Agnes & the Hitman, outtakes

• “He’s like cole slaw”
• “Should you be doing that?”
• “Start at the beginning, my dear.”
• “The key, I find, is to not sound like Andy Rooney.”
• “We made a deal.”
• “Just Shane.”
• “I wish it did matter”
• I'm Brenda.

These are the scenes or pieces of scenes that didn’t make it into the book.   We loved them anyway, so we've put some of them here so we could tell ourselves that somebody will read them.  There are too many to put all of them on, including some with characters that were never seen or heard from again (RIP Camille and Justin, Aunt Margaret, Detective Baker, and God knows, the Bobster is missed), so we stuck with the scenes that would make sense if you’ve read the published book.

“He’s like cole slaw”

This was an early opening for the book, but it slowed things down too much:

Agnes Crandall cradled the phone between her chin and her shoulder, stirred hot raspberry coulis in a non-stick frying pan, and tried to defend her fiancé. 

“He’s not that bad.  Many women find him very attractive.”

Joey ‘The Gent’ Torcelli snorted, the sound exploding through the phone.  “It’s that hair.  It’s sucking up all da vitamins in his system and his brain ain’t gettin’ any.”

“He’s a good chef,” Agnes said.

“Yeah, that’s a good quality in a boyfriend.”

“Hey, he’s pretty and he cooks,” Agnes said.  “Men have been going for that for centuries, what are you busting my chops for?”

“Because he’s a loser, Aggie.”

“Don’t call me that.” Agnes tried to brush her hair out of her eyes with the back of her hand.  The steam from the hot coulis had fogged her glasses and now it was making her hair stick to her forehead, which made her cranky so she added, “Okay, look, I know he’s maybe probably not the guy for me, but it’s like . . . “ She searched for a way to describe the situation which wasn’t easy, since she wasn’t sure what the hell was going on herself.  “He’s like cole slaw,” she finally.  “I know it’s not right, but I can’t deal with it now.  This wedding is driving me crazy.  And then there’s the book--”

“Cole slaw?” Joey said.

“I bought potato salad last week at the Piggly Wiggly.” Agnes frowned over her glasses at the coulis, which was refusing to thicken.  “Because I was really hungry for potato salad and too lazy to make it.  But when I got it home and opened it, it was cole slaw.  I don’t like cole slaw.”

“Take it back,” Joey said automatically.

“Well, I was going to,” Agnes said, turning up the heat.  “So I put it in the car and then I did some errands and I was too damn busy to go to the Piggly Wiggly just to take back two bucks worth of cole slaw and that was last week, and it’s been riding around in my back seat ever since.”

“Throw it out,” Joey said.

“Well, I’m going to but I keep forgetting because I’m so damn busy,” Agnes said. “There’s the wedding and you know how The Mothers are, and they’re coming tomorrow to taste cake because the baker cancelled the order, and then there’s the book which will be almost done if I can just get the pictures at the wedding, and meanwhile the cole slaw is just sitting there in the back of the car and the back of my mind, and I think ‘I’ve really got to throw that out,’ but when I get in the car I’m always so busy and I forget--”

“Agnes, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Beau,” Agnes said.  “I know I should return him, but I just don’t have any damn time right now, and we’ve been together for a year so I can’t just send him an e-mail saying, ‘No time.  We’re through.  Good luck.’  So he’s . . .”  She tried to think of how to put it.  “ . . . he’s riding around in the back seat of my life until I can deal with him.  And maybe we can work things out.”

“He’s cole slaw after a week in a hot car, Agnes.  He stinks.  Get rid of the bum.  So how’s your dog?”

Agnes frowned.  “My dog?”  She looked down at Rhett, draped over her feet like a moth-eaten brown overcoat, slobbering on the floor at he slept.  “My dog’s fine.  Why? What have you heard?”

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“Should you be doing that?”

This was a great bit of characterization we felt, but it veered dangerously close to telling the reader stuff we wanted him or her to know instead of moving the story.  Jenny still likes it.

He nodded and moved to look at the revolver on the counter, stopping for an instant as he saw the dirty white tape around the pistol grip, an old mobster’s trick.  Somebody Joey knows, he thought.  Any old mobster in Keyes, South Carolina was going to be somebody Joey knew, it wasn’t like the goomba population there was huge since it consisted entirely of Joey and any pal of his who’d retired early down there with him.  Which meant Joey was in this up to his neck, but not behind it or he wouldn’t have called for help for his little well-upholstered Agnes.

More than a dognapping then.   Fuck.  That could take time and he didn’t have time.  At least he didn’t have much time that didn’t belong to Wilson and the US Government.

Shane heard voices near the front of the house, recognizing Joey and someone else with a deep southern drawl.  “How many cops are here?”
“The deputy in the front hall and this Detective Xavier and whoever he brought with him.”  She looked uneasy as she said, “Xavier,” but she moved toward the hall door and pointed to the blank wall where the cabinets and the marble counter stopped short. “This is the place the kid fell through.”   

She pushed on the wall with her hand, and a concealed door swung back and forth, while she watched, an odd look on her face, the first real vulnerability he’d seen from her.  Agnes was not the kind of woman who looked good big-eyed and vulnerable, he thought. Agnes was the kind of woman who probably looked good mad as hell swinging a frying pan.

Shane shook his head and reached inside his jacket and under his T-shirt and pulled a mini-mag light out of the pocket sown onto the outside of his body armor.  He twisted it on and poked his head through the doorway, shining the light around. 

“Should you be doing that?” Agnes asked. 

“Why not?”  He put the beam on the body of the dognapper on the floor far below.  Trailer trash.  The words came back to him from years ago, before Joey had taught him how to handle himself.  Then nobody said nothing.  He’d come a helluva long way from the Keyes Elementary School playground.  “Stay here.  I’m going down there to check it out.”

“There are no stairs.”

“Noticed.”  He put one foot through the door onto the two-by-eight on the inside where the stairs had once been attached and tested to make sure it was solid.  Then he swung into the void until both feet were on the board.  He bent down, put his fingers on the same piece of wood, and then slid his feet down the wall.  Halfway down, he let go and landed lightly in the basement, resisting the urge to look up to see if Agnes was watching.

Maybe not that far from the playground, he thought, and bent to look at the poor son of a bitch who’d stumbled into Agnes’s Kitchen of Death.

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“Start at the beginning, my dear.”

MEET XAVIER: Simon Xavier, the Southern Columbo, once had his own POV and it was fun.  But his subplot was too far away from the main plot to give that much page space to.  Here the first of the scenes Bob wrote before we cut Xavier’s POV.

Detective Simon Xavier pulled a silver flask out of his pocket, unscrewed the top with the same hand he held it in and, holding the top between two fingers and the flask between the remaining three, took a sip.

“What you doing, X?”

Xavier didn’t bother to look Detective Third Class Robbie Hammond, the Sheriff’s nephew.  Anybody who thought Hammond had been promoted out of traffic control based on his intelligence had spent too damn much time breathin’ in car exhaust.  “Detective Hammond, my family name has a long and illustrious reputation in these parts.  Do not sully it.”
“You bet, X,” Hammond said.  “So, we goin’ in or not?”  He lowered his voice.  “Seems pretty cut and dried to me.  The deputy who called it in said it was an accident.”
Xavier turned and looked at Hammond sadly.   Tall, big, blond, dumb.  He shook his head.  “The responding deputy reported that the body was that of an intruder and the death apparently caused by accident.”

“That’s what I said, X.”  Hammond met Xavier’s eyes and shifted nervously. 
“No, Detective Hammond, that is not what you said.”  Xavier capped his flask and tucked it into his white linen jacket, being careful not snag his white silk T-shirt, a look he’d stolen from Miami Vice back in the eighties.  Those boys had been blockheads as detectives, but they knew how to dress for the heat.  He took in Robbie’s muddy, sweat-stained shirt and shook his head.  He was partnered up with Sonny Crockett without the fashion sense. 
Hammond shifted again.  “I’m listening, X.  My uncle said you’re the real thing and I should listen to everything you said so I could be the real thing, too.  So what do you want me to do now?”

How about a long walk off a short dock? Xavier thought, pretty sure there was still one behind the house they were looking at.   He hadn’t been on the grounds in thirty years but there were some things you didn’t forget.   Like the night thirty-five years before that he’d kissed Camille Paradou on that dock, and the night thirty years before he’d come here looking for Frankie Fortunato and a missing five million dollars in cash and an unknown amount in diamonds.  He’d thought Camille, Frankie, and the five million were long out of his reach, but now here he was back again—

“Shouldn’t we go in there?” Hammond said. 

“We’re surveyin’ the crime scene, son,” Xavier said.  “God is in the details, and so are the answers.”

“What answers, X?”

I could train a dawg faster than this boy.  “The answers as to how the poor unfortunate deceased came to leave this mortal coil, Robbie.  And possibly some more answers to some very old questions.  So we are going to tread very carefully here.  You understand me, boy?”

“No,” Hammond said.  “But I’ll watch where I step.”

“That’s a start.”  Xavier put his white straw fedora on his head, keeping the center crease with his fingers from long practice.  He pulled it low over his eyes and then listened for a minute.  He could hear the faint chatter from the patrol-car radio, a late night truck going by on Bums Point Road two hundred feet behind him, the night noises of the swamp.  And very faintly the noise of the junction of the Blood River and the Intracoastal Waterway that formed Bums Point where the house was located, as small waves from the wake of a passing ferry hit the tidal marsh that surrounded the house on three sides. 

And of course the sound of Hammond shifting from foot to foot and clearing his throat.
“Uh, X?  What are you doing?”

“Getting a feel for the place, son.”

“I thought that old bridge was gonna collapse beneath us,” Hammond said.

Xavier nodded to himself.  Old Frankie ‘Two-Hands’ Fortunato had never gotten around to fixing that ancient wooden bridge over the tidal inlet and no one since him had either. 

There were a lot of things Frankie hadn’t gotten around to before disappearing.
Be a good thing if what was happening now might lead to clearing some of that up. 
Damn good thing, Xavier thought and moved toward the house, shining his powerful Xenon flashlight on the ground in front of him as he noted the ruts in the gravel.  He halted fifty feet short of the house and played his light over the mansion.  Eight thick white columns across the front with a wide staircase in the middle.  Wrap around wide porches on both levels.  A huge drooping oak tree festooned with Spanish Moss at each front corner.
“What is this place?” Hammond came up on his left.  “Besides old.”

Xavier winced.  The kid had no sense of class.  “This used to be the old Folly Mansion, Robbie, but old man Folly took his life when the rice market went bad.  Stood empty for decades until Frankie ‘Two Hands’ Fortunato and his wife Baby bought it back in the seventies.”

“No shit?” Hammond sounded impressed.  “Is this where that five million is buried?”
Xavier closed his eyes in real pain.  He’d known the Sheriff was a dumb fuck, but not this dumb.  “There is no five million buried here.”

“Right.”  Hammond nodded.  “Because nobody knows what happened to it.  That Hans Fortunato guy supposedly disappeared to parts unknown with it.  But I bet it might be here someplace, right?”

“You will not mention the five million dollars again, Detective Hammond,” Xavier said, making his soft voice softer and very flat.

“Oh.”  Hammond swallowed.  “Okay, X.”

There was movement inside the front door, a silhouette against the light.  Xavier saw the Smokey hat and recognized the deputy who’d called in.

“We going in?” Hammond started to move forward but Xavier put out a hand and halted him as he slowly played his flashlight all around one last time. 

He noted the edge of a truck bumper at the right corner of the house and moved so he could see it.  The front plate was an Italian flag, not the stars and bars favored by most pick up truck drivers in this neck of the swamp.  “Curiouser and curiouser.” 

“What?” 

“Joey the Gent’s pick-up truck.”  Xavier felt the thrill of the hunt, a long-cold hunt, begin to get hot.

“Joey who?”

So your dumb fuck uncle didn’t give you any details.  Good.  “Check the engine hood.” 
Hammond put his hand on the dusty hood.  “It’s warm.”

“Now that’s interestin’,” Xavier said and then froze as he saw something move in the dark.  He carefully played the light along the side of the house. “You see something back there, boy?  Near the water?”

“No, X.”

Xavier played the light all over, highlighting trees, brush and the tidal swamp, and then the water beyond.  Nothing.  “Okay.  Let’s go in.  You keep your mouth shut.”

“Yes, X.”

Xavier led the way up the wide staircase that ascended to the double-wide twelve foot high doors.  The worn hinges protested as the deputy opened the door, and the faint smell of baking wafted out.  Chocolate, Xavier thought.  Coffee.

“About time y’all got here,” the trooper said, holding the door open with one hand and a half-eaten cupcake in the other.  “I been waiting two hours and now I’m an hour over shift.” 

“We took a small detour,” Xavier said.

“I got us stuck in the mud,” Hammond said, owning up like a man.

The deputy looked at Xavier and rolled his eyes in sympathy, and Xavier said, “What’s that?” nodding to the half-eaten cake in the trooper’s hand.

“Chocolate,” the trooper said.  “And somethin’ else.  That lady knows how to bake.” 
He jerked his head to the hall, and Xavier looked past him to the two people standing in the massive front hall waiting for him:  A tall, round-faced woman with dark curly hair and black horn-rimmed glasses and a grizzled older man with dark dead eyes wearing a Sopranos T-shirt. 

That Joey, Xavier thought.  What a sense of humor.  “Joey the Gent,” he said as he went toward them. 

“Xavier the Bloodhound,” Joey said.  “Been a long time since I took the fifth with you.  This here is my friend, Agnes Crandall.  She had an intruder who unfortunately took a fall into her basement and is now deceased.  If you’d remove the body, she’d take it kindly because she has a wedding to put on out on the front lawn this weekend.”   Joey smiled, looking more shark-like than ever.   “You know how a body can depress the festivities.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Agnes said, holding out her hand.

Xavier took it, surprised by her firm grip, and even more surprised by the cool look in her dark eyes behind those glasses.  You’d think a dead man would cause some concern, he thought, trying to remember where he’d seen her before.  “Have we met, Miss Agnes?”

“No,” Agnes said, but she looked resigned, as if she knew what was coming next.

“This here is Cranky Agnes,” Joey said, expanding proudly.  “From the newspaper.”

“No shit?” Hammond stepped forward to pump Agnes’s hand.  “Hey, I’ve heard of you.”

“Wonderful,” Agnes said, trying to retrieve her hand.  “Thank you.”

“I’m Robbie Hammond,” Hammond said, “Detective Robbie Hammond and if there’s anything I can ever do for you--”

“Robbie,” Xavier said flatly, and Hammond dropped her hand.  Xavier smiled at Agnes.

 “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Ma’am.  I thoroughly enjoy your column each week.  The one two weeks ago about sweet potato pie reminded me of my dear departed mother.”

“Your mother never made sweet potato pie,” Joey said.

“No, but she ate it,” Xavier said, annoyed. 

“I like sweet potato pie,” Hammond said.  

“Well, this is fun,” Agnes said, stepping back, “but I have cupcakes to finish and there’s a dead guy in my basement so if we could move this along, that would be good.”

“So I understand,” Xavier said, not moving.  “Can you tell me how he came to be down there?”

“He came at my dog with a gun, and I hit him with a frying pan, and he fell through the wall into the basement,” Agnes recited, as if she’d said it before, many times.  “And he died.”
Her voice seemed tight, now that he was listening to her, and her smile was brittle.  Not as calm as she seemed.

Good.

“He came for your dawg?” Xavier asked.

“That’s what he said.”

“And he was wearin’ a mask?”

“A bandana around his face.”

Joey shook his head.  “Fucking dognapper.  No respect.”

“He fell through the wall?” Xavier said, trying to keep his voice noncommittal.

“No shit,” Hammond said, nodding sagely.

“Turns out there was a door there,” Agnes said.  “I didn’t know it was there.  I didn’t even know I had a rear basement, although it makes sense there would be one.  There’s one of everything else in this damn place.”

“You do own this house, Ma’am?” Xavier asked.

“Yes,” Agnes said, “but only for this last month.  I’m still finding things.  Mostly dry rot and bad plaster, so the basement was actually a step up.  Well, not for the dead guy.”  Somewhere a timer dinged, and Agnes turned back to where Xavier remembered the kitchen being.

He took her arm as she started back that way, walking with her as he said, “Start at the beginning, my dear.”

“I was on the phone to Joey, trying to reduce down a raspberry coulis so I could pour it over the chocolate raspberry cupcakes tomorrow because that’s what Evie Wilkes wanted.”
Evie Wilkes.  Lotta money there, Xavier thought.  He’d heard something about her son Palmer marrying some northern gal.  “You’re talking about the Wilkes wedding?”

 “Technically, it the Fortunato wedding,” Agnes said, as they went into the kitchen and she headed for the oven.  “Maria Fortunato.  Maria’s grandmother, Brenda Dupres, is paying for it.”

Oh, Jesus, Brenda Dupres, Xavier thought.  There’s a nightmare for you.

Agnes didn’t say anything else as she took the pan of cupcakes out of the over, the hot chocolate aroma filling the room, but she met Xavier’s look of sympathy with a real smile.  “Sorry about the mess,” she said.  “I’ve been baking cupcakes all night and then . . .”  Her smiled faded.

Xavier spotted the dog, curled in a ball, in the corner of the kitchen.  He went over and knelt next to the old bloodhound, rubbing its head and nothing the worn leather collar around its neck.  He could feel Joey’s eyes boring into his back. 

“Nice dog,” Xavier said.  “Why would anyone want to steal him though?”

“I don’t know,” Agnes replied.

Xavier looked about.  The black and white checkerboard tile was shiny in the middle, as if something had just been wiped up there. 

“That’s where the raspberry sauce went,” Agnes said as she put the tray on a stainless steel table.  “I cleaned it all up.  That wasn’t evidence, was it?”

“Well, yes, it was,” Xavier said, trying to ignore the cupcakes while they seduced his nose. 

“Now, you’re saying the intruder had a gun, but he talked instead of shooting?” 

‘Yes,” Agnes said, as she began to take the cupcakes from the pan.  “He said, ‘I’ve come for your dog,’.”

“Fucking amateur,” Joey muttered from behind him.

Xavier turned to him.  “And Joey, you were on the telephone with Miss Agnes when this happened?” 

“Yeah,” Joey said, picked up a cupcake.  “Ouch.  Damn.”

“Just out of the oven, Joey.  Give them a sec,” Agnes said and put another pan she’d already filled with batter in the oven. 

Joey peeled off the cupcake wrapper gingerly.  “Yeah, I was on the phone with her.  If I’d of been here when this bum came in, he’d of been dead before he went through the damn wall.”  He bit into the cake and Xavier ignored that, too.

“And you were discussing what exactly?”

“Cole slaw,” Agnes said.

“Cole slaw.”  Xavier nodded.  “And the gun?”

“There,” Agnes pointed to a counter.

“You picked it up?” Xavier asked as he went over and peered at it.

“I had to,” Agnes said.  “It was on the floor.  Rhett would have tried to eat it and shot himself.”

Joey stayed where he was, munching cake, which meant he’d already seen the gun.  Xavier looked at him, one eyebrow raised.

“Piece a junk,” Joey said.

The gun was indeed not the cutting edge of weapon technology, Xavier allowed as he looked at the old .32 revolver.  He turned and nodded to the torn wallpaper where the outline of a door was clearly visible.  “The deceased, he be in there, correct, Miss?”

“Down there,” Agnes said.  “It’s an old swinging door somebody nailed shut, but it looks like the nails rusted or something and when he hit it . . .”  She raised her eyebrows.  “Whoosh.”

“’Whoosh’.”  Xavier edged the door open and shone his light down on the skinny good ole boy with the twisted neck and bloody face and glassy eyes.  “’Out of the dark we came, into the dark we go’.” 

“King Solomon’s Mines,” Joey said, standing at his shoulder. 

“What?” Hammond said.

“A book,” Joey said.  “Don’t let his snappy dressing and Southern drawl fool you.  Detective Xavier is a smart and wily man.”

“Oh, I know that,” Hammond said.

“Why don’t there be any stairs behind this door?” Xavier asked Agnes, who was now transferring the hot cupcakes to the cool stainless steel table.

“No idea,” she said.  “There are many inexplicable things in this house.  There’s a hallway on the second floor that goes nowhere.  Just ends.”

“Could I see the weapon you used to repel the attacker?”

Agnes stopped in the middle of her cupcakes, picked up a frying pan from the counter, and handed it to him.

There was something red and sticky on it.  Blood, he thought and then looked closer.  And raspberry sauce.  Xavier hefted it.  “Not heavy.”

“Non-stick,” Agnes said as she took it back.

“I see,” Xavier said, not seeing.

“Can’t do raspberries in cast iron.  If it had been my cast iron pan, I’d only have had to hit him once.” 

“Right,” Hammond said.

Xavier ignored his partner.  “And he just happened to fall through the wall into a basement you didn’t know you had?”

“Yeah,” Agnes said, sounding bemused.  “Can you believe it?”

“Yeah, he can,” Joey said, with intent.

Xavier ignored him.  “Are you sure he wasn’t looking for the basement?” 

Agnes seemed truly mystified.  “Why would he be doing that?” 

Somewhere in the house, there was a muffled crash, and Agnes stopped and glanced over her shoulder, in the direction of the door at the end of the kitchen.  “Uh, I think that deputy is wandering.  Can you excuse me for a minute?”

She left to go through the door, into the housekeeper’s quarters as Xavier remembered, still carrying the frying pan. 

Not as calm as she seems at all, Xavier thought, noting the grip she kept on the pan. He nodded to Hammond to follow her on the very slight chance there was something wrong.
Hammond nodded back and smiled, staying put, but Rhett sighed and got up to follow his mistress.

I gotta get me a dawg, Xavier thought. 

Joey looked at him in sympathy.

“Why’s someone trying to kill her dog, Joey?” Xavier said.

“Who the hell knows,” Joey said, brushing chocolate crumbs off his shirt front.  “I swear on my mother’s grave, Xavier, she’s writing a cookbook and putting on a wedding for Baby Dupres, that’s all.”

“She live here alone?” Xavier asked. 

Joey looked unhappy.  “She got a no-good fiancée who stays sometimes.”

“Name?” Xavier said, getting out his notebook.

“Beau Beaufort.  At least that’s what his working handle is.”

“That all hair and no brains chef from the Inn?”

“Yeah,” Joey said.  “I think she’s gonna get rid of him, though.”

“Where is he?” Xavier asked.

Joey shrugged.  “Probably working at the Inn.  Agnes said she didn’t want him around while she was working this evening.”

“Maybe this guy was after the five million,” Hammond said.

Both men turned to look at him, and he shut up.

Joey looked at Xavier.

“His uncle is the sheriff,” Xavier said.  “They talk.”

“There ain’t no five million here, kiddo,” Joey said to Hammond in the same voice Tony Soprano would have said, You didn’t see nothing.

“Right,” Hammond said. 

“I need a ladder,” Xavier said to Hammond.

Hammond nodded, serious.

“Go get me one,” Xavier said.

“Right.”  Hammond snapped to and left.

“So that’s your back-up,” Joey said.

“At least I have back-up,” Xavier said.  “You’ve been alone since Frankie ripped you off for five million.  I don’t suppose you’d like to share that story with me, now that it’s been thirty years and all and we’re standing here in what used to be Frankie and Baby’s kitchen?”

“I got back-up coming.” Joey poked the door so that it swung back and forth again.  He shook his head.  “That fucking newspaper article last week.”

“What article?” Xavier asked.

“The one about Agnes’ next book and the house.”

“And?” Xavier waited, playing it out, knowing exactly what Joey was talking about.
“Might have stirred some memories.”

Xavier nodded, surprised Joey would mention it.  “Yeah, this place got some memories.  You think the deceased was here looking for the money?”

“You know there aint no money here,” Joey said.  “The money’s with Frankie, wherever the fuck he is.  So you gonna get this stiff out of here so Agnes can do that wedding this weekend?”

“All in good time,” Xavier told him.  “Time solves everything, my friend.  Everything.”

Joey snorted but he looked uneasy. 

Good, Xavier thought, and went to work.

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“The key, I find, is to not sound like Andy Rooney.”

Originally that first night went on for pages, so we had to cut it pretty ruthlessly.  This ended up being a paragraph in the finished book because so much of it was back story dump in dialogue, although Shane does a nice job of refuting the Scarlett O’Hara thing.

Back inside, Agnes filled bags with cupcakes for Xavier and Hammond saying, “You must take some cupcakes with you, Detective Xavier,” making it clear she intended them as parting gifts, which meant they must part.  She appreciated the law’s removing the dead body from her basement, but it was gone now, so there was really no point in the detectives standing around taking up space.  She handed Hammond the first bag and when she gave him a Cranky Agnes promotional apron, too, he all but wriggled all over with gratitude. Then she turned to Xavier.  Xavier did not wriggle.  “I have The Mothers coming in the morning,” she explained to him, “so I really have to get some sleep,” so you should go away now, “but they’ll be nowhere near the basement to disturb anything,” so you can leave without worrying about your crime scene, “so if you need to go back down there again tomorrow you can come back, no problem,” at a decent hour.

 “The Mothers?” Xavier said, showing no signs of taking the hint or the cupcakes.

“Evie Keyes, mother of the groom, Brenda Dupres, grandmother of the bride, and Lisa Livia Fortunato, mother of the bride, plus the bride, Maria Fortunato.”  Hammond gave an extra twitch at Maria’s name, and Agnes stopped, but he didn’t say anything, so she went on.  “They’re coming to taste cake because the baker cancelled on us, so I’m doing the cakes now.”  She handed Xavier his bag of cupcakes and his Cranky Agnes apron and smiled at him.  Go away.

“That’s right kindly of you, Miss Agnes,” Xavier said, finally accepting the bag and the apron, which left him little choice but to go, and go he did, taking Hammond with him. 

When they were gone and Agnes and Shane were alone, the silence was deafening.

“Well,” Agnes said just to break it.  “Thank you for protecting me.”

“You’re welcome,” Shane said, and she thought of the kid’s gun and what it might mean and almost stepped closer.  Shane looked like somebody who could take care of anybody who showed up with a gun.  He looked like somebody who could take care of anybody who showed up with anything short of a nuclear weapon and even then it might be a close call. Then Shane said, “Who is Taylor?” and broke her chain of thought.

“My fiancé,” Agnes said, confused.  “You just met him.”

“No, who is he?” Shane said.  “Does he have mob connections?”

“Taylor?” Agnes said.  “Taylor is a local boy making good.  He’s from two little towns over, worked his way up through the kitchens of most of the area restaurants, and now he’s chef on the best restaurant on the Island over there on the other side of the river.”  She nodded in the direction of the Blood.  “He’s a true self-made man and a truly good chef.  We’re just about finished with a cookbook that’s going to be a bestseller because he’s great.   It’s going to make his name.”

“Could he have sent the kid?”

Agnes gaped at him.  “Why?”

Shane leaned against the counter, his arms folded.  “He showed up at the scene.  That’s always suspicious.”

“So did you.” Agnes went around the counter and got a bottle of shiraz out of the wine rack.  “Taylor did not send a kid with a gun to take Rhett.  If he wanted Rhett, he’d come out and whistle for him.  Rhett would ignore him, but still . . . .”  She got out her corkscrew and twisted it down into the bottle, shaking her head.

“Would he gain anything by scaring you?”

“No.”  Agnes shoved down the arms on the corkscrew and popped the cork. 

“Wine?”

“No, thank you.  Would he gain anything if you died?”

Agnes stopped midway in her reach for a wine glass.  “Died?”

“If the kid had shot you.”

She took the wine glass down.  “We bought this house together in a partnership agreement.  If either of us dies, the other inherits everything.   I thought you said the kid wore a bandana so I wouldn’t recognize him.”

“I did.” 

Agnes poured herself a glass of wine, the rich fruity aroma rising up to tease her.  She looked up to see Shane watching her and took down another glass. 

“You should have some, too.”  She poured him a glass and slid it across the counter to him saying, “Taylor did not send that kid.”

“Okay,” he said and she came around the counter and sat down at the table, and after a moment he joined her.

“I need to understand the situation here,” he said.  “You’re in partnership with him but you write newspaper columns?  You’re Cranky Agnes?”

Agnes nodded and sipped her shiraz, letting the wine linger on her tongue for a moment.  “It’s like this.  I used to live in Cincinnati where I did pieces for the local paper on food and restaurants and lifestyle in general even though I knew nothing about food, I was just their kind of Everywoman on the street, reporting at large, and I tended to be kind of . . . annoyed about things.  I get annoyed a lot, but I try not to get whiney.”  She frowned into the distance, thinking about it.  “The key, I find, is to not sound like Andy Rooney.”

Shane nodded, looking lost.

 “So anyway, lots of people liked the pieces and one guy wrote in and said, “You should print more of that cranky Agnes,” so the editor gave me a column called Cranky Agnes, and it got picked up by a couple of papers and then it got syndicated.  In theory it’s about food, but they don’t actually care about the food.  They come for the cranky.  And that was going well until some things happened, and it was suggested that I move somewhere . . . calmer.”

 “Some things.”

“Yes.  So I came here because I loved being here when I was a teenager and because Joey was here.  Did Joey tell you we wrote a book together?”  She sipped her wine again, letting the richness ease into her veins.

“No.”

He didn’t look surprised, his broad face impassive as ever, and she realized she hadn’t seen him have a real expression yet, which was fairly disconcerting.  Whatever Shane did, it didn’t involve non-verbal communication.

She sighed and went on.  “Lisa Livia and I used to go into his diner all the time during summer vacations and he’d tell me about diner cooking, so I wrote some columns about him, and last year we expanded them into a cookbook called Mob Food.  It’s going to be out next month.  I used the advance as part of the down payment on this place.  I can’t believe he didn’t tell you.”  Except the two of you don’t seem real close.  I’m not even sure you have emotions.  Except come to think of it, you definitely did not like Taylor.

“We don’t talk much,” Shane said.   “So you moved down here.  When?”
“Nine months ago.  The only people I knew here were Joey and Brenda Dupres, who used to be Brenda Fortunato, the mother of my best friend from boarding school, Lisa Livia Fortunato.”  The wine had had its usual relaxing effect on her, but Agnes thought the name “Fortunato” had made Shane tense a little.  It was hard to tell.  It wasn’t like he’d ever really relaxed.  The guy made granite look cushy.  “Lisa Livia brought me home with her from school every summer since I was twelve.  Do you know them?”

“Go on.”

Okay, doesn’t want to talk about the Fortunatos. “So Brenda invited me to a dinner party when I moved back, and she always had the most fabulous dinner parties here, I loved watching her parties through the kitchen door.”  Agnes thought back to Brenda in those strapless sundresses and eighties big hair, looking like somebody from Dallas as she threw big parties on the lawn with the river sparkling behind her; Brenda in long, soft dresses with shoulder pads and chunky gold jewelry welcoming in crowds of people to cocktail parties and dinner parties, glasses clinking and dancing on the black and white tile floors, glamour and warmth and belonging . . .  . “Oh, it was wonderful,” she said to Shane.  “Brenda was like a mother to me back then, she even let me help her cook for the parties and I loved that, too, in fact, Brenda is the one who taught me to cook, so of course I came when she invited me, and I fell in love with this place all over again.”  She sat back in the chair remembering that night, how beautiful the house had looked, how beautiful Brenda had looked, as if twenty years hadn’t gone by, and how beautiful Taylor had looked sitting in the middle of all of it.   “And Taylor was one of the guests, and he pretty much swept me off my feet, and then we found out Brenda wanted to sell and . . . “  She lifted a hand, helpless.  “I had to say yes.   So about five months after I got to town, all my dreams came true.”   And now four months after that, reality has hit, but hey, it was fun while it lasted.   “It probably wasn’t the smartest financial move since it pretty well wiped me out, but the thought of living here, cooking here . . . the whole thing really was a dream come true.”  She looked at Shane.  “I know I was dumb, but I thought I was going to be Scarlett O’Hara with butter.”

Shane frowned at her.  “You’re not Scarlett O’Hara.  Scarlett O’Hara was a sociopath.  You just wanted to live in a place where you have good memories.  And it wasn’t dumb, Two Rivers is a smart investment.”

“Oh.”  Agnes blinked at him, wondering how he’d managed to make telling her that she wasn’t Scarlett O’Hara one of the best compliments she’d ever had.

Shane frowned, concentrating.  “Is Brenda still involved with the mob?”

“Still?” Agnes said.  “What do you mean, ‘still’?”

“She was Frankie Fortunato’s wife,” Shane said.  “I’m looking for a mob connection here.”

“He was gone when I knew her,” Agnes said.  “She was married to Lisa Livia’s stepfather, the Real Estate King.   I forget what his name was.  I think his last name really was King, but LL always called him the Real Estate King.”

“So you think Brenda didn’t send the kid.”

“Trust me,” Agnes said, exasperated.  “Brenda would not send anybody to kidnap Rhett.  She was like a mother to me.  A really gorgeous, really fabulous mother.  Why are you suspecting all my friends?” 

“I suspect everybody.  So you have the column and you write books.  That’s a good income.  If people think you have money, somebody might think you’d pay a good ransom for Rhett.”

They both looked down Rhett, looking like a collapsed brown overcoat, snoring on the floor between them. 

“I’d pay anything I had,” Agnes said.  “But I don’t have much and everybody knows it.  I get about thirty bucks a column per paper.  I’m in about a hundred papers, twice a month. That’s a solid income, but it’s not going to make me rich any time soon.    The advance on Mob Food was going to be the start on my nest egg, but my half of the down payment on this place took that and my pitiful savings account, and I maxed out my credit cards updating the kitchen which everybody knows because Keyes is a small town and everybody knows everything about everybody.  So there’s nothing to steal.  And nobody’s trying to kill me for my money, either.  Brenda holds the mortgage on the house so she wants me alive so I can keep making the payments.  And Taylor and I are engaged, so he doesn’t have to kill me for the house.”   Yet.

Shane sat back with his wine glass, now only half full.  “So the partnership is for writing the cookbook with Taylor.”

“No, the partnership is for a restaurant and catering business he wanted to run out of the house and barn.” Agnes drank some more wine at the thought.

“He wanted,” Shane said.  “You didn’t?”

“I wanted the house.  If that was what I had to do to get it, I was game.” 

Agnes took a deep breath, suddenly exhausted.  “He’s renovated the barn so that he can hold events there.  This house will never be a restaurant.  It’s just not suited for it.  And I think he knows it.”

“When are you getting married?” Shane said.

Agnes looked up.  “What difference does that make?”

“He can’t be sure of you until you’re married.”

“We’re not getting married,” Agnes said and the silence stretched out.

“Okay,” Shane said.  “I have more questions, but it’s late and you’re getting too tired to think.  I need to go into town in the morning to talk to Joey, so you’ll have to come with me, and I’ll ask the rest on way in.”

“Can’t,” Agnes said.  “I have the Mothers coming, and then I have to work.   I have a column to write that I’m behind on.  It’s due Friday and usually I’m rewriting by now and I don’t even have a first draft.  Plus I’ve got the wedding on Saturday, you wouldn’t believe what that entails.  Like getting the house painted and doing a wedding cake.  You can go in without me.”
Shane shook his head.  “I’m not leaving you alone.”

Agnes laughed shortly.  “I should be so lucky.  The Mothers will be here at nine.   And Doyle the handyman will be here even earlier and he stays until it gets dark.   And anyway, the kid came for Rhett, not for me.  Take Rhett with you.”  She looked down at Rhett, snoring through his dog dreams, his head flopped on Shane’s foot.  “See, he’s bonded with you already.”

Shane looked down at Rhett, as impassive as ever.  

Agnes finished her wine.  “Listen, I’m really grateful you’re staying.  I mean, I don’t think anybody I know sent that kid in here with the gun, but that doesn’t mean I’m not grateful to you for trying to find out.” 

“You’re welcome.” Shane put his glass down and she was surprised to see it was empty.  A very quiet drinker, Shane.

“Okay, then.” Agnes slid back her chair and stood up.  “You can take your pick of the four bedrooms upstairs, although the air-conditioning is pretty weak and--”

“Why?”

Agnes blinked.  “Because it hasn’t been updated since The Real Estate King died. And I maxed out my credit updating the kitchen.  If it gets too hot, you can sleep out in the  barn.  Taylor renovated it, so it’s got full AC, and there’s an apartment in the loft space.”

“I’m here.” Shane stood, too.  “Protecting you, remember?”

“Right.  I’ll get you some sheets for the hall couch.  They’re in the laundry room--”

“In the tall cabinets?  I saw them.”

“You saw them?”   

“I checked the house while you were out front. The kid might have had a pal who hid.  You never know.”

“Oh.  Right.” Thank God you’re here. “Can I get you anything else?”   
“Nope.”

Agnes stood there, not sure what to do or say next, resisting the insane urge to blurt, “Would you like to sleep with me?” because that might be misconstrued, and she might think it was all right if it was misconstrued, that it would be good to have that much strength wrapped around her or at least between her and the window, but she had enough trouble already without sleeping with a stranger who was armed.  Plus, she was technically still engaged, and she held strong views on cheating.   Usually backed up with a frying pan.  “Thank you very much for watching out for me.”

“You’re welcome,” he said.  “Good night.”

 “Goodnight,” Agnes said and went through the laundry room and into the housekeeper’s room, holding the door open for Rhett.  The last thing she saw was Shane, leaning against the kitchen counter, looking alert as all hell. 
He was a very comforting sight. 

back to top

“We made a deal.”

This was a great scene, written to balance the Shane Has Breakfast with Agnes scene, playing off it in parallel or contrasting moves.  Like at the end of the original Agnes scene, she gives Shane cupcakes to take with him, and at the end of this one, Joey takes Xavier’s breakfast away from him.  But we were doing too much talking in the front half of the book, so the Agnes/Shane midnight chat above had to go, and then Xavier got cut so this went, too.  This also introduced Jimbo and Macy.  Oh, well.

Xavier drove his classic convertible Mercedes into the gravel parking lot at Joey’s place, an old railroad dining car turned diner that sat on abandoned railroad tracks.  He got out of the car, checking the sky to make sure there were no thunderstorms lurking that would require him to put the top up, then walked to the battered wooden stairs on one end, right between the rusting tracks.  The red sign in the doorway read ‘closed’ but Xavier knew that was Joey’s first line of defense against irritating tourists trying to catch a little bit of local flavor.  Joey’s glare took care of the rest.

He glanced at the red neon sign on the top:  JOEY’S DI ER.  The N had burned out six years ago and Xavier had never bothered to ask Joey why he didn’t replace it because he knew the answer would be long and complicated and full of bullshit.  Joey was very particular about the diner and brooked few questions. 

Xavier opened the door, which protested on hinges that could use a little oil.  A counter ran the length of the car and there were small booths on the other side.  A door in the middle behind the counter led to the storeroom, which was a refrigerated tractor-trailer Joey had pulled up the side of the rail car years ago.  Joey was in his usual spot behind the counter on a stool by the ancient manual cash register in the exact center, dressed in black pants and a red t-shirt, reading the paper, a toothpick dangling out of the corner of his mouth.

One of the two grizzled shrimpers sitting at the near end of the counter tried to avoid eye contact, and failed.  The other didn’t notice, turned and smiled.  “Mister Xavier.”

“Morning, Jimbo,” Xavier said, but his focus was on the other.  “How’s your wife, Macy?”

The big man’s tanned face flushed red.  “Fine,” he mumbled.

“Her arm?” Xavier asked.

The large shrimper shifted on the stool uncomfortably.  “Fine.”

“That’s right good,” Xavier said.  “You know what happens if she turns up at the emergency room again saying she tripped, don’t you, son?”

“Yes, sir.”

Jimbo turned to his worker.  “You’re fired, Macy.  Get out.”  The man shambled out without another word.  Jimbo tipped his stained hat.  “Thank you, Mister Xavier.”  Then he too left.

Xavier continued on his way to the center of the counter, noting that Joey had watched without a comment.  He waved at Jimbo as he went out the door.  Then he made a mark next to his name among the long list of locals on the blackboard screwed to the wall.  In all his years, Xavier had never figured out Joey’s system of running tabs.  To the left of the blackboard was a black and white framed photograph of a much younger Joey in a suit with a beautiful young woman in a wedding gown.  The picture was the one object in the diner no one ever commented on.

“Detective Xavier,” Joey said.  “Stopped by for a fine Italian breakfast, did you?”

“No, thank you, Joey, I stopped by for some fine Italian answers.” Xavier said.  “I wouldn’t say no to a good cup of coffee, though, if you’d be so kind.”

Joey had already turned to the grill.  “I am grateful for the way you took care of my little Agnes last night,” Joey said as he slapped sausage on the grill.  “She’s a good woman.”

“She certainly seems to be,” Xavier said.  “Have you given any more thought as to why that young Thibault boy would have threatened her dawg?”

“There is nothin’ about that dog that is valuable or interesting.”

The sausage sizzled, a siren song, as Joey broke two eggs on the grill next to it.  He flipped the sausage on the grill, moving meat around to grease it good, and then turned back to Xavier to set out a thick white ceramic mug.  “Man would have to be an idiot to steal that dog.”

“Somethin’ else going on, then?” Xavier said.

“Weddin’,” Joey said, picking up the coffee pot.  “Agnes got them Mothers comin’ today.  Baby Dupres and Lisa Livia and Evie Wilkes.”  He filled Xavier’s cup.

Evie, Xavier thought, caught again by the memory of that honeysuckle, and then he realized that Joey had fallen silent, too, which was not like Joey.  Xavier’s nostril’s flared and it wasn’t just from the cooking, but then Joey went on as he put the pot back on the burner.

“But they’re talkin’ about cake or somethin’.  I don’t see that Thibault kid breakin’ in for cake.”

“Maybe the wedding then.  Something going on there?”

Joey shook his head.  “Lot of power at that wedding, the Wilkeses and all.” 
Evie, Xavier thought.  And Evie’s son.  Could’ve been his son.  Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

Xavier watched the sausage fry up on the grill, good spicy meat, and the egg bubbling up enticingly next to it, Joey laying on the salt and pepper with a liberal hand.

A white Lexus drove slowly by the diner.  Evie’s Lexus.  Out of the corner of his eye he realized that Joey saw the car also.  And it was clear from the way her head swiveled that Evie saw the vehicles parked outside, didn’t like the mixture, and accelerated away.  Xavier pulled his flask out and added another dash to his coffee.  He was surprised to see how tightly he was holding the metal container and forced himself to relax his grip.

Food and women.  Xavier shook his head.  Mind back on the case.  “So this here wedding.   Two big families.  The Wilkeses, old money, old name.”  He watched Joey.  “Well, not Evie, of course.  She’s just as common as the rest of us.”

There was a flash in Joey’s eyes, fast, then his eyelids shuttered again, just old Joey, nothing goin’ on, but Xavier thought, what in blazes is a mutt like you doing mixed up with Evie Wilkes? and then the other shoe dropped, and the obvious occurred to him, and jealousy washed over him, as fresh as if he’d just kissed Evie yesterday.  Not Joey.  No way.

Mind back on the case.

“And not just the Wilkeses,” he went on, more for his own benefit than for Joey’s, just to keep talking.  “All the Fortunatos comin’ in for that?”

“Lot of ‘em,” Joey said cautiously.

“The Don one of ‘em?”

“Yeah.  But I don’t see dumb fuck Thibault kid stealing Rhett to get to the Don,” Joey said.  “I mean, how’s that gonna work?  He don’t even know the Don and it’s not like the Don would give a good God-damn about Agnes’ dog.”

“Somebody might have hired the Thibault boy to go in for something.”
Joey frowned at him, incredulous.  “Look, there is nothing in there.  Agnes doesn’t have a damn thing, she spent it all on that house, and putting good appliances in the kitchen.  The place is falling apart, Agnes is poor as dirt, she works all the time, she’s got nothing in there, Xavier.”

“Maybe something’s in there already,” Xavier said.   Maybe you got something in there I could put you away for. 

Joey picked up a spatula and flipped the egg over easy, golden but with the yolks still soft, Xavier was sure of it.  That Joey sure can cook, he told himself, trying to get his mind clear, get Evie the hell out of there. 
“You talking about the five million your man Hammond mentioned?” Joey said.  “Yeah, they’re gonna wait until a few days before a wedding and steal a dog to get it.”

“Maybe hold him for ransom?” Xavier said.  “Okay, that’s dumb.”

“Not that dumb.” Joey grabbed a white china plate from above the store and shoved the sausage and eggs onto it, slapped a thick slice of bread on it and slid it across the counter to Xavier.  “The way Agnes loves that moth-eaten mutt, if she had five mill, she’d give it up to get him back.  But she don’t.  Did you see that place?”

“Yeah,” Xavier said, cutting into the egg.  The yolk ran out, hot and thick, and he cut into Joey’s bread and sopped it up, trying to remember that Joey was probably keeping secrets from him—not probably-- and not to be trusted.  Then he put the forkful of food in his mouth and didn’t care.  When he’d chewed and swallowed, he said,  “Joey, you are one fine cook.”

“Almost forty years,” Joey said.  “You do something long enough, you get good at it.  Like you and detective work.”  He leaned his elbows on the counter.  “I know you think I’m up to something here.  But you look me in the eye and tell me you think I’d hurt Agnes.”

Xavier stopped chewing as Joey leaned in close.  “No,” he said.   “I never thought you’d hurt that woman, Joey.”

Joey nodded slowly and leaned back as Xavier worked his way through the first egg and the sausage.

“But I do have my suspicions about what happened twenty-five years ago and what might be happening now that you may have no control over,” Xavier went on, starting on the second egg.  “Without making any accusations about what may or may not have happened with a certain Little Train Robbery, if something has happened to renew interest in a certain missing five million, and you have information that might help lead me in the direction of miscreants who are putting Miss Agnes’s life in danger, that would be much appreciated.”

“I think you lost me,” Joey said and turned to scrape down the grill.

“Frankie Fortunato.”

Joey laughed out loud and turned back.  “Frankie?  Frankie’s been on some tropical island somewhere for over twenty-five years now.  He got out while the getting was good.”

“That would be right after the two of you committed the Little Train Robbery and stole five million?”

“I didn’t have nothing to do with that,” Joey said. 

“Possibly with Charlie ‘Four Wheels’ Thibault driving?”

Joey was pretending to ignore the last statement.  “If I had any of that money, you think I’d be sitting in this joint, jawing with you?”

“Oh, I have no proof you were in on it,” Xavier said.  “I don’t have proof Frankie was in on it either, but his disappearing the night it happened—let’s just say I am not a fan of coincidence.  And he never did anything without you.  Frankie ‘Two Hands’ was good with his hands but not so much the brain part.  So the logical deduction is you were with him that night and you two had something to do with that robbery.”

Joey shrugged.  “Statue of limitations ran out on that job a long time ago, so if I had done it, I’d be willing to say so.”

“Not if there was murder involved,” Xavier picked up his fork to finish his egg.  “Seeing that body last night at Two Rivers got me to thinking about that.”

Joey’s eyes got cold and his body grew still.  “You trying to say I whacked Frankie?  Over money?”

“It’s in the realm of possibilities.”

Joey picked up Xavier’s plate.  “Frankie was my friend.” 

He took the plate down the galley and dumped the rest of the second egg in the sink, and Xavier sighed and put his fork down.

Joey came back and put both hands on the counter in front of Xavier. 

“Frankie was a made guy and his brother, the Don, Jimmy, was—is—head of the Jersey chapter of the brotherhood. If I’d have whacked Frankie, I’d have been in the Blood River with cement shoes.  But more importantly, Detective Xavier, Frankie was my friend.”

“But Don Fortunato exiled you from the, how do you say it, brotherhood, after Frankie disappeared.” 

Joey shrugged.  “Exiled is a bit strong.  With Frankie gone, the Don didn’t see much need for me to be working for him here and I didn’t want to go back to Jersey.  Too damn cold up north.  It was a mutual thing.”

“I didn’t know you could do mutual things with a Don,” Xavier said.

“We made a deal.” 

“What kind of deal?” 

“None of your fucking business.”

“Did it involve five million dollars?”

“Fuck you.  There ain’t no money.”

“Well, then if Frankie did run away with the money,” Xavier said, “he stiffed you of your cut and the Don of his kick-up.  That is what you call it right?  Kick up?”

“Frankie was a stand-up guy,” Joe said.  “It was that Baby who drove him over the edge.  I think I’d even stiff the Don to get away from Baby.  She aint what she pretends to be.”

“But Frankie still screwed you.”

Joey shrugged.  “Them’s the breaks.  I don’t begrudge Frankie his opportunity to have a life.”

Xavier wasn’t buying it.  “Frankie was your friend.”

“He was.  And if he got himself a new life, I wish him all the happiness wherever he is.  That’s what being a friend is.”

Xavier switched tactics once more.  “Charlie ‘Four Wheels’ Thibault. 

Amazing coincidence his grandson, Two Wheels, breaks into the Folly where Frankie was last seen.”

“Strange things happen,” Joey said, but his eyes did that shift that told Xavier volumes.

“The gun was strange too,” Xavier said.  “Old.  And the way that medical tape was wrapped around the handle.  Old-timers used to do that to keep prints off it.  I doubt young Jimmy knew about that.  Sounds like something Four Wheels might have done to a gun of his own.”

Joey shrugged.  “So the kid stole a gun off his grandpa.  You’d have to ask Four Wheels.”

“Well, I’d like to, Joey,” Xavier said.  “But when we went out to his place just after dawn, he wasn’t there as far as we could see.   Mighty quiet out in that end of the swamp.  None of the Thibaults around.  Usually they’re as thick as the thieves they are out there.”

It was mighty quiet in this end of the diner, too.

All right then. 

“How about your nephew?” Xavier abruptly asked.

The flash was back in Joey’s eyes, the same flash that was there for Evie.  Damn, Xavier thought. 

“Nothing wrong with Shane,” Joey said with pride.  “He enlisted in the Army when he was seventeen, made rank, went to Officer Candidate School and served active duty for a while.  Got wounded in Afghanistan.  Won a Silver Star.”  Joey reached under the counter and pulled up a large black book, which he opened to a well-thumbed page.  He turned it around so Xavier could see.  There was a picture of a younger Shane lying in a hospital bed with an officer pinning a couple of medals to the sheet folded over his chest.  There was a thick bandage on his neck.  The caption read:  RANGER RECEIVES PURPLE HEART AND SILVER STAR.

Xavier glanced at the article, noting the full name.  “Captain Shane Smith?”
“So?” Joey asked.

“What happened to Shane’s parents?”

“His mother died when he was one.”  Joey’s eyes didn’t shift now, but they had a strange distant look in them that Xavier couldn’t read and Xavier again noted nothing said about the father.  Joey put the book back under the counter.  “Don’t you have work to do?” Joey pointedly asked.  “Or do you want a donut before you go?”

“I’ll get a cannoli,” Xavier said.

Joey laughed.  “Gotta leave da gun.”

Xavier stood and put a five down on the counter.  Joey had never put him on the board.  “For the eggs.  Mighty good.”

“Breakfast was on me,” Joey said with a smile that didn’t touch his eyes at all. 

“I can’t be beholding,” Xavier said, playing the ritual they’d done for most of thirty years.

“Then you could leave a bigger tip,” Joey said.  “I work hard for a living.”
“So do I,” Xavier said.  “But here’s a real tip: Whatever secret you got, now’s the time to give it up.”   

“Lousy tip,” Joey said, and went back to cleaning the grill.

back to top

“Just Shane.”

In the finished book, Shane goes into the warehouse and there’s nobody there.  But there was a time when the Tootaloo Brothers were in there.   We’d have kept this if we’d had the brains to put the Tootaloos in the story two other places, but we didn’t, so bringing them in only once just created more clutter.  Which is a shame because this is a great scene.  Oh and we had to change their name to the Torrentinos in the finished book because our editor thought Tootaloo was too unbelieveable   But we liked it a lot.

Shane pulled up to the old warehouse on the edge of the swamp on the east side of Savannah.  He’d already decided subtlety was not the desired course of action here.  He just plain didn’t feel like it.  He kept his sunglasses on and got out of the Defender into the humid heat just as a stocky man with the rippling muscles of a steroid-injecting weight-lifter and the sloping forehead of Cro-Magnon man stepped out of a personnel door set in the larger sliding doors in the front of the steel building.

“Whaddya want?” the man asked.  He wore flip-flops, swim trunks, and a black muscle shirt, which showed off not only the aforementioned muscles, but a dazzling array of tattoos from his wrists to his shoulders.

“You speaking to me?”

“Yeah, I’m speaking to you.”

Shane shook his head.  “You’re supposed to say:  ‘I don’t see nobody else standing there.’”

“What?”

Shane sighed.  No one watched the classics any more.  “The Tootaloo Brothers in?”

“Who wants to know?”

Shane looked over his shoulder, then back at the weightlifter.  “Me.”

Lines coursed across the forehead as he tried to puzzle that response out. 
“Who the fuck are you?”

 “Are the Tootaloo Brothers in there?” Shane asked, pointing at the warehouse.  “Please?”

The man’s head jerked in what Shane assumed was a nod. “Yeah, they’re in there, but you gotta give me your name or you ain’t going in there.”

“I’m me,” Shane said.

“You a funny guy?”

“No one seems to think so.” Shane hit the weightlifter in the throat with a quick strike of his fist, avoiding all the layers of muscles elsewhere on the body.  Weightlifter’s hands flew up his neck as he gasped in pain, exposing other vulnerable points.  Shane snap-kicked into his groin, eliciting a squeal of pain and Weighlifter went to his knees, curling over, his hands going from neck to balls.  Shane then did an elbow strike to the back of the man’s head and he was out like a light, prostrate on the ground.

Shane checked the unconscious body for weapons, found none but did find a money clip and pulled it out.  Lots of crisp hundred dollar bills.  Twenty-one.  Shane frowned.  Interesting.  He flex-cuffed the man’s bulky arms behind his back just in case he came to before Shane was done with his business inside and then headed for the door. 

Shane pulled his sunglasses up, opened the door, and stepped into the dim light of the warehouse.  Large, industrial fans slowly circled overhead.  Light streamed through dirty windows set in offsets in the roof, casting odds shadows.  There were pallets of crates haphazardly deposited here and there throughout the warehouse.  And pretty much in the center were two men seated in La-Z-boys with oscillating fans blowing over coolers full of ice toward them. They were middle-aged, balding, fat and dressed identically in long white, neatly pressed pants and undershirts—the ones not kindly called ‘wife-beater’ shirts in some circles.  Pressed dress shirts and white jackets hung on hangers nearby.  They were watching something—sounded like porn from the un-natural female gasping-- on a wide-screen TV and didn’t notice Shane’s approach until he reached down and pulled the plug for the TV.

“What the fuck?” One of them exclaimed, turning his head.  “Who the fuck are you?”

“Where’s Rocko?” the other demanded. 

“Sleeping with the concrete,” Shane said.

“You killed him?” the second asked, seemingly not too concerned.

“Nah,” Shane said, moving around so he could see both brothers.  They were twins according to the intelligence Carpenter gave him.  Not identical, but close enough.  “He’ll be ok.”

“So who are you?” the first asked again.

“Shane.”

“Shane who?”

“Just Shane.”

Shane waited for some wise-ass repartee, but the two brothers just exchanged a confused glance.  “Which one of you is Tommy and which one is Tim?” he asked, drawing his Glock just for effect.

“I’m Tim,” the one on the right said.  “That’s Tom.  And you still haven’t said what the fuck you want and why you roughed up Rocko.”  He grabbed the rod on the right of his chair and levered his chair forward and stood up. 

Tom did the same, both eyeing the gun, concern beginning to show.

“I’m here about one of your people,” Shane said.  “Vinnie ‘Can of Tomatoes’ Marinelli.”

“What about Vinnie?” Tom asked.  He folded his arms, trying to make the fat in them appear to be muscle.

“He tried to whack a friend of mine,” Shane said.  “Did you send him on a contract job?” 

The two brothers exchanged another glance.  Shane figured he was dealing with a combined IQ of about 160 here.  “We don’t know nothing about no contract Vinnie was doing,” Tom said.  “We ain’t seen him in a couple of days.  You see him, tell him we’re looking for him.”

“Vinnie’s sleeping with the fishes,” Shane said.

“You mean like Godfather sleeping with—“ Tim said and Shane nodded.
Tim swallowed. 

“Who are you?” Tom asked, but there was no threat in his voice.

“You have no idea who contracted Vinnie?” Shane asked but he already knew this well was dry.  Joey was right:  These two guys were too dumb to lie.

“No,” Tom said.  He looked at Shane.  “You gonna whack us?”

“What about Casey Dean?” Shane asked. 

“Who?” Tom said.

“You?” Shane indicated to the other brother.

“Never heard of the guy,” Tim said.

“What about Delillo?” Shane asked.  “He worked for you, right?”

Shane could have sworn both men got even paler as both shook their heads.  “No,” Tom said.  “Delillo works for Atlanta.  But we heard he disappeared a few days ago.”

“I know,” Shane said.

“Oh, shit,” Tim said.  “You had something to do with that?”

Shane didn’t say anything.  He aimed at one of the jackets and fired, the round punching a neat hole right through the right breast.

“What the fuck?” Tom demanded.

Tim began talking.  “Delillo was doing something big.  Setting something up.”

“For Don Fortunato out of Jersey, right?”

Tim swallowed.  “How’d you know that?  We didn’t hear anything.”

Shane ignored the question and fired again, putting a round through the other jacket.  “Was Vinnie working for him?”

Tim shook his head quickly.  “I don’t think so.  Vinnie was small time.”

“Geez,” Tom muttered.  “These suits are hand-made.  We got ‘em in Macon.”

Shane had a headache.  If these two bozos thought Vinnie was small time--

Tom spoke up.  “If Vinnie took a contract without us knowing, it was probably from Rocko.”

Shane blinked.  “The guy in the parking lot?”  That explained the money clip and the hundreds.

Tom nodded.  “He thinks he can make it with a bigger family if he gets his bones, but he’s afraid of guns.  So he’s been putting the word out—” he was speaking faster as Shane aimed the Glock at one of the suit jackets again—“that he’ll do a hit, but I know he’d sub-contract it, seeing as he’s afraid of guns, you know, and Vinnie was stupid enough to take such a job.”

If Vinnie was dumber than Rocko it meant he was Neanderthal.  And then he’d sub-contracted it to Macy for five hundred.  They’d have sub-contracted further to an orangutan if one had been available.  The two contract theory was looking solid now.  Don Fortunato had used the Atlanta connection—Delillo—to hire Casey Dean to do the wedding hit and someone had hired Rocko locally to hit Agnes.

Tom seemed to gather some courage, while keeping his attention on the gun.  “We’re supposed to meet Don Fortunato in two hours at the airport, so I suggest you let us go.  He won’t be happy if his ride isn’t there.”

So the Don was going to be here today.  And Casey Dean was already around.  To whack someone at the wedding before they ratted out the Don.  Maybe I should just call Casey Dean up and ask him who that someone is, Shane thought.  It would be nice to talk to someone with a brain.

“All right,” Shane said.  “You guys can go meet the Don.  But wait back here ten minutes before going outside.  I’m going for a ride with Rocko.  No one follows.”  He paused.  “And tell the Don, Shane looks forward to meeting him.”

Chase turned his back on the brothers, not worried about them.  He heard cursing as he came out of the warehouse.  Rocko was sitting up, moaning, for which Shane was grateful, doubtful he could toss that much unconscious weight into the Defender.  It also meant Rocko had a very thick skull, which wasn’t surprising.

“On your feet,” Shane said, giving Rocko a quick poke in the back with the muzzle of the Glock.

Rocko muttered something inarticulate, but staggered to his feet.  Shane guided him over to the Defender and shoved him into the passenger seat, his hands still awkwardly secured behind him with the plastic flex-cuff.  Shane got in the driver’s seat.  He threw the truck in gear and drove out of the parking lot.  Then he remembered something.  He dug in his pocket and pulled out today’s TO DO list.

“Where’s Abercon Street?” he asked Rocko.

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“I wish it did matter”

Xavier had one private moment in the book with Evie and he lost when we cut his POV.

Simon Xavier stared at the interlocking branches of old oak trees that made a canopy for the long green tunnel leading to the Wilkes Mansion.  More and more tourists were coming by this way and snapping pictures, to the point where a long length of chain link had been strung between the two old brick walls on either side of the dirt road to keep them from intruding further.  Xavier imagined that irritated Evie no end to have to get out of her nice, cool Lexus and unhook and re-hook that chain every time she drove through.
He checked his watch.  A half hour before three.  He knew the Wilkes Garden Club met every Wednesday at noon at the Country Club and Evie was one of the board members and she would be there come hell or high water, and since hell from twenty-five years past looked like it was rearing its ugly head here in town, Xavier figured just before high noon was a good time to have a chat with Evie, the town’s real power.

He was sitting on the hood of his Mercedes and he pulled his flask out and unscrewed the lid and took a deep swig.  Don’t bullshit yourself, he warned, as he saw the Lexus come down the shaded tunnel.  It came to a halt and the door opened and Evie got out, elegant as always, and Xavier’s heart skipped a beat, as always.

She unhooked the chain, her eyes invisible behind sunglasses that Xavier figured cost more than a week of his pay.  She pulled the Lexus over the chain but didn’t stop right away, crossing the road and sliding in front of his car, front bumper facing, less than three feet away.  Then she got out and walked up to him.

“Mind putting the chain back up for me, Simon?”

“No problem, ma’am.”  Xavier nodded and crossed over.  He hooked the chain and when he turned back, was surprised to see Evie leaning back, butt against the nose of her car, arms folded.  She could have been an ad for Lexus.  Xavier would have bought one at the moment, no matter what it cost.

“What can I do for you, Detective?”

Xavier was flustered by the switch.  “Been a while since we talked, Mrs. Wilkes.”

“Do we have a reason to?”

He wished he could make out her eyes through those glasses.  He leaned back against his Mercedes, but it was lower than the Lexus and this meant she was actually looking down at him by a few inches.  He didn’t like that.  “There are some problems over at the Two Rivers Mansion.”

Evie laughed, an edge to it he didn’t remember.  Bitter.  “There are a lot of problems over there.  I told Palmer we could have the wedding at the Country Club.  Or even here, at the house.”  She inclined her head to the right, indicating what she called a house and everyone else called The Mansion.  “But, he’s besotted with that girl.  And she wants it in the house she grew up in.  And I think she should have what she wants.”

Xavier was surprised at that.  “You want the wedding to take place at Two Rivers now?”

“It’s a pretty enough place, don’t you think?”

“I don’t remember it being such a bad place,” Xavier agreed.

“You don’t?”

Then Xavier remembered the diner yesterday—had it only been yesterday? 

“Seems time changes things though.  Changes people.”

“Does it?”

“Seems so.”

“In what ways, detective?”

Xavier realized that somehow she was now questioning him and he’d lost control of the situation.  “It doesn’t matter.”

“I wish it did matter,” Evie said.  She took a deep breath and he thought she was angry.  “What do you want, detective?”

“So you only call me Simon when you want me to do something?”

Evie reached up and pulled her glasses off.  Her eyes were just as he remembered them.  He was shocked to see they were moist.  “No, Simon.  I was surprised to see you here.  Happy, actually.  But then I realized you were here about work.  As always.  Not about me.  So.”

Xavier felt a flush of anger.  “And Joey?  What do you call him when you want him to do something for you?”

Evie shook her head slowly.  “Oh, Simon.  You’re such a smart man, but you are oh so, so stupid sometimes.  I remember there was a day a long time ago when I waited for you on the side of the road, not too far from here as a matter of fact.  And you never showed.”

Xavier was startled.  “I never thought—“ he stopped.  “We thought we had a break in the case.  And by the time I got there, you weren’t there.”

“A young girl can’t stand on the side of the road forever, Simon.  And you know, some things are more important than your damn cases.”  She put her sunglasses back on.  “You came here for something, detective.  What do you need?”

Xavier blinked, his surprise swirling into confusion.  “I’ve got to do some searching at Two Rivers.  I need to get a warrant to do that.  I know the wedding is coming up.  But—“ he fumbled to a halt as Evie shook her head again, this time more decisively.

“No.  Not this week, detective.  After the wedding, do what you want.  That’s been a mantra of mine for a while now.  Make it yours.”

What the hell is she talking about? Xavier wondered.

Evie unfolded her arms and reached out and poked him lightly in the chest with a long graceful finger.  “And something else, detective.  You are going after Joey Torcelli for something that happened twenty-five years ago.  No one knows what really happened twenty-five years ago.  You least of all as you’ve just learned.  Keep that in mind.  Now I have to get to Garden Club.  You know.  Important stuff.”  She turned and walked around to her car door.  She opened it, but paused before getting in.  “Good-bye, Simon.”

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I'm Brenda.

This isn’t really a scene at all, it’s Brenda talking about her life.  Jenny wrote it so that Bob could understand who Brenda was since she wasn’t on the page very often.  HUGE spoilers in this.

I'm Brenda.

I'm hot and a lot of guys wanted me but I married Frankie because he was in with the mob and he was crazy about me and I couldn't get Anthony, he was all over that damn Angelina, but Frankie, well, I'd be pretty high up, I'd be a Fortunato and Frankie would do anything I wanted and there'd be all that money.   So I married Frankie, big mob wedding, it was really something, I was really something, prettiest mob bride ever, everybody said so, Frankie said he was the luckiest guy on earth and he was right, the dumbass, luckiest day of his life when he married me.

Then we ended up in Keyes.  Swear to God, I thought that day on the lake, I was gonna be a widow and then the wife of the Don, but no, I end up in Keyes forever and I know that asshole is cheating on me, right and left he cheats on me, ME, the hottest mob wife EVER, and he fucks somebody else and I'm stuck in Keyes where a lady doesn't do that crap and what am I supposed to do , take some other bitch's leftovers from my asshole husband?   And I am stuck and then he comes home and I know he's been with another woman and he's got this necklace and he comes up and I say, "Who is she, you son of a bitch?" and he said, "Jesus, Brenda, I been out on a job, give it a rest," and I say, "How damn dumb do you think i am, I saw that necklace you bought her," and he said, "Pretty damn dumb cause I didn't buy no necklace, so just fuck off and make me my dinner," and i picked up the frying pan and I hit him in the face with it.  Blood all over the goddamn kitchen.   I just stood there, waiting for him to get up and hit me, but he didn't and after a minute, I knew he was dead and I thought, "Jesus fucking Christ, the Don is gonna kill me."   So I thought fast and thought if he just disappeared and nobody found a body, well, hell, he was with the fucking mob, so I dragged him down the basement steps and his head kept hitting them and then across the floor and don't think that didn't leave a blood smear and into his damn bunker and then I ran out and slammed the door.  And I cleaned up the blood and went upstairs and cleaned up that blood and built a fire in the fireplace and then stopped to think.   And I realized I didn't have any cash so I went down to get cash off him and that's when I realized that he had the only key to the goddamned bunker on him.   So okay fine, nobody else could get in there, either.   So I went upstairs and looked around and washed off my frying pan and went to bed.   And then I thought, "Fuck, THE CAR."  And I drove it to the airport and then walked back to the bus station and took the bus to the next town and walked ten miles back in the dark and don't think I didn't curse Frankie in hell the whole way.  And then I just waited it out.    And the thing is, nobody suspected me because I didn't get a damn thing out of it.  The bastard was worth more to me alive than he was dead.   I didn't even have a guy on the side, and don't you think the Don didn't look, but I was pure as snow.  And stuck in Keyes because I couldn't move and let some dickhead remodel the basement and find Frankie, could I?   A couple of years later, I got married again to the Real Estate King and that helped some because of the money and because he was older than God and he did give me some respectability before he kicked off at 84 from natural causes plus some kindly neglect-to-administer-medication but it was really my third husband, old Southern money Randall Dupres, who put me into Keyes society and I swear to God, he married me for Two Rivers, not that he ever put a dime into it.  Probably because he didn't HAVE a dime.  Never marry old money because likely or not it's not there.   

So here I am, I'm in my fifties now and I am still hot and I am still stuck in fucking Keyes and here comes Agnes, a nice enough woman and she thinks I'm her role model or something because I taught her to melt butter and that's fine and she's going to put me on the cover of her book, and I like that, and she's engaged to Taylor Beaumont and he's a good-looking son of a bitch and I could USE a good looking son of a bitch after thirty years of assholes, and one night I suggest to Taylor that he stay late to discuss a recipe and it turns out that he's an immoral son of a bitch which is my favorite kind.  And he starts talking about what a great restaurant Two Rivers would make with him as a chef--subtlety is not his strong point, and suddenly, I get to thinking that maybe I can use him for more than a good hard night.  And the upshot is, we talk Agnes into putting up the down payment on Two Rivers with Taylor, with a survivorship clause.   But then Taylor gets cold feet; he's not going to marry Agnes and kill her.   I try to tell him that he's not going to kill her, I am, but he's not going to do it.   So I come up with Plan B; we'll swindle her out of it with the wedding.  Taylor goes for that one, at first not seeing that I am also swindling HIM out of it, but then Taylor ain't the brightest star in the sky, but eventually he works it out so I say, “No problem, we’ll get married,” and we do.  I finally got myself the husband I deserve.   So we're all set.   Now all I have to do is make it impossible for Agnes to pull the wedding off, and Evie will move it to the country club.    I've alienated the baker, I'm doing good work on that raddled bitch, Maisie the florist, I'm set up to screw up the china, I've canceled the dress, but my big moves are yet to come.  I'll have that wedding at the country club, run by Evie, yet. 

Then that fucking picture is in the paper, the dog is wearing that damn necklace that Frankie brought home.  I got NO idea what Frankie did with that necklace after I saw him with it.  I figured he put it in the vault.  But that's where his body is.  Maybe he left it in the basement/den.  But I had those stairs knocked down and papered over that wall myself long before I married the Real Estate King.   So where'd the fucking necklace come from?

There were two people with Frankie that night, his little gang: Frankie, Joey, and Four Wheels Thibault.  Joey wouldn't dick around with a necklace.   Has to be Four Wheels, although why he's doing it now is beyond me.   Blackmail maybe?  Fourwheels is dumb as a box of rocks; it could take him thirty years to figure out a clue he had that night.  I cut the picture out, put it on the windshielf of Four Wheels’ truck parked outside the low rent bar he’s always drunk in, with the necklace circled and I write on it with my Sharpie, "What the fuck?"   I don't sign it, he'll know it's from me.  

Next day, I go out to Agnes's steaming.  I’m doing everything I can to torpedo the wedding, but Agnes is steamrolling right over it.   She reminds me of me.  I'd have a soft spot for her if she wasn't standing in my way.   I drop my bomb about the flowers and the dress, and I watch everybody come unglued and then Maria goes nuts about some damn flamingos and OHMYGOD she's dyed my dress hot pink like some goddamn whore!  I feel like I been punched in the stomach and then Evie takes off and so do I, and it's the perfect opportunity so we talk and I say, "Agnes has lost control of this wedding, I think we should move it to the country club and you should take it over."  And she says “You're right, Brenda,” and don’t think that moment isn’t sweet.  Evie Keyes telling me I’m right, sitting right there in the tea shop where everybody can see her nodding at me. Victory.  

So we go back and my damn daughter is there, and Agnes is trying to make peace and Lisa Livia just humiliates us all with goddamn mouth and drags the goddamn wedding back to Two Rivers and I'm thinking the only way to get it to the country club is to kill Agnes, but first I'm gonna try to talk some sense into her so I say, "Agnes, can I see you in the kitchen, please?" and I go in and my heart drops to my shoes because that goddamn basement door is standing open.  And I say, "Agnes, what is this?" and she tells me Two Wheels Thibault fell through it and died last night, and I'm thinking Four Wheels is gonna be mad as hell about that and I say, "Oh dear, his grandfather is going to be so upset," and Agnes says, "He seems to have disappeared," and I'm thinking, "Shit, fuck, he's gonna kill somebody," and then Joey comes through the basement door from some ladder, only it's Joey thirty years ago, looking damn hot, and Agnes says, "This is Shane, Joey's nephew," and I'm remembering Shane, who's the heir to the whole damn Family, and God knows what this guy is capable of, and all of a sudden my Let's Kill Agnes plot is more complicated.   But I'm still thinking Let's Kill Agnes.  Just maybe I shouldn't do it.   Because you know.  Shane's there.   So I say, 'I'd forgotten all about that ol' basement.  What's down there?"   And Shane says, "Lotta dust and wine.  Why'd you leave the wine down there?" and I say, "Wine?  My husband at the time was a teetotaler and insisted," hoping they never go back and find out they didn't have to embalm The Real Estate King because he'd pickled himself in gin first.   And then I go and find Taylor and say, "We have to put the pressure on Agnes to screw up the wedding, so you take her those dishes we talked about, while I work on the photographer."  And he goes off meek as a lamb while I get out my rolodex and find somebody who can get me a hitman.  Because I am not fucking around anymore, that bitch has to die so that Taylor gets Two Rivers.

The next morning i get up and go out to Two Rivers expecting to see patrol cars and a hearse and instead I get Agnes looking healthier than all get out, in fact she looks like she's just been laid and I'm gonna kill Taylor when I get my hands on him, and some big black guy is painting the house at the speed of light and Shane is stringing some kind of cable and Agnes and Lisa livia are out on the screened porch with their heads together and I do not like that.  So I go to see what's up and they both straighten and look at me and smile and I know they know something.  I don't know what but it's something.  And it's not Frankie, but it's something big.  But before they can say anything  here comes Evie and she’s ruined my goddamn wedding dress—that was Italian lace on there, handmade, goddamn it—and now Evie and Maria are united and it's going to be a Flamingo wedding at Two Rivers.    I feel like I’m in some goddamn HGTV from Hell.  I call up my hitman and say, "She's still ALIVE goddamnit," and he says he'll call me back and meanwhile, Shane's going down the goddamn basement again with that damn handyman of Agnes's and they're talking about drilling holes and I'm thinking somebody better drill Agnes goddamn soon.   I knew we should have killed the bitch.  Flamingo wedding, my ass.   I get in my car and go see what the fuck's up with Taylor and he's got a bandage on his neck and he shows me the holes where Agnes stuck a fork in him, and for a minute there, I gotta admit, I like Agnes.  Then I say, "Well, hell, there's our answer, we just put the bitch in jail and the wedding's off," and Taylor says, "No, he'll kill me," and I get the story about Shane, and I say, "Well, then I'LL tell the cops," and he says, "I'll tell them you're lying, don't do it," and I think, Fuck, I'll used the goddamn fork on you, but I'm not seeing any way around it.   Then I get a phone call from my guy who says that his guy contracted to another guy who contracted to another guy who contracted to another guy whose boat motor went out, and about the time I start screaming, he says, "Don't worry, we'll do it," and hangs up.   

The next morning the bitch is still alive, the wedding is going along great, there's a new photographer, Maisie the slut florist is back because Agnes scared her more than I did,  the house is painted, and I'd be ripping people apart with my bare hands except that they've found the goddamn vault and they're going to open it today and find Frankie.   And then I'm gonna die because who else knew about the vault except me?  And Joey.

Joey.  That's my ticket.  Joey hit him and shoved him in there.   Because they were on a job and he wanted to keep the money.   Because I sure as hell didn't get anything out of it, they can check back as far as they want and they'll see.  I never got a penny.  I really didn't.  I'm innocent.  I couldn't have killed him, I DIDN'T GET ANYTHING OUT OF IT.  If I didn't get anything out of it, I didn't kill him.  I really didn't.   God, what a relief.

Wonder what'll happen when they open the vault?

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