Diesel smiled, his teeth white against his usual two-day beard. “I like it.”
“It’s uncomfortable!”
“I could make you even more uncomfortable,” Diesel said, “but you’re off-limits to me. Unmentionables can’t join with other Unmentionables. There are consequences.” He ran his finger along the nape of my neck. “That’s not to say we can’t fool around.”
My heart jumped to my throat at his touch. “What sort of consequences?”
“One of us would lose all Unmentionable power,” Diesel said.
“Are you serious?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
Isn’t this typical. Every time I meet a great guy who actually has two eyebrows, he’s either gay or married. And now I can add Unmentionable to the list of unavailable men.
“No problem,” I said. “Just because you throw me into a panic doesn’t mean I would fling myself into your arms at the first opportunity. I’m perfectly in control of the situation.”
“Lizzy, you have no idea. My Unmentionable skills aren’t limited to opening locked doors.”
“Jeez Louse.”
“Yeah,” Diesel said. “I could make us fit together like a Chinese puzzle. Unfortunately, we have a job to do that requires both of us keep our skills.” A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. “And it would be a shame if you were the loser and you started making lousy cupcakes.”
A light flashed on over Wulf’s front door, and we both turned our attention to the house. Mel and Gorp were standing on the small cement porch, instruments in hand.
“Guess they got tired of waiting,” Diesel said. “Looks like showtime.”
The door opened and Wulf appeared. He was in his usual black. Black shirt, black slacks. He looked at Mensher, and then his eyes moved left and locked onto Diesel’s Cayenne.
“Uh-oh,” I said. “Can he see us?”
“Yes.”
“So he knows we set him up.”
“Yes.”
Mensher said something to Wulf, and Wulf didn’t respond. Wulf looked like he was sending death rays in our direction. Mensher pointed to the ghost-o-meter in Gorp’s hand, but Wulf paid no attention. Mensher took a step back, raised his camera, there was a flash when Mensher snapped a picture, and Wulf snatched Mensher by the neck with one hand and lifted him off the ground. Wulf had reached out so fast, it was like the flick of a lizard tongue snagging a bug from a tree limb.
“Yow!” I said, jumping in my seat, leaning forward. “Do something. He’s going to kill him.”
Diesel stayed relaxed behind the wheel, watching Wulf with an expression that was somewhere between mildly annoyed and mildly amused.
“He won’t kill him in front of me,” Diesel said. “Even if I wasn’t here, I doubt he’d kill him. Wulf has a code of ethics.”
Wulf released Mensher, and Mensher fell back on his ass with his hands to this throat. I was guessing Mensher would wake up tomorrow with a unique burn scar on his neck. Wulf swept past Mensher and Gorp, down the short sidewalk to the van. He walked behind the van, momentarily disappearing from sight. He circled the van, stepped back, and gestured toward it. A circle of fire raced around the van and the van exploded. Tires flew into space, a black cloud rose to the sky, and the van turned into a fireball.
Carl popped up in the backseat and looked out the window. “Eeep!”
“No big deal,” Diesel said to Carl. “Just a lot of flash.”
“Effective flash,” I said to Diesel. “It’s going to get rid of Mensher.”
“For the moment,” Diesel said. “Don’t underestimate Mensher. He’s like a dog with a bone. He might not know exactly how to categorize Wulf, but he knows for sure he’s not normal.”
Wulf calmly walked up the sidewalk and disappeared inside his house. Mensher and his team huddled together in front of the burning van. Fire trucks screamed from blocks away.
“We can go home now,” Diesel said, cranking the engine over. “The Wulf Show is done for the night.”
Twenty minutes later, Diesel pulled into a strip mall in Swampscott and parked in front of an all-night supermarket.
“We need food,” he said. “You cleaned us out when you were on your eating rampage.”
We slid out, locked the Cayenne, walked a few feet, and . . . beep, beep, beep.
“Tell me again why we have this monkey,” Diesel said.
“No one else would take him.”
“And?”
“That’s it.”
“Why can’t we put him in a basket and leave him on the Humane Society doorstep? Or even better, pack him up in a box and FedEx him to India. They love monkeys in India.”
“I thought you were friends.”
“I knew him in a previous life,” Diesel said.
Beep, beep, beep, beep.
Diesel jogged back to the SUV, opened the door, and Carl bounded out.
“Do they let monkeys in the supermarket?” I asked Diesel.
“Put him in a shopping cart and make him sit on his tail, and people will think he’s a hairy kid. If anyone makes a remark, tell them you have rights and threaten them with a lawsuit.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
We got as far as the produce aisle with Carl in the cart, and a guy stacking grapefruits stopped me.
“Is that a monkey?”
“Are you making fun of my child?” I asked him.
“No, ma’am, but he’s kinda hairy.”
“He gets that from his father.”
The produce guy looked at Diesel.
“Not my bad,” Diesel said.
“Well, you gotta have clothes on your kid,” the guy said. “We don’t let naked kids in here, no matter how much hair they got.”
There was a small display of kids’ clothes by the checkout. Mostly T-shirts with Massachusetts written on them and a couple toddler-size shirts with pink elephants. I slipped an elephant shirt over Carl’s head, bought a package of Pampers, and taped Carl into one.
“What do you think?” I asked Carl.
Carl looked at the elephant and gave it the finger.
“It’s the best I could do,” I told him. “They don’t sell Armani here. Anyway, it’s cute.”
“It’s pink,” Diesel said.
“And?”
“Just saying.”
We made our way through produce and into prepared foods. Carl was slouched in the cart, arms folded across his chest, lower lip stuck out in a pout, not happy with the pink elephant. He perked up when we got to the cereal aisle.
“Would you like some cereal?” I asked him.
Carl jumped to his feet, snatched a box of Froot Loops off the shelf, ripped it open, and stuck his face in the box.
“Hey!” I said to him.
He took his face out of the box and looked at me.
“Manners.”
He threw the box over his shoulder, into the basket, and focused on the display of Frosted Flakes. “Eeee?”
“Okay,” I told him, tossing Frosted Flakes into the basket beside the Froot Loops, “but this is the last of the cereal.”
“Look at us,” Diesel said. “We’re the all-American family.”
We rounded the end of the cereal aisle and quickly walked past women’s personal products and men’s sexual necessities. I paused at dental care.
“Does he brush his teeth?” I asked Diesel.
“I don’t know, but he should,” Diesel said. “I’m not looking forward to waking up to monkey breath.”
“Do you brush your teeth?” I asked Carl, showing him a toothbrush.
Carl looked at the toothbrush and shrugged. He didn’t know toothbrush. I tossed the toothbrush and some toothpaste into the cart. We rounded the end of the aisle and pushed into cookies and crackers.
Carl was instantly standing again. Carl liked cookies. “Eep!” he said, pointing to Fig Newtons, Oreos, Nutter Butters. “Eep. Eeeep.” Carl was in a frenzy, jumping up and down, wanting everything. He grabbed at the Mint Milanos.
>
“Wait,” I said. “I don’t know if monkeys can eat chocolate.” I looked at Diesel. “Can monkeys eat chocolate?”
“Lizzy, I can open locks, sniff out evil, and I can give you the best time of your life, but I don’t know a whole lot about monkeys.”
“Let’s stick to peanut butter and gingerbread,” I said to Carl. “When I get home, I’ll Google chocolate.”
We added a couple bags of cookies to the cart and moved on to dairy. I needed butter, eggs, and milk.
Carl spied rice pudding and frantically pointed to it. “Woo, woo, woo!” he said.
“Sure,” I said, handing him a tub of rice pudding.
Carl opened the tub and looked inside. He swiped some up on his finger and tasted it.
“You’re not supposed to eat it now,” I told him. “You have to wait until we get home.”
Carl looked at me and then looked at Diesel.
“I don’t think he understands,” Diesel said.
“Later,” I told Carl. “Not now.”
Carl stuck his face into the tub and slurped up rice pudding.
“Listen, mister,” I said to him. “That’s unacceptable behavior.” I cut my eyes to Diesel. “You need to do something with your monkey.”
“My monkey? Sweetie Pie, he is not my monkey.”
“Okay, maybe he’s our monkey.”
Diesel took the tub of rice pudding from Carl. “I’m only admitting to joint possession of the monkey if I get joint possession of the bed.”
“You have that anyway. I can’t get you out of it.”
“Yes, but you have to like it.”
“No way. You can’t make me like it.”
“I could if I had half a chance,” Diesel said.
Carl tried to grab the rice pudding from Diesel, but Diesel moved it out of his reach and put the lid on it.
“Eeeee!” Carl shrieked. “Eeeeeeee.”
“Do something!” I said to Diesel.
“I don’t carry a gun, but I could choke him until his eyes pop out,” Diesel said.
“You need to go outside and take a time-out,” I said to Carl.
“Eee?”
“Yes, you.”
Carl thought about it a beat and gave me the finger.
“That’s it,” I told him. “You’re grounded for life. No television. No dessert. And forget about the Froot Loops.”
Carl reached for the Froot Loops.
“No!” I said.
Carl gave the Froot Loops the finger, climbed out of the cart, and stood next to Diesel, shoulders slumped, knuckles dragging on the ground.
A skinny teen with spiky purple hair and multiple studs and rings stuck in his face stopped to look at Carl.
“Whoa, lady,” he said. “That’s an ugly kid you got here. He looks like a monkey.”
Carl shrugged.
I guess from a monkey’s point of view, it was difficult to tell if that was a compliment or an insult. From my point of view, it was clearly an insult, and I experienced a bizarre rush of maternal outrage.
“I don’t like you trash-talking my monkey,” I said to the spike-faced guy. “And your face looks ridiculous.”
“Not as ridiculous as your hairy mutant in that shirt,” he said.
Carl snapped to attention. “Eep?”
“It’s a girlie baby shirt,” the kid said.
Carl threw his arms in the air in an I-told-you-so-and-I-knew-this-shirt-was-stupid gesture. He ripped the shirt off, turned around, pulled his diaper down, and mooned me.
“That’s my boy,” Diesel said.
Carl pulled his diaper up, grabbed an egg from my carton, and threw it at the spike-faced guy. It missed the guy, smashed against the dairy display case, and slimed down the glass. Carl reached for a second egg and Diesel scooped him up and held him at arm’s length.
“We’re going to have to work on your throw,” Diesel said to Carl.
“Get him out of here now,” I said to Diesel. “I’ll finish shopping and meet you at the car.”
Diesel tucked Carl under his arm and sauntered off. I looked at the spike-faced jerk, and it was like grade school all over again and I was back to being Buzzard Beak. I marched up to him, smashed an egg on his forehead, and dumped the remaining rice pudding on his purple hair.
“Moron,” I said to him.
And then I turned on my heel and wheeled my cart past him, down the bread aisle. Last I looked, he was tasting the pudding that was slopping into his ears and glopping down the back of his neck. I wasn’t nearly so calm. I’d never smashed an egg on someone or given anyone a pudding shampoo. I was simultaneously horrified and exhilarated. I did deep breathing through English muffins, and by the time I got to the hot dog rolls, I was able to relax my grip on the cart. No one from security was stalking me. Spike-Face wasn’t running after me with retaliatory eggs. And no one was going to tell my mother. I was golden.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I love my little historic house. I love that it has a history, that people have celebrated holidays and conceived children and grown old in the house. I love parking in front of it and looking at the door and the onion lamps and knowing its mine, and that I’m now part of the continuum. And I know this is a scary thought, but I like walking into my dark living room from outside, turning the light on to make everything happy and cozy, and having Diesel at my side. How hideous is that?
Cat 7143 uncurled himself on the couch, stretched, gave Carl the once-over, and re-curled.
“Maybe I should work on a recipe,” I said to Diesel.
“Would it involve a steak?”
“It could. It happens that I bought a couple steaks at the store. If I make you a steak, will you sleep on the couch?”
“Yes.”
“For real?”
“No,” Diesel said. “Will you make me a steak anyway?”
I followed him into the kitchen and watched him dump the bags on the counter. “You could make your own steak.”
“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll give you a back rub if you make me a steak.”
I put the milk, butter, cheese, and lunch meat in the refrigerator. “Thanks, but the deal is I’ll make you a steak if you promise not to give me a back rub.”
“Afraid to let me get my hands on you?”
“Absolutely.”
I pulled the steak out of the bag, and Diesel’s phone rang. Diesel asked for a location, said he was on his way, and disconnected.
“What was that about?” I asked him.
“It was Mark. He’s on Pickering Wharf, and he needs a ride.”
“Not good,” I said to Diesel. “I expect this means Wulf has the charm.”
“Probably. We’ll find out in a few minutes.”
“I’m going to sit this one out. You don’t need me to handle anything, and I need cooking time.”
Diesel took a banana off the counter. He peeled it, gave half to Carl, and ate the other half. “Keep the doors locked and don’t let anyone in. Call me immediately if you sense something weird.”
“Okeydokey.”
Diesel went to the door, and Carl trailed after him. Male bonding. Go figure. As for me, I was about to tackle pound cake. I had a perfectly good recipe, but it wasn’t my own, so I had to build a better pound cake. I assembled sour cream, butter, flour, and vanilla. I could go citrus with a key lime cake. Or I could go exotic with rum. Definitely rum, I decided. I mixed the ingredients, poured the batter into a tube pan, and slid the pan into the oven. I took the big bowl to the sink, ran hot water into it, and the back door crashed open.
It was Hatchet in full Halloween regalia. Green tights, white tunic, chain-link armor jacket, and silver metal helmet that was a cross between Sir Lancelot and Hell’s Angels. The one authentic-looking piece of equipment was his sword. It was a genuine, heavy-duty, freaking sharp saber-type weapon with a fancy hand-forged handle.
“Greetings, wench,” he said.
“I’m not a wench,” I told him. “And what the heck do you th
ink you’re doing? You broke the lock on my door, and you’re going to have to pay for it.”
“Nay, wench. I’m here at my master’s bidding to retrieve what is rightly his.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Your master sent you?”
Hatchet fidgeted with his sword handle. “Not exactly. But it mattereth not. He’ll be pleased when I return with the sacred treasure.”
“You’re not returning with anything. The sacred treasure isn’t here.”
Hatchet lunged in my direction with his sword drawn. “You lie.”
“Yipes,” I said, jumping back. “Watch what you’re doing with the sword.”
“Tell me the treasure location, or I’ll cut you up into tiny pieces. I’ll slash you to ribbons. I’ll rip open your stomach, and all your guts will fall out.”
“That’s disgusting.”
Hatchet lunged at me again. “It’s delicious. My liege lord would be proud. Perhaps I’ll bring him your guts.”
So now he was starting to freak me out. At first sight, it’s hard to take Hatchet seriously. I mean, he’s a pot-bellied geek in stupid clothes. Even with a big knife, he’s not especially threatening looking. Talking about my guts falling out of my body was making me reconsider my assessment of him. Plus, his eyes were getting glittery and crazy looking and the rest of his face was way too happy. Gleeful, actually.
Help! I thought to Diesel. Are you listening? Can you hear me? Probably not. Probably, he was too far away.
“Here’s the thing,” I said to Hatchet, putting the work island between us, taking my cell phone in hand. “Diesel is the one with the treasure. How about if I call him and tell him to bring it home?”
“I think not. My superpower tells me the treasure is near. I can smell it. I can feel the evil vibration.”
“You’re a nut,” I said to him.
“I’m not a nut,” he said. “I’m not, I’m not, I’m not.”
He chopped at me with enough force for the blade to split me in two. Fortunately, it was a foot short, and it sliced the air and bit into my butcher-block cutting board. I had my phone in my hand, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Hatchet long enough to dial. He yanked the saber blade out of the cutting board, and we danced around the island.