Джанет Иванович - Twisted Twenty-Six

“You must be relieved to have it behind you.”

“In the beginning I wanted to do a real good job. And I have to admit, I was liking the attention. I didn’t feel so bad about Jimmy after I got over the shock. I figured he was going to do okay, making deals with Jesus or God or whoever is in charge of that stuff. Jimmy was good at making deals. But in the end, it was just sad and tiring. You know what was the best part of the funeral and the wake? Your hair. It has sparkly blue streaks, and it’s filled with life, and I always knew where you were, except when I couldn’t see you. Looking at it made me not so tired.”

Jeez. Who would have thought?

“Thanks, Grandma,” I said. “That’s really nice to hear. I’ve been feeling boring lately. I thought the blue extensions might help.”

“You aren’t boring. The blue streaky things work because that’s who you are. You’re like the sky at midnight, when the moon is shining, and the wind is blowing.”

I got totally choked up. It was such a beautiful thing for Grandma to say. And I wanted to be the moon and the wind, but I couldn’t see it. At this point in time I felt more like a cloudy day with the promise of rain.

We reached the bakery and took a number.

“It’s always crowded like this on Sunday,” Grandma said. “Everyone comes here after church. It’s like when you’re praying, you ask the Lord for a babka and then you just gotta come pick it up.”

We were next in line when I saw Jimmy’s sister Rose enter the bakery. Angie was behind her. Both women narrowed their eyes when they saw Grandma and me.

“What’s with these women?” Grandma said, catching sight of them. “They’re everywhere. And they’re giving us the stink face.”

“Ignore them. We’re next.”

Patti Benn was working behind the counter. “Number sixty-four,” she called out.

“That’s me,” Grandma said. “I want six sandwich rolls and a half pound of Italian cookies.”

“That’s my number,” Rose said, pushing to the front. “We dropped it, and that slut gold digger picked it up before we could get to it.”

“That’s exactly right,” Angie said. “I couldn’t hold on to the ticket because the slut broke all my fingers.”

“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” Grandma said. “I got this ticket from the machine. You two old hags gotta go to the end of the line.”

“Ladies,” Patti said. “Let’s all take a step back.”

“I’m not taking a step anywhere until I get my rolls and cookies,” Grandma said.

“Typical,” Rose said. “Hungarian.”

Grandma cut her eyes to Rose. “You got a problem with Hungarians?”

“They aren’t Italian.”

“You got that right,” Grandma said. “And proud of it.”

“Nobody likes Hungarians,” Rose said. “They’re all fornicators.”

“You bet,” Grandma said. “And I’m proud of that too. You’re just jealous because you’re such a dried-up ugly prune you can’t even get any fornicating.”

Patti threw some rolls and about two pounds of cookies into a bag and handed it over to Grandma. “On the house,” she said. “Next?”

Mrs. Ruiz stepped up. “I’m next,” she said. “I have number sixty-five. And I’m from Guatemala. Everybody likes us.”

I hustled Grandma out of the bakery, being careful to stay between her and Rose and Angie.

“Those women are so disagreeable,” Grandma said when we were on the sidewalk. “Jimmy could never get along with them. They hardly ever talked, and now you’d think they were joined at the hip.”

“It’s about money,” I said. “And who will inherit it.”

“Jimmy had a will. He said he had it drawn up a while ago and it gave everything over to his wife . . . whoever she was at the time.” Grandma shook her head. “It’s a shame people get so worked up over money. It’s not like Jimmy’s sisters don’t have any. They’re all living okay.”

There’s never a lot of traffic in the Burg. On weekdays, people leave for work in the morning and come home in the evening. Saturday morning is for shopping and car washing. Sunday is church. We were a block from my parents’ house when I heard a car come up behind us. I turned to look and saw that Rose was behind the wheel and Angie was next to her. They slowly drove past us and made a rude Italian gesture to Grandma and me.

“Va fangool!” Grandma yelled at them, and she gave them the finger.

Rose drove half a block, made a U-turn, and gunned it straight for us. She jumped the curb, and I yanked Grandma to safety with about three inches to spare. Rose cut across Gary Luckett’s front lawn, spun around, and came back at us. Grandma dropped the bakery bag, pulled her gun out of her purse, and squeezed off three rounds. Rose swerved away from us and drove down the street.

“How’d I do?” Grandma asked.

“You took out a side mirror, but I think the other two shots went wide.”

“I was rushed.”

I picked the bakery bag up from the ground and looked inside.

“Well?” Grandma said.

“Everything’s okay.”

“Good thing, because your mother won’t be happy if I don’t bring rolls home.”

—

Grandma and I decided not to mention the shooting incident to anyone, but there was always the chance that someone had witnessed it and called my mom. The subject didn’t come up during lunch, and I felt I was home free when, after lunch, my mom didn’t turn to ironing or chugging bourbon. Morelli hadn’t phoned, and that was okay with me. Between the brunch buffet and the rump roast sandwiches for lunch, I was thinking I needed a nap. Fortunately, my father had very nicely gassed up the Buick for me.

Grandma said she was taking the night off from socializing and was skipping Greta Nelson’s viewing at Stiva’s. I thought this was a good decision. She was probably safe if she stayed home. After all, my father had his baseball bat.

I took a baggie of Italian cookies from my mom, trudged out to my car, and drove to my apartment in a food stupor.

I let myself into my apartment and gave Rex half an almond cookie.

“Suppose you had a really important key,” I said to Rex. “Where would you keep it?”

It was a rhetorical question because I already knew the answer. He’d keep the key in his soup can. That’s where he kept everything. Jimmy Rosolli had other options.

I took my MacBook Air and a steno pad to the dining room table and asked myself the same question I’d asked Rex. Where would I keep an important key? My keys were all on a key ring that I kept in the messenger bag that doubled as my purse. Okay, but suppose I had some keys that were too valuable for the key ring? Safe-deposit box? Gym locker? Safe? None of the above for me. I didn’t go to a gym. I didn’t have a safe. And a safe-deposit box would require a trip to the bank, and that was a pain in the ass. I’d hide the keys in my underwear drawer. This did me no good, since rumor had it that multiple people had already looked in Jimmy’s underwear drawer.

This was made even more ridiculous by the fact that I didn’t know how many keys were involved or what those keys looked like. Big? Little? Key cards? I didn’t know what the keys opened. And I didn’t know what sort of treasure they kept locked away.

There were six La-Z-Boys. One was dead. One was unknown. One was going to avoid me at all costs because he was a fugitive. That left Lou Salgusta, Benny the Skootch, and Julius Roman. It would help if I could get one of them to talk to me. First thing tomorrow I’d have Connie run background checks. Next thing I’d start knocking on doors. Trying to talk to them at the Mole Hole wasn’t going to work. I was going to have to get them alone. I suspected my funeral grace period was over, so I needed to be extra vigilant.