Bowled Over mkm-6

by Kasey Michaels

  "Oh, man, that's rough. Butts isn't as good as Tiny."

  "Tell me about it," Joe said, and then drained his coffee cup, held it out to the kid behind the counter for a refill. "But seniority is seniority, Sam, and rules are rules. Butts has been on the list for eight years, too, but six months less than Frank. It's his turn."

  "I can't believe you guys. You're all so good, you know? What other team could have a waiting list eight years' long? And keeping the trophy from the New Year's tournament all those years, too. Man, it'd be a pisser, having to give it up."

  "Tell me about it," Joe said, obviously a man with a limited repertoire of verbal comebacks. "I'm the captain, and it's me who'd have to turn over the trophy to those bastards if we lose. Fourteen years we've held that trophy. Fourteen frigging years. Makes me sick. So you want to talk tough? That's tough." He repeatedly poked at his chest with one pudgy index finger. "I'm the one who's got tough."

  "You still got Pete, though, right? Between the two of you, you should be all right. You know, carry the new guys?"

  "I don't know," the one named Joe said sourly. "Pete's such a woman. Saying we should cancel. You know, out of respect for Walter's passing."

  "Pete is a woman, Joe," the other guy said, laughing. "At least she was, last time I checked."

  "You checked? Jeez Louise. Then you're a braver man than I am, Sam. Especially with her sprouting that mustache a couple of years ago. Walter used to say she was a—well, you know. But he probably said that because he couldn't get her into the sack. Not that anyone I know would ever want to get Pete in the sack. But you know Walter."

  The other man chuckled again. "Yeah, we all knew Walter."

  The aproned youth behind the counter slid a paper plate containing two hot slices of pizza in front of Saint Just.

  "May I have a knife and fork, please?"

  Joe and Sam leaned forward on their elbows, eyes shifting left, their amazed gazes on Saint Just.

  "Excuse me," Joe said, grinning. "You English?"

  "Why, yes, how astute of you. I am."

  "So you English eat pizza with a knife and fork?"

  Saint Just reached for the utensils. "I cannot speak for the general population, but I do, yes."

  "Tastes better when you eat it with your hands," Sam told him.

  "Then I'll have to try that, won't I?" Saint Just said, laying down the knife and fork and lifting the first piece of pizza. He took a healthy bite and spoke around it. "Hmm—good."

  Inwardly, Saint Just was cringing. He imagined the one hundred or more guests at one of Prinney's Brighton Pavilion banquets all eating with their fingers, and then smiled. He wasn't in Regency England anymore, was he? And he wasn't going back. He took another bite.

  "So, what're you doing here, in Ocean City?"

  Now this could be tricky. If he said he was here with Maggie, visiting with the Kelly family, Joe and his friend Sam could back away from him. As it was, they were being quite friendly.

  "Indulging in my love for baccarat, actually. My travel agent told me it would be less costly to book a room in a hotel in Ocean City during the off-season, rather than to stay at one of the casinos."

  Joe nodded. "Yeah, that's true enough, I guess. Where ya staying?"

  Saint Just hooked his thumb toward the south. Lord knew there were hotels enough to make it a reasonable gesture. "Oh, about a block that way," he said, and took a drink of water.

  "Ninth Street? Oh, okay. My cousin's wife's aunt—something like that—she owns that place."

  "What a splendid coincidence, then." Saint Just beat down the urge to wipe his fingers on the—unfortunately—thin paper napkin. "Lots of excitement here, isn't there?" he asked. "I mean, the murder?"

  "Yeah, me and Sam were just talking about it. Can't remember the last time we had a murder around here."

  "And they were bowling companions, I believe?" Saint Just prodded, hopefully not too hard, but just enough to keep the men talking. "Would that be lawn bowling?"

  "On the grass? Hell, no. It's regular bowling. You know, American bowling? With lanes? We're in the middle of the season."

  "Ah, I see," Saint Just said, shaking his head. "And you lost two of your company, then, didn't you? That must be a great loss."

  "Yeah, tell me about it," Joe said, shaking his head. "They were both on the Majesties. That's my team. One dead, one arrested. Whole damn team's been des-des—you know."

  "Decimated," Saint Just provided helpfully.

  "Yeah, that. I had no choice, you know, being the captain. I had to throw the guy off. I mean, he killed Walter, right?"

  "Did he? I thought the American way of justice was innocence until proved guilty?"

  Joe leaned closer, rolled his tongue around the inside of his lower lip. Obviously some sort of information was about to be forthcoming. "They found Walter on the beach. Right down there, between Seventh and Eighth. Head bashed in, Evan Kelly's bowling ball just sitting there in the sand, right beside the body. Doesn't take a genius to know who done it, right?"

  "On the beach?" Saint Just knew as much from the articles in the morning papers, but feigned surprise. "What on earth would lure a man onto the beach in this weather?"

  Sam leaned back, put his hand on Joe's back to hold him in place, and whispered, "We heard it was drugs. You know, making a deal down on the sand? Walter liked his weed." The man then brought his point home by holding his forefinger and thumb to his lips and audibly sucking in air. "Our guess is Evan was his contact, and the ... the meet, you know? It went bad."

  Saint Just attempted to picture Evan Kelly selling marijuana. No, the image wouldn't come. "So this Walter person—the victim?—was a drug user? He doesn't sound like a very exemplary citizen."

  Joe hit at his friend, pushing him forward on his stool once more. "Jeez, Sam. You don't know Walter was using drugs."

  "I do, too," Sam protested. "He offered me some, just a couple of weeks ago. Said it, you know, enhanced the experience."

  "I thought he took those little blue pills," Joe whispered, but the man's whisper wasn't all he'd probably hoped it could be, because Saint Just had no trouble hearing him. "You know, that Vigor thing?"

  "Had to stop. Woke up half blind one morning. Bummed him out, because he liked the pills, but he told me he likes to see who he's doing. Get it, Joe? See who he's doing? A real card, that was Walter, all right."

  "Wow," Joe said, shaking his head. "Okay, so maybe it was a meet for drugs. But I don't know, Sam, I don't see Evan pushing weed. Had to be something else. Something bigger."

  "Yeah, like that fight they had, remember?"

  Joe turned to glance at Saint Just, who still maintained his look of polite interest, and then leaned in close to his friend.

  "We told the cops, Sam. We don't have to tell the world."

  "A fight? A disagreement of some sort?" Saint Just asked, starting on his second piece of pizza. "I don't think I read that in this morning's newspaper. You all must be very close to the investigation. I'm impressed, truly."

  It would seem that Joe was not immune to flattery. "Yeah, well Walter and Evan, we all go back a long way. On the Majesties, you know? Coulda knocked me down with a feather when I came out of the lanes, saw the two of them rolling around in the parking lot like a couple of kids. But they made up. Hell, they went bowling together Christmas Eve—just before Evan killed old Walter."

  "You coulda gone, right, Joe?" Sam asked. "Free bowling and all. You coulda seen them go off together, maybe? A witness, right?"

  Joe shook his head. "The wife would have had my head in a sling if I said I was going to the lanes on Christmas Eve, free or not. I had to put together that wagon for little Joey, remember?" He swiveled back to Saint Just. "My grandson. He's three. Wanna see a picture?"

  "I would greatly enjoy viewing a photograph, thank you," Saint Just said, and spent the next five minutes looking at an entire foldout string of pictures of a rather pudgy little creature sitting naked in a metal washtub.

 
But he and Joe were friends now—pals, he imagined Joe might say—and that made it easier to ask the man more questions.

  One of the answers Saint Just received two cups of coffee and an hour later, however, shocked even the usually unflappable perfect hero ...

  Chapter Seventeen

  "Maggie? What happened?" Socks raced to the curb to help her out of the car when he saw the walker come out first, pushed out of the car by Maggie, and helped along with a short, pithy swear word. "I thought you said when you left here that you were going to get one of those walking cast things?"

  "So did I," she told him, pulling herself to her feet. "Surprise, surprise. My idea of a walking cast isn't the stupid doctor's idea of a walking cast. I'm allowed to put the foot down, sort of, but still supporting about ninety percent of myself on this damn contraption while I do it. Six more weeks, Socks. I have to have this stupid thing for six more weeks."

  "Gee, that's a bummer. Where'd you get the neat bicycle horn? I had one of those things, when I was a kid. Let's hear it, okay?"

  Maggie gave the silver horn attached to the walker two quick squeezes on its large red ball end.

  Oooga-oooga.

  Socks laughed, gave the ball two more squeezes. Oooga-oooga. Oooga-oooga.

  "Bernie's idea of a joke. It was in the overnight package you brought up earlier. You'd think she had better things to do, wouldn't you?"

  "But you put it on the walker."

  "Yeah, I know. I'm as pitiful as she is. A person has to get her jollies somewhere, right? I'm going to go upstairs, now, to shoot myself. Socks, you know anybody who has a gun?"

  "Well, didn't J.P. have one?" he suggested, following after her, holding onto her purse.

  "Are you kidding? Ask J.P.? She'd probably offer to pull the trigger for me." Maggie almost made it to the door when, in the damp dusk that had fallen over the city, suddenly the sun shone bright.

  Except it wasn't the sun. It was television lights, and Holly Spivak was pushing a microphone in her face. Maggie quickly averted her head, shielding her eyes as best she could while trying to maintain her balance.

  "And here she is, Fox Live at Four family, our very own Big-Wheels-o'-Bucks jackpot winner, Manhattan's own Maggie Kelly! Maggie, tell my audience, how does it feel to break the bank in Atlantic City?"

  "Go ... away," Maggie said, keeping her head turned away from the lights, hoping the cameraman wasn't zeroing in on her backside. Didn't everything look bigger on television?

  "Ha-ha," the blond newscaster-cum-predator trilled into the microphone, and then quickly lowered the thing, covered it with her hand. "Work with me, Kelly. We're live here."

  "Yeah? How you'd like to be dead here?"

  The newscaster laughed nervously. "Always such a card, folks. She's only kidding. Maggie and I go way back, don't we, Maggie. Why, just last month—"

  Oooga-oooga-oooga!

  Holly put the microphone to her mouth once more even as she raised her right hand to her ear as though listening to someone speak into the earpiece she wore. "What? Oh, right, Miranda. It is time we go to a break. Gotta pay the bills, folks! But we'll be right back with our exclusive interview with the woman who won over three million bucks and had her daddy tossed in the pokey for murder, all in the same day! And you think you have a crazy life? Not compared to Maggie Kelly. Stay tuned, it's a great story. Back to you, Miranda!"

  "We're out. Nice juggle. Two minutes, Holly," a disembodied voice called, and Holly grabbed Maggie's upper arm, gave it a squeeze.

  "Look," she said, her pleasant on-air voice dropped into its usual flat, Midwestern tones. "You're news, Maggie. You're always news. You and Alex."

  Oooga-oooga. Oooga-oooga.

  "Sorry, Spivak. Can't hear you."

  "Will you knock that off? Where is he, anyway? Alex? My ratings go up when I can put that gorgeous face of his on-air. Now come on, we've got two minutes—less than that."

  "My heart breaks for you. Go away."

  "I'm not going anywhere, and neither are you. All I want are a couple of comments. You know, on winning? And maybe on your dad? Tough break there, huh? But I'm betting you and Alex are going to get him off. Look how you got your editor friend off—the crazy redhead? Great ratings on that one, let me tell you. Work with me, Maggie, you know Alex would. You want some sympathy for your old man? I can do it. Just let me ask a couple of questions, and I'll have everyone feeling sorry for you. Who knows, you could hit Larry King with this one."

  "Gee," Maggie said, resting against the side of the building. "Not Bill O'Reilly? I've always wanted to talk to him. Ask him a few questions. You know, like—who the hell ever let you out from under your rock, Bill-o?"

  Holly looked toward her cameraman. "Time? Okay, we've still got some time. It's longer, on the half-hour break. Maggie, not now, don't fight me now. Be a bleeding-heart liberal on your time, not mine, please. I'm trying to help you here. Look over there—see that woman over there?"

  She pointed toward the curb and, against her better judgment, Maggie looked. The trim, fairly pretty blond woman of about fifty, balancing precariously on the curb at the moment, smiled at her, waved. "Who's that?"

  "Her name's Carol something-or-other. Name!"

  "Carol Heinie. Honest to God!" some guy yelled back at her.

  "Heinie? Man, I'da changed that in a heartbeat, wouldn't you?" Holly said, turning back to Maggie. "Carol Heinie, Maggie. She works in a jewelry store in Ocean City."

  Oooga-ooo —"What? Who?"

  Maggie did what she knew had to be a classic double take, goggling at the woman now walking toward them, being gently pushed from behind by a short, fat guy wearing a headset.

  "Sixty seconds, Holly."

  "How on earth did you—" Maggie asked, getting her first real look at her dad's ... her dad's what? Paramour? Lover? Little chippie? Oh. God.

  "She came to me," Holly said, preening. "Totally unsolicited, although I'm going to say I found her, of course. They all come to me, sooner or later. Don't you know that, Maggie? Now come on. A piece of fluff on the jackpot, and then we'll let Carol tell her story. Sound good?"

  "How the hell should I know? What's she going to say? What did she tell you?"

  "That your dad—Everett, right?"

  "Evan," Maggie said, her heart pounding.

  "That's good, too. Evan. That he couldn't have murdered this guy in Ocean City, because he was with her, in her apartment with her, at the time of the killing. Good, huh?"

  "I think that depends on whether you're Dad's defense lawyer, or his wife," Maggie said, caught between elation and forming a mental picture of her mother's meltdown when she heard the news. No wonder her dad hadn't wanted to tell anyone where he was Christmas Eve. He was protecting Carol. Or himself. Again, depending on who found out—the cops, or Alicia Evans.

  "Five minutes, Maggie, Fox Live at Four, on-air in the tristate area, and your dad's off the hook. Ironclad alibi, and she's here to tell everyone her story. It's a gift, Maggie, a gift I'm giving you here."

  "Thirty seconds! Talk faster, Holly!"

  "Well, okay, I guess it's—wait a minute! You said she came to you. Why to you? Are you paying this woman?"

  "Fox doesn't have to pay for news," Holly said, her tone one of righteous indignation. "Perhaps a small appearance fee, her transportation, a night in a hotel here in Manhattan, a little wardrobe help. That's all."

  "Crap! Crap and double crap! Spivak, you know what you just did? You just tainted that woman's testimony. Now get out of here before I thrill your viewers by giving you a hefty belt in the chops. I did it before, you know. You've probably already run the tape a million times. Out of my way. Move!"

  "And five ... four ... three ... two—throw it back to the studio! Throw it back!"

  "You got that? Tell me you got that," Holly Spivak said, picking herself up from the pavement, as Maggie had been a little violent when she'd shoved her walker forward, and the tangle of cords caught on one leg of the thing, she pulled, and the reporte
r (holding tight to the microphone) had gone down.

  "Close the door," Maggie told Socks, hopping into the foyer because that was still faster than trying to roll lightly on her left foot. "And lock it!"

  "You want to let your dad's alibi in?"

  "What's the point?" Maggie asked, carefully walking toward the elevator. "They'd put her on the stand, let her tell her story, and then ask her if she'd been paid for her story. End of credibility. Is Sterling upstairs?"

  "Yeah," Socks said, looking out at the commotion on the sidewalk. "Wow, Spivak's really mad, Maggie. And she's got the other blonde standing with her now, and she's asking her questions. I think maybe you should have—"

  "I know, I know," Maggie said, holding open the door to the elevator. "First I did, then I thought. But it's too late now. I could kill Alex for being friends with that bloodsucking blonde. Is he okay?"

  Socks was mugging for the camera, which was now focused on the locked door. "Hmm? Oh. Sterling? I don't know. I asked him why he didn't go with you to the doctor and he said he didn't think you really needed him. And then he bailed on going to lunch with me. When does the Sterlman not eat lunch?"

  "I think he's catching a cold," Maggie lied quickly, and let go of the door, not frowning until it was closed and she was on her way up to her floor.

  It was only when she was standing in front of her door that she realized that Socks still had her purse. With her keys in it.

  "Damn! Can my life get any more screwed up?"

  The ding of the elevator at the end of the hall pulled her attention, and she looked hopefully down the hall for Socks.

  But it was Lieutenant Steve Wendell who emerged, carrying her purse by the strap, as if it was a poisonous snake. "Hi, Maggie. Saw Holly Spivak doing one of her on-the-spot deals downstairs and figured you had to be home. The amount of stories she's been doing on you, she must think you're her ticket to the big time. Socks handed me this. How's it hoppin'?"

  "Funny," she said, grabbing the purse from him. "Aren't you going to ask me?"

  "Ask you what?" Steve leaned against the wall, watching as she struggled to extract her keys from the purse.