Four to Score

  I did as she said, and she cuffed me to the fridge door handle.

  “Now we're going to talk,” she said. “This is the deal. Stop being such a pain in the ass and I'll let you live.”

  “Would you really shoot me?”

  “In a heartbeat.”

  “I don't think so.”

  “Miss Know-​it-​all.”

  “What's with these clues?”

  “The clues are for the jerk. I wanted to make him jump like he made me jump. But you had to come along, and now you do all his dirty work for him. What is it with this guy and women? How does he manage?”

  “Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm doing it for the money.”

  “I'm so stupid,” she said. “I did it for free.”

  “There's something else going on here,” I said. “Something serious. Do you know about your apartment being ransacked? Do you know about Margie and your mother?”

  “I don't want to get into that. There's nothing I can do now. But I can tell you one thing. I'm going to get what's coming to me from that son of a bitch Eddie Kuntz. He's going to pay for everything he did.”

  “You mean like scalping your mother?”

  “I mean like breaking my nose. I mean like all the times he got drunk and smacked me around. All the times he cheated on me. All the times he took my paycheck. And the lies about getting married. That's what he's going to pay for.”

  “He said you took some love letters that belong to him.”

  Maxine tipped her head back and laughed. It was a nice honest throaty laugh that would have been contagious if I hadn't been chained to my refrigerator. “That's what he told you? Boy, that's good. Eddie Kuntz writing love letters. You probably own stock in the Brooklyn Bridge, too.”

  “Listen, I'm just trying to do a job.”

  “Yeah, and I'm trying to have a life. This is my advice to you. Forget about trying to find me because it isn't going to happen. I'm only hanging around to have some fun with the jerk and then I'm out of here. Soon as I'm done yanking Kuntz's chain I'm gone.”

  “You have money to make you disappear?”

  “More than God has apples. Now I'm going to tell you something about that box. It's filled with dog doody. I spent all day in the park, filling a plastic bag. The clue is in the doody in the plastic bag. I want the jerk to paw through that doody. And trust me, he wants to find me bad enough to do it. So back off and don't help him out.”

  I felt my lip involuntarily curl back. Dog doody. Ugh.

  “That's all I have to say to you,” Maxine said. “Go look for somebody else and stop helping the jerk.”

  “Are you the one who wrote on my door?”

  She turned to leave. “No, but it's a pretty cool message.”

  “You're going to leave the key to the cuffs, aren't you?”

  She looked at me and winked and waltzed away, closing the door behind her.

  Damn! “I'm not the only one after you!” I yelled. “Watch out for that bitch Joyce Barnhardt!” Shit. She was getting away. I yanked at the cuffs, but they were secure. No knives or helpful kitchen utensils within reach. Phone too far away. I could yell until doomsday and Mr. Wolensky, across the hall, wouldn't hear me over his TV. Think, Stephanie. Think! “Help!” I yelled. “Help!”

  No one came to help. After about five minutes of yelling and fuming I started to feel a headache coming on. So I stopped yelling, and I looked in the refrigerator for something that would stop a headache. Banana cream pie. There was some left from Saturday. I ate the pie and washed it down with milk. I was still hungry, so I ate some peanut butter and a bag of baby carrots. I was finishing up with the carrots when there was another knock at my door.

  I went back to the yelling “Help!” routine.

  The door swung open and Sally stuck his head in. “Fucking kinky,” he said. “Who cuffed you to the fridge?”

  “I had a little scuffle with Maxine.”

  “Looks like you lost.”

  “Don't suppose you saw her hanging out in the parking lot.”

  “Nope.”

  My biggest fear was that she'd gotten away, never to be found. My second biggest fear was that Joyce had nabbed her. “Go down to the basement and get Dillon, the super, and ask him to come up with his hacksaw.”

  Twenty minutes later I was still wearing a bracelet, but at least I was free of the refrigerator. Sally had left for rehearsal. Dillon was on his way downstairs with a six-​pack under his arm. And I was late for an appointment with a box full of dog shit.

  I barreled down the stairs and out the door. I started toward my car but pulled up short when Joyce rolled into the parking lot.

  “Joyce,” I said, “long time, no see.” I peeked into her car, looking for Maxine. “You still following me?”

  “Hell no. I have better things to do than to sit around all day waiting for someone to get hit with a pie. I came by to tell you good-​bye.”

  “Giving up?”

  “Getting smart. I don't need you to find Maxine.”

  “Oh yeah? Why is that?”

  “I know where she's hiding. I have a contact who knows all about Maxine's transactions. Too bad you were never in retail like me. I made a lot of connections.”

  The driver's-​side window rolled up, and Joyce roared out of the lot, down the street.

  Great. Joyce has connections.

  I crossed to the CRX and noticed that someone had left a note under my windshield wiper.

  I said I'd get even and 1 meant it. I've been watching you and 1 know he was here. This is your last warning. Leave my boyfriend alone! Next time I soak something with gasoline I'll strike a match to it.

  This was about somebody's boyfriend. And only one person came to mind. Morelli. Ugh! To think I almost went to bed with him. I squeezed my eyes shut. I fell for all that talk about no condoms and no sex. What was I thinking? I should have known better than to believe anything Morelli told me. And it wasn't hard to guess the girlfriend's name. Terry Gilman. This threat had mob written all over it. And Connie had said Terry was connected.

  I sniffed at my car. Gasoline. I put my finger to the hood. It was still wet. Morelli's unhinged girlfriend must have just been here. Probably did this while I was chained to the refrigerator. No big deal, I thought. I'd run the CRX through a car wash.

  I stuck the key in the door lock more out of force of habit than actual thought. The key didn't go through the usual turn, which meant the door wasn't locked. I looked closer and saw the scratches made next to the window. Someone had used a jimmy bar to pop the lock.

  I had a premonition of bad news.

  I did a fast peek in the window. Nothing seemed stolen. The radio looked intact. I opened the driver's side door and the gasoline smell almost knocked me to my knees. I put my hand to the seat. It was soaked. The floor mats were soaked. The dash was soaked. Gasoline pooled in nooks and crannies.

  Shit! Goddamn Morelli. I was more angry at him than I was at Terry. I looked around the lot. No one there but me.

  I whipped out my cell phone and started dialing. No answer at Morelli's house. No answer at his office number. No answer on his car phone. I kicked a tire and did some inventive swearing.

  I was parked in a back corner of the lot with no cars in the immediate vicinity. It seemed to me the safest thing to do right now was to leave the car parked and let some of the gas evaporate away. I opened the windows wide, went back to the apartment building and called Lula at the office.

  “I need a ride,” I told Lula. “Car problems.”

  * * * * *

  “OKAY, so tell me again about this box,” Lula said, lining the Firebird up with the curb in front of Kuntz's house.

  “Maxine says it's filled with dog doody, so we shouldn't touch it.”

  “You believe Maxine? Suppose it's a bomb?”

  “I don't think it's a bomb.”

  “Yeah, but are you sure?”

  “Well, no.”

  “I tell you what. I'm staying o
n the front porch while you open that box. I don't want to be anywhere near that box.”

  I walked around to the back of the house, and sure enough, there was the box, sitting on the stoop. The box was about a foot square. It was heavy cardboard, sealed up with tape, marked with a red X.

  Kuntz was at the screen door. “Took you long enough.”

  “You're lucky we came at all,” Lula said. “And if you don't change your attitude we're gonna leave. So what do you think of that?”

  I crouched down and examined the box. Nothing ticking. Didn't smell like dog shit. No warning labels that said Dangerous Explosives. Truth is, anything could be in the box. Anything. Could be cooties left over from Desert Storm. “Looks okay to me,” I said to Kuntz. “Go ahead and open it.”

  “You're sure it's safe?”

  “Hey,” Lula said, “we're trained professionals. We know about these things. Right, Stephanie?”

  “Right.”

  Kuntz stared at the box. He cracked his knuckles and pulled his lips tight against his teeth. “Damn that Maxine.” He took a Swiss army knife out of his pocket and bent to the box.

  Lula and I discreetly stepped away from the stoop.

  “You're sure?” he asked again, knife poised.

  “Oh yeah.” Another step backward.

  Kuntz slit the tape, parted the flaps and peeked into the box. Nothing exploded, but Lula and I kept our distance all the same.

  “What the hell?” Kuntz said, looking more closely. “What is this? Looks like a plastic bag sealed with one of those twisty tie things and filled with chocolate pudding.”

  Lula and I exchanged glances.

  “I suppose the clue's in the bag,” Kuntz said. He poked at the bag, his face contorted, and he uttered something that sound like “Ulk.”

  “Something wrong?” Lula asked.

  “This isn't pudding.”

  “Well, look on the bright side,” Lula said. “It didn't explode, did it?”

  “Gosh, look at the time,” I said, tapping my watch. “I'm going to have to run.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Lula said. “I got things to do.”

  The color had drained from Kuntz's face. “What about the clue?”

  “You can call me later, or you can leave it on the machine. Just read the letters off to me.”

  “But . . .”

  Lula and I were gone. Around the side of the house. Into the Firebird. Down the street.

  “Now what?” Lula said. “Gonna be hard to top that for excitement. Not every day I get to see a box full of poop.”

  “I need to look for Maxine. I'm not the only one to figure out she's in Point Pleasant. Unfortunately, I've got a vandalized car sitting in my parking lot, and I'm going to have to take care of that first.”

  I tried Morelli on the cell phone again, and got him in his car.

  “Your girlfriend visited me,” I said.

  “I don't have a girlfriend.”

  “Bullshit!”

  I read him the note and told him about my door and my car.

  “Why do you think it's my girlfriend?” Morelli wanted to know.

  “I can't think of anyone else who would make a woman so totally deranged.”

  “I appreciate the compliment,” Morelli said. “But I'm not involved with anyone. I haven't been for a long time.”

  “What about Terry Gilman?”

  “Terry Gilman wouldn't pour gasoline on your car. Terry Gilman would politely knock on your door, and when you answered she'd gouge your eyes out.”

  “When was the last time you saw Terry?”

  “About a week ago. I ran into her in Fiorello's Deli. She was wearing a little denim skirt, and she looked very fine, but she's not the woman in my life right now.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “So who is the woman in your life now?”

  “You.”

  “Oh. Then what is this boyfriend stuff all about?”

  “Maybe it's Maxine. You said it happened after she chained you to the refrigerator.”

  “And she's talking about Kuntz? I don't know. It doesn't feel right.”

  * * * * *

  LULA PARKED next to the CRX, and we got out to assess the damage.

  “I don't know how you get rid of this much gasoline,” Lula said. “It's everywhere. It's even spilled on the outside. You got gas puddles here.”

  I needed to call the police and get a report on file, and then I needed to call my insurance company. The car needed to be professionally cleaned. I probably had a deductible, but I couldn't remember the amount. Not that it mattered. I couldn't drive the car like this.

  “I'm going inside to make a couple phone calls,” I told Lula. “If I hustle I might be done with this in time to go to Point Pleasant and look for Maxine.”

  “You know what I love about Point Pleasant? I love those half-​orange and half-​vanilla swirly frozen custard cones. Maybe I'll have to go with you. Maybe you could use a bodyguard.”

  A blue Fairlane swung into the lot and skidded to a stop behind us.

  “Holy cats,” Lula said. “It's old lady Nowicki, driving half in the bag.”

  Mrs. Nowicki lurched out of the car and swayed over. “I heard that, and I'm not half in the bag. If I was half in the bag I'd be a lot happier.”

  She was dressed in poison-​green spandex. She'd troweled on full face makeup, a cigarette was stuck in the corner of her mouth and wisps of orange frizz framed a poison-​green turban . . . which I knew hid a freshly scalped head.

  She looked at my car and gave a bark of laughter. “This yours?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Didn't anybody tell you the gasoline's supposed to go in the tank?”

  “Something you want to see me about?”

  “I'm leaving town,” Mrs. Nowicki said. “And I have some news for you. Maxine would be real mad if she knew I told you this, but I think you were right about it being better you found her than . . . you know.”

  “You've heard from her?”

  “She brought her car around for me. Said she didn't need it anymore.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Well, she used to be in Point Pleasant, like I thought. But she said people got wind of that so she's moved to Atlantic City. She wouldn't give me an address, but I know she likes to play at Bally's Park Place. Thinks the odds are better there.”

  “You're sure?”

  “Well, pretty sure.” She took a deep drag on the cigarette which just about wore it down to the filter. Blue smoke filtered out her nose, and she flicked the butt away. It hit the pavement, rolled under my car and . . . phunff! The car ignited.

  “YIKES!” Lula and I yelped, jumping back.

  The car was engulfed in a big yellow fireball.

  “FIRE! FIRE!” Lula and I hollered.

  Mrs. Nowicki turned to look. “What?”

  KABOOM! There was an explosion, Mrs. Nowicki got knocked on her ass, and a second fireball erupted. Lula's Firebird!

  “My car! My baby!” Lula yelled. “Do something! Do something!”

  People were pouring out of the building, and sirens wailed in the distance. Lula and I stooped over Mrs. Nowicki, who was stretched out on the pavement, face up, eyes wide.

  “Uh oh,” Lula said. “You aren't gonna be dead again, are you?”

  “I need a cigarette,” Mrs. Nowicki said. “Light me up.”

  A squad car slid into the lot, lights flashing. Carl Costanza got out of the car and walked over to me. “Pretty good,” he said. “Looks like you blew up two cars this time.”

  “One was Lula's.”

  “We gonna have to look for body parts? Last time you blew up a car we found body parts a block away.”

  “You only found one single foot a block away. Most of the parts were right here in the lot. Personally, I think Mrs. Burlew's dog carried the foot there.”

  “So what about this time? We gotta go looking for feet?”

  “Both cars were unoccupied. Mrs. Nowicki got shook up, but I think she
's okay.”

  “She's so okay, she left,” Lula said. “She could do that on account of her piece-​of-​junk car didn't get cooked.”

  “She left?” My voice sounded like Minnie Mouse's. I couldn't believe she left after causing the accident.