Agnes and the Hitman

by Jennifer Crusie

  Shane felt a powerful hand slam into his chest and lift him into the air. Time seemed to move in slow motion as he flew upward over Carpenter, over Joey, over the entire boat and tumbled into the water behind the boat. He went under, the weight of the gear he was wearing taking him down. He couldn’t breathe, the force of the explosion having knocked the air out of his lungs.

  Shane unbuckled his combat vest and tore it off. He felt pain radiating through his chest and could only wonder at what wounds he’d sustained. They wouldn’t matter if he couldn’t get back to the surface and air.

  He blinked, trying to figure which way the surface was. He forced himself to remain still for a moment and looked about. He kicked toward the light.

  Shane popped to the surface right behind the jet boat. Carpenter and Joey were leaning over the rear, Carpenter stripping off his gear, getting ready to jump in.

  “I’m all right,” Shane managed, but he couldn’t hear his own voice, just a loud ringing.

  A brief smile crossed Carpenter’s face and his mouth moved, but Shane could only hear the ringing. Then the smile was gone and Carpenter was looking over his shoulder, shouting something. He shoved Joey over the side, diving off himself. Just as the bow of the cruiser sliced over and into the jet boat, crushing it and forcing it under. Shane blew the air out of his lungs and went back under, seeking the safety of the deeper water.

  He was buffeted as the cabin cruiser churned by overhead, propellers ripping what remained of the jet boat to shreds, slicing by scant feet above his head. He forced himself to remain underwater as he watched the propellers move away. He stayed under until his lungs were screaming for air; then he went for the surface, using a piece of the wreckage to cover breaking the surface.

  He sucked in air as he watched the cruiser continue to plow away. When the cruiser disappeared around a bend of the river, he looked around for the others. Carpenter was hidden by an overhanging branch, holding on to a piece of wreckage with one arm, the other around Joey, who had a cut on his forehead, blood seeping down his face.

  “That didn’t go as planned,” Carpenter said.

  “Lousy work,” Shane gasped, his ears still ringing. “We’d have stayed to clean up.”

  “Well, thank you, Mr. Dean, for being a sloppy-ass killer,” Carpenter said.

  “We should deliver that in person,” Shane said.

  “We should do that later,” Carpenter said, nudging a dazed Joey toward the bank.

  “Yeah,” Shane said, looking back in Casey Dean’s direction. “But we’re definitely gonna do it.”

  When Joey hadn’t shown up by live, Agnes began to panic. The rehearsal dinner was at seven, and while Garth could set up the tables and even put out the plates and silver, she had to be down there dressing the place with flowers and favors. Beyond that, catering was not within her grasp. Family cooking she could do; catering a rehearsal dinner for the first family of Keyes? No.

  She wiped her hands on her Cranky Agnes apron and stepped over Rhett to open the fridge and looked at the turkey Joey had put in there. Taylor had promised that he’d make Palmer’s favorite meal, turkey and dressing, and Joey had sworn he could handle it. But now it was too late to make the turkey, and Palmer had wanted some special kind of gravy with bourbon in it, and… She looked at the turkey and thought, I’m screwed.

  Rhett bayed, and she heard Taylor say, “Agnes?”

  Agnes turned around to see him standing in the doorway again. “Not now.” She turned back to the fridge. There were new potatoes in there. That could be simple. Maybe butter sauce-

  “I want to work this out.”

  Rhett growled.

  Agnes closed her eyes. “Well, that’s just great. No. Now get your ass out of here. I’m busy.” Pay attention, Agnes. “Where’s Joey?”

  “I don’t know,” Agnes said. “Beat it.” Don’t be stupid, Agnes.

  She heard him come closer, and Rhett growled again.

  “He’s not here?” Taylor said.

  “No.”

  “Do you want me to cook?”

  She turned around. “You quit, you lying, cheating bastard-”

  Agnes, you dumbass, you need him.

  “I know,” Taylor said. “That was wrong.”

  Agnes…

  Dr. Garvin, I hate him.

  Okay, first of all, this isn’t Dr. Garvin, this is you, talking to yourself, obviously, so pull yourself together.

  Second, you need help and he owes you big.

  Third, you can use this to your advantage, if you’d get your head out of your butt and stop doing the easiest thing, which is anger, but no, you have to wallow in your emotions and hide behind your rage, so go ahead and screw up your life again. Go ahead. Feel free.

  I want Dr. Garvin back.

  “What’s Joey got in there?” Taylor reached around her and opened the fridge, and Rhett growled again, and Agnes hesitated and then bent to pat the dog.

  “It’s okay, Rhett,” she whispered, and the dog looked at her as if to say, Sucker, and then padded back to his place under the table and collapsed into semi-slumber.

  “Huh,” Taylor said. “Okay. Sure.” He began to take things out of the fridge. “Get me a tray or a box or something so I can get this stuff down to the kitchen in the barn. Did you do the dessert?”

  “Raspberry-chocolate heart-shaped cakes,” Agnes said. “I covered them with ganache and plated them, and I’m going to use raspberry sauce as… Look, Taylor-”

  He closed the fridge door and opened the cupboard next to it. “I screwed up. I know this won’t make up for it, but it’s something. And besides…” He grinned down at her. “I want to show the Keyeses I can cook.”

  You gonna be smart or you gonna be dumb, Agnes?

  Agnes drew a deep breath. “You want back in. You’ve looked around and realized you backed the wrong woman and that the Keyeses aren’t going to side with Brenda, especially since she’s losing her grip and killing people now, and your future is going down the tubes, and you want to switch sides.”

  “Yes.” He looked embarrassed but determined.

  “So you want to come back so you can be part of the wedding and have the catering business and the Two Rivers Cookbook and everything we were going to do.”

  “Yes.” He was eager now, and she began to see how easy it had been for Brenda to lay things out for him. Almost like leaving a trail of bread crumbs for him to follow.

  “Okay,” Agnes said, starting her own trail. “You can cater the dinner tonight and the wedding tomorrow, on two conditions. The first is that you work your ass off on this wedding and make sure it happens. You are on my side now, and you do everything in your power to make sure this wedding happens and that I keep the house.”

  “Yes,” Taylor said.

  “The second is that you sign your share of the house over to me.” Taylor’s face went blank.

  “I’ll finish the cookbook with you, and I’ll let you cater out of the barn, but you sign your share of this place over to me. You tried to swindle me out of it, you sign it over to me. The house belongs to me entirely. I get it all.”

  “Agnes,” Taylor said, trying to smile. “Agnes, honey, with the down payment and everything I put into the barn, that’s over a hundred and fifty thousand-”

  “The high price of being a bastard,” Agnes said. “You sign your half of the house over to me, and I’ll finish the cookbook with you and let you cater from the barn. Otherwise you lose everything.”

  Taylor tried one more charming smile, which slid right off Agnes, and then he nodded. “All right. But maybe when you’ve had time to think about us again-”

  “I never think about us,” Agnes said. “Us is deader than a doornail. I have a new Us, and I’m keeping it. The only thing I want you for is this rehearsal dinner and the wedding tomorrow. Cook. And show Garth how to do everything, because you need an assistant and he needs skills, and for God’s sake, try to remember whose side you’re on this time.”

  Tayl
or nodded and emptied her cupboards while she went to get a tray for him, not even trying to understand why he’d do anything like what he’d done to her, just crossing her fingers he’d stay on her side until the wedding was over or until Brenda found out what he was doing and came after him with whatever she was driving next. She was really going to miss Dr. Garvin.

  “We’re much obliged, Mister Jimbo,” Carpenter said as the shrimp boat edged up to the floating dock at Two Rivers three hours later.

  “Just Jimbo,” the burly man at the wheel of ancient boat said.

  Shane watched in the furious silence he’d maintained since they’d hauled Joey ashore on the closest island and then used Carpenter’s sat phone in its waterproof case-of course Carpenter had his phone in a waterproof case-to let Joey call for help.

  It had taken Jimbo a while to reach them, and Joey had done a guilt-stricken play by play over letting Agnes down on catering the rehearsal dinner, saying now they’d be sitting down to the dinner, now it was dessert, now they’d be breaking up for the bachelor and bachelorette parties, until Shane thought about holding his uncle’s head under water just to shut him up. It should have been a great relief to be on board the shrimp boat, watching Jimbo expertly reducing the throttle while turning the large wheel at the same time, but it was just one more thing that was pissing Shane off. He was supposed to be an expert, too, but if you judged by his performance the past couple of days, he was a fucking beginner, they’d have kicked him out of Hitman Prep, hell, they’d have kicked sand in his face at the Hitman Preschool-

  The boat touched the floats on the edge of Agnes’s dock with the slightest of bumps. Shane’s chest throbbed with pain, but it didn’t appear that anything had been broken, so at least his body hadn’t betrayed him-

  “I owe you one,” Joey said to Jimbo, touching the white bandage on his forehead.

  “Call me any time you need help, Joey,” Jimbo said.

  Shane could see lights on in every window in the main house and hear loud music thumping away in the barn, pretty much in time to the vein pulsing in his forehead -

  “Sounds like we made it back in time for the bachelor party, but not the dinner,” Carpenter said. “I sure would have liked to have had some of that turkey-”

  Shane ignored him, and Carpenter fell silent as they trooped off the boat onto the dock.

  Shane led the way up the metal plank to the high dock and then down the long walkway to land.

  “You know,” Joey said, “it wasn’t your fault-”

  Shane shot him a look, and Joey shut up.

  At the top of the dock Carpenter said, “My friend, you are taking this too much to heart,” and Shane faced him. “That’s three times- four if I count the time I ran into Casey Dean in the woods-that he’s beaten me. It’s obvious he uses women to front for him and protect him. That redhead in the room in Savannah with Marinelli was one of Casey Dean’s people, the same one with the RPG on the boat while he drove. And I let her go.”

  “You might be missing something,” Carpenter said.

  “That’s what I’m saying. I’ve been missing a lot of things,” Shane said with a glare at Joey. “But that’s done with.”

  He turned and went on and then stopped short of the house, hearing the sound of girls giggling and catching the silhouette of a skimpily clad woman in one of the upstairs windows. “Great,” he muttered.

  “Bachelorette party,” Carpenter said. “Lisa Livia told me that-”

  “I don’t care,” Shane snapped. He cocked his head, listening to the music coming from the barn.

  “Bachelor party,” Carpenter said. “You know, Casey Dean’s target, given that it’s not your uncle here-”

  “Hey,” Joey said in warning, but Carpenter spoke over him.

  “-and on the off chance it’s not you, will most likely be at the bachelor party. Although the bachelorette party could be interesting.”

  “Focus,” Shane said.

  “There’s a shower in the barn in the rear,” Carpenter said. “I could grab some clothes for us from my van. We could get cleaned up.” He sniffed. “You might not be aware of it, but we smell of-”

  “Get the clothes.” Shane turned on his heel and headed down the path for the barn. Carpenter disappeared into the dark, and Joey fell in beside Shane. They trudged up the path, their shoes making squeaking noises as water squished out of them.

  Shane reached the barn. The music was overwhelming, and he could see a crowd of men inside split into two distinct groups: a bunch of a-couple-years-out-of-college former frat boys on one side with mugs of beer in their hands acting stupid with several kegs surrounding them and Palmer looking miserable in the middle with a flamingo hat on his head; and a smaller bunch of goombahs from New Jersey seated on the other side, shot glasses in hand, a neat row of bottles stacked on one of their tables. Shane noticed Hammond standing off to one side, looking equally miserable, with neither group.

  “This looks like fun,” Joey muttered.

  “Downer invited the Don’s men?” Shane shook his head. First the flamingos, now this. He recognized a tall figure seated at the rear of the mobsters. “That’s the consigliere. You know him?”

  Joey shook his head. “Nah. It’s been twenty-five years since I seen any of those mutts.”

  “Let’s go around and take the back stairs.”

  They skirted around the building and climbed up the stairs to the loft apartment. “You use the shower first,” he told Joey. “Carpenter should be here in a minute.”

  Joey went into the bathroom while Shane went to the balcony door and cracked it open so he could look down on the barn floor. The frat boys were now chanting something Shane couldn’t make out, all looking in one direction at something underneath the balcony. Shane opened the door further to see, when the lights in the barn went out for a moment, then a spotlight, controlled by Downer-who else?-was trained in the direction everyone had been staring. Shane edged forward and looked down.

  Two of the groomsmen appeared below, pushing a large round bed toward the light. They stopped it and then ran to join their buddies. Shane noted that even the goombahs were perking up in anticipation.

  The music suddenly changed, going from the loud thumping techno-whatever that had been playing, to what sounded like monks chanting in Latin.

  Shane stepped back as Downer drunkenly turned the spotlight, which flickered over a slight figure dressed in black robes at the top of the stairs from the balcony. Downer corrected, bringing it back and fixing the figure in the glare: a woman dressed in a nun’s habit and dress.

  “This is going to be interesting,” Carpenter said, coming up behind Shane.

  The woman moved down the stairs, head bowed in apparent prayer-I’d be praying, too, with that crowd, Shane thought. She reached the bed, and the music abruptly shifted to Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” and the nun began to dance, dropping pieces of her habit, which came as a surprise to no one, although the frat boys roared anyway. She took off her wimple to reveal her long blonde hair, and then she dropped her robe to reveal a lace bustier, a black leather miniskirt, and fishnet stockings. Downer yelled, “I always wondered what they wore under there!” and his buddies roared again while Palmer continued to drink and look miserable.

  “And that’s the future of America,” Shane said.

  “Downer?” Carpenter said. “Surely not.”

  The blonde jumped on the bed and unhooked her bustier to reveal perfect breasts, covered with pasties of pink-sequined flamingos. When she bumped, her breasts bumped, and the flamingos’ sparkly heads bobbed. The flamingos were a terrible thing to do to a great pair of breasts, Shane thought, but you really couldn’t help but watch the shiny pink sequins, and after a minute, there was something almost Zen about it. Then she shimmied the miniskirt off her washboard abs and the hoot grew louder: she was wearing garters and a

  G-string, also decorated with sequined flamingos so that with every bump and grind, spangled flamingos bounced on her beautifu
l body. Jesus, Shane thought. That is truly tasteless. Agnes would look great in those flamingos.

  And she’d laugh her ass off, too, if he showed up and handed them to her.

  “That’s for you, buddy!” Downer said as the stripper began to de-flamingo herself toward her big finish. He slapped Palmer on the back, making him spill his drink.

  The goombahs watched, the consigliere in the back row with his arms folded. Evidently the flamingos weren’t impressing them.

  “Flamingos,” Carpenter said. “Tasteful.”

  “Downer,” Shane said. “Most likely to be shot by accident on purpose on Halloween.”

  Carpenter’s phone rang and he answered it, his face growing serious. “I’ll be right there,” he said finally, and when Shane looked curious, he said, “Lisa Livia. She had a really bad day. If we’re done, I’ll go see her.”

  “What’s going on?” Joey asked, coming out of the bathroom, rubbing his head with a towel. He looked out. “Flamingos?”

  Shane shook his head. “We’re done. I’m going to shower and then go find Agnes.”

  Carpenter nodded. “The flamingos got the blood going, didn’t they?”

  “Yeah,” Shane said. “Flamingos. They do it for me every time. If Casey Dean’s target is down there, he can have him.”

  By the time the rehearsal dinner ended, Agnes had been ready to go out and stand in the water with Cerise and Hot Pink and scream. Jefferson Keyes had pinched the bridesmaids, Evie had ignored him by drinking steadily, and Lisa Livia had stared like a basilisk at her mother throughout. That, Agnes thought, was entirely understandable, given that LL had gone out to the yacht and confronted Brenda about her theft, and Brenda had flat out denied it and then accused Lisa Livia of breaking her heart with her suspicion. Because LL hadn’t been quiet about it, the rest of the party had found out and had pretty much cut a wide swath around Brenda instead of making her the belle of the party as usual, so that by the end of the evening she was thin-lipped, her eyes narrow and sharp and often as not fixed on Agnes, who was getting all the compliments. Only Taylor had come through, serving a perfect dinner on the beautiful china he’d bought for his catering, and even he had kept up a running commentary that was practically a prospectus for Taylor’s Two Rivers Catering Service. “The best thing you can say about this dinner,” Agnes told Lisa Livia, tying on her Cranky Agnes apron to help with the cleanup, “is that it’s over.”