Janet Evanovich - Takedown Twenty

“I guess he was counting on us to do the job.”

“You mean us personally? Because I’m a big woman, but I couldn’t stop no speeding train single-handed.”

“I was talking about human beings in general.”

“Probably we’re in a lot of trouble on that one, since most of the men I know can’t even keep their pants up, much less save the world.”

I waved the approaching cab to the curb and loaded Ziggy into the backseat.

“Follow us to the police station,” I said to Lula. “I’ll need a ride after I drop him off.”

The driver looked over the seatback at Ziggy. “He isn’t dead, is he?”

“He’s sleeping.”

I handed Connie the body receipt for Ziggy and she wrote a check out to me for the recovery.

“That looks like pizza money,” Lula said. “If you don’t get too many extra toppings you could get a soda with it.”

“I have information on the latest Dumpster murder,” Connie said. “Definitely strangled. And her bank account was cleaned out the day before.”

“It’s terrible that these old ladies are getting murdered,” Lula said. “It gives me the creepy-crawlies.”

Vinnie’s door was open, and his office was empty.

“Where’s Vinnie?” I asked Connie.

“The ponies are running.”

“I thought Lucille signed him up with Gamblers Anonymous.”

“He said his G.A. group is meeting at the track. Field trip.”

“If Lucille’s daddy finds out, he’ll field trip Vinnie to the landfill,” Lula said.

A text message buzzed on my phone. It was from Ranger. Catch up with you after Bingo .

Oh boy.

“Is something wrong?” Lula asked. “You just got that look.”

“What look?” I asked her.

“Your Oh boy look.”

“It was a message from Ranger reminding me about Bingo.”

“Oh boy,” Lula said.

I dropped my check into my messenger bag. “There’s not a lot left of the afternoon. I’m going to take my broken finger home.”

“That’s a good idea,” Lula said. “You could take a nap to get ready for Bingo . Do you want a ride to the Senior Center? I could come pick you up.”

“Sure.”

I detoured to the supermarket on the way home and filled my shopping cart. Milk, eggs, bread, cereal, pickles, a variety of disposable aluminum pans, crackers, cheese, Marshmallow Fluff, olives, cracker crumbs, butter, ice cream, aluminum foil, garbage bags, paper napkins, canola oil, orange juice, potato chips, bags of frozen vegetables, ketchup, frozen chicken cutlets all breaded and ready for the oven, a Cooking Light magazine, several home decorator magazines, and a frozen banana cream pie. Am I a domestic goddess, or what?

I lugged everything up to my apartment, called Morelli, and invited him to dinner.

“Sure,” Morelli said. “What do you want me to bring? Pizza? Chinese? Wings?”

“You don’t have to bring anything,” I said. “I’m cooking.”

There was a long moment of silence.

“Cooking?” he asked.

“Yes. Cooking. Jeez, you’d think I never cooked.”

“Cupcake, you only own one pot.”

“I have to be at Bingo at seven, so we have to eat at five o’clock.”

“Can’t wait,” Morelli said.

I hung up, opened the bag of chips, and gave one to Rex. “He has no confidence in me,” I said to Rex. “Just because a girl doesn’t have a toaster doesn’t mean she can’t cook, right?”

I pushed the clutter to one end of my dining room table and laid out two place settings. I stepped back, looked at the table, and made a mental note to buy two place mats, just in case I decided to ever do this again.

I took a shower with my broken finger encased in a plastic sandwich bag. Under the white gauze wrapping, the finger was swollen and throbbing. I felt like a wimp since there wasn’t even any bone sticking out, but the finger didn’t feel great. I dried off and applied a new super-sized adhesive bandage to my skinned knee. The knee would heal, but my jeans would never be the same.

It had been a long time since I’d used the oven, but I figured out how to turn it on. Just like riding a bike, I thought. You never forget. Call me Chef Stephanie. According to the box, the cutlets would take fifteen minutes. No need to even defrost the little suckers before roasting. So I had the oven going and the meal all planned out, now all I had to do was wait for Morelli and hope he’d bring something to drink, since I’d run out of money before I could get to the liquor store.

He showed up precisely at five with his big shaggy dog, Bob, who rushed in and galloped around my little apartment, returning to the kitchen with his tongue hanging out. I gave him a bowl of water, he slopped it all over the floor, and then he flopped down in my living room to take a nap.

Morelli put a six-pack of beer and a bottle of red wine on my kitchen counter. “Pick your poison,” he said.

“I’m going with the wine. It’s more romantic.”

“That sounds hopeful. Are we getting romantic?”

“Maybe. Did you bring drugs?” I held my finger up for him to take a look. “Broken.”

“Compound fracture?” he asked.

“No.”

“Hardly worth worrying about.”

“It hurts!”

Morelli grinned. “Did you invite me over here to score drugs off me?”

“Not originally. I thought I might want to be more domestic, but now that you’re here I’m thinking drugs could be the way to go.”

“Why do you want to be more domestic?”

“I don’t know. It just came over me.”

“Is it that time of the month?”

“No!”

“Lucky me,” Morelli said.

I checked out the wine. Screw cap. The greatest invention since fire. I poured out two glasses and toasted the screw cap. Not easy to do with two fingers taped together and in a metal splint. I dumped the box of cutlets onto one of my new disposable broiler pans and shoved them into the hot oven.

“Easy-peasy,” I said to Morelli. “They’ll be perfect in fifteen minutes. The box wouldn’t lie.”

“I’m getting turned on by all this domesticity,” Morelli said.

This wasn’t an impressive admission. Morelli got turned on by lint.

I took the bag of vegetables out of the freezer and tossed them into my microwave. I figured I’d just cook the crap out of them until the chicken was done. I topped off my wine, and minutes later there was an explosion.

Morelli and I instinctively dropped to the ground.

“What the heck?” I yelled. “What was that?”

Morelli was on his back, laughing. “I think you exploded the vegetables!”

We got to our feet and looked in at the massacre inside the microwave.

Morelli was still grinning. “It’s like a crime scene.”

“It’s not funny.” A tear leaked out of my eye. “I’m a big stupid failure!”

Morelli wrapped an arm around me and hugged me into him. “They were just vegetables,” he said. “Vegetables are way overrated.”

“I can’t do anything right.”

“Not true. You excel at many things.”

“Such as?”

“You give a damn good happy-ending massage.”

“That’s it? Sex? That’s my field of expertise?”

“It beats being able to cook a vegetable.”

I did an eye roll so severe I almost lost my balance. “I want to be able to do both.”

Morelli took another bag of vegetables out of my freezer and read the instructions. “Pierce the bag before microwaving.”

“I didn’t do that.” I swiped at my nose. “I’m too dumb to even read directions.”

“Anything else go wrong today?”

“I broke my finger.”

“Besides that.”

“I ripped my jeans when I fell down the stairs. Your grandmother said I was going to hell. A couple guys shot at me. I apprehended Ziggy Radiewski, and he peed himself.”