Catherine Coulter - Backfire

Sherlock said, “How tall is your mom, Boozer?”

They heard a lovely voice call from the kitchen, “I’m five-foot-nine, Agent Sherlock. Paul is tall, too; he takes after me.”

Sherlock smiled at Boozer. “Picture the guy in your mind, he’s standing by your bed. Is he taller than your mom?”

Boozer thought about this. “Nah, he’s about the same as my mom, maybe a little bit shorter.”

“Is there anything you can tell us about him that stood out when you met him? You called him a torturer. So he wasn’t very good?”

“That’s for sure. He would have really hurt me if I hadn’t been a little looped from all the drugs. He had a real hard time getting the needle in a vein, had to go to my other arm. I don’t know how many times he stuck me. I was wishing I could knock his block off, even with the drugs.”

“But he finally got the needle in a vein,” Savich said. “Do you remember how many blood vials he filled?”

Boozer shuddered, scrunched up his face like a kid. “I didn’t want to look, but after a while I did. Three of those vacuum vials with the purple stoppers. I asked him what all that blood was for, and he said something like, ‘I guess they want to make sure your insides didn’t get as wrecked as your face.’

“I remember that because I thought it sounded kind of nasty what he said; then he left, didn’t say anything else to me. I guess he was the only one at the hospital who wasn’t nice to me.”

Savich studied Boozer’s face for a moment. He could see the pain meds were starting to work. Boozer was sitting more easily in the big chair, his muscles loose, his hands smoothing out the afghan. He said, “Go ahead and close your eyes, Mr. Gordon. Relax. Imagine you’re watching him draw your blood. Is there anything unusual about him?”

“I heard him cursing under his breath when he couldn’t find a vein.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, he stopped in the door when he was leaving and turned around.”

“Look at him, Boozer. Was he old?”

“Hard to say, over fifty, I’d say, somewhere in there.”

Sherlock wanted him to compare his age to his mother’s, but she wasn’t stupid. She heard Mrs. Howell coming into the living room carrying a huge tray with a pepperoni pizza so hot you could feel the cheese dripping off your chin.

“I have another pizza in the oven, so there’s plenty for all of us. Agents?”

Boozer had his slice of pizza in his hand when he said, “I remember now, the guy was wearing this butt-ugly ring on his finger, and another ring with a big diamond on his pinkie finger. I saw them when he pulled out those surgical gloves to put on his hands.”

The same diamond pinkie ring Mrs. Moe described the man wearing when he rented the Zodiac in Sausalito.

Sherlock chewed a bite, then asked him, “How big was the butt-ugly ring?”

Boozer studied her face for a moment. “You have a piece of cheese on your chin, Agent Sherlock.”

She laughed, swiped her napkin over her face. “Thank you. The pizza is delicious, Mrs. Howell. Now, the ring, Mr. Gordon?”

“It looked like a religious ring, you know. It looked real old and solid, with some dull jewels sticking up in the middle.”

“Why do you say religious?”

Boozer shrugged. “I don’t know, just a feeling, I guess, when I saw it. I was flying sort of high and it popped out of my mouth-‘You an ex-priest?’ He asked me why I thought that, and I pointed to his ring.

“He said, ‘Nah, it’s just a ring I won off this old guy in a poker game.’ Nothing more, that was it. I didn’t really care because I was worried about that needle in his hand and I wanted it over with.”

Twenty minutes later, the pizza settling happily in their stomachs, Mrs. Howell showed them to the door. Sherlock simply couldn’t help asking her, “May I ask you how old you are? You look like Boozer’s sister instead of his mother.”

Mrs. Howell laughed. “If I told you it might get back to my husband. It’s the strangest thing, but it embarrasses him that I look so much younger than he does. The joys of cosmetic surgery, but don’t tell Daniel. He thinks I’m perfect, and I don’t want him to think otherwise. Isn’t my Paul an amazing young man?”

As they walked away from Boozer’s apartment, Savich stopped by their rental car, pulled Sherlock against him, and kissed her. “Yep, pepperoni.”

“I got to eat all yours, too. Poor Mrs. Howell, she was mortified that she hadn’t brought a vegetarian pizza, just in case. Do you think our shooter really won that butt-ugly religious ring in a poker game?”

Hyde Street, Russian Hill

Sunday

After four long knocks, Eve opened her door to Harry Christoff.

“I had this feeling it was you, but I was sort of hoping I was wrong.”

“Why? You wanted maybe the postman? It’s Sunday, no delivery on Sunday.”

A laugh spurted out of her. “No, I’m not really up to acting all social and civilized. I’m sorry I missed the meeting this morning; you’ll tell me everything?”

“I will, but you have to invite me in first. I figured you’d be in pretty bad shape, so I came bearing gifts.” He held out a bakery bag and a covered go-cup that sent the aroma of dark roast coffee wafting to her nose.

Eve took the bag first, looked upward, and said “Thank you,” then, “You’re amazing, Harry, and you even brought coffee. No, you’re more than amazing, you’re a prince, Agent Christoff. Are there any glazed?”

He looked down at her scrubbed face, her hair hanging loose around her shoulders over a faded red robe, her bare feet. “You look like the homecoming queen on a reality show. I’m glad you slept in this morning. How’s your back?”

She forced herself to stand up straight. “I’ll be good to go after three donuts and this wonderful coffee. Come in, let’s go to the kitchen. Are there maybe more than one glazed?”

“There are three, but I was hoping for one myself,” he said, as he followed her into her kitchen. He still couldn’t get over how streamlined and cool it looked, with pale green granite counters shot with black, and hanging copper pots over a small center island. He said, “My kitchen’s right out of the forties.”

“As long as everything’s clean and works, who cares what decade it comes from? It’s all about the food and the person making it, right? You want milk in your coffee? You don’t want a glazed donut, do you? You somehow knew it was my favorite?”

“Nah, give me a chocolate with sprinkles. I’m a real man.”

“How many donuts?”

“Six.”

She set everything out on the small kitchen table, and they started in on the donuts and coffee, neither saying much of anything until only one donut, not glazed, was left on the paper plate between them. Eve wiped the sticky glaze off her mouth and her fingers, laughed, and leaned forward to flick a red sprinkle off his chin. She sat back and sighed, contented. “Thank you. Before you came, I’d just gotten out of the shower and wondered what I was going to make for breakfast. Nothing appealed, then you showed up.”

She toasted him with her coffee cup.

He asked, “How’d you sleep last night?”

“In the arms of the angels, with the help of two aspirin and a sleeping-pill chaser. I’m trying to stay away from the codeine.” She stretched, froze, then began, very slowly, to stretch again.

Harry stood up. “Let me see how bad the bruising is today.”

She stared up at him. “You mean you want me to drop my bathrobe?”