Thursday

Cranky Agnes column #92

"Eating for Your Beating Heart"

There are very few recipes that couldn't be improved by the addition of three-quarters of a pound of butter and a cup of heavy cream, but this is cold comfort when you're laid out like a slab of beef in intensive care, listening to the blood pound in your ears as you seriously consider going toward the light. Think before you eat, people: Food should be the life of you, not the death of you.

At eight thirtythe next morning, Shane cradled a cup of Agnes's good coffee in Carpenter's van as his partner looked at the mug shot on the computer screen and then at the real mug on the body on the floor of his van lying in the unzipped body bag and said, "He looks better dead."

They were parked away from the house. Carpenter had come back to eat the omelets Agnes had made for them, complimenting her on the food to the point where Shane thought he'd have to add to the body count. Agnes had smiled through all of it in spite of the bruise on her jaw. That was another thing he loved about her: Sex made her cheerful as all hell.

The bruise on her jaw made him want to kill the guy all over again, though. He'd have to settle for making the moron who'd sent the guy sorry he'd ever been born.

He heard another vehicle pull up, and he glanced out the small one-way bulletproof window and saw Joey's pickup. He opened the back door and gestured, and the old man came over and hopped in, pausing when he saw the body wrapped in thick black plastic on the middle of the floor. Shane slammed the door shut.

"Who the fuck is that?" Joey demanded.

"The guy who came to whack Agnes last night," Shane said. "The second one. The first was night before last, some guy named Macy."

"What the fuck?" Joey exploded.

"Good question," Shane said. "What we got here, Joey, is a food chain of hitmen, and I need to know who got the original contract and who let it. And I need to know it fast, before some pro shows up here instead of these amateurs. So you got any idea who would try to have Agnes hit?"

Carpenter was typing on his computer, but Shane knew he was listening to everything.

"Hold on," Joey said. "You're saying someone's trying to whack Agnes?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"No idea."

"Shit." Joey sat down and passed his hand over his face. "Is she okay? Is she in there alone?"

"She's never alone now," Shane said. "Lisa Livia's in there, Garth's in there, Doyle's working on the bridge. Now answer my question."

"Right." Joey nodded. "Jesus. Well, Four Wheels probably ain't too happy about Two Wheels moving on to the afterlife and Three Wheels disappearing."

"I don't see Four Wheels sending Garth and Macy on the same night," Shane said.

"Or somebody might not like you guys trying to open up that shelter and might figure whacking Agnes will stop that."

"Nobody knows we're opening that shelter," Shane said.

Joey stared at him like he was stupid. "Lots of people know about the basement being opened. Stanley Harrison, the health inspector, was down there yesterday. He's been telling everybody about some acid thing you're doing down there. There ain't many secrets here in Keyes."

You're keeping some,Shane thought, but he shook his head. "I still don't see how killing Agnes is going to stop us from opening up that damn shelter."

"Excuse me," Carpenter said. "But as I understand it, if Agnes dies, Taylor inherits the house as part of the partnership agreement because of a survivorship clause."

"What?" Shane said, taken aback. "How the hell did you find that out?"

"Lisa Livia told me last night," Carpenter said. "What I'm saying is, maybe the hit isn't about stopping us from entering, maybe it's about allowing someone else to enter if they think there's five million dollars in that bomb shelter."

"That fuckin' hairball is tryin' to hurt my little Agnes? I'll kill the bum." Joey pulled his gun out. "Let's go whack him."

"No," Shane said, though it was tempting. "We have to stop the immediate threat. Agnes can take care of Taylor with a toothpick, she doesn't need us for that." He turned to Carpenter. "What do you have on the stiff?"

Carpenter read from the screen. "One Vincent Marinelli, aka Vinnie ‘Can of Tomatoes' Marinelli."

"Oh, fuck," Joey muttered.

"I thought you didn't know him," Shane said.

"I never met him," Joey corrected. "But I heard of the mutt. Small-time muscle man out of Savannah. Works for the Torrentino brothers sometimes. They're the closest thing to the mob down in the low country since Frankie disappeared. They kick up, when they remember, to the boss in Atlanta, and the boss in Atlanta collects when he remembers those guys exist in Savannah. Small-time stuff."

Carpenter's fingers had been working the keyboard while Joey was talking. "The Torrentino brothers. Your uncle is right. Small time, but somewhat connected."

"So somebody put out a hit on Agnes, and whoever got it subcontracted it to this Marinelli guy, who subcontracted it to Macy," Shane said.

Carpenter looked over from his computer. "The package that I disposed of Monday night in Savannah was also affiliated with the Atlanta mob. I'll print you out the information."

"What the luck is he talking about?" Joey asked. "What package?"

"Put the gun away, Joey," Shane said absently. A plan. He needed a plan. He turned to his uncle. "You gotta level with me, Joey. It's important. Are you planning to rat out the Don when he comes here? Or whack him?"

"Hell no. Why would I do that?"

Shane rubbed his forehead, trying to forestall the headache that was growing. He was starting to sympathize with Wilson. "There's a rumor someone is planning on ratting out the Don when he comes here for the wedding, and that the Don has hired somebody to hit that person in return. I want to know who that person is. And I want to know if any of that can be connected with these amateurs who are showing up here to hit Agnes."

"How?" Joey asked.

"Are you going to answer any of my questions with anything other than a question?" Shane asked.

Joey sighed. "Rat the Don out about what?" He held up a hand. "Sorry. The Don's been doing bad stuff for decades, and he's never gotten caught."

"There's no statute of limitation on murder," Shane said. "If the Don had Frankie killed and someone here has evidence on that, the Don would want that person silenced."

Joey rubbed his hand across his chin. "Agnes wasn't here then."

"You were," Shane said.

Carpenter leaned forward. "If there's evidence in the vault pointing to the Don, he might be trying to keep us from getting in there."

Shane looked at his uncle. "I was in Savannah to take out a professional painter named Casey Dean that the Don had brought in to take out this rat. A preemptive strike. The job got screwed up, and Casey Dean is still out there."

Joey pointed at the body on the floor. "This mutt ain't a professional and Macy sure wasn't. And a professional wouldn't subcontract. Especially on a job ordered by the Don."

Shane was trying to fit the pieces. Think like Wilson. "That means we're dealing with two contracts. One from the Don, put out on the rat. The other from somebody put out on Agnes. Plus we got Four Wheels sending the little Wheels out here looking for the necklace and the five million."

"What a fucking mess," Joey muttered.

"No shit," Shane said. "Carpenter, stay here with Joey and watch Agnes. I'm going down to Savannah and talk to the Torrentino brothers and explain to them that either Amateur Night gets canceled or they do. I'll be back in time to see what's in the bomb shelter when the acid burns through the lock."

"Any instructions?" Carpenter said.

"Yeah," Shane said. "Shoot anybody who looks at Agnes funny. And anybody else you don't like. I'm getting tired of this shit."

"Somebody needs a hug," Carpenter said. "Humor," Shane said. "Har." Then he left the van and headed for Savannah.

The Dixie Chickswere singing "Goodbye, Earl" on the stereo, Rhett was asleep under the kitchen table, and the Venus was standing unscathed by the basement door as Agnes made her sixth omelet, this one for Lisa Livia, and tried to write her column in her head.

"The hall is really clean," LL said, taking her toast out of the toaster. "I'm sure some luminol would beg to differ, but the man is good."

"Carpenter? Very good." Agnes flipped the omelet closed. Okay, wedding cake, there must be something original to say about wedding cake. Maybe if she led with the Romans bashing the bride with it?—

"Probably because he's a man of the cloth."

"You know, I find that so hard to believe." Agnes slid the omelet onto a plate.

"I don't see why." Lisa Livia buttered her toast. "He's a Spiritual Humanist. I think he's very spiritual. He's ordained and everything."

"Uh-huh." Agnes thought about saying, Do you know what the man does for a living: and then remembered that she was talking to Lisa Livia Fortunato. Of course she knew what he did for a living.

She handed LL her omelet as the phone rang and then answered it.

"Agnes," God intoned.

"Good morning, Reverend Miller."

Lisa Livia stopped with her fork poised above her omelet.

"I've been wondering," Reverend Miller said. "Does Maria intend to have children?"

You putz."Yes, Maria definitely plans to have children. Palmer wants enough for a foursome at least. Although what business that is of yours, I have no idea. Good-bye." Agnes hung up and said to Lisa Livia, "Don't even start, I know he's an idiot."

"Jesus Christ," Lisa Livia said. "Carpenter's ordained. Let's keep him on as backup for the wedding." She cut into her omelet.

"Yeah, I'm sure Evie Keyes will go for a Spiritual Whatsis performing her son's wedding ceremony." Agnes began to break eggs into her blue bowl for her omelet. "You haven't seen my To Do List, have you? It has my cake order on it, and I don't think I'm going to make it into Savannah today, so I'm going to have to call it in and then rush in tomorrow and pick it up?—"

"Why don't we both go later today?" Lisa Livia said. "I need to get some stuff to clean the mildew off the Venus anyway. And we can sell Taylor's ring then, too. Pay for some landscaping if Garth can't steal what we need."

Agnes frowned at her as she began to whisk. "Garth is not stealing anything. We are not contributing to the delinquency of a minor. I've got to go talk to his grandpa to see if he can stay in school. And I've got to get him some better clothes. He went home last night and snuck some out of his trailer, but they're worse than the ones he was wearing."

"Considering the minor in question, I doubt we'd be contributing much." Lisa Livia forked up more omelet. "I think he's fully funded his juvie trust. This omelet is really good."

The phone rang and Agnes answered it and then heard silence.

"Hello?" she said, and then Brenda said, "Agnes. I was just calling to see if Lisa Livia was all right. We had a disagreement and?—"

"She's right here," Agnes said, thinking you treacherous bitch.

"That's all right, then," Brenda said. "As long as she's safe. Everything okay out there?"

"Yep," Agnes said. "Wedding's on schedule. Everything's fine. Here's LL." She held out the phone to Lisa Livia. "Your mother."

LL rolled her eyes and took the phone. "Hello, Ma. Yes, I'm fine. Agnes gave me my old bedroom back. Just like old times. What? Yes, I know it isn't like old times unless you're here, but Agnes is making me breakfast, so it's damn near. Okay." She frowned at the phone and then handed it back to Agnes. "I have no idea what that was about, but she cut me off and hung up on me when she heard you were making me breakfast. Jealous much?"

"I really don't care." Agnes dropped butter into the omelet pan for her own breakfast and watched it melt. "Listen, Garth is not a juvenile delinquent. He's really smart. I know he's not educated," she said when Lisa Livia looked like she was about to sneer, "but he's a fast learner, he's picked up everything that Doyle has thrown at him so far, and he was amazing with the flamingos. I bet his mama was smart. That whole naming him Garth because of the ‘Shameless' song makes her sound like our kind of people, you know? And when it comes to cunning, you can't put anything past a Thibault. I'm thinking Garth could really be something if he gets a chance. And good clothes are a start, give him some pride."

"Oh, God." Lisa Livia sighed. "You're going to save Garth."

"I am not." Agnes poured her eggs into the melted butter. "But it's not exactly saving a kid to make sure he gets to go to high school. Come on, LL. And if he wants to live here in the barn as a caretaker where there's heat and plumbing and a computer for his homework, and his grandfather says it's okay, then I don't see the problem."

"He's a teenaged boy," Lisa Livia said. "Try sex, drugs, and rock and roll."

Agnes shook her head. "Like he wasn't going to get those in the swamp. At least here he'll go to hell with the Internet and hot water."

"Okay," Lisa Livia said. "I'll put Palmer on the clothes. It'll give him something to do. Grooms are useless before a wedding anyway. But you're not fooling me—you just like feeding him. You like having a lot of people milling around that you can cook for. If you could get Cerise and Hot Pink up here, life would be perfect."

Agnes grinned at her, feeling all sunny and warm inside around the dark hollow parts she was trying not to look at. "You know as hellish as this week has been, and even considering I have to wait until last to get my omelet, this has been the happiest I've ever been. I mean people are trying to kill me, but this house is full of the best people and they're all eating my food and watching out for me and ... I'm happy. Is that crazy?"

"Maybe," Lisa Livia said. "But I'm loving the omelet, so I'm not arguing."

"I like having you here," Agnes said, throwing grated cheese onto her eggs. "I like it that Joey shows up every day and that Carpenter wanders through and that Garth is putting in hydrangeas right now even though he has no receipts."

"And?" Lisa Livia said.

"And what?" Agnes said, keeping her eyes on her eggs.

"Shane," Lisa Livia said. "God, are you transparent"

"Shane." Agnes nodded. "He's a good friend, but that has to be it I mean, he's a hitman, and I'm giving up violence, and he's never going to be stable, and my next guy is going to be permanent, a nice regular guy, you know? But Shane's a good guy, a good friend." She caught Lisa Livia looking at her with contempt. "What?"

"You're insane, that's what"

"I don't see why that's insane. I think that's a good plan. Dr. Garvin would approve."

"No, you're insane." Lisa Livia cut into her omelet again. "There's nobody I'd go to faster in a crisis, but you are nuts. And not in a cute way. You have been since I met you."

Agnes looked at her, stunned. "I was fourteen when I met you."

Lisa Livia nodded, chewing omelet. "And everybody in that damn boarding school was scared of you. You know what the first thing they told me was? Don't make Agnes mad. Seniors told me that."

Agnes looked down at her omelet and began to lift the edges automatically. "They said that? I thought they thought I was an untouchable because my dad and mom never came back."

"They never got that far. Evidently something happened the first week you were there and they saw the red light in your eyes and you became legend. Anyway, by the end of the first week I was there, I knew exactly who you were. My kind of people. And I asked to be your roommate and here we are."

Agnes swallowed. "They were afraid of me?"

"Agnes, it was a good thing," Lisa Livia said. "Because otherwise, they'd have made your life hell because you had no parents and wore cheap clothes. Thank God they thought you were Carrie."

"Oh, God." Agnes turned off the heat under the omelet pan because she'd lost all concentration.

"Look, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to ruin your day?—"

"Somebody tried to kill me last night, Lisa Livia," Agnes snapped. "Ancient boarding school news is not likely to ruin my day today."

"—I'm just trying to explain why finding a nice guy is not in the cards for you," Lisa Livia finished. "What the hell are you going to do with a nice guy?"

"I can be nice," Agnes said.

"Why would you want to be?" Lisa Livia said.

Agnes stopped, dumbfounded.

"Agnes, you're furious and fascinating and wonderful. You should probably not stab anybody with a meat fork again, but why be nice when you can be Cranky Agnes?" Lisa Livia pointed her fork at the red glasses logo on Agnes's apron. "You think you're syndicated in a hundred newspapers because you're nice? You think you'd be in any newspaper if you wrote a column called ‘Nice Agnes'?"

"I'm talking about my personal life?—"

Lisa Livia slapped her hand on the table. "I'm talkin' about you. Stop pretending you're normal. You're insane. Make that work for you. That Dr. Garvin shit where you step on yourself all the time, that's not good. Forking people isn't good, either, but jeez, Agnes, you talk about finding some normal guy—hell, that's how you ended up with Taylor, remember? You talked about nice he was, how normal he was, how easygoing he was. You went out and found the most white-bread guy in America, and he turned out to be a jackal. Maybe that's not a good plan for you, Agnes."

"Well, hell, Lisa Livia," Agnes said mildly. "Maybe a hitman isn't a good plan, either."

Lisa Livia picked up her fork again. "Well, he sure put a smile on your face this morning."

"That's just sex," Agnes said, and thought, That's a lie, and then Rhett woke up and barked, and Agnes realized somebody was standing on her back porch looking at her through the screen door. "Hello?"

"I knocked," the woman said, her drawl more of a chirp. "I truly did, but you all didn't hear. I'm Kristy. From Wesley's Wonderful Wedding Memories."

Lisa Livia rolled her eyes.

"Come on in, Kristy," Agnes said. "This is Lisa Livia, the mother of the bride, and I'm Agnes."

Kristy opened the screen door and came in, cute as a bug with her pixie face, short dark hair, and tight little body strung with cameras and bags and a lot of other stuff that looked professional but could have been garbage for all Agnes knew. Rhett looked at her and barked again, and Agnes shushed him, so he sighed and went back to sleep as Kristy smiled at Lisa Livia.

"You can't possibly be the mother of the bride," Kristy said to her. "You must be her sister."

"Right," Lisa Livia said, and kept eating omelet.

"Have you had breakfast?" Agnes said to Kristy, looking at her cheese omelet with longing, but ready to give it up for hospitality's sake.

"No, ma'am, but thank you for the offer," Kristy said, and Agnes liked her better.

"Well, feel free to look around," Agnes said. "The wedding is going to be in the gazebo and the reception is in the barn, which you'll find if you follow the flagstone path off to the right of the porch there. Anything you need to know?"

"I'll just wander around taking some trial shots," Kristy said, batting her big blue eyes. "Any of the wedding party present besides Mrs. Fortunato?" She nodded to Lisa Livia.

"Miss. Never married." Lisa Livia picked up her toast.

Kristy nodded again, having evidently given up on bonding.

"Nope," Agnes said. "Unless you count the flamingos."

Kristy nodded, smiled, and escaped through the back door.

"I'm just saying," Lisa Livia said when she was gone, "you have a lot more in common with Shane than with some normal guy. Taylor freaked when you attacked him with a meat fork. Shane took it away from you and made you come your brains out. I think that's significant."

"He kills people," Agnes said. "Lucky for you," Lisa Livia said.

Agnes picked up her omelet and took it to the table and sat down across from Lisa Livia. "I'm definitely not going to have sex with him again."

Lisa Livia nodded. "I'm definitely going to sleep with Carpenter." Agnes sighed.

"Agnes, stop fighting your nature. You're a killer. Accept that and you'll be a lot happier."

"I've never killed anybody," Agnes protested, and then stopped, realizing that might have sounded holier than thou, considering the people she was hanging out with.

"And with the grace of God you never will," Lisa Livia said. "The important thing is, we know we can if we have to." She finished her omelet and pushed her plate away. "So what are we doing today?"

"I have to bake the wedding cakes," Agnes said, "and call in that cake supply order to the bakery in Savannah. And write my column. Clean up the Venus with you. And sometime in there, I'd like to go through your mother's boxes and find something that will completely destroy her life so that she'll never again feel the warmth of the sun on her face or know a happy moment."

"There you go," Lisa Livia said, and got up to take her plate to the sink.

"And then I have to make lunch," Agnes said, and began to eat her omelet.

Shane pulledup to the old warehouse on the edge of the swamp on the east side of Savannah. He'd already decided subtlety was not the desired course of action. He just didn't feel like it. He kept his sunglasses on and got out of the Defender into the humid heat just as a stocky man with the rippling muscles of a steroid-injecting weight lifter and the sloping forehead of Cro-Magnon man stepped out of a personnel door set in the larger sliding doors in the front of the steel building. He wore flip-flops, swim trunks, and a black muscle shirt, which showed off not only the aforementioned muscles, but also a dazzling array of tattoos from his wrists to his shoulders.

"Whaddya want?" the man asked.

"You speaking to me?"

"Yeah, I'm speaking to you."

Shane shook his head. "You're supposed to say: ‘I don't see nobody else standing there.'" "What?"

Shane sighed. No one watched the classics anymore. "The Torrentino brothers in?"

The man's head jerked in what Shane assumed was a negative. "No, and you ain't going in there."

"Wrong," Shane said, and hit the weightlifter in the throat with a quick strike of his fist, avoiding all the layers of muscles elsewhere on the body. Weightlifter's hands flew up his neck as he gasped in pain.

Shane snap kicked into his groin, eliciting a squeal of pain, and the weightlifter went to his knees, curling over, his hands going from neck to balls. Shane did an elbow strike to the back of the man's head and he was out, prostrate on the ground.

Shane checked the unconscious body for weapons and found none, but he did find a money clip, with "Rocko" picked out in rhinestones, holding twenty-eight crisp hundred-dollar bills. He flex-cuffed Rocko's bulky arms behind his back just in case he came to before the business inside was done, and then went inside the warehouse, but the weightlifter had been telling the truth, the place was empty. He did a quick search and found evidence that the Torrentinos had been there, including two La-Z-Boys and a large-screen TV with an impressive collection of porn videos stacked to one side.

The Torrentinos as the masterminds behind the hits began to seem less likely than ever. But Rocko with those hundred-dollar bills ...

Shane heard cursing and abandoned the warehouse. Rocko was sitting up, moaning, for which Shane was grateful, doubtful he could toss that much unconscious weight into the Defender. It also meant Rocko had a very thick skull, which wasn't surprising.

"On your feet," Shane said, giving Rocko a quick poke in the back with the muzzle of the dock.

Rocko muttered something, but staggered to his feet. Shane guided him over to the Defender and shoved him into the passenger seat, his hands still awkwardly secured behind him with the plastic flex-cuff. Shane got in the driver's seat. He threw the truck in gear and drove out of the parking lot. Then he remembered something. He dug in his pocket and pulled out Agnes's To Do List.

Shane reached down and turned on the navigation system and punched in the address for the bakery in downtown Savannah. He was glad for the tinted windows as he drove into the city. Rocko was becoming more agitated as consciousness seeped into his brain, so after Shane double-parked in front of the bakery, he whacked him on the head again.

Then he walked into the bakery.

"Can I help you?" the woman behind the counter said.

Shane checked the list. "I need fifteen pounds of fondue and?—"

The woman said, "Excuse me?"

"It's for a wedding cake."

"You mean fondant."

"Whatever. And ..." He handed Agnes's To Do List over to her. She squinted at it. "Is this the Agnes Crandall order?"