He crammed the last piece of paper in his mouth and chewed vigorously, both middle fingers now at full attention. He paused to display the saliva-soaked wad to her, then continued chewing.
“Uh, Lucy?” Will said. “You’d better—”
“Not now.” She turned back to Benny. “You need help, you know that? I mean real, honest-to-God head-shrinking, not this—”
Benny drew himself up and launched the wad of paper, now a giant spitball, at Lucy. He would have hit her square in the kisser if Will hadn’t yanked her aside at the last second.
“He spat at me!” Lucy was bug-eyed with outrage.
“You telling me you didn’t see that one coming?”
“I will not be spat at!” She thwacked Benny’s knuckles with the ruler.
“Ow!” Benny examined his unmarked flesh. He glowered at her. “That hurt. I’m gonna tell my parents.”
Lucy was momentarily paralyzed. What am I doing? She started to back up. Will blocked her with his body.
“Was that so hard?” He patted her shoulder. To Benny he said, “Miss Schiemann’s going to come back if you don’t behave. Are you going to behave?”
Benny’s eyes narrowed. They had their answer.
Will unlocked a cabinet and produced a fresh pad of penmanship paper. He slapped it in front of his client. “Your assignment, Miss Schiemann?” He looked at Lucy expectantly.
She said, “Benny, you will write five hundred times, ‘When I get out of here, I will find a healthy hobby.’”
______
WILL AND LUCY returned to a quiet house. The kids had gone to the library with Keith. Irving and Gabby were upstairs playing poker. Even Ming-hua—Will craned his head toward the kitchen—was nowhere to be seen. No doubt she’d followed her husband up to their apartment to hover and cluck and ensure the penny-ante game didn’t get out of hand. Quint was in his cage, wooing his mirror reflection with a string of Mandarin swear words. Will shucked his leather-trimmed barn jacket.
“Well, I should be going.” Lucy tucked her scarf under her coat collar. She slung her purse strap over her shoulder. “I just wanted to bring that book by for Tom.”
“Yeah, that was nice of you. Thanks.”
“No problem.”
He shoved her against the newel post and locked his mouth onto hers. She hauled him against her hard enough to knock the air from his lungs. They remained glued together, a two-headed beast, as they shuffled and groped and lurched their way past Will’s bedroom door, which he kicked shut with enough force to elicit a startled scream from Quint.
They tumbled onto the unmade bed. He was hyperaware of her heat, her pliant curves, the heady, womanly scent of her. Also the fact that the two of them made a comfortable fit, horizontally speaking. That kind of observation, once acknowledged, was impossible to ignore, and sure enough, no part of him managed to ignore it, particularly the part pressed against her thigh.
Beyond the closed door, Quint began ringing his little bell and running through his repertoire of gripes: “You’ll put your eye out” and “I’ll wash your mouth with soap” and “Because I said so!”
“Why’s he carrying on like that?” Lucy’s breath was chocolate-scented.
“Because I never taught him to say, ‘Hey, you guys, whatcha doin’ in there? Come out here and pay some attention to me!’” Will tossed her scarf to the floor. Her coat followed.
He was now thoroughly and uncomfortably aroused. He hadn’t gotten so hard so quickly since he was a teenager. Her eyes were glazed, her face flushed. He wondered how long they had till the kids came home. He should get up and lock the door.
“Take out the garbage!” Quint was really jangling that bell now. “Were you raised in a barn? You’re grounded, buster!”
Where was his duct tape when he need it?
Their hands got busy, and eventually they had to break off the kiss just to suck in oxygen. Lucy’s shirt was half-unbuttoned. Will’s sweater and undershirt were hiked to his armpits.
She rolled on top of him, and he flicked her last few shirt buttons free. Her lacy beige bra might not have been the most alluring undergarment Will had ever seen, but tell that to the little head. She stroked her hands up his rib cage and proceeded to do things with her fingernails that were probably illegal in the red states. “Has it occurred to you—” she pinned his wrists near his ears “—that you might be the one with some major control issues?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I have major control issues. What are you going to do about it?”
She grinned. “I’m serious. Well, half serious.” Still holding his wrists, she snaked her body down his, then nudged the sweater aside with her nose to get at his nipple. Will’s spine arched off the sheets as he tried to hold on to the top of his head.
“Who’s that?” she murmured against his chest.
“That’s Mr. Happy.” He thrust his hips upward.
“No, I mean . . .” She lifted her head. “Who’s at the door?”
He heard it then: the front door knocker. Clunk. Clunk.
Quint screamed, “Door!”
“Forget it.” He tugged her head back down. “If someone’s selling Girl Scout cookies, they’ll come back.”
She cocked her head, listening intently. “Did you lock the house when we came in?” God bless Lucy: the mature adult who thought of everything.
From the porch, a man’s voice called, “Hello? Mr. Kitchen? It’s Archie Esterhaus. We—” A violent sneeze interrupted him. “We spoke on the phone?”
“Oh God.” Will scrubbed a hand over his face. “I forgot he was coming over.”
Lucy sprang off the bed and drove her arms into her shirtsleeves in one elegant movement. “Who is it?” she asked, buttoning up.
“This guy who called . . .” He waved his hand as if he could wave away Archie Esterhaus.
Lucy grabbed hold of his arms and hauled him to a sitting position. She tugged his sweater down.
Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.
“Door!”
Will tried to pull her onto his lap; she was having none of it. He stage-whispered, “We don’t have to let him in.” He heard the front door creak open. The floorboards in the foyer groaned. Too late. The man had let himself in.
“Did I get the time wrong? Hello?”
“Did he?” Lucy finger-combed her hair as she crossed to the door. “Get the time wrong?”
“Shhh . . .” Will pressed a finger to her lips. “He’ll go away.”
“If you made an appointment with this man, you can’t just not be here.” She turned the knob. “Get out there, Will.”
Chapter 16
WESLEY STOOD IN the foyer of Will Kitchen’s house, wiping his runny nose and eyeing a green parrot in a fancy cage the size of Joe’s potting shed. The bird scooted along its perch and clung to the ironwork, getting as close to Wesley as it could manage. It cocked its head and gave him the stink eye. Then it spoke.
“Wipe your feet!”
He couldn’t have heard right.
“Were you raised in a barn?”
Wesley looked around; he didn’t even see a doormat. The parrot chose that moment to emit the loudest, most piercing scream he’d ever heard—and during fourteen years in the NYPD followed by eight as a PI, he’d heard more than his share. He clutched his heart, only to be startled anew, this time by the pillowy numbness of his chest. Oh. Right. The damn fat suit.
He wanted to avoid any chance of being recognized from last Friday night and his part in Frank Narby’s misbegotten kidnap scheme. Sure, he’d had on that ski mask, but you could never be too careful. So part of his disguise today was, of all things for him to don, a fat suit. Hell, if someone invented a thin suit, he’d live in the thing. But barring such a miracle, he’d had no choice but to go in the other direction. His only problem had been finding a fat suit fat enough to fit his fat ass and make it even fatter. He’d finally tracked one down at a theatrical supply house.
So this was what he’d look like, and feel li
ke, if he packed on another hundred pounds or so. Belly folds, man-tits, the works. The suit was as heavy as real flesh, otherwise the fake flab wouldn’t jiggle right.
Maybe that South Beach thing was worth a try. Were people still doing that? A string of sneezes racked him as he foraged in his pocket for more tissues.
“Mr. Esterhaus?” It was Lucy. Frank would blow a blood vessel if he saw Mrs. Narby the First emerging, flushed and tousled, from what appeared to be the master bedroom.
“That’s me.” Wesley knew she wouldn’t recognize his voice, thanks to the killer cold he’d caught from Anne Marie’s little girl. He stuck out his hand. “Call me Archie. You must be Mrs. Kitchen.”
“Uh, no. I’m just a friend. Lucy.”
A friend, huh? This was the woman Kitchen had abducted by force last Friday—or rather, pretended to abduct. That was one of the things Wesley had learned in the past couple of days, that this Will Kitchen ran some freaky fake-kidnapping racket. All on the up-and-up supposedly, but then how to explain the two mil Kitchen’s nephew Mick and his pal Hal had yapped about? While Kitchen could have made that kind of bread legitimately, Wesley tended to trust his cop’s instinct—that precious “blue sense”—and right now it was screaming that there were two million dirty bucks floating around here somewhere.
If so, Wesley wanted them. But only if they were dirty and untraceable. If it turned out the money was legit, he’d back off and revert to Plan A: squeezing Frank Narby for a generous early wedding gift.
“Listen,” Wesley said, “I apologize for letting myself in like that. I thought maybe no one heard me knock.”
“Think nothing of it.”
Will shuffled into the foyer. One look at his mussed appearance and baleful countenance confirmed Wesley’s suspicions. These two had been about to do the deed before he’d interrupted them. He grabbed Will’s hand and worked it like a pump handle. “You must be Wilbur. Archie Esterhaus. I really appreciate this, Wilbur. Mind if I call you Wilbur?”
“It’s Will. I forgot you were coming.” He waved his arm. “Go ahead and look around, Archie. Be my guest.”
Lucy turned to Will. “Are you selling the place?”
“No, Archie just wants the two-cent tour. He used to live here when he was a kid.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, see, I’ve been living out in St. Louis for twenty-something years now,” Wesley said. “Turned out I hadda go back to New York on business—” He sneezed again; his nose felt like it had been sandpapered. “The International Beauty Show. I’m in hair products. And I’m thinking, jeez, long as I’m in the Big Apple, why don’t I try to get out and see the old place again. So I call Will here out of the blue. He doesn’t know me from Adam, but he’s as nice as can be. Tells me I can come by and have a look around.”
“You lived here with your family?” she asked.
“Yeah, on the top floor.” Wesley pointed toward the ceiling. “There was this little apartment.”
“It’s still there.” Will Kitchen made an obvious effort to act welcoming, but his crossed arms and stolid countenance spoke volumes on the subject of nookie interruptus. “An elderly couple live in it now.”
Wesley nodded. “Good size for two people, that place.” He was sweating like a son of a bitch in the padded suit. He loosened his necktie and pushed the costume eyeglasses up his nose. “Kinda cramped for a family of four, which is what we were, you know—me, my sister Nancy Lynn, she lives in Rochester now, and our folks. Plus a shepherd mix named Sidney.” Wesley had done his homework, in case Kitchen actually knew a thing or two about the former residents, or in case he was careful enough to have done his own homework before opening the door to a stranger. “He was a good dog, Sidney. Long gone now, of course. Jeez, but he used to love running around that big yard.”
“Archie’s dad was the church custodian for many years,” Will told Lucy. “Most of this house was used for classrooms and offices back then.”
“That’s right.” Wesley gazed reverentially at his surroundings. “This old place sure holds memories for me. So the church, it got, what, declassified?”
“Decommissioned, yeah,” Will said, “Listen, Archie, mi casa es su casa and all that. Snoop around to your heart’s content.”
“Well, I know you want to show him the place.” Lucy sent Will a pointed look, less concerned, Wesley thought, with possible theft than with the lapse in hospitality.
The parrot rattled the door of its cage. “I’m having conniptions! You’re grounded, buster!”
Lucy turned to Wesley. “Would you like some coffee? Or hot cocoa?” She politely ignored the rivulets of sweat streaming down his face. That was nothing compared to what was going on under the fat suit. “Unless you’d prefer something cold?”
Gratefully he accepted a tumbler of ice water and insisted he didn’t need an escort, and besides, he’d been kinda looking forward to reacquainting himself with the house at his own pace, if that was all right. No problem, Will said, as he opened the parrot’s cage and let it walk onto his arm. His housemates were expecting Archie. Most of them were out of the house at the moment anyway.
How fortuitous. “Nice-looking bird,” Wesley said. “What’s its name?”
“Quint.” The parrot dipped its head for a neck scratch, and Will obliged him. “Named for the shark hunter in Jaws. He was born the year the movie came out. ‘Seventy-five.”
“Yeah? That’s right, these guys live a long time, don’t they?” He stepped closer to get a better look at the bird. “Hey there, fella. Polly want a cracker?”
“Take out the garbage!”
“Bossy thing, aren’t ya? Say, what happened to its wing? It’s crooked.”
“Skiing accident.”
Wesley forced a chuckle. “Stick to the bunny slopes, Quint.” Outwardly he was nonchalant. Under the layers of latex and foam, his heart skipped a few beats. Quint. How many parrots could there be with that precise coloring, and that precise name, and a busted wing?
The bird was perched on Will’s left arm. Surreptitiously Wesley glanced at the hand attached to the arm, knowing now what he’d find there. One thumb, three intact fingers, and a stub where the pinky should be. He hadn’t noticed the missing digit during that standoff in Lucy’s kitchen.
Wesley had always assumed Ricky Baines had moved far away. God knew if Wesley had endured what that kid had, the Australian Outback wouldn’t be far enough to escape the memories. Though he could see how quietly changing your name and shunning the public eye as Ricky Baines had done might achieve the same objective.
Ricky’s unsolved kidnapping had been the most frustrating episode of Wesley’s tenure with the NYPD. He’d been a young cop back then, not quite a rookie, but not far from it. Still idealistic, still thinking he could do some good. Not yet outed and persecuted by his brothers in blue. All that would come later.
The Baines case had been a high-profile “red ball,” meriting an all-out effort by law enforcement and engaging every big swinging dick in the department and Bureau. Wesley had fought hard to remain on the case, having been first on the scene when the call came in about an assault and kidnapping at the Astoria Studios.
The nanny had been clocked pretty bad. Once she’d been stabilized, Wesley had turned his attention to the injured parrot, flopping around the floor on its broken wing. Its handler was nowhere to be found, and the civilians were as crazed as the bird. Relying on common sense, Wesley snatched a towel off a makeup chair and swaddled Quint’s wings close to his body. He’d proceeded to secure the site with the parrot tucked under his arm football-style.
The ransom the kidnapper eventually had made off with? Two million bucks.
Some coincidence, Wesley told himself. His special instinct responded, Coincidence my fat blue ass. It’s the same two mil. But that didn’t make sense. What would Ricky Baines be doing with the ransom money from his own kidnapping? Ransom money the perp had disappeared with twenty-five years ago? And what, if anything, did that mone
y have to do with Lucy Narby?
Wesley had heard Mick assure Hal he’d get him “in there.” They could only have been talking about this place, the property they’d been spying on. He wondered if Hal had made contact with these people yet.
“Does he bite?” Wesley extended his hand toward the bird, wondering how long parrots’ memories were.
“He’s pretty well behaved as long as you don’t rile him,” Will said, then added, “He likes anything shiny,” as Quint mouthed the metal band of Wesley’s wristwatch. Its beak felt about how you’d expect a beak to feel, but its black tongue was a surprise, supple and warm and absolutely dry as it probed the watchband.
Lucy yelped and leapt behind Will. The men followed her gaze to the floor, where a white mouse waddled along the molding. Darn thing looked like it was wearing its own little fat suit.
“I’ll get it.” Wesley snatched a Scientific American off a nearby console table, rolled it up, and advanced on the creature.
Will beat him to it, scooping the mouse off the floor. “Did Tom leave your cage open again? This is Josephine,” he told Wesley. “She belongs to my son.”
“Whoa. You got anything else running around here I should be on the lookout for?” Wesley asked. “A family of slugs? Pet cockroach or two?”
“Just a flop-eared bunny,” Will said. “You’ll need a bigger magazine.”
______
THE SNOW HAD tapered off to a few random flakes by the time Hal parked Gabby’s car behind the Goo. Lucy’s silver Volvo was still there, as well as a white Maxima he’d never seen before, which triggered his early-warning radar.
As expected, their little excursion to the library had gone without a hitch. Hal had taken pains to fit in with Will Kitchen’s little band and secure the trust of everyone in the household, to cultivate just the right long-lost-kin persona: responsible and capable, yet needy enough to be taken under his more affluent “cousin’s” wing.
Will was generous and welcoming, if less gullible than Hal had hoped. He’d found himself deflecting some probing questions—questions about Marguerite, about Seattle. Some of them he’d been prepared for, and some of them he’d bullshitted his way through. Will seemed to buy his story. If Hal could manage to keep his swaggering loser of a son from unwittingly sabotaging this little fact-finding mission, he might just discover what became of his old-age fund—and get it back, with interest.
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