Джанет Иванович - Fortune and Glory

“What is it?”

“When your husband passes, one of the customs is to move your wedding band from your left hand to your right hand. I got two dead husbands, so I’m wearing both rings. Truth is, it doesn’t feel right to have them so close together on my finger. It’s not like they even knew each other. Anyway, I was washing my hands this afternoon, and I took my rings off. And I was looking at the rings on the counter by the sink and wondering what I should do about them, and this idea hit me.”

“And?”

“And I never said anything about this before, but the date on the inside of my band is wrong. I’ve been keeping Jimmy’s band in a box in my underwear drawer next to the keys and his band has the wrong date, too. It’s not even the same as mine.”

“Didn’t you get the rings together?”

“No. It was so sudden. I thought we were going to the Bahamas to have a couple of nights of sin, but when we got there, he had it arranged to get married.”

“And?”

“Maybe the numbers are his clue,” Grandma said. “The La-Z-Boys think he gave his clue to me, and the wedding bands are all I’ve got from him.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah,” Grandma said. “Do you think that’s crazy?”

“I don’t know. What are the numbers? Do they make any sense to you?”

“That’s the thing. They’re just numbers.”

Grandma took her ring off and handed it to me. The numbers inscribed on the inside were 2/5/20.

“And here’s Jimmy’s ring,” she said, handing me a second ring.

His numbers were 11/7/20.

“The safe most likely needs numbers to go with the two keys,” I said. “Maybe this is the safe combination.”

“That would do us a lot of good if we knew where the safe was,” Grandma said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The house was quiet when I got up. My mom and Grandma were at church, and my dad was at his lodge doing whatever men do at lodges. The coffee was still hot and there was half an Entenmann’s coffee cake on the kitchen table. I had coffee and cake, and I wrote a note to my mom that I was borrowing the Buick and returning to my apartment.

Twenty minutes later I chugged into my building’s parking lot and did a fast scan for unfamiliar cars. I’d had a restless night, thinking about Grandma’s rings. She’d been accused of possessing not only the keys but also a clue and now it might turn out to be true.

I took a shower and got dressed in old Stephanie clothes. Ratty T-shirt, worn-out jeans, sloppy gray hooded sweatshirt. It was Sunday and the bonds office was closed, so I was going used car shopping. I’ve found that it’s best not to look successful when you shop for a used car.

Uncle Matt’s Used Car Lot was ten minutes away and opened at noon on Sunday. I wanted a car that was unremarkable. Not too flashy. Not too shabby. Not too big and not too small. And it had to have good juju. Since I didn’t seem to have a lot of good car karma, it would help if I could offset it with a car with good juju.

I grabbed my messenger bag and headed out. The sky was blue, and the air was a perfect seventy-five degrees. I was parked toward the back of the lot, and the bulbous powder blue and white Buick was clearly visible when I stepped out of my apartment building. I walked past the first row of cars and two men came out of nowhere.

“Mr. Shine would like to talk to you,” one of them said.

My heart did a little flip and it took a couple of beats for me to find my voice. “I would love to talk to Mr. Shine,” I told him. “I can meet him at the bail bonds office anytime tomorrow.”

“He wants to talk to you now,” he said.

I stepped to the side and moved in the direction of the Buick. “Now isn’t convenient.”

On the outside I was putting up a pretty good show of you-don’t-scare-me nonchalance. On the inside I was a mess. Rapid heartbeat and scramble-brain. We were the only ones in the lot, and I doubted anyone would hear me if I started screaming. My phone was in the front pocket of my messenger bag. I reached for the phone and he yanked the bag off my shoulder.

“Hey!” I said. “Give it back.”

He dangled it in front of me. “Make me.”

He was in his late twenties and bulked up like a gym monkey in too-tight dress slacks and a three-button, collared knit shirt that was bursting at the seams over his pecs and biceps. The other guy was my height with no apparent muscle, wearing a slim-fit navy suit with a tapered leg. He had a jagged scar running from the outer corner of his eye to the bottom of his chin. The gun on his hip was too large for the cut of the suit. Neither of the men was attractive. Both of them looked like they were enjoying tormenting dumb little me.

“We’re going to take you for a ride now, Sweetie Pie,” the gym monkey said. “You can come with us nice and easy or Sanchez can stun-gun you.”

“Nice and easy,” I said.

He smiled and relaxed a little, and I sucker-punched him in the throat. I hit him square in the Adam’s apple, and his eyes almost popped out of his head. Truth is, I was as shocked as he was. My self-defense skills are sadly lacking, and I’d acted out of terrified desperation. I thought it was a miracle that I made contact, much less with such precision.

He was gasping and choking, and before Sanchez could grab me, I was off and running. I couldn’t get into the Buick because I didn’t have my messenger bag with the key. I couldn’t get into my building because they were between me and the building, so I ran across the lot toward a residential area. I could hear Sanchez running after me, but I had a head start and I was motivated. I reached the edge of the lot, crossed the street, and ran for the nearest house. I ran up to the front door and hammered my fist on the door and yelled “ Help! ”

Sanchez caught up to me and reached out with the stun gun. I stumbled trying to get away from him and knocked us both off the small concrete and brick porch. I rolled away from him, tried to get to my feet, and he grabbed my ankle. I went into blind panic mode, screaming and thrashing around, trying to get free, and somehow managed to kick him in the face. Blood gushed out of his nose or maybe his mouth. I didn’t hang around long enough to find out which. I was on my feet and running again.

I ran between two houses and cut across two backyards. I had no idea if he was following me or not. My heart was pounding so hard and my breathing was so labored, I couldn’t hear a stampeding herd of buffalo if they were on my heels. I hid behind a detached single-car garage and bent at the waist to catch my breath. I peeked out and didn’t see him. I stayed there until I no longer felt like throwing up and then I ventured out. I heard a car cruise down the street. It didn’t stop. I didn’t hear any footsteps. No heavy breathing.

I took the long way back to my apartment building, going one block over and coming into the lot from the service entrance. I paused behind an SUV and looked and listened. There weren’t a lot of cars parked. Residents were out doing weekend things. This is good, I thought. Fewer places for the bad guys to hide. I could see my messenger bag lying on the ground by the Buick. I ventured out and was almost at the Buick when Sanchez and the gym monkey appeared from behind Mr. Mullen’s ancient Lincoln Town Car.

“No more fun time,” gym monkey said. “You run this time and Sanchez is going to shoot you.”

Sanchez had a wad of tissues stuffed into his nose, and even at a short distance the nose looked crooked and his eyes were beginning to bruise and swell.

“I’m a crack shot,” Sanchez said, “and I’m not going to shoot to kill. I’m going to shoot you someplace real painful, and then when we bring you to Mr. Shine, you’re going to be cooperative. And maybe he’ll let us play with you when he’s done.”