Janet Evanovich: Plum Lovin'

I brought the coffee across the street and gave it to Larry Burlew.

"I've got it all set," I told him. "All you have to do is wave at Jet, and she'll bring you a cup of coffee. Then you'll have a chance to talk to her."

"I can't talk to her! What would I say? She's so pretty, and I'm so…" Burlew looked down at himself. He didn't have words.

"You're a nice-looking guy" I told him. "Okay, maybe the chicken guts are a turnoff, but you can fix that by changing your butcher apron before she gets here. And try not to stare at her so much. Only stare when you want a cup of coffee. Staring sometimes can be misconstrued as, um, rude."

Burlew was bobbing his head up and down. "I'll remember all that. Wave for coffee. Don't stare so much. Change my apron before she gets here."

"And talk to her!"

"Talk to her," he repeated.

I didn't actually have a lot of confidence that this would work, so I wrote my cell phone number on a scrap of paper and left it with him.

"Call me if you have a problem," I said.

Burlew did some vigorous head nodding. "Yes, ma'am."

"Before we go I need to buy some pork chops," Lula said. "I have a taste for pork chops."

Diesel was on the couch watching television when Bob and I got home. There was a six-pack of beer and a pizza box on the coffee table in front of him. Some of the beer and pizza were missing.

"I brought dinner," Diesel said. "How'd it go today?"

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm living here."

"No, you're not."

"Sure I am. I have my shoes off and everything."

"Okay but I'm not sleeping with you."

"No problemo. You're not my type anyway" Diesel said.

"What's your type?"

"Easy"

I rolled my eyes.

"I'm a jerk," Diesel said, "but I'm lovable."

This was true.

I dragged Bob off to the kitchen, gave him fresh water, and filled his dog bowl with dog crunchies. I returned to the living room, helped myself to a piece of pizza, and joined Diesel on the couch.

"Eat up," Diesel said. "We need to work tonight. I've got a line on Beaner."

"No way. I'm the relationship person. I'm not the find-the-crazy- Unmentionable-nutcase person."

"I need cover. You're all I've got," Diesel said.

"What makes Beaner special? Can he whip up a tornado? Can he levitate a Hummer? Can he catch a bullet in his teeth?"

"No, he can't do any of those things."

"Well, what can he do?"

"I'm not telling you. Just try not to get too close to him."

Bob padded in from the kitchen and stood looking at the leftover pizza. I gave him a piece; he ate it in three gulps and put his head on Diesel's leg, leaving a smear of tomato sauce. Diesel scratched Bob behind the ear, the tomato sauce not worthy of registering on Diesel's slob-o-meter.

It was eight o'clock when I parked my yellow Ford Escape in the small lot attached to Ernie's Bar and Grill. I'd been to Ernie's before, and I knew it was more bar than grill. The grill was mostly wasabi peas and pretzels. The bar was mostly middle-aged white guys who drank too much. It was just one block from the government complex, so it was a convenient watering hole for enslaved bureaucrats who were putting in their hours, waiting for death or retirement, whichever came first. At eightj o'clock the bar had emptied out the merely desperate and was left to console the truly hopeless.

"Beaner's been here for two nights running," Diesel said. "He's in there now. I can sense it. Problem is, I can't approach him in a public place. I know he's holed up somewhere nearby, but I can't get a fix on it. I want you to try to get him to talk to you. See if you can find out where he lives. Just don't let him touch you. And don't get too close."

"How close is too close?"

"If you can feel his breath on your neck, it's too close. He's five feet, eight inches tall, weighs 180 pounds, and looks late forties. He has brown hair, cut short, blue eyes, and he's got a raspberry birthmark on his forehead that extends into his left eyebrow."

"Why don't you follow him when he leaves the bar?"

"Not an option, unless he leaves with you." I gave Diesel a why not look, and Diesel mumbled something.

"What?" I asked. "I can't." More mumbling. "You want to run that mumbling by me again?" Diesel slumped in his seat and blew out a sigh. "I keep losing him. He's really sneaky. He turns a corner on me, and he's gone."

"The stealth Beaner."

"Something like that. He scrambles my radar."

"You don't actually think you have radar, do you?"

"No, but I have GPS. And sometimes ESP. And Monday nights I get ESPN."

Okay, he was a little nutty, but at least he had a sense of humor. And hell, who was I to say whether or not he actually had ESP. I mean, I sort of believe in ghosts. And I sort of believe in heaven. And I sort of believe in wishing on birthday candles. I guess Diesel and ESP aren't too far removed. Sort of in the area of radio waves, spontaneous combustion, and electricity. After all, I don't understand any of those things, but they exist.

"Sometimes you just have to go with it," Diesel said. I left Diesel on that note and sashayed off to the bar. It was easy to spot Beaner in the lineup of losers. He was the only one with a raspberry birthmark on his forehead. The stool next to him was unoccupied, so I climbed onto it and made sure there was some air between us.

Beaner was drinking something amber on ice. Probably scotch. I ordered a beer and smiled at him.

"Hi," I said. "How's it going?"

He didn't return the smile. "How much time do you have?" he asked.

"That bad?"

He threw back the liquid in his glass and signaled the bartender for more.

I took another stab at it. "Do you come here often?" I asked him.

"I live here."

"Must be hard to sleep on that barstool. How do you keep from falling off?"

That almost got a smile. "I don't sleep here," he said. "I just drink here. I'd drink at home but that might indicate alcoholism."

"Where's home?"

He made a vague gesture with his hand. "Out there."

" Out there is a big place."

"My wife kicked me out of the house," he said. "Changed the locks on the friggin' doors. Married for two hundred years, and she kicked me out of the house. Packed all my clothes in cardboard boxes and put them out on the front lawn."

"Jeez, I'm sorry"

"What am I supposed to do now? Things were different the last time I dated. It was simple back then. You found someone you liked, you asked their father if you could marry them, then you got married and climbed on board." He took possession of his new drink and tested it out. "Don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm saying that was right. It's just the way it was. And I knew that way. Now it's all about talking and sensitivity. I've been married for all this time and suddenly she wants to talk. And it turns out we've been having bad sex, and now she wants to have good sex. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to find out you've been doing it wrong for two hundred years? I mean, how friggin' annoying is that? She said I couldn't find my way south of the border with a road map."

"I might know someone who could help you."

"I don't need help. I need my wife to come to her senses. This whole mess is the result of someone trying to help. Things were fine until some meddler stuck her big fat nose into my marriage. If I get hold of her I'll fix her good. It'll be the last time she meddles in someone's marriage."

"But if she was trying to help-"

"She didn't help. She made things awful." He chugged his drink, dropped a twenty on the bar, and stood. "I've gotta go."

"So soon?"

"Things to do."

"Where are you going? Are you going home?"

My eyes flicked to the bartender when he took the twenty and the empty glass. A beat later, I turned my attention back to Beaner, but he was gone.