Джанет Иванович - Twisted Twenty-Six

“These are for you,” Grandma said. “There’s some of each kind.”

“Where’s Mom?”

“Next door. She went over with cookies. I kind of got carried away with the baking. Now we gotta get rid of some before your father eats them all and explodes.”

I helped myself to a sugar cookie from the glass cookie jar, and I took my grocery bag. Grandma shrugged into a sweater and hung her big patent leather purse in the crook of her arm.

“I’m ready,” she said. “And I have an extra bingo dauber for you.”

“I’m surprised you have room for daubers in your purse.”

“I hear you,” Grandma said. “From time to time I think about getting something more compact. Maybe a semiautomatic. I like the idea of having more ammo available in case I’m in a shootout, but I’m used to this big boy.” She patted her purse. “It’s been with me for a long time.”

I know I’m supposed to be protecting Grandma, but I’m not sure she needs me. I suspect she’s better equipped to do the job than I am.

“I’ve been getting phone calls all day, between my cookie making, about Julius Roman,” Grandma said. “There’s a lot of finger-pointing going on. I guess things are pretty tense at the Mole Hole.”

“I saw Jeanine in the supermarket, and she thinks it was an outside hit. Someone not related to the keys business.”

“I guess Julius could have been involved in something we don’t know about,” Grandma said.

I parked in the firehouse lot, and Barbara pulled in next to us.

“Oh jeez,” Grandma said. “What are the chances? Maybe we should skip bingo and go to dinner.”

Barbara got out of her car and walked over to us.

“Edna! So good to see you again,” she said.

Grandma unbuckled and got out. “It was only just yesterday.”

“Did you like my cookies?” Barbara asked.

“Yeah,” Grandma said. “They were delicious.”

“I used real butter,” Barbara said.

Grandma nodded. “Yup. I could tell.”

“And they weren’t too spicy?”

“I like a little spice,” Grandma said.

“Well, I guess they agreed with you. You’re looking good. Healthy and all.”

“Did you expect something else?” Grandma asked.

“No, no,” Barbara said. “It’s just that you’re always so hearty for your age.”

“I’m not so old,” Grandma said. “I think you’ve got a couple years on me, but you look like you’re doing okay, too. Mostly. I hope I look as good as you when I get to be that old.”

“Time will tell,” Barbara said. “Here today and gone tomorrow.”

“I gotta get in and get my seat,” Grandma said. “I’ll talk to you later.”

We went into the firehouse and looked around. The sisters were across the room in their usual places.

Grandma waved and they stared back.

“They look okay,” Grandma said. “I bet they didn’t eat the cookies.”

Miriam Flock was at the head table with the bingo balls. “I’ll be calling today,” she said. “Marvina is under the weather. She came down with something at lunch today. We all hope it isn’t anything serious.”

“Marvina lives next door to Tootie,” Grandma said. “They haven’t gotten along in years. Dollars to donuts they gave the cookies to Marvina.”

Tootie smiled at Grandma.

“Pure evil.” Grandma said.

“We’re sort of involved,” I told her.

“I guess that’s true,” Grandma said. “I’ll go to Mass with your mother tomorrow.”

Two hours later, we were leaving, and Barbara followed us to our car.

“I heard more about Marvina,” she said. “A friend of mine works in the ER, and she said Marvina was admitted to St. Francis. Some kind of stomach thing.”

“That’s terrible,” Grandma said.

“Well, you know, stuff happens. I was wondering if you wanted to have coffee tomorrow. We could meet at the coffee shop on Hamilton.”

“I’m pretty busy,” Grandma said. “I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

“Sure,” Barbara said. “Give me a call.”

Neither Grandma nor I said anything on the five-minute drive home. I parked in front of my parents’ house and gave up a sigh.

“Yeah,” Grandma said. “Me too. I don’t know if she wants to pump me for information or just kill me.”

“I feel really bad about Marvina.”

“I’ll go in and make some phone calls and see if I can get more information. I don’t want to make a big deal about Barbara’s cookies if it turns out Marvina didn’t eat any.”

I watched to make sure Grandma got into the house, and then I drove off with my bag of cookies. I pulled into my building lot and saw that the lights were on in my apartment. I looked around and spotted Ranger’s black Porsche 911 Turbo parked close to the rear lobby door.

He was checking his texts when I walked in. I set the grocery bag on the counter and hung my messenger bag on the back of a dining room chair.

“Have you been waiting long?” I asked.

“Just got here. I know the bingo schedule.”

I took all of the tins out of the grocery bag, set them on the counter, and opened them. Hungarian filled cookies, butter cookies, chocolate chip, gingerbread, oatmeal raisin, chocolate chocolate chip, peanut butter, and sugar cookies.

Ranger put his phone down and grinned at the tins of cookies. “There’s a story here,” he said.

“Grandma wanted to make the house smell happy, so she spent the day baking cookies.”

He nodded. “She’s a smart woman.”

I took a sugar cookie, and Ranger took a chocolate chip.

“Whoa,” I said. “I thought you didn’t eat cookies. I thought you only ate tree bark.”

“You thought wrong.”

“Chocolate chip, too. You went right for the money cookie.”

“They’re my favorite,” he said.

I chose a Hungarian filled as my second cookie. “You even have a favorite. You’ve been leading a secret life.”

“In many ways,” Ranger said.

I knew this to be true. “Is there a special reason for this visit, beyond cookies?”

“I heard you were a hero today. I thought I’d come by and say congratulations. Usually when we see each other anymore it’s for something bad. I thought this was an opportunity to stop by for something good.”

“Thanks. I appreciate the thought, but I don’t feel like a hero.”

“Connie said you saved the bonds office from bankruptcy. I know that’s not entirely true because Vinnie is insured, but you still made a good capture.”

“I don’t want to do this job anymore. I’m not good at it. I don’t like it. I don’t like being in the bad neighborhoods, looking for the bad people.”

“What would you rather do?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Do you have a direction?”

“No.”

“Babe.”

“Yeah, I’m a mess.”

“You aren’t a mess,” he said. “You’re just a little burned out.”

“It’s more than that. I’m stagnant. There’s no growth in my life.”

“That’s okay as long as you like what you’re doing. Not everyone needs to keep moving up the ladder.”

“You moved up the ladder.”

“I discovered that I had certain talents, and I found a way to use them to my best advantage. There’s very little gray in my life. I see things as black or white, and sometimes the dividing line isn’t always the norm for other people. I can be ruthless and aggressive. I have qualities that allow me to take advantage of people and situations. You don’t have any of those qualities. You have the talent and intelligence to go wherever you want to go, but you aren’t driven. The truth is that you’re much too sane. You’ll probably never amount to anything.”

I threw a cookie at him, and he caught it one-handed.