"Or with my kneecaps," Kyle contributed.
"How 'bout a drive?" Raz suggested to Marjorie, who was looking dejected on account of the latest twist on her favorite soap. "That ol' boy what lives over at Grazin says he can take a couple of cases tonight, iff'n I kin get 'em to him afore he heads out."
Marjorie blinked in confusion.
"You know the skinny peckerwood I'm talking about. He drives one of them monster trucks in contests clear across the country. He's willin' to pay right good cash for high-quality hooch, and ever'body knows I make the best damn hooch in the county."
Marjorie's eyes drifted to the window.
"Sure, it's nippy and rainin' something awful, but"-Raz spat into a coffee can whilst he tried to think of a way to sweet-talk her into it-"you won't git wet iff'n you stay in the truck. It cain't take more 'n an hour to fetch the hooch out of the cave and run it over to Grazin, and afterward, we'll celebrate at the Dairee DeeLishus. Don't a chili dog sound right tasty?"
Marjorie drooled obligingly.
"We can't turn on the lights," Estelle whispered as they crept along the hallway of the third floor. "What if Mr. Cambria looks up and realizes someone's on the prowl? You think he'll just smile and go on opening the door for folks?"
"I couldn't say," Ruby Bee retorted, doing her best not to stumble over all the darn clutter on the floor. There was enough light from the windows at either end of the hallway for them to avoid the big stuff, but she'd already stubbed her toe on some fool thing and it throbbed like a boil. "Just what do you think we're gonna find up here, anyway? Another body, this time with a typed confession from the murderer safety-pinned to its chest?"
"So this is all my idea? Is that what you're saying, Mrs. Let's-Have-a-Look-for-Ourselves? I suppose it'll be all my fault if we get ourselves killed, right?"
Ruby Bee clutched Estelle's arm. "Hush up! I heard a voice."
"You heard my voice. As for this other voice, why-" She broke off with an intake of breath. "I hear it, too."
They continued around a corner, clinging to each other as they negotiated a particularly perilous roll of old carpeting, and stopped when they saw a ribbon of light beneath a door. A low voice was interspersed with a giggly one, and it took them a few minutes to identify both, take in a few sentences, and ease back around the corner.
"That Catherine sounds drunker 'n a skunk," Estelle said, disgusted.
"There's no doubt in my mind what she and that Rick fellow are doing," muttered Ruby Bee. "I ain't heard that kind of talk since they locked away ol' Harly Brad after they found out he was making those obscene telephone calls. To this day I don't understand why Elsie took notes every time he called her, but she sure seemed to enjoy telling me what he said down to the last dirty word, and doing the heavy breathing parts, too."
"His vocabulary was enough to curl my hair."
"So's Catherine's. Rick's ain't shabby, but he's a sight older and lives in Noow Yark City, so he probably learned all that on the playground. They ought to be ashamed of themselves, him for doing that sort of thing with a snippet of a girl, and her for going along with it. I declare, I don't know what the world's coming to!"
"Frannie sure would be unhappy if she knew about this," Estelle said, moving on since she didn't know what the world was coming to, either. "Her little princess behaving like a common slut, and doing it out loud, which is even more awful. We should have known when we saw her at the reception, drunk and crawling all over-"
"Jerome!" Ruby Bee said excitedly, then clapped her hand on her mouth as she remembered they were supposed to be whispering. "Do you recollect on the first night how he said he was going to his room to work and all of a sudden Catherine pipes up and says she's got a headache and leaves in the elevator with him?"
"And the next day, when she claims to need a nap all by her lonesome and Brenda can't find Jerome?" Estelle's mouth went drier than a wad of cotton as she tried to think. The blinking neon lights didn't help, nor did the misshapen shadows on the walls and the murky piles of sheetrock and lumber. "I don't know what it means, but maybe we ought to trot down to our room and call that lieutenant."
"To tell him what?" said a voice from behind them. A female one, but on the unfriendly side.
They spun around and gasped at the gun in Frannie's hand. "Nothing! We don't have anything to tell him. I didn't mean what I said," Estelle gabbled, her fingernails digging into Ruby Bee's arm so harshly they were close to drawing blood.
"We-we were just looking around," Ruby Bee said, "and there's nothing here but a big mess. You can see for yourself, Frannie. Why doncha put down that gun before you hurt someone?"
"I heard everything you said," Frannie continued, not putting down the gun and not getting any friendlier. "You said my daughter was engaging in tawdry behavior with that slimeball manager-and did the same thing with Jerome Appleton. Do you want to know what really happened?"
Estelle shook her head, while Ruby Bee bobbled hers. Frannie managed to overlook this display of mixed messages and said, "That man seduced my daughter, a girl of sixteen. She should have known better, but she allowed him to take advantage of her and use her as if she were a prostitute. I found out about it and made it clear to her that I would not tolerate that kind of thing. She's won several beauty pageants, you know. She's in the honors program and will be offered scholarships when she graduates. I've already begun to sew her college wardrobe. I have plans for her. I cannot allow her to destroy her future by…by…"
Estelle and Ruby Bee were as unnerved by Frannie's increasingly shrill voice as they were by the wobbly barrel aimed in their general direction. To make matters worse, Frannie slumped against the wall and began to cry, the gun bouncing as she shook with sobs. They waited for a minute to find out if they were gonna get shot, but Frannie seemed to have forgotten about them and was lost in her misery.
At last, Ruby Bee stepped forward and took the gun. She used her free hand to grab one of Frannie's arms, Estelle took the other, and they led the docile woman to the elevator. As they waited, a giggle drifted down the dark hallway.
Agent Clark Rhodes approached the porch of the café with his badge in his teeth and his heart in his throat, or thereabouts. His jacket was neatly draped over his arm so the terrorist could see he was unarmed, and his hands were in the air in the classical submissive pose and shaking like autumn leaves in a breeze.
He took his badge from his mouth. "Rhodes, FBI," he shouted, as worried by the heavy weapons aimed at his back as by what he assumed was leveled on him from behind the blinds. Rhodes did not relish melodramatic confrontations, which is why he had opted to be a statistician rather than a field operative. On the flight from Washington, it had occurred to him that he'd been chosen because of his expendability-not a cozy thought.
"I'm doing exactly what you ordered," he added. "I'm unarmed and alone, and by the way, my wife's expecting a baby in two months. It's our fourth." Actually, it was their first, but it couldn't hurt to paint a more touching portrait of the grieving widow and children at the graveside.
The door was opened by the largest, most sullen woman he'd ever seen. Her dark eyes were burning into him, and her mouth was harshly puckered above a bevy of chins. She wore a tent-sized dress that was badly wrinkled and stained. Her hair, a mass of greasy strings, brushed her mammoth shoulders like a wet mop. "Whacha staring at?" she demanded.
"I thought you were…a brother," Rhodes said weakly.
"Then you ain't no Ira Pickerel. Do I look like someone who takes hostages and threatens to kill 'em?"
"You're not Marvel, then?"
"Lord Almighty! I wouldn't have bet a plug nickel there was anyone on the planet stupider than Kevin Fitzgerald Buchanon, but now I ain't so sure! Are you gonna stand there all night like your feet are planted, or are you gonna do like Marvel said?"