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Screwy: The grenades were now all taking about five long seconds to explode once they found their target. Maybe when he reloaded it was a different kind of ammo? I had no idea, but there was a pattern.

Orange flash, and this one landed in the front shovel part of the excavator. It didn’t go off for five whole seconds.

Shrapnel clattered inside the barge and pinged off the steel edge inches from my shoulder.

Gustav had pretty much hit every target where someone could hide, though he couldn’t see the small frontloader where Bridget was konked out.

I held my breath.

I listened.

Sure enough, I heard footsteps approach and stop somewhere over by the excavator.

Gustav whispered, “Yop.
Yop
, where is Yop…”

Poor lovesick dummy would soon walk along the bulkhead far enough to see me by the light of the Pathmark, lying on the outer edge of the barge.

I should have slipped into the canal right then, but I talked myself out of it, reasoning that I would be a sitting duck out there in the water, an easy target, and no way was I going to try to swim underwater in that canal, much less get wounded by shrapnel and drown, inhaling a lungful of algae-laden oily scuzz water. Who wants that as a last sensation before death? What if I inhaled a spent condom in that last glimmering moment? I decided I would rather be blown up making a run for it. Or maybe do something idiotic like roll into the container with my coat out before me and catch the grenade he fired at me, throw it back.

Footsteps came closer along the bulkhead.

I tensed, my eyes stinging with the futility of having no good choices.

There was a shout, then a struggle.

I lifted my head.

Silhouetted by the flaming welding truck in the next yard, Gustav was struggling with Eye Bags. I recognized him by the neck brace. Obviously he’d been hiding somewhere around the excavator.

I jumped up, holding my overcoat as a shield, and ran for it. New plan: Run and don’t look back.

Gustav glared at me, pushed his weapon under his assailant’s arm, and fired. At me.

My overcoat walloped me in the chest like a Giants linebacker. A bolt of pain cracked through my chest, spun me backward. I was looking down at the water, light from the Pathmark snaking on the oily surface.

I fell.

There was just air.

I thonked down into the bottom of the barge, on my shoulder. I tried to move that arm, and it didn’t want to. I moved the other arm, and the trench coat fell to one side.

So did the live grenade.

It lay there two feet in front of me hissing, like a cobra ready to strike me in the eyes.

Grabbing the grenade, I got a fistful of lava—the damn thing was kind of hot, times two.

I sent it toward the top of the bulkhead.

Clunk
.

Splash
.

I’d missed. It had gone between the barge and the bulkhead.

There was a shout, and another, bigger splash—one of them had fallen into the river.

BOOM!

The side of the barge jolted me, and water rained down from the explosion.

Gustav or Eye Bags? I didn’t really like either one. I just hoped whoever fell in and got blown up had the grenade launcher with him.

I heard heavy breathing from the bulkhead.

Gustav or Eye Bags?

My left hand was in flames of pain from the burning hot grenade. My right shoulder felt dislocated. Ribs definitely cracked—the impact from taking that shot almost point-blank was ferocious.

“Yop!”

Had I really heard that?

“Yop, I see you!”

I gasped and rolled onto my back.

There was that lovesick idiot, pointing the gun at me. It was Eye Bags that was fish bait, not Gustav.

“Good-bye, Yop!”

I closed my eyes this time, but the orange burst of the grenade launcher penetrated my eyelids.

BAM!

THONK-THANK!

I heard Gustav’s footsteps retreating. If he stood there the shrapnel would kill him, too.

Where was the cobra? There should have been a cobra. I opened my eyes and searched my surroundings.

No cobra, no hissing grenade—but I had heard the grenade hit bottom near me and then hit the corner.

In the air above me I heard a whirring sound, like a pigeon coming in to land on a statue. Or the wings of the angel of death coming in to land on me.

BOOM!

Blindfolded by my brain for the execution, I passed out.

Hard to say how much time passed until an EMS guy was shining a light in my eyes and talking into a radio. In and out, I remember being lifted from the barge in a plastic litter and strapped in place. Someone said, “Jeez, this guy is heavy!”

Lights were flashing everywhere, and I think I saw Detective Doh before I was suddenly in an ambulance swaying back and forth with tubes hanging down all over the place and the siren wailing. It was then that I managed to focus on the Hispanic EMS guy sitting next to me.

“I guess I made it.”

He tried to laugh at what he thought was a joke. “Made what?”

“Anybody else make it? The kid?”

“Kid?” He looked a little anxious. “There was a child?”

“Kid with the weapon?”

He looked confused. Then he did a long blink. “You mean the other fella, with the bandages?”

“He make it?”

“Leg blown off below the knee. He was picked up trying to hail a cab on Hamilton Avenue.”

He probably didn’t know, and I didn’t ask, but I wondered if the car he stopped was a Blue Diamond car.

The EMS guy patted my shoulder. “Hey, keep quiet now. You’re on some heavy drugs. You don’t want to tell me anything that could get you in trouble. The cops question us.”

“He shot it at me three times, but I made it.”

The EMS guy was trying to ignore me, but he couldn’t help himself and asked, “Three times? I would say that you, my friend, are a cat that just used one or two lives.”

“He missed the first time and blew up those gates. The second I caught in my coat.”

“Broken ribs.”

“Threw it back.”

“Second degree burns on your hand. It’ll hurt for a while, but it’ll be OK.”

I didn’t say anything, just closed my eyes and replayed the
THONK-THANK
and the flying pigeon sound above the barge.

“Hey.” The EMS guy had a hand on my shoulder. “What about the third?”

“Bounce.” I tried to smile, but even that hurt. “It bounced.” Ithad hit the floor, then the wall, and sailed high in the air—that was the strange pigeon sound I’d heard just before passing out.

“You are a lucky cat, my friend. Now lay still and shut up.”

I closed my eyes, and supposed maybe it was more than luck.

THAT FRACAS ALL HAPPENED SATURDAY
, early. If you were to define fracas, the episode with Gustav and his little grenade launcher fit the bill and the rest of the bird, right down to the toes.

By Sunday noon I was home at my abode, the one with the Godzilla door and the Cuban stylings of Bebo Valdés on the stereo. I was on my back deck, overlooking sunny restaurant patios and residential backyards littered with fallen leaves. It was Indian summer; a tropical depression had pushed up from the south, and the temps were in the low sixties. Bebo’s piano tinkled and cha-chaed through the screen door. The remains of a Cuban sandwich were on the patio table—there’s a fine Cuban café around the corner that I like to order from pre-football on Sundays. I was on the phone.

“Max.”

“Tommy?”

“You sound surprised.”

“I am.”

“Why?”

“Out of the hospital?”

“Out.”

“Injured?”

“Aches and pains.”

“You actually get shot with an automatic grenade launcher?”

“So where are we with the museum? The Hoffman, Le Marr, and Ramirez. I see from the paper that Atkins got caught trying to put the Mondrians back into the Whitbread’s storage.”

“I read that. Still not clear.”

“Seems like the cops pretty much put all the pieces together. McCracken replaced the Mondrians Atkins stole from storage to get her fired. She went to Dunwoody for forgeries, and from there a shady business relationship began.”

I had passed along a few tidbits to the cops through Detective Doh. He didn’t know how I came across the information, and didn’t ask. I figured after the fracas with Gustav, his superiors might have been as grumpy as he was. A little peace offering from me.

“So the Whitbread’s art storage was an art store. McCracken was financing the museum shortfalls.”

“That’s the jigsaw, almost complete. Now we’ll see if McCracken makes bail.”

“Where are the Hoffman, Le Marr, and Ramirez?”

“Have you asked McCracken?”

Max cleared his throat. “Cops still haven’t let us talk to her.”

“Well, I’ll tell you, then. The Hoffman, Ramirez, and Le Marr are still in storage at the Whitbread.”

“Fact?”

“Fact.” I’d had a call from Doh minutes before this call. “They didn’t get the chance to move them out to Dunwoody yet, just get them off the walls. What with me snooping around, they were playing their cards close to the vest. The goofballs got anxious when the payoff went missing and with the killings, so when they pressured Molly Lee for the money she swiped from Huey’s locker, Robay put the bite on them. So, Max, where’s my cut?”

“Your what?”

“Max, don’t grudge me this. What I went through for these paintings? I deserve a million dollars. How many other stolen paintings did all this uncover? Dozens, I’ll bet.”

“That’s good how?”

“I stopped a lot more from being stolen.”

“We may have to pay off on those dozen that were shipped out of storage through Dunwoody. The museum will submit claims.”

I says, “Even though the museum itself stole the paintings?”

So he says, “Not the museum, one of their employees.”

“Same thing.”

“A court will probably have to decide that.” I could hear Max’s polite, crooked little smile over the phone.

“So what are you saying?”

“It is United Southern Assurance’s position that the Hoffman, Le Marr, and Ramirez were not technically stolen. They never left the museum.”

I was beginning to feel hostile. “Max, you asked me to find the paintings. I found them.”

“We asked you to recover stolen paintings. They were only in the process of being stolen but had not technically been stolen.”

I says, “Looks like I’ll be seeing you in court, too.”

So he says, “You hear about the Cloisters?”

“No.” The Cloisters is a museum that looks like a medieval monastery, in upper Manhattan, perched on a hill, has a lot of monastic art from the 1400s, like you would expect. “I’ve been kind of busy.”

“They had a roof leak, some art got moved to another room for safekeeping.”

“Went missing?”

“Can you cover?”

“You have to be kidding me, Max. You stiff me on the Whitbread and now you expect me to go chasing relics and icons for you?”

“Let me know by tomorrow. Pays fifteen.”

The bastard hung up. Do I need to express my conflicting emotions at that juncture?

I checked my e-mail. I had one from Blaise.

I took that to mean he passed Gustav’s gun to the cops in exchange for some favors.

Another e-mail confirmed my FTD order. I sent flowers to Walter.

My phone hummed.

“Carol, honey, tell me you have good news.”

“How are you today? Want me to bring you a heating pad?”

“News?”

“Gustav is still alive, believe it or not. Jumping around out onHamilton Avenue without a leg, can you imagine? And you’ll never guess what car service he stopped.”

“Blue Diamond.”

“Someone tell you that?”

“What about the thirty thousand?”

“Bridget skipped town. With the money, not that the cops would have let you keep it anyway. They didn’t find any cash in that green loft. Just the wig and sunglasses she wore when posing as Molly Lee. Her real name was Holly McGirr.”

I think I was beginning to feel worse than when they brought me into the hospital. How Bridget French Molly Lee Holly McGirr slipped out of that concrete plant was anybody’s guess. To look at her history you had to figure her for a survivor.

“That sucks, Carol. I needed that money. The pink monkey was expecting his due.” My brain started considering chasing down those icons and relics for fifteen. I’d miss this week’s payment to the pink monkey, but would at least maybe have something for him next week. Things had come full circle, and I was right back where I was but worse. Except for the homicidal maniac Slavic sniper, of course. I wanted to cry, I kid you not.

“Pink monkey?”

“Vince Scanlon.”

“Pink monkey?”

“Never mind. At least tell me I’m straight with the NYPD.”

“They won’t come knocking, but I think you’d do best to stay under their radar for a while.”

That was good news. I was a little worried that maybe McCracken knew my part in the previous Sunday’s heist. Then again, why would Bridget have told her? Anyway, McCracken would have fingered me right away and I’d have gone from the hospital to the precinct, do not pass go.

“Not exactly my fault a love puppy with a grenade launcher comes after me.”

“I wish I had better news about that money. There was a note.”

“A note?”

“From Bridget. To you.”

“Great, more notes to me from women who’ve skipped town.” I sighed. Isn’t there some sort of limit on how many troublesome double-crossing women a person should have to suffer in a lifetime? There should be. “Read it.”

“Tommy: Take good care of Turner. Bridget.”

My vision swam. I’d managed to get Pet Food Pete on the phone from the hospital the day before, and he and a bunch of other pet food store owners in the area managed to find homes for the Fuzz Face Four. Otherwise it was the ASPCA gas chambers for them.

Now I was being saddled with another cat? By another trouble woman who skipped out? You had to be shitting me.