Plum Lovin'

  “Admirable, but this living arrangement would work better if you had fewer scruples,” Diesel said. “I don't fit on the couch.”

  “Do you fit on the floor?”

  “That's cruel,” Diesel said.

  I took a beer from him and unwrapped a loaf of bread that had been sitting on the counter. We made a stack of peanut butter sandwiches, gave one to Bob, and took the beer and the rest of the sandwiches into the living room and turned the television on.

  “I want to know about Beaner,” I said to Diesel. “What are his powers? What kind of chaos does he cause?”

  “I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you…”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “I'd really rather not.”

  “Great. Don't tell me. I'll get the story from Mrs. Beaner tomorrow.”

  “Okay, I'll tell you,” Diesel said, “but if you laugh, I swear I'll turn you into a toad.”

  “You can't actually do that, can you?”

  “The better question is, would I? And the answer is, no.”

  “About Beaner.”

  Diesel washed a sandwich down with half a beer. “He can give you a rash.”

  “A rash?”

  “Yep.”

  “That's it?”

  “Sweetie pie, this isn't any ordinary rash. It's the mother of all rashes. It makes you itch everywhere. It's nonstop torture for anywhere from three days to three weeks. It's related to poison sumac and looks like hives. Doesn't necessarily leave scars unless you start carving yourself up with a knife because you can't stand the itching.”

  “Wow.”

  Diesel sunk low into the couch and closed his eyes. “Who am I trying to kid? It's a rash, for crying out loud. How bad can a rash be?” He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Used to be I tracked dangerous sexual deviants and insane despots. Last time I was here I disabled a guy who shut down the northeast power grid at Christmas. That's the kind of stuff you can get your teeth into.” He sunk lower and groaned. “And now I'm hunting Mr. Itchy. Do you have any idea what this does for my image?”

  “It's not good?”

  “It's a nightmare. There's no way to even put a decent spin on it. Big bad Diesel is out to shut down a poor slob whose only claim to fame is his ability to give people hives.”

  I burst out laughing. “I like it.”

  I went to the kitchen and brought a bag of cookies back to Diesel. I opened the bag, and we each took a cookie and Bob got two.

  “How does he do it?” I asked Diesel. “Is this some kind of contact skin disease?”

  “I don't know how he does it. I've never actually seen it happen firsthand, but I know he can spread the rash without contact.”

  “Maybe Beaner would give Annie a rash, and be done with it. Maybe he just needs to get it out of his system,” I said to Diesel.

  Diesel shook his head. “He's nutso. He was stalking her, reinfecting her every chance he got. It was ugly. Annie had hives on top of hives.”

  “Tell me more about Beaner.”

  “He has some minor skills. He's good with mechanical things. Used to own a garage. Sold it last year and is sort of retired. Probably was driving his wife nuts hanging around the house. He's pretty much a normal guy with the exception of this rash thing. And until a week ago, it was completely undercover. People would break out in unexplained hives, and that was the end of it. When his wife left, and he decided Annie was responsible, he went public. For the first couple days it was just directed at Annie, but then he lost control and started lashing out at random people whenever he got angry.”

  “Bummer.”

  “Yeah, big whoopitydo. Anyway, I was told to shut him down.”

  “You don't mean shut him down as in… permanently?”

  “Shut him down as in pull the plug on his power.”

  “You can do that?”

  “I have ways.”

  I was curious about those ways, but I didn't think he'd tell me. And probably it was better not to know, so I ate two more cookies and shoved off the couch. “I'm going to bed. See you in the morning.”

  I woke up to the sun shining through the vertical crack in my bedroom curtain and a heavy arm draped across my chest. Diesel was sprawled next to me, looking more disreputable than ever with a four-day-old beard. Like I don't have enough problems with the men in my life, now I have a third guy crawling into my bed. Too much of a good thing. At least I was still wearing my pajamas. That was comforting.

  I eased away from Diesel, slithered from under the arm, and rolled out of bed. I grabbed some clean clothes, locked myself in the bathroom, and hopped into the shower. I had a full day ahead of me. Talk to Mrs. Beaner and check on Gary Martin, Charlene Klinger, and Larry Burlew. I had the Pleasure Treasure bag to take to Jeanine. And then there was Annie Hart. I was hoping Annie was back in her apartment, but I thought it was unlikely.

  By the time I emerged from the bathroom, Diesel was out of bed, standing at my kitchen counter, eating a bowl of cereal.

  “I fed and walked the dog,” Diesel said. “I didn't know what to do about the rat.”

  “Hamster.”

  “Whatever.”

  I gave Rex fresh water, filled his bowl with hamster crunchies, and poured out some cereal for myself. “Have you heard from Annie?” I asked Diesel.

  “No. She didn't answer when I called this morning, so I had Flash check on her apartment again. Still empty.” He put his cereal bowl in the dishwasher. “I need to go solo this morning and try to get a fix on Annie. I'm going to jump in the shower and take off. I wrote Beaners wife's address on the pad on the counter. Her name is Betty. She's expecting you. I don't know how helpful she'll be, but you can give it a shot. I'll be on my cell. The number's also on the pad.”

  “Do you have a car?”

  “I can get one.”

  Okay, I wasn't going to ask questions about that either.

  I was standing at the counter, enjoying a second cup of coffee, when Diesel walked into the kitchen. His hair was still damp, and he smelled like my shower gel. He had his jacket on, and his scarf wound around his neck. “Catch up with you later,” he said.

  I blinked, and he was gone. Not magically. Out the door, down the hall, to the elevator.

  I rinsed my cup and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I turned to leave the bathroom and bumped into Ranger. I shrieked and jumped away.

  “Didn't mean to startle you,” he said.

  Usually I sense Ranger behind me by the change in air pressure and the hint of desire. I wasn't paying attention today, and I was caught by surprise.

  “Men keep sneaking up on me,” I told him.

  “I saw Diesel leave.”

  “Do you know Diesel?”

  “From a distance,” Ranger said. “Is Diesel a problem?”

  “No more than usual. We're sort of working together.”

  “I have to go out of town for a couple days. Tank will be here. And I'll be on my cell. I need to talk to you when I get back.” He brushed a light kiss across my lips and left.

  “The man of mystery” I said to the closed door.

  “I heard that,” Ranger said from the other side.

  Stephanie Plum 12.5 - Plum Lovin

  Chapter 8

  I dropped Bob at my parents' house and asked them to dog-sit. I had coffee with my mother and Grandma, and by the time I rolled down Betty Beaner's street, it was a little past nine. I parked in her driveway and checked out her house. Average suburbia in every way. Two-story colonial. Landscaped front yard. Fenced back yard. Two-car garage. Freshly painted.

  I rang the bell, and Betty answered on the second ring. She was shorter than me and pleasantly round. She had a round face with a nice mouth that looked like it smiled a lot, round wide-open eyes, rounded hips, and big round breasts. She was a Rubenesque woman. She looked to be around fifty.

  I extended my hand. “Stephanie Plum.”

  “I've been expecting you,” she said. “Diesel called
.”

  “We thought you might be able to help us with Bernie.”

  “I can't believe he's running around giving out hives like a senile old fool. I swear, the man is an embarrassment.” I followed her through the living room and dining room and into the kitchen. She'd been at the small kitchen table, reading the paper, drinking coffee. It was a charming room decorated in warm tones. Rusts and yellows mostly. Small-print wallpaper and matching curtains on the windows.

  Betty poured a cup of coffee out for me, and we sat at the table. I looked down at the paper and realized she'd been looking at the want ads.

  “Getting a job?” I asked her.

  Betty had a red pen on the table by the paper, but none of the ads were circled. “I've been thinking about it. Problem is, I can't do anything. I've been a housewife all these years.”

  “Two hundred?”

  She smiled. “Yes. At least, it seems like that. Actually, Bernie and I have been married for thirty-five years. He was working in a garage, and I took my car in there to get fixed, and next thing we were married.”

  I sipped my coffee, and I looked at Betty Beaner. She didn't seem angry when she spoke of Bernie. If anything, there was affection. And tolerance. In fact, she reminded me of my mom. My parents didn't have the perfect marriage, but over the years they'd developed a plan to make things work. My mother made my dad feel like he was king of the castle, and my dad abdicated the kingdom over to my mom.

  “I know I'm going to sound nosey,” I said, “but I haven't got a lot of time, and I'm trying to help Diesel fix things. What went wrong?”

  “Snoring.”

  “That's it? That's the whole thing?”

  “Have you ever tried to sleep with a man who snores?”

  “No. The men in my life don't snore.”

  “Bernie didn't used to snore and then one day there it was… he was a snorer.”

  “Aren't there things you can do about snoring?”

  “He refuses to believe he snores. He says I'm making a big thing of it, but he wakes me up all night long. I'm always tired. And if I go sleep in the guest room, he gets mad. He says married people should sleep together. So, the hell with him, I'm filing for divorce.”

  “He thinks this is about talking and sex.”

  “Of course it's about talking. Talking about snoring! It's not like I wanted to have big touchy-feely discussions with Bernie. It's not like I asked him to join a book group or something. I just wanted him to listen to me. When I say I can't sleep, I mean I can't sleep]”

  “And what about the sex?”

  “I threw that in as a bonus. I figured, what the heck, if I was going to complain I might as well do it right.”

  Betty circled an ad in the paper with the red pen. “Here's one I bet I could do. They're looking for tollbooth money collectors on the Turnpike.”

  “Have you thought about counseling?”

  “Are you kidding? Do you think a man who won't admit to snoring is going to sign up for counseling? I even tried recording him. He said it was a trick. He said it for sure wasn't him.”

  “If I could get Bernie to admit to snoring, would you take him back?”

  “I don't know. I'm getting used to being alone. The house is nice and quiet. And I get to watch whatever I want on television. Of course, it was a real pain to have to shovel the walk when it snowed.”

  “This looks like a three-bedroom house. Suppose I could get you your own room with your own television for those nights when Bernie snores? And suppose I could throw in better sex? I don't know firsthand, but I suspect Diesel knows what he's doing. I could get him to talk to Bernie.”

  This got both of us smiling. Diesel and Bernie discussing sex. Worth the price of a ticket right there.

  I decided to take the Pleasure Treasure bag to Jeanine while I was in sex-help mode, so I called and told her I was on my way over.

  “Thank goodness,” Jeanine said. “I have a date tonight. I was afraid I was going to have to fake an appendicitis attack.”

  Twenty minutes later, I was at her door.

  “Here it is,” I said, shoving the bag at her. “Everything you need to know about sex… I think.”

  Jeanine looked inside. “What is all this?”

  “You've got a beginner's-guide-to-sex book. And a video that I've never actually seen but Diesel thought looked hot. And then there are some oils. Directions are included. Assorted condoms. And the salesclerk threw in a vibrating penis as a bonus.”

  Jeanine pulled the penis out of the bag. “Eeeuuw.”

  I agreed. It wasn't the most attractive penis I'd ever seen. But then maybe it wasn't a fair comparison because lately I'd seen some top-of-the-line equipment.

  “It was free,” I said by way of apology.

  Jeanine paged through the book. “This looks helpful. I always wanted to buy a book like this but could never get up the nerve.”

  “I thought you could read the book, and then if you have questions you can call me, and I'll try to answer them.”

  “Maybe I should start with the movie,” she said. “Do you want to watch it with me?”

  “Think I'll pass. My experience with these movies is that they're made for men and mostly show a lot of boob.”

  “That would be disappointing,” Jeanine said. “I can see that in the locker room at the gym.” She peeled a sticky strip off the front cover and gasped. “Holy cow.”

  I looked over her shoulder. “Double holy cow.”

  “It's a man,” Jeanine said. “And he's naked. I haven't seen a lot of men, so I'm no expert, but I didn't think they came this big.”

  I took a closer look. “They must have used Photoshop. This is a horse wanger.”

  “It says on the cover that it's all real and nothing's been retouched.”

  I took my jacket off. “I guess I could spare a few minutes to make sure everything's authentic. Wouldn't want you getting wrong information. Go ahead and pop that bad boy into the DVD player.”

  “It's eleven o'clock,” Jeanine said. “Almost lunchtime. Maybe we need a glass of wine to get through this.”

  I agreed. This had all the earmarks of a movie that required booze.

  Twenty minutes later, we were sipping wine and leaning forward, eyes glued to the screen.

  “This is a car crash,” I said. “One of the worst movies ever made. And I can't tear myself away from it.”

  “Yeah,” Jeanine said. “I might have to watch it again just to make sure I've got it all straight.”

  The doorbell rang, and we both jumped.

  Jeanine squeezed her eyes shut. “Please God, don't let it be my mother.”

  “Does your mother live in the Burg?”

  Jeanine hit the pause button. “She lives in Milwaukee.”