Janet Evanovich - Hot Stuff

“It was really quite noble, I thought. I was taking a bauble from the rich, and Kitty was giving the proceeds to the poor. You might say I was Robin Hood.”

Cate wondered if Robin Hood had a cave full of original art and a Mercedes hidden away in Sherwood Forest.

“Well, we did this for a couple years, and I started to get worried. Kitty was out of control, needing more and more money, and I felt like we were taking too much. I was fencing the pieces in Europe as added security, but even so, it was becoming excessive. So I had a plan. I decided I would squirrel some of the jewelry away until it wasn’t so hot. And when I had enough jewelry set aside I’d quit for a while. Then we could fence the pieces as we needed money.”

“And Kitty didn’t like this,” Cate said.

“Kitty signed on for massive amounts of money to the hospital and to the literacy program. All wonderful causes, but it meant I’d be working nonstop for the next forty years. I told her she had to find a different way to fund her charities. And then I made the mistake of telling her about the retirement cache. She insisted I cash it in immediately, and I refused. Most of the pieces in the vault were one of a kind and still too hot to take to market. It would have been suicide to float all that jewelry.”

“So she threw you off a bridge?”

“I knew she’d be pissed. I didn’t think she’d be that pissed. I mean, I told her everything she wanted to know. I told her about Beast and the safe. There really was no reason to throw me off the bridge. Personally, I think it’s her age. You know, hormonal. My new rule is never engage in business with a menopausal woman.”

“What about your agent? Was he menopausal?”

Marty put his hand to his heart. “That dreadful man! It wasn’t enough he was sucking my blood getting twenty percent of everything I made. He tried to blackmail me. I was careless after a gig last month and Irwin saw a necklace in my suitcase. I wasn’t expecting him to stop by, and he just popped in while I was unpacking. It used to be that I’d go straight to Kitty’s house on Commonwealth and use the safe until I was ready to sell the piece. When I decided I needed to start setting some aside, I had a safe installed in my condo and that’s how Irwin saw the necklace. I got in late, and I had my suitcase open. I told him it was part of my Judy Garland collection, but he didn’t buy it. He’d seen a news clip about the robbery and they’d broadcast a picture of the necklace.”

“So you pushed him down the stairs?”

“No! Good heavens. I’m a thief, not a murderer. I just got so enraged. I mean, it was so unjust that Irwin would want to extort money from me. And I paid him once and then he came back again. Can you imagine? The man was just so disreputable. Well, after all, what can you expect? He’s an agent, which is just another word for parasite if you ask me.”

Cate thought Marty probably had a different opinion of agents when he was out of work and couldn’t get a job on his own, but heck, what did she know about showbiz?

“I noticed a knife was missing from the kitchen,” Cate said.

“Actually, it was very satisfying. I went kind of berserk when he asked for more money, and I punched him in the nose. It was the first time I’ve ever punched anyone, and I was really good at it. I just went pop , right on his beak, and he started bleeding and yelling. And then I kind of got into it and grabbed the carving knife and told him I was going to cut him up into little pieces. And that was when he ran out of the condo and tried to get the elevator, but I was right behind him with the knife, so he took the stairs and slipped and fell and broke his neck. Personally, I think it was karma.”

Cate looked around the room. It looked like it had been furnished in pieces Kitty no longer wanted in her big house. A queen-sized bed with a cream-colored quilted spread. A tufted headboard in peach tones. An Oriental area rug at the foot of the bed. An ornate mahogany chest of drawers. Audubon prints in slim walnut frames. She’d noticed as they walked through that there were two bedrooms on this floor. She suspected this wasn’t the bedroom Marty used when he stayed in the house. There were no personal touches in the room. No photos, no books or magazine, no mints or keys or spare change. And she couldn’t see Marty enduring the peach headboard. It was nice, but it very much wasn’t Marty.

“I suppose we’re waiting for Kitty,” Cate said.

“I suppose we are. Saturday night. She probably got called out of some high-society dinner party. She won’t be pleased about that.” Marty smiled. “That’s a little heartwarming.”

They could hear the very faint sound of a door opening and closing downstairs. Muffled conversation. Footsteps on the stairs.

The bedroom door opened and one of the men looked in. “She wants to talk to you downstairs.”

Cate and Marty filed down the stairs and met Kitty in the center hall. She was dressed in a white Armani suit with black trim, and she had a classic Chanel bag hung on her shoulder.

“This is fun,” Kitty said to Marty. “I’ll get to throw you off a bridge for a second time. I think this time we’ll attach something to your ankle… like a Volkswagen.”

“Why do you want to throw me off a bridge?” Marty asked. “What’s the big deal?”

“I don’t trust you.”

“If I go to the police, they’ll lock me up and throw the key away.”

“Yes, but you could go to my husband.”

“Oh,” Marty said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Now,” Kitty said, turning to Cate. “I need the dog. How are we going to go about solving this dilemma?”

“I could call and ask my friend to bring the dog to the condo,” Cate said. “Or I could go get Beast and bring him myself.”

“I like option number one,” Kitty said. “Call your friend.”

“I don’t have my phone,” Cate said. “Your man took my purse.”

The purse appeared, and Cate rummaged around in it, looking for her phone, her hands still cuffed. She found the phone and punched Kellen’s number in, and had the phone to her ear when both the front and back doors crashed open.

Kellen was at the front door, gun drawn, and Julie and Pugg burst through the kitchen. Julie had a gun in her hand, and Pugg was wielding a meat mallet that Cate assumed he had picked up en route. One of Kitty’s men pulled a gun, and Kitty ripped it out of his hands and grabbed Cate.

“Freeze,” Kitty said. “Everyone back off because I’ll kill her, I swear I will. I’ve worked too hard to let it all slip away from me now. I started out licking envelopes for the hospital silent auction, and now I’m just inches from being elected to the board. The board! Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get elected to the board? Do you know what that means? It means I chair the Twinkle Ball. I get to do the seating chart. Kitty Bergman from Quincy gets to do the seating chart for the Twinkle Ball! Two years ago that bitch Patty Fuch did the chart and gave me balcony seating. I was wearing Herrara, and no one saw me. No one saw the Harry Winston necklace. No one saw the Valentino shoes. Now I’m going to be elected to the board, and I’m going to kick that cow to the curb. Patty Fuch will get the table next to the frigging men’s room.”

“Kitty,” Marty said, “can you spell nutsy cuckoo?”

“Shut up, you traitor. You’re just a common thief in ladies panties.”

“Actually I don’t wear ladies panties. I wear briefs that are designed to minimize the male contour.”

“As soon as I get my hands on that dog and the jewelry you stole from me, I’m going to minimize your entire contour,” Kitty said.