensitive Guy and stripped and went in to join her.

  She hadn’t turned the lights on in the bathroom, either, so he found her by the moonlight coming through the skylight, making the soap blue on her wet skin. “Hey,” she said, but it was a soft welcome, not a protest, and his hands slid on her soapy lush curves, and he forgot the next day and lost himself in Agnes and in the feel of her hands as she stroked the soap over him, and the soft sound of her giggle and sigh under the water, and the taste of her as she tangled her tongue with his, the way her body yielded to the shove of his, the way she shivered against the scrape of his beard, drew breath at the slide of fingers, and urged him on, hungry for him as he invaded her, but mostly the way she wanted him, wrapped herself around him and demanded him, and by the time they fell onto the bed, she was so hot, so desperate for him, and he was so insane for her, that he drove into her, into the shock and the need, into everything she was, obliterating himself in her, nothing but him in her, rolling in those satin sheets, until they both exploded, and when he came back to the cool blue room and the moonlight and the quiet with Agnes shuddering in his arms, holding on to him as if she’d never let him go, for the first time in his life he thought, Don’t let go, and held on.

  The sunlight woke Agnes up because it came in at such a funny angle, and then when she realized where she was, she sat bolt upright and said, “Oh, my God!” and Shane sat up, too, and said, “What?” reaching for his gun, which, probably for the first time in his life, wasn’t within reach because she’d kicked it last night, flailing around. Even Rhett jerked awake under the windows and looked around.

  “I overslept. I think.” Agnes looked around for a clock, but there wasn’t any. “Do you have a watch? What time is it?”

  Rhett gave them both a dirty look and went back to sleep. Shane reached over her, which felt so good that she didn’t fall back against the pillows until he pressed her down there with his body as he grabbed his gun and his watch out of the pile of clothing next to the bed. “Six,” he said to her, keeping her pinned down.

  “Oh, good,” she said, nestling back into the pillows. “I still have to get up, but it’s not a complete disaster. How’s your gun?” She grinned at him, and he put the gun on the bedside table and rolled her to him so that they lay side by side.

  “My gun is fine,” he said, and pulled her leg over his hip so she could feel him hard against her.

  “I guess it is.” She settled in closer as he began to kiss her neck. “This was a good idea, sleeping up here. I should have been up here a long time ago instead of saving this place for some dumb commitment idea.”

  “Nope,” he said, and kissed her, and she settled into the kiss the way she’d settled into his body as his hand slid down her stomach, practically following a path by now. She started to giggle at the thought-Shane blazing a trail-and he said, “What?” but he grinned against her mouth.

  “You’re going to wear a groove there,” she said, and then stopped smiling. “Not that I’m assuming you’re staying-”

  “I’m staying,” he said, and kissed her again.

  When she came up for air, she said, “You don’t have to say-”

  “Can we have this conversation tonight?” he said, and she looked up at him, not sure. “I think a lot of things are going to happen to both of us today. But I know I’m going to be back in this bedroom with you tonight. Can we talk about this then?”

  Agnes swallowed. “Sure.” He knows he’s going to be back here tonight. She wriggled a little with happiness, and he grinned and pulled her closer.

  “Because if we keep talking, you’re going to have to leave to go do wedding stuff,” he said, letting his hand drift lower, “and I’m not going to get laid.”

  “Right,” Agnes said, and sighed against him, but she thought, God, I hope we’re both still alive to be back here tonight.

  Then he kissed her, and she stopped thinking at all.

  An hour later, the buzz of Shane’s sat phone woke him up.

  “I hate that thing,” Agnes murmured, buried under the blanket, her head resting on his chest

  Rhett lifted his head from his place on the floor and communicated his displeasure with a long look before he collapsed back onto the pillow Agnes had put there for him.

  “Yeah, I’m starting to feel that way, too,” Shane told them both as he checked the phone.

  DOCK-FIFTEEN MINUTES

  “I’ve got to meet Wilson,” he told her. “I hate him, too.”

  “Yeah,” Shane said, his mind reluctantly turning to things he didn’t want to face.

  Wilson had kept information back, vital information. That could have been part of his fucking No Need To Know, part of the whole responsibility of the guy who’s in charge the reality of taking Wilson’s place suddenly swept over him, ensconced in Washington, sending others out into the held to do the dirty work, others like Carpenter-but it could be something else, too, and his gut was telling him it was something else and it wasn’t good.

  He sat up, hating to move away from her warmth. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

  “Can you?” She raised herself up a little, wide awake now. “Because if you can’t, just say you can’t. Please.”

  Shane paused and looked down at her. He’d always seen her as capable, angry-definitely angry-and in charge. But right now she just looked vulnerable. He leaned over and kissed her. “Right. I promise.”

  Another promise. “I’ll be back tonight
.” Getting to be a habit.

  Agnes sighed and nodded and rolled out of bed in all her naked splendor. “Okay, then. Breakfast to make. Maria’s wedding day. I’m sure everything will go well.” She crossed her eyes at him and went into the bathroom, and he sat looking at the space where she’d been for a second, just in case she came back.

  “Yeah,” he said, and got dressed and went outside into the early morning quiet. The sun was behind him, shooting over the trees and lighting up the far shoreline of the Blood River. The only sound was the quiet lap of water against the pink sand and the honking of Cerise and Hot Pink as they greeted the new day. For a few minutes, he could pretend it was peaceful. Until he heard the boat engine.

  Shane looked toward the dock and saw Wilson’s boat pull up to it. The old man stepped onto the floating dock and the boat pulled away to a holding position. As Shane went to the long walkway, Wilson made his way slowly up the metal gangplank to the high dock.

  Shane heard a car door slam and looked over his shoulder. Frankie Fortunato had just gotten out of his pickup and was stretching, his white hair now dyed black, his beard gone. He was still fifty pounds heavier, but now he looked like Frankie. A second pickup was coming down the drive: Joey. Shane imagined the two had spent an interesting night talking over old times. And threatening to shoot each other, Good thing they were both afraid of Agnes.

  Shane stepped onto the wooden dock and began the long walk out.

  As he neared Wilson, he could finally see how old his boss was. Older than Joey, older than all the others involved in this. Shane wondered how that felt, how tired Wilson was. How done he was with what he’d been doing for over sixty years. Or was he really done?

  Wilson was already seated when Shane arrived at the high dock. Glancing over at the Brenda Belle, Shane saw no sign of the boat’s owner. Brenda must be biding her time to make her grand entrance. Or sleeping in so she’d have plenty of energy to let loose the dogs of war.

  Shane sat down across from his boss. “Good morning.”

  Wilson nodded. “Today’s the day. Casey Dean will-”