Whose Number Is Up, Anyway?. Stevi Mittman

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ thinks it’s a great idea and I should pull out my cell phone and call Drew immediately. This, of course, has nothing to do with his fondness for Drew and his fervent wish that I marry the handsome detective.

      Dana, picking all the cheese off her pizza and giving me a look which implies I should be doing the same, tells Jesse that he—and I—are just using Max as an excuse to call Drew. But, unlike her usual carping tone that implies I’m leading Drew on and ruining her life, she sounds like she’s actually teasing me. Could she be growing up? Adjusting to the fact that her father and I will not get back together in this lifetime?

      “If it was murder, then maybe you and he would, you know, get together again,” she says. “At least, you hope.”

      Unfortunately, she may have me dead to rights.

      In the meantime, little Alyssa ate so many garlic knots before the pizza showed up that she can’t even pretend to eat her slice. That doesn’t mean she isn’t interested in dessert and she asks whether Max sent her anything.

      I avoid answering because then I’d have to admit that on my way home I ate the Jell Rings meant for her.

      I’ve got to go back to work if I’ve any hope of getting done before the grand opening, so I beg them to pass on dessert, remind everyone there is ice cream in the freezer, prevail and head for home. I arrive in my driveway at the same time my father pulls up at the curb. He’s there to watch the Mets game with Jesse, who doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he’s gone over to the dark side. He’s now a Yankees fan.

      “Once a week I can root for the Mets for Grandpa,” he tells me, reminding me why it is I still like the kid. “Sometimes you have to bend the truth a little for someone you love.”

      It’s taken me years to learn what he already knows at eleven.

      I kiss the kids and Dad goodbye and I’m back at the alley, knee-deep in lighting wires when Drew and his partner, Hal Nelson, saunter in.

      Saying that Hal and I don’t care for each other is like saying there may be a little traffic on the Long Island Expressway at rush hour. I don’t know what I ever did to him—except maybe show up the police department once or twice.

      And I didn’t really do that, even.

      Newsday just made it sound that way.

      There are only about a half-dozen patrons left in the place, only a couple still bowling. The others are taking off their shoes, packing up their bags, reliving a frame or two and sharing a joke. I see Drew take note of each and every one as he makes his way over to where I’m waiting for the glue to cure on a section of wall.

      “You wanted to tell me something?” Drew asks. I stare at him blankly for a minute, unable to believe he’d bring Hal with him to talk about us. I guess he sees my confusion, because he offers a hint. “About the guy in the cooler? You called the precinct?”

      “Oh, right,” I say, looking like the dolt Hal has me pegged for. Maybe I can blame it on the glue fumes. “I just wanted to tell you about a conversation I had with Max. He’s one of The Spare Slices—”

      “Oh hell,” Hal says, blowing a balloon of air out toward his thinning hairline and addressing Drew. “She’s not suggesting this was a murder or that we need her help, is she? That’s not why we came all the way over here, is it, Scoones?”

      It’s his way of daring me to say I think I’m smarter than the police. I tell him that first of all, he can talk to me directly. He doesn’t have to do it through Drew, who’s leaning back against the wall looking thoroughly amused.

      In fact, he appears so amused that I decide not to tell him about the adhesive for the brushed steel sheets.

      The police don’t screw up investigations, Hal tells me, snicker, snicker, snicker. “At least, I don’t.”

      I’m hoping he leans up against the same wall Drew is going to find himself stuck to.

      “Not that I’m implying Detective Scoones over here screws up, either,” he says, gesturing at Drew with his thumb and adding a few more gratuitous snickers. “He just screws. Right, honey?” He looks at me to drive the point home. When Drew says nothing, any guilt I was harboring about his ruined jacket dissolves.

      So, fine. I get to the point. “One of the other Spare Slices is talking about buying an island,” I say. “Could be wishful thinking, could be a pipe dream. On the other hand, it could mean something.”

      “An island?” Hal says. Actually, he sneers. Hal always sneers. In my presence, anyway. Drew maintains he’s really a nice guy. I’ve seen no evidence. Not that the police seem to rely on little things like evidence all that much, in my experience. “What was he smoking at the time?”

      “Salmon,” I say.

      Drew licks his pointer finger and draws an imaginary one in my air column.

      “Been determined to be an accident,” Hal says, and he leans right up against the wall beside Drew. “Familiar territory for you.”

      I run the scenario, perhaps a tad contemptuously. “So he goes into the cooler, for whatever reason, and he brings in a pitcher of water, because, hey, he might get thirsty in there, right? And he pours it all over himself because—I don’t know—he was warm? No accounting for someone’s body temperature, I suppose. And then he feels the pain of a heart attack in his chest, but he doesn’t reach for the emergency button or anything and—”

      “Light was out,” Hal says. “Burned out bulb, probably.”

      “And you’re not investigating any further?” I ask.

      “Oh, we’re investigating,” he says, his face contorted with an even more intense sneer than usual. “You’re not. It was an accident, we’ll tie up a couple of loose ends and that will be that. Got it?”

      He goes to look at his watch, only he has trouble raising his hand. He tries to jerk it away from the wall, but it’s not going anywhere. “What the—?” he says, trying to pull away from the wall.

      Drew pushes himself off the wall easily. Behind him are two squares of brushed steel which I pretend I knew were there all along.

      “You wanna get some coffee?” he asks me, ignoring Hal, who is fighting with his jacket and cursing a blue streak, causing every head left in the place to look our way. Drew ignores the stares. “Maybe a little something to eat?”

      I tell him I’ve got to stay. Otherwise, someone might accidentally touch the wall—though the fact that Hal’s jacket is now hanging there and he’s swearing down the house and turning red in the face would probably provide a strong enough deterrent. Besides, it seems pretty clear that in a minute or two there will be no one left around.

      “Right,” he says, only it sounds more like he gets my unintended message and he won’t ask twice.

      “I’ll be out of here in about an hour,” I say. It might actually take a little longer now that I’ve got to scrape off Hal’s jacket and reapply the adhesive. “Maybe we could—”

      “Fuck!” Hal says, ripping most of his jacket from the wall, leaving a good portion of the back panel there.

      Drew СКАЧАТЬ