Plum Lovin'

Diesel finished his coffee and put his cup into the empty doughnut bag. “Time to go to work,” he said.

  Flash crumpled his cup and added it to the bag. I tossed my remaining coffee and trashed my cup.

  “There were two guys in the Lincoln,” Flash said. “Del-vina and a driver. Delvina came home under his own power last night and parked in the garage. This morning, the Lincoln picked him up. The driver looks like old muscle.”

  “It would be better if we could do this in the dark,” Diesel said, “but I don't want to wait that long.”

  We were standing in front of Delvina's next-door neighbors house. It was a large colonial with a shake roof and cedar siding, no gated drive, and no privacy hedge. No lights on inside the house. There was still a dusting of snow left on the driveway. No tire tracks in the snow. The walk hadn't been salted or shoveled. Clearly, no one was living there at this time of the year. There was a patch of woods, maybe thirty feet wide, between the two houses.

  “No one's in this cedar house,” I said. “We can sneak along the tree line and scope things out.”

  Diesel beeped the Vette locked, and we walked the cedar house property until Delvina's house could be seen peeking through the vegetation. We moved into the patch of woods to get a better look, trying to stay hidden behind scrubby evergreens.

  The Delvina house was large and rambling. Two stories. The house had a four-car garage, but the Lincoln was parked in a circular drive, by the front door. There weren't a lot of windows on this side of the house. A small window up and a small window down. Most likely bathrooms. Interior plantation shutters, closed tight. Another upstairs window with drapes. Bedroom, no doubt. A large swath of frozen lawn lay between us and the house.

  “We need to see inside the house,” Diesel said. “We need a head count.”

  “Hang tight,” Flash said. “This is a job for the Flashman.”

  Flash ran across the lawn, plastered himself against the building, and stood listening.

  “Is speed his Unmentionable thing?” I asked Diesel.

  “So far as I know he's not Unmentionable. He just runs fast.”

  Flash was creeping around the house, periodically stopping and listening, looking in windows. He turned a corner and disappeared, and Diesel and I waited patiently. Five minutes passed and my patience started to evaporate.

  “Chill,” Diesel said to me. “He's okay.”

  A couple minutes later, Flash popped into view and sprinted across the lawn, back to us.

  “Delvina and his driver are in there. They're both covered with hives. They've got some kind of white cream on, but it's obviously not helping. Annie is there. She looks okay, except she has hives, too. She's wearing an ankle bracelet with a long length of chain that's attached to something in another room. I think it's a powder room. I couldn't really be sure from my angle. Everyone is in the back of the house, in the family room that's part of the kitchen. And there's another guy in chains. I think it must be Bernie. I've never seen Bernie in person, but I've seen his picture, and I think this is Bernie. I can't see the birthmark because he's also covered in hives, and his face is dotted with the white cream.”

  “That's weird,” Diesel said. “Why would Bernie give himself hives?”

  “I don't know,” Flash said, “but these aren't happy people. They're all talking at the same time and waving their hands around and scratching.”

  “Anyone else in the house?” Diesel asked.

  “Not that I could see.”

  “I need to get in the house, and bring Annie and Bernie out,” Diesel said. “I don't want to go in like gangbusters and take a chance on someone getting hurt. I need a diversion.”

  Now I knew why I'd been invited along. “I guess that would be me,” I said.

  Diesel handed me the keys to the 'vette. “Do a damsel in distress routine. If you can draw them to the front of the house, we can go in the back.”

  I ran to the 'vette and took the wheel. I waited until there were no cars in sight, pulled around the Civic, and right-turned hard into Delvina's drive. The property wasn't gated, but the hedge had been carved into a topiary column on either side of the driveway entrance. I deliberately put the 'vette into a skid that took out Delvina's topiary column and positioned the car well into the yard. I fought the airbag and lurched out of the slightly bashed-in 'vette.

  I pasted what I hoped was a dazed expression on my face and started up the driveway toward the house. I was halfway there when the door opened, and Delvina's driver looked out at me.

  “What the hell was that?” he asked.

  I did my best lower-lip tremble, and thought about sad things like roadkill and orphaned birthday cakes left at the bakery, and managed to sort of get a tear going down my cheek. Truth is, the tear was a challenge, but the trembling was easy. It was starting from my knees and working its way up all by itself. For the better part of my life I'd heard stories about Lou Delvina, and they all involved a lot of blood.

  “I don't know what happened,” I said. “All of a sudden the car went into a skid, and I h-h-hit the hedge.”

  Delvina appeared behind his driver, and my heart jumped into my throat.

  “What the fuck happened to my hedge?” Delvina yelled.

  “She skidded into it,” his driver said.

  “Sonovabitch. You know how hard it is to grow a hedge that size?”

  “I'm really sorry,” I said. “I must have hit some ice on the road.”

  Delvina was power-walking down his driveway, swinging his arms, head stuck forward. He was a sixty-year-old bandylegged fireplug with a lot of black hair and black caterpillar eyebrows. Hard to tell the normal color of his complexion as it was all red hives and white salve and looked to be purple under the salve.

  “I don't fucking believe this,” Delvina said. “Is there anything else that could friggin' go wrong? This whole week is caca.”

  Delvina marched past me and went straight to his hedge. “Oh jeez, just look at this,” he said. “One of the plants is all broken. There's gonna be a big hole here until this grows.”

  I'd sort of gotten over the weak-knee thing, since I'd had a chance to check both guys out and knew they weren't packing. Maybe an ankle holster, but that didn't worry me so much. I'd seen cops try to get their gun out of an ankle holster and knew it involved a lot of swearing and hopping around on one foot. I figured by the time Delvina could get his gun off his ankle I'd be long gone, running down the road. In fact, I was having a hard time not going narrow-eyed and pissy because I'd gone to all the trouble to manufacture a tear and no one was noticing. I mean, it's not every day I can pull that off.

  The driver had joined Delvina. “Maybe you could do a transplant or something,” the driver said. “You know, one of them grafts.”

  “Christ, my wife's gonna go apeshit on this. This is gonna ruin her whole garden club standing if we can't get this fixed.” Delvina had his hand under his shirt and down the front of his pants. “Oh man, I got hives inside and out. I swear to God, you should just shoot me.”

  “It's them people,” the driver said, scratching his ass. “They're putting the juju on us. I say we dump them in the Delaware.”

  Delvina looked back at the house. "You could be right.

  I'm getting tired of them anyway. And I'm starting to think the heartsy-fartsy lady doesn't have what we want."

  Delvina and the driver started to walk back to the house, and so far, I hadn't gotten any kind of a sign from Diesel, mystical or otherwise, that the coast was clear.

  “Hey,” I yelled to Delvina. “What about my car?”

  “What about it?” Delvina asked. “Don't it drive? It don't look so bad to me.”

  “You got a cell phone, right?” the driver said. “Call your club. You got a new 'vette. You probably belong to a club. Like AAA or something.”

  The right side of the 'vette was scraped, and the front right light was smushed in. Pieces of hedge were stuck in the headlight and slightly crumpled hood. I got behind the wheel and
raced the motor.

  Delvina and his driver were hands on hips, looking at me like I was another hive on their backside. It was cold, and they were standing there in shirtsleeves. They weren't excited about doing the backyard mechanic thing. Fortunately, they were full-on chauvinists who couldn't see me for anything more than a dumb bimbo. If Flash had run into the hedge, neither of them would have left the house without a nine rammed into the small of his back. Still, I was trying their patience, and it was only a matter of time before they figured it out and they went for the ankle holster.

  I had one eye on Delvina and one eye looking beyond him to the patch of woods. Finally Diesel emerged and gave me a thumbs-up. I did a small head nod to Diesel and blew out a sigh of relief.

  “You're right,” I said to Delvina. “I guess the car's okay. Sorry about your hedge.” And I carefully backed up, changed gears, and rolled down the driveway and out onto the road. I had my teeth clamped into my lower lip, and I was holding my breath. Sprigs of hedge were flying off the grille, and the right front tire was making a grinding sound, but I kept going until I was around a bend in the road.

  Stephanie Plum 12.5 - Plum Lovin

  Chapter 12

  I pulled to the shoulder and sat and waited, and after a couple minutes, the blue Honda Civic came into view. Diesel got out and jogged over to me.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yes. Do you have Annie and Bernie in the Civic?”

  Diesel picked some hedge off the windshield wiper. “Yes. Is this car driveable?”

  “The right-side tire is making grinding noises.”

  Diesel checked out the right-side tire and pulled a large piece of hedge from the wheel well.

  “That should help,” he said. “Hop over the console. I'm driving.”

  I scrambled into the passenger seat, and Diesel took the wheel. He eased onto the road, drove a short distance, and made a U-turn. Flash did the same. Diesel waved Flash on, and Flash took the lead. We flew past Delvina's house and retraced our route until we were over the bridge and back in Jersey.

  "So far as I can tell, Delvina doesn't know about Annie's

  apartment,“ Diesel said. ”I'm going to bring Annie and Bernie there to regroup."

  “Did Bernie give himself hives?”

  “Apparently he went out of control and infected everyone around him, including himself. I didn't get a chance to find out much more than that.”

  We motored through town, parked in the underground garage, and took the elevator to Annie's floor. Diesel opened the door, and I turned and looked at Flash and grimaced. His face was breaking out in hives.

  “Oh shit,” Bernie said to Flash. “I'm really sorry. I'm not doing it on purpose, I swear. The rash is just leaking out of me.”

  Flash scratched his stomach. “They're coming out all over. What do I do?”

  “Get away from Bernie and try a cortisone cream,” Diesel said.

  Flash ran down the hall and punched the elevator button.

  Bernie limped into Annie's apartment. “I've got hives on the bottom on my feet,” he said to Diesel. “I've got them everywhere. You have to help me. I don't ever want to see another hive.”

  I was keeping as far away from Bernie as possible. I was in the hallway leading to the bedroom, looking at everyone else in the living room.

  “What about Annie?” Diesel said. “Are you going to leave her alone?”

  “I've been chained to Annie for two days. I don't ever want to see her again either.”

  “I thought we bonded,” Annie said.

  Bernie scratched his arm. “Yeah, maybe. I guess you're okay. I don't know. I can't think straight. I just want to soak in some cold water or something.”

  “I talked to Betty,” I said to Bernie. “She'd like to stay married, but she has some requests.”

  “Anything! Cripes, look at this. I've got a hive under my fingernail!”

  “I'm going to take you home and get you some salve,” Diesel said, “but first I need to know about Delvina. How'd he manage to get you and Annie?”

  “I was nuts,” Bernie said. “I was trying to get to Annie, but you moved her out of her house, and I couldn't find her. So I got this idea that maybe she left something behind that would give me a clue. You know, like an address written on a pad. It happens all the time on television. Problem was, I broke into her house and ran into two goons who were tearing the place apart. I'm so dumb. I just walked right in on them.”

  “Delvina was the original owner of the necklace,” Annie said. “We overheard him and his driver talking and pieced the story together. The necklace had a bank account number engraved on the back of it. It sounded like Delvina was being investigated for tax fraud, and he didn't want the necklace on his property, so he gave it to his girlfriend. When he found out she hocked it he almost had a seizure.”

  Annie started to scratch her arm and stopped in mid-scratch and rammed her hands into her pockets. “He came really close to getting the necklace back, but for some reason the pawnshop owner decided to fake the robbery. So of course, Delvina came looking for me.”

  “It was bad timing that I happened along,” Bernie said. “They didn't find the necklace in Annie's house, but since I broke in they figured I had to have some connection to Annie. And then they were fooling around and found her number in my cell phone. So one of Delvina's men called her and said he was me.”

  “He sort of sounded like you,” Annie said. “He said he had something important to say to me. I was hoping you'd calmed down and wanted to talk. I didn't want to miss the opportunity.”

  “Annie didn't want to go far, so they set a meeting for a coffee house half a block away. When she got there, they snatched her,” Bernie said.

  “Why didn't you take your purse?” I asked Annie.

  “I was just walking down the street for a couple minutes,” Annie said. “I had some money and my key in my pocket, and I thought I had my phone, but it must have fallen out of my pocket somewhere. I didn't think I needed anything more than that.”

  “They brought us to Delvina's summer house on the river,” Bernie said. “That was Saturday night. They chained us up, and I went sort of gonzo, and everyone broke out in hives, including me. Then Delvina and his two goons packed up and left. I guess they didn't know what to make of the hives. And then the next morning, Delvina and some other guy showed up and started asking about the necklace, but every time they'd come near us the hives would get worse and pretty soon they couldn't stand it anymore and went away. Good thing we were chained to the bathroom, and the chain was long enough to reach to the refrigerator in the kitchen. They came back this morning and next thing, you rescued us.”

  “How are my last five cases?” Annie asked. “Are they all going to have a good Valentine's Day? Are they on their way to love everlasting?”

  “I don't know about the love everlasting,” I said. “But I'm pretty sure they'll all have a good Valentine's Day. Except for Albert Kloughn. Kloughn is last up.”

  “Oh dear,” Annie said, “it's getting late.”

  “Not to worry. I have a plan.” I looked over at Bernie. “You've stopped scratching,” I said to him.

  “I'm too tired to scratch.”

  Too bad Bernie was so tired. I wouldn't mind driving him to a couple people I knew and spreading some hives around. For starters, there'd be my ex-husband, Dickie Orr, and my arch-nemesis, Joyce Barnhardt.

  “I'm going to take you home to your wife,” Diesel said to Bernie. “I'm going to drop you off at the curb, and you're on your own.”