by Gina LaManna
“But then a priest walked in and the big man seemed a little confused, like he didn’t wanna shoot a priest, you know?”
“I get that,” Meg said. “Bad karma. It’s really a bitch if you kill one of God’s dudes.”
“Exactly.” Alfonso nodded. “He hesitated a second, but then that priest just swung a bat from behind his back at the guard’s head and there was a super loud crack. I kinda closed my eyes since I’m not a big fan of blood or crazy priests.”
“Amen.” Meg nodded along.
Alfonso looked gratefully at Meg. “So then I opened my eyes and big guy was unconscious on the ground and the door was shut. The priest says, ‘Maintenance stairwell one door to the right.’ I asked him how he didn’t get seen when he walked in, and he said you two were at an overhang at the other end of the hall and couldn’t get a clear view of the door on account of a potted plant at just the right angle.”
I interrupted. “Why would he take the time to tell you that?”
Alfonso shrugged. “That priest, he was bragging about how clever he was putting that potted tree there earlier. He talked about how he had to haul it up the stairs due to a broken elevator, going on about it for about two full minutes until Joey told him to shut up.”
“Did you know the priest?” I asked.
“Yeah, he was my Uncle Leo.” Alfonso nodded. “Sorry, I forgot to say that.”
I gave a cautionary shake of my head at Anthony, whose mouth was open in disgust, his gun finger twitching.
“How do you forget to tell us that the priest is your uncle?” I asked.
“S-sorry. I’m just nervous and under pressure, you know? It’s hard to remember what order to tell the story in. Sometimes the important details get stuck under all of the other ones.” Alfonso shrugged.
“All the details are important,” Anthony said through gritted teeth, his jaw so tight I was afraid it might violently pop open off its hinges at some point in the near future.
“Right. I’ll remember them from now on,” Alfonso said. “Anyway, so I said to Leo, ‘What are you doing? Ain’t you dead?’ And he just looked back at me. You know what he said?”
“What?” Meg leaned forward, intrigued.
“He said, ‘Yeah, I’m as dead as I was the day you killed me.’ I mean, the balls on that guy. He must’ve known that I pretended it was me. Somebody spilled the beans. I’m not sure who, though.”
“Well, I was a cop,” Meg said. “Therefore I got good detective skills. Does he have any friends that would’ve known?”
“Uh, how about Joey?” I asked. “Joey knew. Obviously Joey and Leo were working together and talking.”
“Riiiiiiight,” Meg and Alfonso said together. I could almost hear the click of light bulbs over their heads.
Meg said, “Lace, you would’ve made a good cop.”
“More money on this side of the table,” Alfonso argued with Meg. “Lacey made the right choice.”
“Enough about my career,” I said. “What happened then?”
“Well, then Leo untied Joey and told him to grab what they needed and hurry up. I think he wanted to get out of here. Joey got up and got his crap together. But then he put on a suit and got really ’motional...”
“Motional?” I asked. “Like, he was fast, or what?”
“’Motional. Like he was crying.” Alfonso said. “His eyes got wet and just before they were about to leave, he bent right down on one knee. The right one, I think. Or maybe the left...but when I look at it like this, it was maybe the right...”
“Go on,” Anthony said.
“I was trying to get all the details right because they’re important.” Alfonso shot Anthony a withering look. The kid stopped when the gun started bouncing against Anthony’s leg once more.
“So he got down on one of his two knees?” I prompted.
“Yep. Ninety percent chance it was the right one.” Alfonso closed his eyes as if trying to picture it. “Then, Joey right then and there asked Vivian if she’d forget about the boring banker and run away with him. Go on the honeymoon they were meant to go on. Get married, since they were soul mates.”
My jaw dropped open, though when I truly thought about it, the idea wasn’t all that surprising. In fact, pretty much everything Joey had done all weekend had been one giant plan to ruin the wedding.
Why I’d ever allowed him to come—even with the five thousand dollar bonus I’d received upon arrival, was beyond logical thought. I could have found another way to earn the money—maybe taken another job with Carlos, or helped Anthony out with a side project, or sold my body to a creepy old perv looking for a cuddle. Any one of those sounded more ideal than the debacle I’d been through, and put others through, for the past two days. After all, hadn’t I essentially sold my body as a plus one to a creepy old perv named Joey?
“What’d she say?” Meg blew her nose into a huge wad of toilet paper she’d pulled from one of the many pockets on her camo jacket. “I’m telling’ ya, this love story just hits me where it hurts. It really got me in the feels.”
Alfonso looked mystified at Meg’s reaction, his expression matching my exact thoughts. “She said, ‘Okay.’”
“OKAY!” Meg wailed. “She said okay! How beautiful!”
As Meg collapsed in a fit of sobs, the large man next to her on the bed stirred, grunting and rubbing his head. He fell silent when he tried to sit up, passing back out quicker than he’d woken moments before.
“Shouldn’t someone look at him?” Alfonso gestured towards the guard.
“Probably. But he’s not dead.” I patted Meg’s back, rubbing sympathetic circles.
Alfonso looked appalled, either at my reaction or at Meg’s ear-splitting wails.
“It’s okay,” I whispered to Alfonso. “Meg’s really a fan of Team Joey and Vivian.”
“Because they’re a modern Romeo and Juliet,” she cried. “Wonderful. The stuff of reality television.”
Maybe it was just me, but I thought Anthony’s gun hand flicked slightly in the direction of Meg. I gave him a very, very disapproving look, and he focused his gaze on Alfonso.
“Whatever,” Alfonso said. “So, she said okay, and then they took off. And that’s it. They tied me up, locked me in the closet and laid the big guy here out like he was dead. Then, for the rest of the time I was in the closet and didn’t see nothing until you all let me out.”
“Wow,” Meg whispered. “What a twist for an ending.”
“This isn’t the end,” I said. “Where did they go?”
I strode to the bedroom window and looked outside.
“Dammit,” I said. “They took the Lumina.”
I didn’t even need to look in my purse, I was sure the keys were missing. “Anthony, can you get some guys on the road following it?”
“They’re already on it,” he said, phone in hand. I didn’t bother to ask how he’d dispatched them so quickly. He worked in mysterious ways, a lot like God.
I sat on the bed. Where could they have gone?
I replayed the recent events in my mind.
Leo, first of all, was alive. It was safe to say he’d been working with Joey the whole time. But what purpose did it serve to fake Leo’s death?
I stood and paced the room. There was some little fact niggling in my brain that I knew I was missing. Something that probably should have been obvious a long time ago. What was I missing?
“All right, we know Joey was trying to stop the wedding. That was his purpose with this whole scheme, to convince Vivian that they were soul mates. What’s Leo’s part in this, besides helping them get away?” I spoke aloud to my mute audience. “I mean, there are a lot of people I’d trust over Leo to help with an escape. I’d trust Leo only about as far as I could punt him.”
Meg looked confused. “How far would you say you could punt a man?”
“That’s not very far,” I clarified.
“Right.” She nodded in agreement. “You need to work on those leg muscles, then. Right, Ant
hony?”
She looked up for reassurance, but Anthony merely grunted, his eyes fixed on me with a piercing stare.
“You don’t trust a priest?” asked Alfonso sarcastically. “Then who can you trust?”
I turned to Alfonso. I bit my lip. Then it dawned on me. “You’re exactly right! That’s it. Genius!”
Alfonso looked more confused than ever.
I flicked open my phone. It was a long shot, but I needed to try it.
I dialed Vivian’s cell phone number.
The second it picked up, I said, “Was Leo supposed to marry you and the banker this weekend?”
“Yeah, why?” she snapped her gum as nonchalantly as if I’d asked her to go to the mall and shop for gold toe socks.
In the background, I heard Joey yell something like hang up. Vivian yelled something back, but the next noise to travel through the phone to my ear was a strange whistling, like air rushing quickly by on a freeway, and then a crackle, a thump, and silence. I hung up when I heard the dial tone.
“That’s it,” I said. “Leo was supposed to marry Joey and Vivian. I bet you they had to pay some sort of deposit, so Vivian being the cheapskate she is probably just asked Leo if she could transfer the deposit to a different wedding when the first one didn’t work out. Which then explains why Vivian and the banker scheduled their wedding for the same weekend as her original date to marry Joey.”
“Yeah, I always thought that was weird,” Meg said. “You marrying two honeys is fine, just do it on a different weekend. That’s a lot of honeymoon sex, otherwise.”
Now Alfonso was looking at Meg with an odd gleam in his eye.
“Don’t get any ideas, twerp. She’s too old for you,” I said. Realizing how that sounded, I gave Meg a reassuring look before she exploded. “And she’s young, so that means you’re a baby.”
Meg nodded happily. “A baby.”
“All right, the picture is coming together,” I said. “So Joey pays Leo more money to pretend he dies. Then, Vivian is stuck pushing back the wedding and finding a new priest. Which she did. But when that didn’t work to postpone the wedding longer than a day, Joey needed to take more serious measures.”
“Aka kidnapping her best friend of two months,” Meg added.
“Not sure how that’s aka, but yes, that’s the idea,” I said. “Then, when Vivian was emotionally vulnerable, he was here to pick up the pieces and ask for her back.”
I shook my head. “I’m not really sure about the last part. What if Vivian had said no? I mean, what would Joey have done with Kiki?”
Meg broke in, “Kiki. We need to find her.”
I looked around the room, nodding my head in agreement, trying to jumpstart a plan.
“All right, everyone has five minutes to talk to anyone you need to, gather your crap and be waiting out on the front steps. We’re off on a bride and groom chase,” I said. “Out front in five.”
Alfonso looked at me curiously, “Even me?”
“No,” I said. “You here with your mom and dad?”
“Yeah,” he mumbled.
“You go back to them quietly and behave forever, and I won’t tattle. You so much as get a C on a history paper and you’re grounded for life, got it?” I gave him my best serious stare.
“Yeah, got it,” he said, standing up gingerly on bruised ankles.
“I promise you I will turn Anthony loose on you,” I called after him.
Alfonso scurried from the room in his oversized boxers.
“Anthony,” I said.
“I am not going after him,” Anthony turned from his post in the doorway. “I’ve seen enough pre-pubescent teen boy today.”
“Are you staying or coming with me?”
“My job is to eliminate all threats to the Family.” Anthony looked at me. “Right now, this is the biggest threat.”
“Got it,” I said. “See you out front. I just need to check something quickly.”
I turned to Meg, who was poking at the large, unconscious man in inappropriate places.
“Stop that,” I said, throwing on some pants and a shirt as she gave his butt cheek a squeeze. “Where’s Clay?”
“I don’t know.” Her cheeks were pink.
“Wanna try that again?” I asked.
“Floor two, Room two-oh-eight.”
“Thanks,” I said, trying to hold back a grin. “Can I borrow your card key to...hmm, Room two-oh-eight?”
I rushed down the maintenance steps, recognizing a smear of brown on the handrail. Joey’s tanning lotion.
I reached the second floor, was out of breath by the time I slipped the card reader into the door holder, and became absolutely furious when a cowbell starting clanging in the distance.
Clay peeked his head out from behind a laptop. “Oh, it’s you.”
“Disappointed?” I shouted. “Shut that off. NO MORE COWBELL.”
Clay punched a few keys on his cell phone. “Sorry, can never be too careful.”
There was a pause as I pondered how to bring up the favor I needed from him.
Luckily, Clay’s eyes lit up and he held out his phone like a toy, as if he were a toddler who’d just discovered a brand new train set.
“Check this out, Lace,” he said, bubblier than I’d ever seen him all weekend. “I’m working on alarms that are cell phone controlled. I can set off loud noises, flashing lights, and I’m almost able to blow things up...”
“Wow, that’s great,” I said. “Just be careful with that last one. I don’t appreciate getting blown up all that much. But on that note, could you please help me with something?”
“What?” He looked suddenly skeptical.
“I need to know if Vivian Luzzi has any plane tickets booked under her name, or under Joey’s name. For today, most likely.”
“You thinking of creeping on their honeymoon?” His eyebrows were raised. “Lacey, I never expected—”
“You don’t know half the story,” I said. “So help me. Joey’s in trouble with the Family, and Vivian’s running away from her wedding with a dead man. Leo.”
“Oh,” he said. “Why didn’t you say so?”
I rolled my eyes, but Clay was already typing furiously on the keyboard.
“There’s two tickets under her name actually. For the same time. To the same destination. And on one flight she’s sitting next to Joey, and on the other, she’s sitting next to someone whose name is William D. Blinkenberg, the third or fourth whatever. It’s something with Roman numerals.”
“I thought his name was Donald,” I said. “Guess the ‘D’ is for Donald. Vivian probably hadn’t realized she’d been double-booked on her honeymoon. I bet Joey booked the first ones and never canceled, hoping against hope that he’d still be taking that honeymoon with Vivian. Meanwhile, the banker booked another set, not aware that the other ones weren’t canceled.”
Clay nodded.
“So that’s four tickets and four people,” I mused. “Leo, Kiki, Vivian and Joey are headed on a honeymoon. Somewhere.” I hung my head in my hands. “I’m not sure I want to know, even though I’m one hundred and fifty percent sure I already know.”
“Well, do you want to know for certain? Just ask.” Clay shrugged.
I looked up wearily, already knowing the answer. “Where are we going?”
“Las Vegas.”
FLYING DOWN I-35E, I crossed my fingers that the roads would be slippery enough to run a car right off them. Or maybe broken into tiny pieces. Or even under construction for any reason at all, just so that there was a chance we could catch the crew that had gotten a head start on us. Unfortunately, it was a beautiful day and traffic was light and there were no signs of any highway patrolmen pulling people over on their way back to the cities.
“Is this city even safe?” I griped. “What is this world coming to? No cops pulling people over, no roads being fixed. Come on!”
“Criminy,” Meg said. “I’ll start bustin’ up these roads if we need to.”
As it was
the end of the week, most of the traffic was headed in the other direction: families headed north for relaxing weekends at the cabin, couples out for a day of romantic sightseeing, hand-holding, and ice cream eating, and probably even a few stragglers en route to Vivian’s wedding.
She hadn’t made a blanket announcement to the guests about the wedding getting postponed as far as I knew, though I hadn’t had any contact with her since we’d jumped on the road two hours before, hectically scrambling to beat Vivian and company to the airport.
It was a race against time. Their plane took off, wheels up, in thirty minutes. We were approximately twenty-two minutes away.
Joey, Leo and their victims had about forty minutes on us.
I fingered what was left of the five grand tucked away across various parts of my body. I’d shoved a few bills in my wallet, a few in my purse and a few in my pocket. Just in case I didn’t make it back to the hotel, I didn’t want to lose that money. Plus, we were headed to Vegas. A little extra cash never hurt anyone in that city.
I hoped against hope that the flight would be delayed, or that Vivian would put up a stink about getting caught with hairspray in her carry on and get thrown off the flight. Or maybe Joey would be chosen for a “random” search since the color of his skin looked alien. Something. Anything to delay them the extra twenty minutes we’d need to get to the plane.
I had to give Joey credit: he couldn’t have timed things any more perfectly. Twenty minutes earlier and we’d have caught them. It was a ballsy move, but it was beginning to look like it might pay off.
“Can you try calling again?” I begged Anthony.
We’d exhausted all of our “inside” police and TSA contacts at the airport. We had no luck digging up resources who could help us stall the plane; one of the police captains who frequently accepted cash for favors was in Hawaii on a vacation paid for by Carlos, the other at home with his pregnant wife, who was about to give birth any second. Neither agreed to my pleas to rush to the airport. It also wasn’t exactly legitimate for them to call up their buddies and ask for a favor in the name of Carlos Luzzi. That might not go over so hot in terms of collaborating with known criminal masterminds.