Hard Eight (26 page)

Now it was Abruzzi’s turn to go still. For a single terrifying moment I thought he was going to hit me. Then his composure returned, and the blood rushed back into his face. “You’re a stupid little bitch,” he said.

“Yep,” I said. “And I’m your worst nightmare.” Okay, it was sort of a hokey movie line, but I’ve
always
wanted to say it. “And I’m not impressed with the rabbit thing. It was clever the first time when you carted Soder into my apartment, but it’s getting tired.”

“You said you liked bunnies,” Abruzzi said. “Don’t you like them anymore?”

“Get a life,” I said. “Find yourself a new hobby.”

And I turned on my heel and stalked off.

Lula was waiting at the mouth of the tunnel that led to our seats. “What’d you say to him?”

“I told him to let it ride on Peaches’ Dream in the fourth.”

“The hell you did,” Lula said. “Not often you see a man turn white like that.”

By the time I got to my seat my knees were knocking together, and my hands were shaking so bad I was having a hard time hanging onto my program.

“Jeez,” Lula said, “you aren’t having a heart attack or anything, are you?”

“I’m okay,” I said. “It’s the excitement of the horse racing.”

“Yeah, I figured that was it.”

A hysterical giggle escaped from my mouth. “It’s not like Abruzzi scares me.”

“Sure, I know that,” Lula said. “Nothing scares you. You’re a big badass bounty hunter.”

“Damn right,” I said. And then I concentrated on not hyperventilating.

_______

“We should do this more often,” Lula said, getting out of my car, unlocking the Trans Am.

She was parked on the street in front of the office. The office was closed, but the new bookstore in the house next door was open. Lights were on, and I could see Maggie Mason unpacking boxes in the window.

“I had a setback in the last race,” Lula said, “but aside from that I had a very good day. I just let it ride. Next time we could go to Freehold, and then we don’t have to worry about running into
you know who
.”

Lula drove off, but I stayed. I was like Evelyn now. On the run. No place safe to settle. For lack of something better, I went to the movies. Halfway through the movie I got up and left. I got into my car, and I went home. I parked in the lot, and I didn’t allow myself to hesitate behind the wheel. I got out of the CR-V, beeped it locked, and walked straight to the back door that led to the lobby. I took the elevator to the second floor, marched down the hall, and unlocked the door to my apartment. I took a deep breath and stepped inside. It was very quiet. And dark.

I flipped the lights on . . . every single light I owned. I walked room to room, avoiding the cootie couch. I went back to the kitchen, removed six cookies from the bag of frozen chocolate chip cookies, and put them on a cookie sheet. I popped them into the oven and stood there, waiting. Five minutes later, the house smelled like homemade cookies. Bolstered by cookie fumes, I marched into the living room and looked at the couch. The couch looked fine. No stains. No dead body imprint.

You see, Stephanie, I said to myself. The couch is okay. No reason to be creeped out by the couch.

Hah! An invisible Irma whispered in my ear. Everyone knows you can’t
see
death cooties. Take my word for it, that couch has the biggest, fattest death cooties that ever existed. That couch has the mother of all death cooties.

I tried to sit on the couch but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Soder and the couch were fixed together in my mind. Sitting on the couch was like sitting on Soder’s dead, sawed-in-half lap. The apartment was too small for both me
and
the couch. One of us was going to have to go.

“Sorry,” I said to the couch. “Nothing personal, but you’re history.” I put my weight behind one end, and I pushed the couch across the living room, into the small entrance foyer in front of the kitchen, out the front door, and into the hall. I positioned it against the wall between my apartment and Mrs. Karwatt’s apartment. Then I ran back into my apartment, closed my door, and did a sigh. I knew there were no such things as death cooties. Unfortunately, that’s an intellectual fact. And death cooties are an emotional reality.

I took the cookies out of the oven, put them on a plate, and carted them off to the living room. I zapped the television on and found a movie. Irma hadn’t said anything about death cooties on the remote, so I assumed death cooties didn’t stick to electronic devices. I pulled a dining room chair over to the television, ate two of the cookies, and watched the movie.

Halfway through the movie, the doorbell rang. It was Ranger. Dressed in his usual black. Full utility belt, looking like Rambo. Hair tied back. He stood there in silence when I opened the door. The corners of his mouth tipped slightly into the promise of a smile.

“Babe, your couch is in the hall.”

“It has death cooties.”

“I knew there’d be a good explanation.”

I shook my head at him. “You’re such a show-off.” Not only had he placed me at the track, his horse had paid off five to one.

“Even superheroes need to have fun once in a while,” he said, looking me over, brushing past me, walking into the living room. “It smells like you’re marking your territory with chocolate chip cookies.”

“I needed something to chase away the demons.”

“Any problems?”

“Nope.” Not since I pushed the couch into the hall. “So what’s up?” I said. “You look like you’re dressed for work.”

“I had to secure a building earlier this evening.”

I’d once been with him when his team secured a building. It involved throwing a drug dealer out a third-story window.

He took a cookie off the plate on the floor. “Frozen?”

“Not anymore.”

“How’d it go at the track?”

“I ran into Eddie Abruzzi.”

“And?”

“We had words. I didn’t find out as much as I’d hoped, but I’m convinced Evelyn has something he wants.”

“I know what it is,” Ranger said, eating his cookie.

I stared at him openmouthed. “What is it?”

He smiled. “How bad do you want to know?”

“Are we playing?”

He slowly shook his head no. “This isn’t play.” He backed me against the wall, and he leaned into me. His
leg slid between mine, his lips brushed lightly across my lips. “How bad do you want to know, Steph?” he asked again.

“
Tell me
.”

“It’ll get added to the debt.”

Like I was going to worry about that now? I was in way over my credit limit weeks ago! “Are you going to tell me, or what?”

“Remember I told you Abruzzi is a war gamer? Well, he does more than game. He collects memorabilia. Old guns, army uniforms, military medals. And he doesn’t just collect them. He wears them. Mostly when he games. Sometimes when he’s with women, I’m told. Sometimes when he’s settling a bad debt. Word on the street is that Abruzzi is missing a medal. Supposedly the medal belonged to Napoleon. The story being told is that Abruzzi tried to buy the medal, but the guy who owned it wouldn’t sell it, so Abruzzi killed him and took the medal. Abruzzi kept the medal on his desk at his house. He wore it when he gamed. Believed it made him invincible.”

“And this is what Evelyn has? The medal?”

“That’s what I hear.”

“How did she get it?”

“I don’t know.”

He moved against me and desire skittered through my stomach and burned low in my belly. He was hard
everywhere
. His thigh, his gun . . .
everything
was hard.

He lowered his head and kissed my neck. He touched his tongue to the place he just kissed. And then he kissed it again. His hand slid under my T-shirt, his palm heating my skin, his fingers at the base of my breast.

“Pay-up time,” he said. “I’m collecting on the debt.”

I almost collapsed onto the floor.

He took my hand and tugged me toward the bedroom. “The movie,” I said. “The best part of the movie is coming up.” In all honesty, I couldn’t remember a single thing about the movie. Not the name or anyone in it.

He was standing close, his face inches from mine, his hand at the back of my neck. “We’re going to do this, babe,” he said. “It’s going to be good.” And then he kissed me. The kiss deepened, became more demanding, more intimate.

I had my hands splayed over his chest, and I felt the toned muscle under my hands, felt his heart beating. So he has a heart, I thought. That’s a good sign. He must be at least
part
human.

He broke from the kiss and pushed me into the bedroom. He kicked his boots off, dropped his gun belt, and he stripped. The light was low, but it was enough to see that what Ranger promised in SWAT clothes was kept when the clothes were shed. He was all firm muscle and smooth dark skin. His body was in perfect proportion. His eyes were intense and focused.

He peeled my clothes off and wrangled me onto the bed. And then suddenly he was inside me. He once told me that time spent with him would ruin me for all other men. When he said it, I thought it was an outrageous threat. I no longer thought it outrageous.

We lay together for a while when we were done. Finally he ran his hand the length of my body. “It’s time,” he said.

“
Now
what?”

“You didn’t think the debt would be paid that easily, did you?”

“Uh-oh, is this the part with the handcuffs?”

“I don’t need handcuffs to enslave a woman,” Ranger said, kissing my shoulder.

He kissed me lightly on my lips and then dipped his head to kiss my chin, my neck, my collarbone. He moved lower, kissing the swell of my breast and my nipple. He kissed my navel and then my belly, and then he put his mouth to my . . .
omigod!

He was still in my bed the next morning. He was pressed next to me, his arm holding me close. I woke to the sound of the alarm on his watch. He shut the alarm off and rolled away to check the pager that had been placed on the nightstand, next to his gun.

“I have to go, babe,” he said. And he was dressed. And he was gone.

Oh shit
. What did I do? I just did
it
with the Wizard. Holy crap! Okay, calm down. Let’s examine this more sanely. What just happened here? We did
it
. And he left. The leaving seemed a smidgen abrupt, but then it was Ranger. What did I expect? And he hadn’t been abrupt last night. He’d been . . . amazing. I sighed and heaved myself out of bed. I showered and dressed and went into the kitchen to say good morning to Rex. Only there was no Rex. Rex was living with my parents.

The house felt empty without Rex, so I packed myself off to my parents’. It was Sunday and there was the added incentive of doughnuts. My mother and grandmother always bought doughnuts on their way home from church.

The horse kid was galloping through the house in her Sunday School dress. She stopped galloping when she saw
me and her face grew thoughtful. “Have you found Annie yet?”

“No,” I said. “But I talked to her mom on the phone.”

“Next time you talk to her mom you should tell her Annie’s missing stuff at school. Tell her I got put in the Black Stallion reading group.”

“You’re telling another whopper,” Grandma said. “You’re in the Blue Bird reading group.”

“I don’t want to be a blue bird,” Annie said. “Blue birds are poopy. I want to be a black stallion.” And she galloped away.

“I love that kid,” I said to Grandma.

“Yep,” Grandma said. “She reminds me a lot of you when you were that age. Good imagination. It comes from my side of the family. Except it skipped a generation with your mother. Your mother and Valerie and Angie are blue birds through and through.”

I helped myself to a doughnut and poured out a cup of coffee.

“You look different,” Grandma said to me. “I can’t put my finger on it. And you’ve been smiling ever since you walked in.”

Damn Ranger. I noticed the smile when I brushed my teeth. It wouldn’t go away! “Amazing what a good night’s sleep can do for you,” I said to Grandma.

“I wouldn’t mind having a smile like that,” Grandma said.

Valerie came to the table, looking morose. “I don’t know what to do about Albert,” she said.

“Not got a two-bathroom house?”

“He lives with his mother, and he has less money than I do.”

No surprises there. “Good men are hard to find,” I said. “And when you find them, there’s always something wrong with them.”

Valerie looked in the doughnut bag. “It’s empty. Where’s my doughnut?”

“Stephanie ate it,” Grandma said.

“I only had one!”

“Oh,” Grandma said, “then maybe it was me. I had three.”

“We need more doughnuts,” Valerie said. “I have to have a doughnut.”

I grabbed my bag and hiked it onto my shoulder. “I’ll get more. I could use another one, too.”

“I’ll go with you,” Grandma said. “I want to ride in your shiny black car. I don’t suppose you’d let me drive?”

My mother was at the stove. “Don’t you
dare
let her drive. I’m holding you responsible. If she drives and gets in an accident, you’re going to be the one visiting her in the nursing home.”

We went to Tasty Pastry on Hamilton. I worked there when I was in high school. Gave away my virginity there, too. Behind the eclair case, after-hours, with Morelli. I’m not sure how it happened. One minute I was selling him a cannoli and next thing I knew I was on the floor with my pants down. Morelli’s always been good at talking the pants off women.

I parked in the small lot on the side of Tasty Pastry. The after-church rush was over, and the lot was empty. There were seven parking slots that went nose in to the red brick wall of the bakery, and I parked square in the middle slot.

Grandma and I went into the bakery and picked out
another dozen doughnuts. Probably overkill, but better to have too many than to be doughnut deprived.

We came out of the bakery, and we were approaching Ranger’s CR-V when a green Ford Explorer careened into the lot and came to a screeching halt next to us. The driver had a rubber Clinton mask over his face, and the passenger seat was occupied by the rabbit.