“Good,” she said, stepping into the living room. “We’ve got plenty to eat for dinner this evening, but I never got my ice cream last night and I’m feeling sugar-deprived.”
“I’m not sure there’s any unmelted ice cream left in this town, but I could use the exercise.” Bob looked at her. Even in sweat stained clothes she was an attractive woman.
“First things first. I’m taking a shower.” She started unbuttoning her blouse. “Want to join me?”
Bob delighted in what he was looking at, but his back still hurt from the hours he’d spent trying to sleep on her couch the previous night. “You’re just taunting me.”
Carlotta took her top off and fingered the snap on her bra. Her lovely curved flesh lowered Bob’s I.Q. 20 points or so. “You’re right, I am. Would it kill you to play along?” She disappeared into the bedroom and there was the delicious sound of running water.
“You never can tell,” he said, suddenly aware of just how nice it would feel to get clean, even without Carlotta’s company. He walked into her bedroom, which had several candles burning, as much to take a look at it as for proximity to the bathroom. It was tidy, with a couple of tasteful but inexpensive art prints on the wall, probably from the MoMA. Other than the garments she’d just stripped off to shower, all her other clothes were put away. There were several framed pictures of the folks back home on her dresser and bedside table. Nothing that looked like a boyfriend, although she’d had plenty of those since coming to New York. “I’m next,” he said loudly.
“Okay by me,” she yelled back.
Bob sighed.
The heat was as bad as it had been all week, with temperatures in the low hundreds. The concrete and asphalt gave it nowhere to go but into the air and the living things on the island of Manhattan. Carlotta had made a point of putting on the scent Croyd gave her. Bob still wasn’t sure whether or not to tell her Croyd was out of action indefinitely.
“Have you wondered why I had sex with so many other men, but not you?” Carlotta flashed him a challenging smile.
“Why no, that hadn’t even occurred to me. Of course, I’m not sure why you’re fixated on ice-cream, either.” Bob raised a single eyebrow, a trick he’d learned watching Vincent Price movies as a kid.
“For that I should keep you in the dark, but I figure you deserve to know.” She crossed the street to avoid a cascade of water from an opened fire hydrant. Bob followed. “Number one, you’re a smartass. Number two, you’re the boss.” She paused, maybe to give him a chance to object to number one. He didn’t. “And number three, you’ve got possibilities.”
Bob’s eyebrow shot up again, this time of its own accord. “What do you mean, possibilities?”
“Long term possibilities.”
Her comment hung in the air like a float at Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
“Wait a minute,” Bob said, and was on the verge on launching into a tirade when he felt a strong hand on his shoulder.
“No, you wait a minute, tough guy.” The hand had an accompanying voice, and, unfortunately, he recognized it as Jeff the bad guy.
Bob turned his head slightly and saw that Carlotta had company, too. Mutt had her by the elbow. She was casting her eyes upward, looking for help Bob knew wouldn’t be coming. He felt something press firmly into his back. A brand new limo pulled up beside them and its rearmost door on their side opened up.
“Get inside.”
He and Carlotta slid onto the leather seat between their captors. The tinted windows were less than comforting and the truly humorless men surrounding them were even less so.
Jeff slid Bob’s revolver from his pocket, holding it firmly by the barrel-end. “Know what happens next?”
“You all commit suicide,” Carlotta said, and there were several giggles.
“Not now,” Bob thought, and then consciousness fled his body through a portal of blinding pain as the gun smacked into the side of his head.
He was lying down when he came to. Bob opened his eyes with deliberate slowness. He was lying on a couch and Carlotta was sitting opposite him in a straight-backed wooden chair, a concerned look on her face. “Where are we?” he said quietly, his head throbbing.
“In a house.” She reached over and pushed Bob’s hair out of his eyes.
“A little more information would be appreciated, if you’ve got it.” He eased himself into a sitting position.
“Okay, a big house. An estate. Big walls, wrought-iron gate, you know the type. I think we’re on Long Island.”
“That’s not good.” Bob realized that if they hadn’t bothered to keep Carlotta from describing where they’d been taken, they weren’t expecting her, or either of them, to be able to talk to the police later. He looked around the room for exits. There were two windows, both barred, and one door. “Who are these people, and what do they want with you?”
“Like they’d tell me that,” Carlotta said. “But that one guy, the tall one, he really doesn’t like you.”
“I have no trouble believing that.” The pain in Bob’s skull was spreading into his jaw and neck. “We have to come up with a plan to get out of here. Clearly, making them laugh in the limo didn’t work.”
“No. They gagged me with a stupid little plastic ball thing. My power doesn’t work at all if I can’t talk. I don’t know how they knew that.” Carlotta stood and walked over to the window, staring into the darkness.
The door opened and three men stepped in. Bob recognized Mutt and Jeff. The third man was a head shorter than Bob, and was casually dressed in a pricey, dapper manner. He was balding on either temple, and there was a quickness about his movements that was almost birdlike.
“Hello, Jane.” He sat down in the chair Carlotta had been occupying.
“Jane?” Bob said, mystified. “Look friend. I don’t know what your game is, but her name is Carlotta Desoto. So your goons obviously bundled the wrong people out here. Let us go and maybe we won’t press charges.”
“I should have known it was you.” Carlotta’s eyes were livid with anger. “My name was legally changed, and I’d appreciate it if you’d call me Carlotta.”
Bob felt like whatever play he was in had just dropped a scene. “What in blazes is going on here?”
“My name is Breton Earle. Carlotta,” he said the name as derisively as possible, “is my wife.”
“Ex-wife,” Carlotta corrected, folding her arms. “That part was legal, too. Your money doesn’t change the fact that you’re a loser and a jerk.”
Bob couldn’t believe that all they’d been through the past few days was because of a jealous ex-husband. “Sounds like her mind is made up, Mr. Earle, so why don’t you just let us go. Like I said, we’ll leave the police out of it.”