Sizzle

  “No, no, I’ve got Charlie on that. I want you to take care of Rooney and his wife.”

  Though Milo knew Merriam’s office was soundproof and was checked for bugs at least once a day, he skittishly glanced around the room. “You want his wife dead, too?”

  “That’s right. Rooney might have told her what he did. Keep her alive, and she could go to the feds. Too risky. So here’s how I want it to go down. Rooney always leaves his office at four o’clock on the dot, and it takes him an hour to get home. He never goes out on Friday night. Never,” he stressed. “He’s predictable and that’s going to work for us. He takes his loudmouth wife out every Saturday night, and Sunday he rests up for his mistress. He sees her every Monday and Wednesday.

  “I want this to look like a murder-suicide. Wife kills husband, then kills herself. The police will investigate, of course, and they’ll find out about the mistress. They’ll assume the wife found out, too, and that’s why she killed him. Everyone knows she’s got a hell of a temper.”

  “When do you want this done?”

  “Tomorrow night at five o’clock. Charlie’s going into Rooney’s office then, and he’ll be in and out of there in no time. If there’s a problem, he’ll let me know, and I’ll call you. Take this cell phone,” he ordered, tossing it to Milo. “It can’t be traced. Don’t kill anyone until you hear from me. Got that?”

  Once again, Milo was being rushed. He didn’t have time to do much surveillance, but he vowed there weren’t going to be any glitches this time. He drove through Rooney’s neighborhood the next morning to familiarize himself with the layout and to see if there were any nosy neighbors. Once he’d checked out all the entrances into Rooney’s house, he drove to a grocery store about a mile away. Milo purchased a couple of pounds of hamburger meat he planned to stuff in his pockets just in case there was a dog lurking inside the house.

  He still had a lot of time on his hands, so he strolled back to his car, pulled out one of the girly magazines he kept under the seat for those times when he needed a little pick-me-up, and flipped through it to pass the time.

  At 3:30 he put the magazine away and headed over to Rooney’s. His house sat in the middle of a long, gently-sloping hill, and Milo’s plan was to park at the top where he would have a clear view of the driveway. As soon as Mr. Merriam called, Milo would sneak into the house and take care of business. While he waited, he would put the cell phone to his ear and pretend he’d pulled over to talk. Nothing suspicious about that.

  The plan was flawless.

  FOUR

  MILO SLAMMED ON THE BRAKES AND STARED IN ASTONISHMENT at the mob gathered on the lawn in front of Rooney’s house.

  They were everywhere, hordes of men and women—no, no, mostly women—all carrying away as much as they could hold in their arms. A couple of them, Milo noticed, had that same glazed look of unadulterated joy he sometimes saw on the faces of the men who frequented strip clubs with him.

  The Rooneys were having a yard sale.

  “Now what am I supposed to do?” he muttered. The question was followed by a stream of curses. He couldn’t call his boss because that was against the rules, so he guessed he would just have to wait until Mr. Merriam called him.

  A yard sale. He cursed again. In such an exclusive neighborhood, this kind of middle-class activity seemed out of place. Rich people threw stuff away. They didn’t sell it.

  A couple of women, red-faced and screaming, were fighting a tug of war over a leather chair. Look at them, Milo thought with disgust. Someone else’s junk had become their treasure. Slap down a dime or a dollar, and a piece of crap was all theirs. He would never touch anyone else’s used stuff. He had more class than that.

  The front doors of the house were wide open, and a steady stream of shoppers came and went. One carried a pretty lamp, the cord dragging behind her. Another had what looked like a fancy humidor. He noticed she had a bottle tucked under her arm. Then he saw another woman carrying out two bottles of wine. More followed. Were the Rooneys emptying their bar or maybe their wine cellar? Why would they do that? Were they moving or something?

  Milo checked the time. Rooney should be pulling into his driveway any minute now, unless he didn’t work at the office today. That was a possibility. Maybe he was at home helping. Mr. Merriam had given Milo a photo of the couple, but so far he hadn’t spotted either husband or wife. Bill and Barbara. Cute the way their names went together, he thought. They sure weren’t cute in the photo, though. Bill looked like he was wearing a shag rug on his big head, and Barbara—or “loudmouth Babs” as Mr. Merriam called her—had had one too many face-lifts. Her lips ended where her ears began.

  Yard sale. Mr. Merriam wasn’t going to believe this. Surely he wouldn’t want Milo to continue with the job. There were close to forty people in the yard alone, and God only knew how many more were inside the house.

  A woman dressed in a pale gray maid’s uniform came out of the house with a stack of books and CDs. She ran down the steps, dropping a couple of the CDs, but she didn’t stop to pick them up. Pushing another woman aside, she raced across the lawn. Her expression was frantic. She slowed down long enough to dump all the books and CDs in a pile, then furtively glanced over her shoulder at the front door and ran like hell down the street.

  What was that all about? Milo watched her disappear around the corner before he turned back to the crowd. He shook his head at the frenzy of bargain hunters darting from one pile to another, snatching up their booty as though it would disappear if they didn’t have their hands on it. His gaze stopped at one woman who didn’t seem caught up in the chaos. She knelt on the grass beside the pyramid of books gently picking them up and examining them one at a time. He couldn’t see much of her. Her long dark hair hid her face, and frenzied people pouring in and out of the house kept blocking his view.

  Finally the dark-haired woman stood and he got a better look. He whistled. A real knockout, this one. Real nice body. He tried to picture her without clothes, which was a pleasant little fantasy, until he realized he was beginning to react physically. Now wasn’t the time. He tried to look away but couldn’t. Dressed in jeans and a pink T-shirt, she definitely wasn’t trying to sell her attributes. Yet on her, the clothes looked sexy. She was even sexier than the Bond girls. She was tall and slender, not skinny like those stick runway models, more like the athletic type with curves in all the right places. Bet she’s a dancer, Milo thought.

  She turned her head as she reached for another book, and Milo caught a glimpse of her face. Beautiful. He couldn’t remember the faces of the Bond girls. He’d never really bothered to look at their faces, and yet he couldn’t take his eyes off of hers.

  With all the good stuff, why was she wasting her time on that junk? Must be the brainy type, he concluded.

  He continued to stare as she carried a stack of books to the street. She was taking such care with them, cradling them as though they were important.

  She drove a Ford SUV maybe five or six years old. The back was open, and he could see that it was already crammed full of books and what looked like a box of DVDs and CDs. A beauty like her should be driving a brand-new car every year.

  “Throw out the junk books, lady,” he said, exasperated. “Go for the good stuff. If you don’t want any of it, you can sell it on eBay and get yourself a new car.”

  A parking spot opened directly across the street from her car. Milo threw his into gear and nearly sideswiped an Acura as he pulled into the space.

  If he could only get a photo of her, he wouldn’t need a girly magazine to take the pressure off. She’d do the trick all right. Yeah, he definitely needed a picture. He didn’t have a camera with him, but his cell phone had one, and it would have to do. He pulled it out of his pocket and held it up, then waited for her to turn around so he could get a clear shot. Just as he pressed, she moved, so he took several more.

  None of them were probably any good. He deleted them and gave up. He guessed he would have to memorize her face and body fo
r his evening entertainment.

  Now what was she doing? She’d closed the back door but kept glancing at the yard. She went around to the backseat, opened the door, and crossed the yard again, making one last trip for books.

  Milo was so busy watching the knockout he didn’t notice Babs Rooney approaching until she stopped the beautiful woman and added more books to her pile. Babs said something to the book lover, then handed her an expensive-looking camera. He couldn’t tell if it was a video camera or one of those fancy new digitals, but it looked brand new and was probably worth a lot of money. The woman wouldn’t take it, but Babs insisted and put the camera on top of the books. He looked at the SUV again and noticed the university sticker in the window. A student then. No wonder she liked books.

  He couldn’t believe what he did next. He got out of his car to get closer to her, forgetting in his haste that he had placed the cell phone Mr. Merriam had given him in his lap. It clattered to the street and bounced under the car. He had to get down on his stomach to reach far enough under the car to get it. Cursing profusely, he tossed the phone onto the front seat and started out again. It took balls, but he was going to talk to her, maybe even flirt. Who knows? She might like the macho type. If she were to blow him off or laugh at him, no big deal, none of his friends would ever find out.

  Opportunity struck. She dropped one of the books. Milo raced to pick it up.

  “I got it. I got it,” he shouted, sounding ridiculously excited.

  He put the book on top of her stack. “Here you are, Miss …”

  The camera slipped but Milo grabbed it and tucked it into the crook of her arm. He couldn’t remember if he said anything else after that or not. Gorgeous green eyes. He’d never seen that exact color before.

  “You could be in movies,” he blurted. “Are you?”

  She shook her head.

  He swallowed. “You go to school around here?”

  “Yes, I do,” she answered, smiling.

  Nice voice. Southern tinge to it. She was walking away. “Wait,” he called, running after her. “I want to help you carry those books.”

  “No, thank you. I’ve got it.”

  He froze in his tracks and frantically tried to think of something else to say to keep her there.

  Too late. She was leaving. His mind was still blank. He hadn’t even said thank you. Yeah, thank you. He could say that, but why would he be thanking her? No, that wouldn’t work. He had to come up with something else.

  And she was gone. He wanted to scream, but he had to think fast. Her car was pulling away. As he watched it disappear down the street, he zeroed in on her license plate and quickly memorized the number. He fumbled in his pockets and found a pen. Grabbing a stray book lying at his feet, he ripped out a page and quickly wrote down the number. A gratified smile spread across his face. He was pretty smart after all. Now all he had to do was use her license number to get her name and address, and then he could pretend to run into her again.

  “If I were still married, I’d buy my husband those new Callaway clubs,” a woman behind him said and drew his attention.

  Hey, wait a minute. Maybe it wasn’t all junk. “Did you say new?” he asked her.

  “Yes.”

  “How much?”

  She looked confused. “It’s free.” Sweeping her arm toward the lawn, she said, “Everything’s free. Didn’t you read the sign?” She looked toward the corner of the yard by the driveway. “Oh, I see. It fell over. Maybe I ought to take those clubs … my nephew—”

  “Where are they?” he interrupted.

  “In those bushes over there. I think the owner’s wife threw them there.”

  Milo didn’t give the woman time to get them. He dove into the shrubbery and retrieved the golf clubs. They were brand new, and he was careful with them when he put them in the trunk of his car. New clubs would get him more money on eBay than scratched ones. He noticed an older man carrying a small flat-screen television out the door. “I gotta get in on that,” he whispered.

  Time got away from him as he searched for more stuff. Yes, it was secondhand stuff, but what he took wasn’t junk, and best of all, he didn’t pay a cent for it. He was going to make a fortune on eBay. Milo was suddenly feeling superior again. He wasn’t at all like those other yard-sale freaks.

  He was squeezing behind the wheel, trying not to knock over the food processor that hadn’t even been taken out of its box, when Merriam’s cell phone rang. It took five rings before Milo could get to it under the silverware.

  “Yes?”

  “Where have you been?” The fury in Mr. Merriam’s voice came across loud and clear. “I’ve called four times.”

  “I’ve been sitting here waiting for your call. I swear this is the first time the phone rang. The signal’s weak … maybe that’s why …”

  Milo felt like such a fool. How could he have forgotten why he was at the Rooneys?

  “Cheap, throwaway phones,” Mr. Merriam railed. “Listen to me. I’m calling it off.”

  “You don’t want me to—”

  “That’s right, I don’t. Someone lied to me, convinced me something I wanted was in Rooney’s office safe, but it wasn’t there.”

  Milo was watching the street and saw Rooney’s car turning the corner. “He’s coming this way now.”

  “Excellent. I’ve got Charlie Brody and Lou Stack headed over there. You stay where you are. they might need your help getting Rooney to talk.”

  “I don’t think that’s gonna work, sir. See … uh … there’s this situation here.”

  “What?”

  “There’s this situation,” he repeated. “Rooney’s wife is having a yard sale.”

  “A what?”

  “A yard sale, and there’s like a hundred people here,” he exaggerated. “They’re going in and out of the house, too. The wife is getting rid of everything.”

  “You sit there and wait,” Merriam ordered. “I need to talk to Charlie and Stack, then I’ll get back to you.”

  Milo decided he’d better not put the phone down, fearing he’d lose it again, so he put it on the dashboard and sat back to wait.

  Rooney’s BMW screeched to a stop in the driveway. He hadn’t even gotten out of the car before he started screaming.

  “Put that down. What are you doing?” he roared. “Put that back. You there … get away from that.” He ripped a stack of clothes out of a woman’s arms and shoved her. “You get out of here, right this minute.”

  Milo felt as though he was watching a slapstick movie. Rooney’s behavior was hilarious. His face was bloodred, and he hurled through the crowd knocking people aside as he bellowed for his wife.

  “Here we go,” Milo whispered. He spotted Babs coming around the side of the house, a complacent smile on her face. She was apparently used to her husband’s rants and raves.

  “What have you done?” Rooney shouted. He tripped over a stack of books. “Oh my God. You didn’t touch anything in my study, did you? You did, you did. Do you realize what you’ve done? Is everything gone? Everything in there gone?”

  Babs’s expression didn’t waver. “Every article from your precious library is out here … what’s left of it.”

  He shook his head in disbelief and ran inside. Babs stayed in the yard. Continuing to smile, she turned to the crowd warily watching her and called out, “Everything’s still free. Go ahead and take whatever you want, but you’d better hurry. My husband has a foul temper, and it’s going to get ugly.”

  She seemed utterly unfazed by the possibility.

  Milo watched from his car and decided that, despite her creepy face-lifts and inflated lips, Babs was fairly classy. Classy dresser anyway. She had on a knockout, rhinestone-embellished, lime green velour jogging suit with matching high heels. He could see her red-painted toes peeking through the openings.

  Milo wasn’t sure how long he should wait. Mr. Merriam had told him not to do anything until he heard from him, but people were heading to their cars now. Once they were
gone, one or both of the Rooneys would surely notice he was still there.

  The Rooneys made the decision for him. Milo got so caught up in their argument, he couldn’t leave.

  Babs shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket and appeared to be bracing herself for the confrontation when her husband flew out the front door, shrieking like a wounded hyena.

  “You stupid bitch. What were you thinking? Don’t you know what you’ve done? You’ve thrown away a gold mine. A gold mine worth millions of dollars.”

  His gaze darted around the yard. He locked in on a pile of miscellaneous items and raced across the yard. “Maybe it’s still here … maybe it’s not too late.” He dropped to the ground and began to search frantically. “Maybe it’s buried on the bottom.” Throwing notebooks and ashtrays and picture frames in the air, he pleaded, “Please, please, God, don’t let it be gone. Don’t let it be gone.”

  “That’s rich. You praying to God. You hypocrite,” Babs said scornfully.

  Ignoring his wife, he continued the search until he was convinced what he was looking for wasn’t to be found. Still on his knees, he turned to her. “Why? Why did you do this to me? He’s going to come after me. He won’t just kill me. He’ll go after you, too. That’s right. He can’t take the chance I didn’t tell you about it. Why?” he repeated on a sob. “Why did you—”

  “You wouldn’t take me to New York.”

  His mouth dropped open. “New York?” he shouted. “You did all this because I wouldn’t take you to New York?”

  Babs held up her left hand, looked at the diamond wedding ring, sighed loudly, then took the ring off and threw it at her husband. It landed in the grass next to him.

  “What are you … are you nuts?” he gasped as he pawed the grass searching for it.

  She shoved her hands back in her pockets and glared at him. “You knew how much I wanted to see the shows on Broadway. You told me you couldn’t spare the time, remember? I begged and begged you. It didn’t matter, though. Yet you did find the time to take another woman to New York. How many shows did you see with her?”