Naughty Neighbor

  “Who?”

  “June Cleaver. Beaver’s mother.”

  Kathy Brannigan gave her daughter a wan smile. “When you were five and Susan Fielding’s mother knitted a ski hat, I took up knitting. When you were seven and Carolyn Chenko’s mother made homemade bread, I gave baking bread a shot. I decorated cakes better than Amy Butcher’s mother, went on more field trips than Jennifer O’Neil’s mother, and baked better chocolate chip cookies than any mother in the history of the world. I draw the line at dressing like June Cleaver.”

  “Mom’s gone back to college,” Louisa explained to Pete. “She’s a sophomore.”

  “I missed it the first time around,” Kathy said. “I was busy doing the mother thing.”

  Pete handed over his jacket and checked the hearth for a sleeping dog. He wasn’t disappointed. The furniture was dark wood and freshly polished. The couch was overstuffed and homey. The house smelled like woodsmoke and apple pie. He wouldn’t have believed any of this if he hadn’t seen it firsthand, he thought.

  Louisa’s mother tapped Pete on the arm. “Are you all right? Your eyes look a little glazed.”

  “It’s the pie fumes,” he said.

  She led him into the living room and seated him in a wingback. “Don’t get too choked up over it. It’s one of those frozen ones that you just put in the oven and bake.”

  He didn’t care. A pie was a pie.

  Mike brought him a beer and set a basket of chips at his elbow. “I hear you’re one of those Hollywood types.”

  “I write screenplays.”

  “You know James Garner?”

  “Uh, no.”

  Louisa caught a glimpse of the dining room table. It was set for five. She looked at her mother and the question silently passed between them.

  “Grandma Brannigan,” Louisa’s mother said. “She’s visiting for a few days.”

  “Oh boy.”

  “I heard that,” Grandma Brannigan called from the kitchen. “You always did have a smart mouth.”

  Everyone in the living room exchanged looks of suffering.

  “She’s really very sweet,” Louisa’s mother whispered.

  “I heard that too,” Grandma Brannigan yelled. “And God’s gonna get you for lying, Katherine.”

  She shuffled into the living room. She was a forbidding chunk of a woman with a square Irish face and a square Irish body. She had an apron over her gray wool skirt and white blouse, and she held a wooden spoon in her hand as if it were a weapon. “I’m not sweet at all,” she said to Pete. “Who are you?”

  He rose and offered his hand. “Pete Streeter. I’m Louisa’s friend.”

  She took his hand and squinted at him. “You look like a womanizer.”

  He turned to Louisa. “Help.”

  “Are you crazy?” Louisa said. “I can barely hold my own with her. Don’t look for help here.”

  “So,” Grandma Brannigan said, “are you sleeping with my granddaughter?”

  “Uh, well…”

  Everyone sat up a little straighter and leaned forward ever so slightly, waiting for his reply.

  He eyeballed the spoon in her hand. “You gonna hit me with that if I say yes?”

  “I might hit you with it, anyway, just on general principle.”

  “Well hell,” Pete said, “then I might as well deserve it.”

  Louisa was on her feet, pulling him into the dining room. “Time to eat.”

  Pete smiled lazily. “Thought you weren’t coming to my rescue?”

  “You were going to hang me out to dry!”

  He smiled and shrugged, and Louisa kicked him hard in the ankle.

  He squelched a shriek of pain into a grunt.

  “I get my violent nature from Grandma Brannigan,” Louisa said.

  “Maybe I’ll take you home to Hellertown for Easter. You’ll fit right in. You can sucker punch my sister-in-law for first dibs on the potato salad.”

  “Gee, I’m really looking forward to it.”

  Pete slung an arm around her and hugged her to him. “I bet you got smacked a lot with that wooden spoon.”

  “Not once. She’s all bristly on the outside and soft as marshmallow on the inside.”

  “That’s a terrible thing to say about a person,” her grandmother said. “And it’s a bald-faced lie. I’m hard as nails on the inside. Don’t you believe a word she tells you,” she said to Pete. “It’s from the Krueger side of the family.”

  She slid a glance at Louisa’s mother and lowered her voice. “The Kruegers always had a time with the truth, if you know what I mean.”

  He could hear Louisa’s mother sigh behind him, and it sent a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. He liked this family. Really liked them. They were a little looney and a little exasperated with one another. They were his kind of people.

  “Cripes,” Louisa’s father said. “Lay off the Kruegers, will you, Ma?”

  “Everybody knows…”

  Louisa’s mother brought a platter of fried chicken to the table.

  “Look at this,” Grandma Brannigan said, “she had this delivered. Can you imagine? A dinner party that comes from a cardboard bucket. Biscuits, coleslaw, everything.”

  “I have an exam on Monday,” Louisa’s mother said. “I didn’t have time to cook.”

  “You could have asked me,” Grandma said. “I would have made a roast.”

  “I asked you. You said we should order chicken.”

  “Lies. All lies.”

  Everyone sighed together.

  Pete loved it. It was just as he’d always imagined. He took a piece of chicken and two biscuits and wondered if it was too late to get adopted.

  Louisa picked at her skirt in the dark car, on the way home. “Sorry I kicked you so hard. I got carried away.”

  “It wasn’t that hard. It just caught me by surprise. You can make up for it when we get home.”

  “You have something specific in mind?”

  “Did I ever tell you I have a video camera?”

  “No!”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh dear.”

  On Sunday it rained and Louisa felt caged. She paced in Pete’s apartment while he typed at the computer. Kurt had been over earlier with tapes from Maislin’s home phone. Maislin had called Bucky and given him a date. Tuesday.

  She cracked her knuckles and cleared her throat. She was nervous. They didn’t have enough information. If more information wasn’t forthcoming over the phone lines by the next afternoon, it was going to be up to her to get it. She splayed her hands on the cool windowpane and stared out at the wet road. She was in over her head, and there was no turning back.

  Pete saw the apprehension in the set of her shoulders. Finally, she was scared. Good. Fear would make her careful. He looked at the printed words on the screen and then at the woman huddled at the window. He had hours more work, but he couldn’t concentrate. He swore to himself and saved his file.

  “You got a raincoat?” he called.

  “What’d you have in mind?”

  He took her hand and pulled her from the window. “The zoo.”

  They walked the distance. They wore slickers and rain hats and were dripping wet and half frozen by the time they got to the entrance. They pressed on, through the big iron gates, up the wide cement pathway. They headed for the elephant trail.

  They didn’t talk. They barely looked at the habitats. They kept their heads down against the rain and the wind until they reached the cavernous building that housed the giraffes and hippos. They blew through the doors and stopped short, almost knocked over by the steamy heat and rich scent of animal hide and dung. They shook off the rain and stared at each other, with purple lips and chattering teeth.

  “I love Washington weather,” Pete said. “It makes you so miserable, you forget all your other problems.”

  Louisa nodded and stomped her feet, trying to get some feeling back. “Puts things in perspective.” She looked up at him, a little shocked. “Do you have problems?
”

  He blinked once, very slowly. “You. You’re my problem.”

  It wasn’t a surprise. She’d seen him trying to sandwich his work into days that were spent babysitting her. And she knew there was more. He was undoubtedly caught in the same emotional turmoil she’d been fighting. There was an incredibly strong attraction between them that had no basis in good sense.

  “Hmm,” she said, because she didn’t have a decent answer.

  They watched the giraffe eat, watched the elephants get hosed down. They stared at the hippos half submerged in tepid water. Then they put their hats on, zipped their slickers, and went back outside. They ran most of the way home, splashing through puddles in their haste, soaking their jeans from the knees down.

  They were breathless when they reached home. They stripped at the top of the stairs, fell into Pete’s bed, and made love like there was no tomorrow. When they were done, they sat at the kitchen table and ate hot dogs and baked beans and a half gallon of coffee ice cream.

  “So, you think I’m a problem, huh?” Louisa asked.

  He knew she’d get back to it. “You’re a problem with no apparent solution. No matter what I do about you, it’s wrong.”

  She could read between the lines. She felt the same way. That didn’t mean she liked it. Being a problem wasn’t exactly flattering. It was one thing for him to be a problem. That was understandable. He was far from perfect. She, on the other hand, was much closer. Yeah, right. She did some mental eye rolling, and thought the ugly truth was they probably deserved each other.

  She felt the nagging crankiness beginning to return, and she pushed it away with a change of topic. She moved the conversation to the one area they had in common—the pig.

  “There’s something I don’t understand about this pig thing,” she said. “What happened to the first pig? We know it got sick and wandered away. We know Maislin still has the jewelry. We know they didn’t want you asking questions. So, what happened to the pig?”

  “Probably Bucky found it and was able to sneak it out of the Hart Building. My guess is he’s got his freezer filled with pork chops.”

  “Are you going to make this into a screenplay?”

  He shook his head. “Nobody’d believe it…and there’s not enough violence.”

  Chapter 9

  Louisa cracked her knuckles and pressed her hand against her breastbone, checking on the hidden transmitter for the thirtieth time in the past two hours. Maislin had been in a committee hearing all morning but was expected into his office shortly. She was supposed to plant a bug on Maislin when he walked through the door. The moment of truth, she thought grimly.

  The listening device Kurt had given her was a black piece of plastic, half the size of a matchbook. It was voice activated, would last for six hours of operation, and cost seven hundred dollars.

  She jumped in her seat when Maislin stormed through the door, and her heart turned over with a sickening thud when she saw his mood. As was often the case, Stu Maislin was not joyous. He had no tolerance for colleagues who disagreed with him, and several had done just that in his committee meeting. His cheeks were scarlet from the exertion of controlling his temper, and his jowls shook as he pounded past Louisa’s desk. At close range, Maislin had the presence of an army tank at full idle. Louisa could practically feel the floor shaking under him.

  He stopped at the entrance to his inner office to review his day’s itinerary with the administrative assistant, and Louisa rushed to her feet. She knew what she had to do. Kurt had rehearsed with her. She knew about physical contact and diversionary tactics. She knew about positioning herself so the rest of the office staff couldn’t see the plant being made.

  Her heart rose to her throat, and her pulse pounded in her ears. This sort of thing looked so much easier on television, she thought. And it had sounded so simple when Kurt had suggested it. Now that she was on her feet, she felt frozen in time, her shoes rooted to the floor. If she didn’t hurry, she’d miss her opportunity.

  She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. She was sure James Bond never had problems like this. She was sure his feet always took him where he wanted to go. That’s the difference between me and James Bond, she thought. I have Chicken Little feet, and James Bond has James Bond feet. Why hadn’t she realized that when they were making these ridiculous plans?

  She looked down at her legs and silently ordered them to do something…anything! Miraculously, they took her across the room to within inches of Maislin. She pretended to stumble, and crashed smack into him with a lot more impact than she’d intended.

  “Oops,” she said on a whoosh of expelled air. She clutched at his jacket for support and attempted to drop the bug into his pocket, but her hands were sweating and shaking, and the bug slid short and rolled onto the floor. Louisa saw her whole life flash in front of her eyes.

  Maislin swore under his breath and grabbed Louisa by the arm, his thumb brushing against her breast in the process. He prolonged the contact and brought her up close to his face.

  “You want to do the two-step, we can go into my inner office where we’ll have more privacy,” he said.

  Louisa caught a glimpse of the bug sitting black and malevolent on the floor. No one had noticed it fall. She blinked at Maislin with big innocent eyes. “I slipped.”

  The thumb did a fast exploratory. “Maybe you should slip more often.”

  Louisa wrenched herself away. “Maybe you should eat dirt and die.”

  Maislin narrowed his eyes at her. “What?”

  “Listen, you miserable scumbag, you try that again, and I’ll make sure you’re in a lot of pain. You understand?”

  Maislin just glared at her, and she glared back, thinking anger did wonderful things for her personality. James Bond eat your heart out.

  “I’ll deal with you later,” Maislin finally said. He wheeled around and stormed off to his office.

  Louisa bent to retrieve the bug. She took it back to her desk and sat quietly, waiting to stop shaking, staring down at the odious piece of black plastic. Now what? Now she was going to have to find another way to insert the blasted thing in his pocket. She was going to have to crawl back into his office with her tail between her legs and ooze up next to him. Not an appealing thought.

  Pete was parked half a block away in the Porsche, listening. “Damn,” he said. “What’d he do? What’d he do?”

  He wrapped his fingers around the steering wheel and counted to ten. Then he counted to ten again. He hated this. He hated sitting in the Porsche, feeling impotent.

  Hellertown might have its faults, but men grew up knowing their responsibilities. Roles were clear. Men didn’t sit around, listening to their women take abuse from other men, and disputes were settled with good old-fashioned physical violence. Man to man.

  It didn’t feel right that Louisa should be in there, taking all the risks, threatening to hurt Maislin. Hurting Maislin should be his job, Pete thought. Instead, he was stuck in his car with a radio strapped to his head.

  He slumped in his seat, thinking he would have been happier in the nineteenth century. This man/woman business was just too complicated now.

  Louisa took a deep breath and smoothed the wrinkles from her skirt. She picked some lint from her blouse and checked to see if her nail polish was cracked. She was procrastinating. She didn’t want to confront Maislin again.

  “All right, already,” she said into her chest. “Don’t worry. I’ll do it. I’ll do it.”

  Pete sat up straighter “What? What?” he shouted.

  She took the day’s mail from her desk and headed for Maislin. The mail was a legitimate excuse, she told herself. Nothing demeaning or extraordinary about delivering the mail. She squared her shoulders, knocked twice, and entered the office. Maislin was on the phone, with his back to her. His jacket was slung over a chair by the door!

  “Mail,” Louisa said, weak with relief at her good fortune. She flipped the bug into his suit jacket pocket on the way out and closed the door beh
ind her. “Mission accomplished.”

  Pete lunged out of the car and strode across the street to the Hart Building. There was a limo at curbside. Maislin’s limo, he thought. He stood, waiting for close to a half hour, with his fists balled in the pockets of his shearling jacket. At last, Maislin swept through the doors with several aides in tow and plunged into the plush interior of the limo.

  Pete felt the rage centering in his chest, felt his fist itching to pop Maislin one in the nose. Patience, he told himself. Hold out for long-term satisfaction—go for a congressional investigation, criminal charges, a drug bust.

  He watched the limo pull away and slowly move down the street. Then he watched Kurt move after it in a late-model midsize Ford. Pete had ridden in the car many times. It had a custom V-8 engine under the hood, and hidden under the dash was a CB, a flush-mounted tracker with a dropped display panel, and a very large gun. Stashed under the backseat were more tools of Kurt’s trade, and it was anybody’s guess what was in the trunk. His trunk could hold anything from hot watches to dead bodies to Stinger missiles.

  Pete rubbernecked at the steady stream of secretaries and aides on lunch errands trickling out of the building, then he plastered a smile on his face and went after Louisa.

  She was alone in the office when Pete ambled up to her desk. He had his thumbs hooked into his jeans’ pockets so that his open jacket revealed a black T-shirt stretched across smooth chest muscles and a rock-hard washboard stomach. The washed-out jeans hugged tight hips and held the telltale contour of a man who wore bikini briefs. His full mouth was curved into a lazy smile. His eyes were shaded and filled with sexual promise. And under the facade, he fairly vibrated with suppressed violence.

  The quintessential male, Louisa thought. Gorgeous…but not totally evolved. “You look as if you’re about to rupture something,” she said.

  He expelled a long breath and kicked Louisa’s desk, hard.

  “Feel better?”

  He had to think about it a minute. “No.” He opened her bottom drawer and removed her purse. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “I have work to do.”

  “You’re done working for this creep.” He wanted to take her home and make love to her. He wanted to go to bed and stay there until he felt at peace. No pigs. No politicians. Just Louisa and him locked away from the world for a little while.