Cook's Night Out

by Joanne Pence

  He could almost hear Yosh smile before speaking. “Listen, two pieces of good news. When the nosy neighbor we met the other day—Ruiz Buyat’s neighbor—found out Buyat had been killed, he said he saw someone besides us near Buyat’s house. He made a tentative ID of Van Warren.”

  “Great! That might be enough to scare Warren into talking about Klaw.”

  “Not only that. The ballistics report came in from the bullet you pulled out of the wall near the mission—the bullet from the gun Warren fired at Angie.”

  “And?”

  “It matches the gun used to kill Patrick Devlin.”

  “Bingo! We can move on Warren tonight, right along with Klaw.”

  “Eleven o’clock, right?”

  “Be there—with backups.”

  Whether it was Yosh’s good news or time, his head was clearing rapidly. Suddenly, he remembered what had been in the back of his mind about Angie’s not being home. She was overseeing the caterers—that meant she’d be going to the auction an hour or two before it started. She might already be there.

  “Liar! Cheat! Scum of the earth! Garbage!”

  “Miss Amalfi, that isn’t the way to talk to a man of the cloth.”

  “Man of the cloth, my eye! How could you do it? All those people who gave you donations! All those people counting on you! And you were going to cheat them!”

  “The rich ones won’t care. They’ve got their tax deductions.”

  Angie tried and tried to loosen the ropes that bound her wrists, but nothing was working. Her wrists were raw, the boiler room was well over a hundred degrees, and she was steaming. In more ways than one. “Tax deductions! Is that all donations mean to you? Those people wanted something good to be done with their belongings. They gave them to help people. They trusted you and your worthy cause. Ha!”

  “It is worthy!” The reverend was sobbing openly. “I wasn’t going to take everything. Just the money and a few trinkets. Anyway, Mary Ellen and Sheila will be wonderful caretakers of the mission. They know what it’s all about. They’re organized. Besides, it keeps them off the streets.”

  “Just the money? I can’t believe you! I can’t believe any of this! I should be out looking for Paavo and instead I’m stuck here with a cheap fraud like you!”

  “You’re stuck with me? You’re the one who doesn’t have all her oars in the water. I don’t want to be here!” He sniffled long and hard, then bawled, “I don’t want to know you!”

  “How dare you! None of this is my fault!”

  “No? If you hadn’t gone sticking your nose in places it didn’t belong, we wouldn’t be in this mess now.”

  “Right, we’d be upstairs, with no idea we were going to turn into confetti at the stroke of eight!”

  “At least our last hours would have been happy ones!”

  “You wretched man!” She kicked him in the leg with her very high heel.

  “You struck me! If I were a Catholic priest, I could excommunicate you for that.”

  “It’d be worth it.” She tried to kick him again, but he somehow managed to swing his leg out of her way.

  “Ha! You missed!” he cried.

  The next time she didn’t.

  Paavo slowly dressed to go to the auction and find Angie. Twisting, turning, and bending to put his clothes on was agony. He wrapped a bandage around his ribs, but it didn’t help the pain and seemed to do little more than restrict his breathing. Earlier, when he stepped into his bedroom, he’d seen that his bed had been made and his pajamas neatly folded. When he picked up the pajamas, the scent of Fleur wafted over him, and he’d realized that she’d been here waiting for him last night. Yosh had said she’d been calling Homicide. She must have been really worried. He breathed in her perfume once more, shutting his eyes a moment. He would go to her as quickly as he could. Right now, she was probably running around with the caterers making sure everything was perfect. He smiled at the image. He knew she was going to be madder than a hornet with a smashed nest when he insisted she leave, but it couldn’t be helped. A cornered Klaw could be very dangerous. He wanted her well away and safe.

  The ringing of the phone interrupted his reverie.

  “How are you feeling, Inspector?”

  He recognized the voice. “I expect that was your little welcoming party, Klaw. Where’s Snake Belly?”

  “Tsk, tsk. Such a shame. Mr. Belly expired shortly after you arrived.”

  “Damn you, Klaw!”

  “Don’t damn me, I had nothing to do with it. By the way, I thought you might have missed seeing that little girlfriend of yours. She looks exceeding lovely tonight. Like an ice cream cone. Good enough to lick.”

  Goddamn the man! “Don’t you touch her, Klaw. If you do anything to hurt her—”

  “You have a completely wrong impression of me, Smith. I’m really a nice guy. I can be very nice to Angelina. I was always very nice to your sister, as she was to me. If she’d only cooperated with us, she wouldn’t have died. Too bad. She was the best lay I ever had.”

  Paavo slammed the phone down so hard the receiver cracked in two.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Paavo threw the car into gear and roared out of the parking space in front of his house. He wanted nothing more than to get his hands around Klaw’s neck and squeeze. He wouldn’t let go until Klaw was not only dead, but stiff and rotting.

  He turned onto California Street and blinked hard. His vision continued to fade in and out, sometimes clear, sometimes double. Calm down, he told himself. Angie is at the Palace of the Legion of Honor. Okay. Klaw was with her, but so were lots of other people. The caterers, the volunteers. They’d all be talking with her, watching her. Even the reverend would be there, which wasn’t saying much. But Hodge wouldn’t let anything happen to Angie.

  As the city streets went by, though, Paavo had to wonder if Hodge or anyone else would be able to stop Klaw. He glanced at his watch. Seven-fifteen. The auction would be starting in a little more than an hour. The customers were probably already arriving. Angie would be busy greeting them, playing hostess, seeing that everyone had plenty to eat and drink so that they’d be in a good mood once the sale started.

  He remembered how she’d worried and fussed about that centerpiece, about everything she was involved in for tonight’s auction. He swore that if Klaw did anything to hurt her, he’d kill him, plain and simple.

  He made a right turn onto Lincoln Drive. The road headed upward, first through a golf course, and then, as the hill became steeper, through groves of redwoods. At the very top of the hill was a large paved parking lot, and in the southern corner, backing into the trees, was the beautiful Palace.

  He was only minutes away from it, minutes away from facing Klaw, from the confrontation the two had been heading toward for twenty years.

  He pulled over to the side of the road. Since Klaw had returned to the city, he’d done nothing but taunt Paavo, with actions and accusations. And today he’d called about Angie and made threats against her, making sure Paavo would show up at the auction. Now he knew why those goons hadn’t bruised his face. Klaw had planned this, too.

  He started the engine again and continued the drive onto Lincoln Parkway. Cars filled most of the lot. He parked at the far edge and picked up his cellular phone.

  “Help! Help!”

  “I thought women knew how to scream.”

  “I am screaming, you two-bit charlatan! I’m hoarse from screaming, if you must know.”

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” he cried.

  “Don’t start crying again. Tug at the ropes. They’ve got to loosen sometime.”

  “They’re not! My wrists hurt. My arms hurt. My feet hurt! Call for help, Miss Amalfi, please! I’m so tired of this.”

  “Help! Help!”

  “It’s not loud enough! Can’t you do anything right?”

  “I’ll show you what I can do right!”

  “Ouch!”

  Paavo scanned the crowd of San Francisco’s monied elite. Dre
sses that cost as much as a month or more of his salary, diamonds, and pearls adorned the assembled. He had spent some time quietly milling among the patrons, trying to find Angie or the reverend. To stand and walk without limping took concentration, and even then at times he needed to steady himself against a wall or chair when waves of pain struck.

  Early on, he’d spotted Klaw huddled in a corner with Van Warren, and ducked out of their sight. A little later he found Lili and spoke with her.

  He circled back to Klaw. As he approached, Klaw looked his way, as if each of them could sense the other’s presence. “What did you do with her?” Paavo asked.

  Klaw’s gaze held his, each of them silently measuring the other. “The good inspector,” Klaw said finally. “I didn’t expect this. Come along. I’ll take you to her.” He left the great hall and headed down a long hallway. Paavo gave a little shake of his head, trying to will his sight to clear, the constant burning in his ribs to ease.

  At the end of the hall, Klaw opened the door to an office and waited for Paavo to enter first.

  The room was empty. Paavo turned a questioning look on Klaw.

  “She’s not far,” Klaw said.

  Warren stepped behind Paavo. “I’ll take your gun now, Smith.”

  Paavo glanced over his shoulder at Warren. Warren was holding a .44 Magnum on him.

  Klaw laughed. “I can’t believe it was this easy. I thought you were a lot smarter, Smith.”

  “Do you plan to shoot me with all those people down the hall?”

  “You think they’re going to save you?” Klaw demanded.

  “I don’t know that it matters.”

  “Oh, ho, pretty cool, Smith.” Klaw’s face twisted into pure hate. “You won’t be so cool when Warren pulls the trigger. Put the gun on the table.”

  Paavo removed it from his shoulder holster and set it down. “If you wanted to shoot me in the back, Klaw, you could have done it time and time again over these past few weeks,” Paavo said. “You want more than that. A lot more, I think.”

  “Very insightful of you. Yes, one of the things I’m going to enjoy is for you to sweat out your death. Yours and that of the meddling little creature you screw around with. I’m going to enjoy watching you beg me for her life, if not for your own.”

  Paavo’s gaze was hooded, his eyes cold, dark, detached. “Klaw,” he said with an air of nonchalance, “you sound like a nineteen-forties B movie. All talk. Where’s Angie?”

  Klaw’s face turned deep red, and the suave facade was gone. The hoodlum, the bully, the killer—they were all there in his mad, glowing eyes. “We’ll see how long you’re bored, Smith. We’ll see how long before you come crying to me to spare you both. You said you wanted to see her? Right this way.”

  They led him down to the basement. Klaw opened the door, and Paavo walked into the sweltering heat of the boiler room.

  “Paavo,” Angie cried, her voice raw and desperate.

  It took all his self-control not to lunge at Klaw’s throat at the sight of her, her eyes wide and frightened, her arms pulled back and tied to a heavy pipe.

  Hodge was with her, looking even more frightened, and tied the same way. He squeaked out in abject misery, “Oh, no! Not you, too!”

  Klaw held the gun as Warren pulled Paavo’s arms back around a pipe a few feet away from the other two. Warren tied his arms tightly, then, as he walked away, gave a sharp elbow jab to Paavo’s ribs. Paavo bit down hard on his lip, doing his best not to show the pain he was in, not to black out from it. He saw Angie flinch, her tearful gaze meeting his with sympathy and love.

  “This should give you something to talk about,” Klaw said. “See the wristwatch on the floor? When it reaches eight o’clock, a bomb will go off. A bomb located right above this area. When it explodes, the floor will collapse on top of you. It may kill you immediately, but if not, when the fire hits the gas in the boiler, it’ll blow up the building, and you right along with it.”

  “It’s a coward’s trick, Klaw.” Paavo’s head lolled back against the pipe, perspiration on his brow from the blow to his ribs, but his gaze was deadly, his eyes burning into Klaw. “Blowing up a building filled with innocent people. If you want to move against me, let’s do it. Set the others free.”

  Klaw smirked. “You, my good inspector, are but an added highlight to my plan, not nearly the heart of it. I’ll have to be content thinking about you watching the minutes tick by and knowing that no one can save you or your pretty girlfriend. I’ll think of how you’ll feel at that last moment when the bomb goes off, before the shock wave and fire hit.” He smiled malevolently. “It’s a thought that will warm my heart for years to come. It’s been a pleasure, Smith.”

  Smiling cheerfully, Klaw and Warren left the room.

  “Paavo,” Angie cried, “what did they do to you? You’re hurt.”

  “Who cares if he’s hurt?” Hodge shouted. “I was counting on him to get us out of here!”

  Paavo glared at the door, his hatred pulsating in his ears, throughout his very being. It took him a moment before he even heard Angie’s question. “I’m fine. It’s you—”

  “I looked all over for you,” she said. “God, I should have warned you not to come here! I should have stayed away! I should have listened to you! I’m such an idiot!”

  “That’s no news bulletin,” Hodge muttered.

  “Do I have to listen to your insults at a time like this?” Angie said through gritted teeth.

  “He’s the one you should yell at, not me! He knew Klaw was no good.” Hodge turned to Paavo. “How could you let him lead you down here?”

  “Paavo knew it was a trap,” Angie said, her gaze never leaving Paavo’s face. Her next words were for him. “But you had to find us, didn’t you? You let him take you….” Tears filled her eyes and she couldn’t say any more.

  “Fat lot of good that does us,” Hodge muttered. “Now three of us get blown to smithereens, instead of only two!”

  “I didn’t know what he’d done to you,” Paavo said. His eyes caressed her, and she would never again doubt his feelings for her. “Did he hurt you?”

  “No. He took my necklace and earrings. Nothing more,” she said. “I love you so much, Paavo.”

  “Stop with the mush already!” Hodge yelled. “Who gives a flying you-know-what, which I’d say if I weren’t a man of God. I want out of here.” He wriggled and squirmed against his bonds.

  “You shut your mouth!” Angie ordered. “This so-called reverend, Paavo, is nothing but a snake in the grass. A cheap con man. He was going to steal the auction’s money.”

  “There would still be enough left for Mary Ellen and Sheila to do good deeds.”

  “So you’re only a bit of a thief? That’s sort of like being just a little bit pregnant. You…you cut-rate Billy Sunday!”

  “Look who’s talking. A worker at McDonald’s knows more about cooking than you do!”

  “Fred Flintstone could give a better sermon than you!”

  “You sausage-stuffing succotash slinger!”

  “You prayer-plying prig poacher!”

  “Stop it, both of you!” Paavo commanded. “Now!”

  Angie and Hodge clamped their mouths shut and gawked at him.

  “We’ll figure out how to get ourselves and everyone else out of here,” he said quietly. “But you both need to calm down.”

  “How can I be calm when you’re in danger because of me?” Angie said.

  “It’s not your fault, Angie. I knew exactly what I was doing.”

  She began to cry in earnest.

  He hated seeing her cry. “Don’t, Angie, please.”

  “For once the cop’s right!” Hodge said petulantly. “First I’m in danger of being blown up, now I’m in danger of drowning.”

  At that moment they heard the click of the basement door. Then it slowly began to open.

  “Ladies and gentlemen.” Axel Klaw jumped onto the platform and took the microphone, his coloring high. “Last call for hors d’oe
uvres. The big auction starts in about forty-five minutes. It’ll be all you ever hoped for—and more! Fireworks! Action!” He held his arms upward. “Eat, drink, and be merry,” he shouted, “for tomorrow you might be dead!”

  Everyone laughed. Klaw stepped off the platform and whirled around until he spotted Van Warren in the corner. Warren gave him a thumbs-up. Klaw punched the sky.

  Too bad he hadn’t gone into acting—or politics. He sure could work a room. He was a regular David Letterman.

  He looked at his watch. Too bad there was so little time left. If there’d been more, he might have tried a routine or two.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Klaw stood with Warren beside a pillar. “It’s almost seven-forty,” Klaw said. “We’ll say we’re going backstage now to get ready for the auction. People are asking where Hodge is, damn it. I’m telling them he was delayed trying to find shelter for a widow and her three kids. These Goody Two-shoes eat up that kind of crap.”

  “We need to get out in five minutes or less,” Warren reminded him.

  “Don’t you think I know that? Where’s Lili, anyway?”

  “Last time I saw her, she was talking to some rich guy from Silicon Valley. Maybe she wants a job in high tech.”

  Klaw frowned. “Or maybe she thought he said silicone. She’s starting to sag.”

  “Did you tell her to meet us out by your van?”

  “Hell, no. She’s more trouble than she’s worth. It’s you and me, Warren.”

  “Oh, Mr. Clausen.” Mary Ellen Hitchcock hurried up to him and placed her hand on his arm, smiling prettily. “Isn’t this a lovely turnout? Everything looks so beautiful. I can’t understand where Reverend Hodge is, though.”

  Klaw stepped back from her. He never could stand the cherubic, chatty type. “The reverend was delayed, Mary Ellen. He’ll make the start, though, don’t worry.”

  “But even Angie Amalfi is late,” Mary Ellen continued, puzzled. “I thought for sure she’d be here to listen to people ooh and aah over her centerpiece. It’s simply exquisite! Everybody’s talking about it, trying to figure out how she got that big angel inside the lattice ball. They’re trying to find seams, or spots where she tried to fudge—so to speak—by melting chocolate back together, and they can’t.”