Тимоти Уилльямз - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 126, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 769 & 770, September/October 2005

Not that I’ve got anything against cerise.

Or mauve.

As such.

I also had the job of bundling up “the children” — three apricot French lop rabbits — and dispatching them by courier to Joy’s new address.

I’d barely started scraping the walls for the paint job when the first nuisance call came. There was a strangely empty silence when I picked up the receiver.

Several times after that I let the phone ring out and ran a *10# trace. It matched the contact details the lawyer had given us with the instructions for dispatching the rabbits.

A few weeks later a call came one night when Lou was out on a case. This time the caller spoke.

“Is...” There was the barest hint of hesitation. “Lou-ise there?”

“No one of that name here, honey.”

“I must’ve dialled the wrong number,” the caller’s voice oozed. “I’ll try again.”

But she didn’t attempt to hang up. So I purred back, “You do that — Joy-lene!”

There was an audible gasp before the line went dead.

The calls stopped for a while after that, until the night of Lou’s next birthday. We’d planned an intimate dinner at home.

He’d turned and nibbled my left earlobe as he left for work that morning. “Don’t wear yourself out,” he warned. “Just you on a plate’ll be fine.”

It was my regular day off, so I went uptown and bought him a Versace black silk shirt, then treated him to some matching satin lingerie for me.

Afterwards, I chose the night’s meal from a gourmet food hall. Smoked salmon, avocado, a little Thai stir-fry with noodles, and two portions of Death by Chocolate. Oh, and a big bag of roasted peanuts.

Lou’d saved his dessert for later, and was sharing my slice with me on the couch. His right hand was spoon-feeding mocha mousse while his left traced warm circles of pleasure on my inner thighs.

My appetite for chocolate was fading fast when the phone rang.

My thigh muscles slammed tight on his paw. “Let it ring.”

He tried to pull away. “But it could be work, Bunnikins.”

Those adductors locked on. “Let... it... ring!”

“Your work, Bunnikins?”

I was off that couch and on the phone quicker’n you can say “deadline.”

“Hello?”

“Put Lou on.” There was no attempt to disguise the toffee-brittle voice this time.

“Flash’s... occupied,” I giggled. It was true. He’d begun massaging my shoulders with the hot, hard balls of his fingers.

“Just put him on, ’Lop, I’m freezin’ my arse off here.”

“It’s hairself,” I said, and held out the receiver.

He snatched it. “Joy?”

After that Lou did a lot of listening. “You’re what?... But I don’t think... All right... all right, gimme forty minutes, okay?” He slammed down the receiver.

And then, to my amazement, he reached for the Merc keys.

“Where’re you going?”

“NeverforgettoaskthebleedingobviousSigi.” Gillespie’s words buzzed in my ears.

Lou held out his arms in appeal. “She’s got a flat,” he said.

“You’re not going to fix it!”

I could feel myself heating up again, for all the wrong reasons.

“What about her handbag?” I wanted to know.

“Huh?”

There are few things more irritating than a man who fails to see a big lump of irony when it smacks him in the face.

“Troy? Joy’s toy boy?” It galled me to have to spell it out.

But not as much as the response.

“Aw, Bunnikins.” I caught a stab of sympathy in those Latin eyes. “The kid didn’t last more’n a few weeks.”

He stooped and gave me a perfunctory kiss on the cheek before shrugging his big shoulders into his jacket and stashing the bag of peanuts under one arm.

As soon as the Merc was clear of the drive, I did the sensible thing. I went straight to the refrigerator and, bit by bit, consumed Lou’s portion of Death by Chocolate.

There was a perceptible weakening in the frisson between Lou and me after that. For starters, I threw out the black satin in favour of a six-pack of Bonds cottontails.

Shortly afterwards, he e-mailed me from the station. The message was elegant in its conciseness. “Rabbits arriving tonight.”

My cue to head straight to Kmart and buy two new nightgowns.

In passion-killer flannelette.

So what if Lou was always telling me to curb my spending? Our bank balance ran on empty thanks to his extravagance.

When I got back, I consigned the message to the Deleted Items basket.

While I was at it, I decided to permanently delete some of the messages that Lou and I accumulated because we often work from home.

I wasn’t prepared for what I was about to find.

“Pay by Saterday or The Lop gets it!”

The e-mail address was a nail-fashion business in one of the city arcades. Not that I needed it. That spelling was a dead giveaway.

And with a name like Sigourney ‘Bunnikins’ Dun- lop, I had every right to feel twitchy. Should I be bracing myself for a bullet — or a scoop?

Whenever Mama was stressed she’d clean the house.

Which probably explains why I found myself wielding an armload of anti-stat cloths that afternoon, moving faster than any hostess before an Enjo party.

By the time I’d swiped the floors, wiped the bench tops, and polished the wall oven, my enthusiasm was flagging.

So when I reached Lou’s collection of old home-recorded videos I collapsed on the shagpile to read the labels.

Like I said, I was raised on a diet of B-grade movies. Low-budget thrillers mainly, with a few spaghetti Westerns on the side.

But I’d never touched Lou’s collection before.

I ran my eye down the badly spelled titles scrawled in Joy’s handwriting — An Afair to Remember, Star Treck, Revenge of the Killer Tomartoes. I smiled, imagining Joy demolishing a mega-pack of popcorn, glued to this classic.

Curiosity made me open the box.

But inside there was no tape.

Just a lock-top plastic bag containing enough amphetamines to keep the local high school high for a month.

I reinserted the bag and slammed the box shut.

Just in time.

Moments later, I heard the Merc turn in.

I quickly shoved the box back in place.

By the time Lou walked in, I was Enjo-ing dust off the TV screen.

He walked over and brushed the hair away from my eyes. Since Nino, I haven’t been able to find a decent stylist.

“You okay?” he said.

“Why shouldn’t I be?”

“That pugnacious tilt of your chin is a dead giveaway, Bunnikins.”

He’d been like this ever since doing an in-service course on body language.

He went on. “Get my message?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t mind having the girls, do you? Joy’s got a nail conference.” He was already heading back out the door.

He reappeared carrying a bag of rabbit muesli.

“How long will she be gone?” I heard myself ask. I was trying to calculate what kind of injury a 50kg woman could inflict on a 95kg man with a 30kg bag of rabbit muesli.

“Week, maybe.” He slung the muesli in the corner. I felt my blood fizz as a small cloud of mixed grain settled on recently swiped ceramic. “What’s for dinner?”

“Whatever you’re cooking,” I replied. “Rabbit sounds good.”

I noticed his shoulders stiffen — and I hadn’t even done the body-language course.

Despite his appetite for fine wine and good food, Lou’s no gourmet chef.

So it shouldn’t have surprised me to sit down to a plate of peanut butter sandwiches followed by peanut-brittle ice cream and coffee with — you guessed it — chocolate-coated peanuts.

“You genuinely like peanuts, don’t you?” I pushed the ice cream aside and reached for a toothpick.