1 Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun (29 page)

"I'm starving," said Nick.

"What are we gonna eat?" asked Alex.

He and Nick began to open and inspect the contents of every
cupboard and drawer, for what I couldn't imagine. It wasn't like I
hid Hershey bars inside the crock-pot. Not that we still had a crock-pot. Ricardo-and at this point I had absolutely no doubt
the burglar was Ricardo-had helped himself to all the small appliances as well. However, my normally reasonable and understanding sons reverted to whining babies when hungry. And like
babies, they needed feeding every two to three hours or things got
ugly.

Having checked every nook and cranny of the kitchen, the boys
moved on to the mud room. "Jeez, Mom! He even took the dog
and cat food."

"And Ralph's bird seed," added Alex.

I let loose a string of four-letter words that made Mama blush.
"Anastasia!"

Too bad. Between the few dollars in my wallet and the forty left
in my checking account, I might be able to feed three adults and
two teenagers for a day or two. Tops.

Trimedia cut payroll checks every two weeks. I wouldn't see another dime until next Thursday. I'd never stretch fifty dollars or so
until then. And that left nothing for the menagerie. Not to mention gas for the car.

And I didn't even want to think about the vet bill. Mama and
Lucille were responsible for Catherine the Great and Devil Dog,
but what would the vet charge for the care and feeding of a Prozac-riddled parrot?

Harley and Fogarty returned, shaking their heads. "Looks like
he helped himself to anything of value," said Harley. "If I remember, you had a computer in the apartment, right?"

"Yes"

"It's gone. So's the lawn mower and snow thrower. I don't remember what else you had in the garage in the way of garden gizmos. If you had a leaf blower, he helped himself to that, too."

"We'll need a list of the missing items," said Fogarty. "So will
the insurance company."

I wondered how long it took our homeowner's policy to pay
out a claim on a robbery. I was still waiting for a check from the
damage Ricardo inflicted Monday.

In all the years of owning the house, we'd never had to place
ourselves in the insurance company's trademark good hands. Now,
two claims in a week. I wondered how much that would increase
my premium-assuming the good hands people didn't simply
wipe their hands of me, since I was fast becoming an extremely
poor risk.

We had to eat. I saw but one option. "Mama, I'm going to need
to borrow some money."

"Don't worry, dear, I'll get my purse."

She headed for the bedroom.

The rest of us returned to the living room where Lucille waited
impatiently, her arms still folded across her chest, her mouth set in
its classic grimace. I explained the latest catastrophe, adding, "I'll
need to borrow whatever you've got in the way of cash in order to
buy food for all of us."

"Only if you promise to buy Manifesto's regular food, not that
cheap dry crap you forced on him"

Unfortunately, I knew she was serious. Mephisto came before
her grandchildren. "Be reasonable, Lucille. A can of that stuff costs
as much as a quart of milk"

"He's having digestive problems, thanks to your selfishness!"

And I was getting a whopper of an ulcer thanks to her. "Look,
Lucille-"

Before I could finish, Mama returned empty-handed from the
bedroom. "My purse is missing," she said. "My wallet. My credit
cards. My check book. My passport. All gone."

"And Lucille's purse?" I asked.

Mama shook her head.

"Now what do we do?" asked Nick.

"You can have whatever I've got, Mom. Alex reached into the
back pocket of his jeans. His jaw dropped. "I don't believe it! That
creep pinched my wallet."

Nick checked his pocket. "Mine, too"

That left me with no choice. I couldn't let my family starve to
death. Not when I had fifty-thousand dollars in marked bills
locked in my car. Batswin and Robbins would have to understand.

Fogarty and Harley waited for back-up to take their place
watching the house, then left to file their report. As soon as they
were gone, I scrawled an IOU on a scrap of paper and added it to
the envelope with the Burberry receipt. Then I removed two crisp
hundred dollar bills from one of the stacks and stuck the envelope
in the tote with the money.

But the thought of continuing to ride around with fifty thousand dollars in a car without an alarm system creeped me out. So I
decided to freeze the assets. Literally. After stuffing the moneyladen tote in the empty freezer, I headed for the nearest twentyfour hour supermarket.

At ten-thirty on a Friday night, most people had better things to
do than push a shopping cart up and down the aisles of Shop-rite.
Once upon a time when I led a predictably normal suburban,
middle-class life, I was one of them. No more. I sailed up one aisle
and down the next of the near-empty supermarket, filling my cart
with low-priced store brands. Cheap was good. Cheap on sale was
even better.

As I stood in front of the spaghetti aisle, studying the little shelf
labels to figure out which brand was the best bargain per pound,
my cell phone rang. I fished it out of my purse and looked at the
display. Private Call. Not a good sign. I pushed the button. "Hello?"

"You set me up, bitch."

Even though I was prepared to hear it, I nearly dropped the
phone at the sound of Ricardo's menacing voice. "No! I went to
the mall. I did everything like you said. I waited. You never called."

"The mall was crawling with cops. I warned you not to tell anyone.

"I didn't!"

"So they just happened to be hanging around for the hell of it,
huh?"

"I have your money."

"In marked bills, no doubt. I wasn't born yesterday, Sweet
Cheeks. I've been keeping an eye on you. I know what you've been
up to."

"You've got it all wrong."

"Oh yeah? How many other people in Westfield have their
phones bugged and cops watching their houses?"

"How do you know that?"

"I told you. I've been keeping an eye on you. I even know where
you are right now. No food in the house, huh?"

I gasped, spinning around to check up and down the aisle. I
saw no one except a bored-looking teenage clerk stocking cans of
tomato sauce, and he wasn't talking on a phone.

Even though I suspected Ricardo had broken into my house,
assaulted my family, drugged the pets, and robbed us blind, hearing him confirm it was like getting flattened by a Hummer. I
leaned against the shelf of spaghetti for support. "You've taken everything I have. There's nothing left. Leave me alone."

"What I took doesn't even make a dent in what Karl owed me. I
want my money."

"I don't have it!"

"Look, Sweet Cheeks, I know Karl had the money. I helped him
get it."

"What do you mean?"

"Your husband was one mean son of a bitch. I really admired
him for that. Balls of steel. Lousy gambler, though. Too bad he had
to die. I was racking up a nice piece of change from all those sucker
bets he placed. The sap couldn't pick a winner if it sat on his head."

"What are you saying?"

"You know that accident his mother had? The hit-and-run on
Queens Boulevard?"

"What about it?"

"That was no accident. It was a set-up to knock her off so Karl
could get his hands on the money she had stashed in her apartment."

My brain went numb. A sickening feeling settled in my stomach. "Karl tried to kill his mother?"

"His idea but I drove. So's he wouldn't chicken out at the last
minute. Amateurs. You never know if you can trust 'em or not.

"That broad's one tough bitch, though. And lucky. I woulda
nailed her good except some SOB in a pick-up cut me off at the
last minute. So's I only wound up winging her.

"Then Karl, he comes up with another plan. While she's in the
hospital, he helps himself to the dough, then torches the place to
cover up the theft."

"I don't believe you. Karl wouldn't do something like that.
You're lying."

He snickered. "They always say the wife's the last to know."

My legs gave way, and I slumped to the floor. A wave of nausea
swept over me. Eighteen years of marriage and no clues I'd shared
a bed with a lying, cheating, murdering Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
"Three people died in that fire."

"We all gotta go sometime, Sweet Cheeks" He paused for a
moment, then continued, "Some sooner than later, if you get my
drift."

I got it all right. And it set my heart pounding into my throat.

"So's you see, I know Karl had the money."

"Why didn't he give it to you right away? Karl died weeks after
that fire."

"The cops picked me up on some bogus warrant. Took a while
to get sprung. Good for nothing shit lawyers. When I got out, I
contacted Karl. We made arrangements for him to hand over the
dough. Only he never showed."

No, instead Karl had hopped a plane to Las Vegas. I suppose all
that money sitting around for weeks had been too much of a
temptation for him. Then, after he gambled away Ricardo's money, Karl dropped dead, leaving me to deal with Lucille, the debt, the
bills, and Ricardo.

"Why are you telling me all this?"

"So's you know I mean business, Sweet Cheeks. You want to
keep your kids healthy, you come up with the money."

"How? I'm broke. Karl left me destitute. There's no insurance
money. He drained our bank accounts. Maxed out the credit
cards."
"

"Not my problem, Sweet Cheeks. Sell the house if you have to."

"The bank will take the profit to pay off the home equity loan."

"There is another way," he said.

"What?"

I have some friends you could go work for. Evenings. Weekends. Easy money." He sniggered. "They run a service-type business. Classy looking broad like you could work off that debt in no
time."

I shuddered at the suggestion. "Tempting as the offer sounds,
thanks but no thanks. I'll find some other way to raise the money."

"I ain't got forever, Sweet Cheeks, and I'm still not convinced
you ain't got the dough stashed someplace. But hey, I got a soft
spot for brunettes. Since you're new to all this, I'll cut you a break.
You got one more week. But this time you keep your trap shut. I
find you working with the cops again, and the deal's off. Capisce?"

He hung up before I could answer.

DINNER THAT NIGHT CONSISTED of store-brand peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches on day-old, half-priced bread. Carrot sticks
on the side with a milk chaser. Quick, cheap, and covering all of
the major food groups. So I didn't feel too guilty, especially since
I'd bought whole wheat bread instead of white.

Something Ricardo had said kept niggling at the edges of my
exhausted brain cells. As I munched on my sandwich, I replayed
the conversation in my head. "He knew too much!" I said, slapping
my hand on the table.

"Who knew too much?" asked Alex.

"Dad?" asked Nick.