Saturday

Cranky Agnes column #116

"Sedate Your Family with Love and Gravy"

In an attempt to bring health to the holidays, I adapted a recipe for dressing using olive oil and high-fiber whole-wheat bread, and ended up with a pan of something that had a definite this-is-good-for-you vibe that lacked the all-right-I'll-go-to-hell flavor of true celebration food. But it doesn't matter, because while I like dressing a lot, it's really just a delivery system for the gravy. In fact, the Cranky Agnes Theory of Holiday Cooking can be summed up in two words: More Gravy.

You son of a bitch."

Shane turned to look at the door to the hallway and saw Lisa Livia dressed in white pajamas with baby chicks on them, looking ready to kill as she stared at Doyle, two high spots of color on her cheekbones.

"Top of the evening, lass," Doyle called out, but his heart obviously wasn't in it

Shane looked closer at him, seeing past the beard now, the white hair, the smashed nose, the different-colored eyes, the fake accent, the extra weight, twenty-five years of damage and disguise.

"You son of a bitch." Lisa Livia said, her voice close to breaking. "Now, lass—" Doyle began; then he sighed as Shane took a step toward him, and gave up the pretense and the accent. "All right, all right, jeez, I'm sorry already." Frankie Fortunato looked back at Lisa Livia. "Hi, Livie. Daddy's home."

"Fuck you," Lisa Livia said.

Shane looked at Joey. "How did you figure it out?"

Joey looked at Frankie, murder in his eye. "He told me."

"And you drew down on him?"

"He's got some explaining to do," Joey said.

"You took off and left me," Lisa Livia said, still standing in the doorway, as if she were afraid to come in the room. "My daddy. The one who loved me, the one who'd never leave me, you left me with Brenda. You son of a bitch."

"She tried to kill me," Frankie said, as if that explained everything. "She hit me right in the face with that frying pan, broke my nose, look?—"

"Now why would she do that?" Agnes said, her hands on her hips, lightning in her eyes, and Shane thought, Oh, hell, here we go.

"She thought I was cheating on her," Frankie said, rolling his eyes.

"You were," Joey said, keeping his gun hand steady.

"Son of a bitch,"Lisa Livia said, and leaned on the doorframe.

"I'd have hit you with the frying pan, too," Agnes snapped.

"You listening to this?" Frankie said to Shane.

"I'm not planning on cheating," Shane said. Especially on Agnes.

"Oh, but if you could have seen Maisie back then," Frankie said, shaking his head.

"Maisie Shuttle?" Agnes said, distracted for a second. "Well, that explains why Brenda threatened her with death."

"You son of a bitch," Lisa Livia said weakly, evidently stuck in second gear.

Carpenter appeared in the doorway to the porch, a body bag over one shoulder and—when he saw the firepower at the kitchen table— a gun in his free hand.

Everybody turned to look at him and there was a moment of silence, and then almost by mutual consent everybody turned back to Frankie as the more interesting option.

Frankie sighed. "Brenda saw the necklace and yelled, ‘Is that for that bitch Maisie?' and swung that pan and knocked me cold, and when I woke up I was locked in that shelter covered in blood, left for dead?—"

"Totallyunderstandable," Agnes said, and went around the counter toward the fridge, as if she'd given up on him completely. Shane sympathized but kept his eyes on the guns. "—and I almost did die in the river, getting away. I even got a plate here." Frankie pointed to his head. "Shoulda been dead, but us Fortunatos, we got thick skulls."

"Jesus," Joey said, shaking his head but still keeping his gun steady. "You sure fooled me. You musta put on fifty, sixty pounds, you tub o' lard."

"Used to have black hair, too," Frankie said, scowling at him. "Look at this." He popped a blue contact out of one eye with his free hand, then out of the other, revealing the Fortunato trademark: shark black eyes. "You were a lot lighter twenty-five years ago, too, Joey. We all changed."

"Son of a bitch," Lisa Livia said again, but she sounded tired now, and when Shane pulled a chair up to the table for her, between the newly scrubbed Venus and Joey, she came in and sank down into it and just stared at her father, sad and lost.

"I'm sorry, Livie," he said, but he sounded more uncomfortable than sorry.

"Between you and my mother—" Lisa Livia just shook her head.

Shane cleared his throat. "I suggest we put the guns away. There are a lot of secrets here. And I'm tired of them."

Frankie nodded at him, keeping his gun out. "So, you know about your parents?"

"What about my parents?" Shane frowned as Frankie looked at Joey. He caught Joey glaring, raising the gun a little, and he stiffened, but Frankie spoke again.

"You know. That I'm your uncle Frankie. Your good uncle, not your lying snake of a shit-head rat-fuck uncle, the Don."

"Jesus,you're a bad liar," Shane said, and Frankie started to swing the gun his way, and Joey raised his even more, and Carpenter said, "Guns away, gentlemen," from the doorway, in that deep voice that brooked no argument, and then Agnes came around the counter, her arms full of food, looking like she had every dish in the refrigerator, and dumped it all on the table between them.

"This is my kitchen," she said, an edge of hysteria in her voice, "and enough goddamn people have been shot in it. You are my family, you're the only family I've got, so you're going to put those guns away and eat something right now. Or there's gonna he hell to pay."

She slapped a loaf of bread down on the table and looked at them both, blood in her eyes, and Joey and Frankie both hesitated. "You do not want me angry," Agnes said, and they both nodded once and, like the unhappy, dysfunctional family they were, they put the guns away together.

Rhett sighed and went to sleep.

"And now you're gonna eat," Agnes said.

"What'd you come back for, Frankie?" Shane said as Joey began to help Agnes take the covers off the dishes.

"My granddaughter's wedding, of course," Frankie said, craning his neck to look into the bowls. "I read about it in the paper and I thought it would be nice. Hey, are those ribs?—?"

"Cut the crap," Shane said. "Where's the five million? And what score are you settling with the Don?"

"I was wondering about the five mil myself," Agnes said as she slung plates around the table like she was dealing cards, clearly still mad as hell. "And the necklace. That was a lousy thing to do to me, Doyle."

"Aw, Agnes," Frankie said.

"I mean it. I worried about you, I fussed over you. I fed you—" She smacked the container with the ribs down in front of him hard. "Darlin', I know it?—"

"And you put a necklace on my dog and almost got me killed." Agnes finished almost throwing his plate at him. "What the hell was that about?"

Frankie looked shamefaced but relieved, Shane thought. Doesn't want to talk about the Don.

"That was just a joke," Frankie told Agnes. "Justice for Brenda. I been knocking around all over the world while she stayed here livin' the good life, never paying for half-killing me, never losing one night's sleep over it, so I thought, ‘That bitch needs some payback.' So I put the necklace on Rhett so she'd see it and start to worry?—"

"Jesus." Lisa Livia sighed and look the cover off the turkey bowl. "You are a piece of work."

"What?" Frankie said, picking up a rib. "I just?—"

"Because of you," Agnes said, her voice like cut glass, "Four Wheels sent his grandson here to die. Because of you, Four Wheels came here and died. Because of you, Brenda thought there was five million dollars here and hired hitmen to kill me."

"What the hell?" Frankie said, jolted. He looked at Joey, who nodded. "That bitch hired those hairballs?"

"Because of you, she got so desperate, she killed Taylor tonight with a meat fork," Agnes went on savagely. "I don't even know what the collateral damage is, what happened when Shane went to Savannah that got blood all over my fondant, or if that body bag over Carpenter's shoulder is part of this?—"

"No, no, this is professional," Carpenter said.

"—but your joke killed at least five people?—"

"Six," Shane said, thinking of Rocko.

"—so forgive me if I'm not slapping you on the back right now."

"Aw, hell," Frankie said, waving the rib at her. "I didn't kill them, Brenda did."

"You're missing the point, Frankie," Shane said, thinking it probably wasn't the first time. "But I'm a lot more interested in your first lie."

"Hey," Frankie said, and bit into the rib.

"The one about how you came back for Maria's wedding." Shane met the old man's dark shark eyes, hooded now as he bent over to demolish the rib. "You didn't come home for the wedding; you came home to turn state's evidence. You came home to roll on the Don. Which means you're the one he hired Casey Dean to hit."

"Ah, fuck." Frankie dropped the stripped rib bone on his plate, annoyed. "Goddamn Wilson must be getting old, he leaks stuff like that."

Silent Carpenter got more silent as Shane shut down any reaction he might have had, to say, "He is."

Frankie reached for another rib, shaking his head, and Lisa Livia got up and headed for the microwave with the entire bowl of gravy.

"Save some for me," Agnes said, dropping into the chair on the other side of Joey.

"Get two straws," Lisa Livia said, and slung the bowl into microwave.

Shane turned to look at Carpenter.Fucking Wilson knew. Carpenter met his eyes for a long moment and then nodded and headed for the basement with the body bag, moving past Frankie without looking at him.

"That means that body bag over Carpenter's shoulder is your fault," Shane said. "In fact, we can pretty much trace the entire body count back to you."

"Now wait just a fuckin' minute," Frankie said, trying to look indignant with barbecue sauce on his face.

"So now you make it up to us," Agnes said quietly from her seat beside Joey.

Frankie said, "Huh?" and Shane almost did, too, but Joey just put his hand on the back of her chair, one hundred percent behind her as always.

"We have many problems, Frankie," Agnes said, calmer now. "I need this wedding to happen tomorrow. Shane needs to take out Casey Dean. Lisa Livia lost everything she had and more when Brenda emptied the accounts she managed." Frankie turned to LL as she sat down with her hot plate and heated gravy, but Agnes kept on talking. "And Brenda needs to go down for Taylor's murder. So you're going to help us with all of that."

"How?" Frankie said, mystified but not unwilling.

"You're going to give the bride away tomorrow," Agnes said.

"Yeah?" Frankie brightened. "Yeah. I'd like that."

"That should slow Brenda down long enough that with any luck she won't kill anybody during the ceremony," Agnes went on. "If we get real lucky, she'll have a heart attack."

"Hell, yes." Frankie wiped his fingers on the napkins Lisa Livia had dumped by his plate. "You got a tux for me?"

"You can use the Don's," Joey said with an undercurrent in his voice that Shane knew was important, but not as important as the fact that Wilson was lucking them over for some reason.

The son of a bitch had known all along. What else had he known? What other games was he playing? And why was he playing games at all?

"Plus if you show up in the open as Frankie Fortunato," Agnes went on, "that'll draw Casey Dean out in the open, too, so Shane can care of him, so that'll finally be done."

"Good," Frankie said, nodding as he reached for the turkey. "That's good."

Agnes was on a roll. "Of course you might get shot, but you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs." She handed him a plate of deviled eggs. "Have one."

"Hey," Frankie said, frowning.

"And as for Lisa Livia, what did you do with the five million, Frankie?" Agnes asked, an edge in her voice Shane had never heard before. Maybe something about fathers lying to daughters, he thought now, maybe something about too many lies. "Because Lisa Livia needs some of it and you're going to give it to her."

Lisa Livia sat very still across from Frankie, watching, her fork poised above her plate.

"The five million. Oh, that's a sad story," Frankie said, mixing Irish and Jersey and sounding like a lying bastard.

Rhett lifted his head and barked at the back door.

"Already I know you're lying, Frankie," Xavier said from the doorway.

An hour later,Agnes looked at the group crowded around her kitchen table stuffing their faces on a week's worth of leftovers and thought, The Gang That Could Shoot Straight. One cop, two hit men, two mobsters, a mob princess, and a food columnist, plus an ancient bloodhound for a mascot; if Evie showed up, they could do Eight Is Enough. Without Evie, lucky seven. Please God.

Shane pushed his plate away and then caught sight of her face. "Agnes?"

My team. My family. "You okay?"

"I'm thinking."

Frankie had spun them the sad story of how he'd lost the five million trying to swim across the Blood River in his escape from Brenda and her frying pan. He tried to make it an epic story of one man's struggle against the flood, but it was basically one cheating goombah's story of how his wife tried to kill him and he hit the road with five mil, which he lost because he couldn't swim very well. The only thing that kept Agnes from killing him was that he was eating the entire time. You couldn't kill somebody who was eating your food. There were rules about things like that.

When Frankie was done with his tall tale, Agnes looked across the table to Lisa Livia. "So. How are you doing?"

"I liked him better dead."

Agnes nodded. "I'm starting to be grateful to mine for staying dead."

"So, Frankie, the five million is gone," Xavier said, shaking his head as she tried to offer him a deviled egg. "And you've just come home because you were so homesick."

"He's come home to roll on the Don," Agnes said, and Shane winced.

"Could I talk to you for a minute?" he said, and she handed him the scalloped potatoes, figuring that would hold him for a while.

"No," she said. "Xavier isn't stupid and he's going to notice I'm missing from his jail and he's not going to buy any ‘she has to put on a wedding' garbage. In fact, I'm willing to bet that's why he's here now, to arrest me for breaking out of jail and probably to take you in, too, just from sheer exasperation. So I think we tell him what the hell's going on."

She looked at Xavier. "Shane works for the government. He's trying to keep Frankie alive to testify against the Don. Frankie wants to see

Maria get married and then he's going into the Witness Protection Program. He won't testify until the wedding is over, so the wedding has to go off tomorrow, then he testifies, then the Don goes to jail and Frankie disappears, and Palmer and Maria go off to wedded bliss. Since Frankie is here, we're going to use him to rattle Brenda. Nobody's managed to make a dent in her so far, but Frankie showing up alive should do it. That might help you get a confession out of her that she killed Taylor, which you know she did." She stopped for a minute, pretending to think, and did a quick survey of the assembled team. They were all looking at her with various degrees of admiration and relief. What, she thought You thought I was going to tell him that Shane was a hitman? Am I nuts? "I think that's it," she finished. "Any questions?"

Xavier looked at Shane. "And you've known all of this from the beginning."

"National security," Shane said.

"Fucking FBI," Xavier said.

"Not quite," Shane said. "But close enough."

"So why didn't I get a visit from men in black suits telling me that I had to let Agnes go?"

"You did," Shane said. "I just don't own a suit, and I don't talk much."

"I'll need to see some identification," Xavier said, and Agnes thought, Oh, hell, but Shane took him aside while Joey and Frankie exchanged one of those glances again.

Agnes poked Joey hard in the side. "What aren't you telling Shane?"

Joey pushed his plate away. "He don't want to know."

"I have news for you," Agnes said. "He wants to know. You explode one more bomb under him, he's going to explode. I've never seen him lose it, but I've seen him when he doesn't lose it, and he's scary as hell. You tell him everything now, or?—"

"Okay," Xavier said, coming back. "I'll hold the arrest warrant." He looked at Agnes. "You will not leave the jurisdiction."

"Hell, Xavier," Agnes said. "I won't leave Two Rivers. Do you have any idea what tomorrow—no, today, it's Saturday already—is going to be like around here?"

Xavier looked grim, which meant he had a good idea, and picked up his hat. "Good luck to you." He turned for the door.

"Hold it," Agnes said, and he turned back. "You're not going anywhere. I want Brenda arrested and in an orange jumpsuit by Sunday. We need you on this. Sit down and eat."

"Agnes," Shane said.

"We need a plan," Agnes said. "And we need the law in on it. What do we need to nail Brenda Fortunato for good?"

Xavier hesitated and then said, "Proof." He sat down beside Frankie, next to the Venus, and took the bowl of ribs away from him. Frankie looked like he was going to protest and then shut up and reached for the coleslaw instead.

Agnes passed him a fork as Shane said, "Okay, we need a plan. So part A is, Frankie walks Maria down the aisle tomorrow and scares Brenda so that she confesses all to Xavier. Good luck with that. Part B, Casey Dean sees Frankie, makes his move, and I ... arrest him."

"Casey Dean is Shane's bad guy," Agnes said to Xavier.

"And Shane's going to arrest him," Xavier said around his rib. "Would that be cardiac arrest?"

Okay,Agnes thought, and reached for the deviled eggs. They were all eating and talking. She could eat now, too.

"And then part C, Frankie and I discuss Lisa Livia's inheritance," Shane said, fixing Frankie with a look that said, You and me, Uncle Frankie.

Frankie tried to look old and frail and innocent. "Ha," Agnes said, and he gave up and passed the coleslaw back to her.

"And if Brenda doesn't freely confess to murder?" Xavier asked.

"She'll fuck up something else," Shane said. "You be ready for it."

They all began to talk at once, arguing out the best plan, overlapping each other's words as they reached over each other to get to the food, arguing and eating, Lisa Livia finally joining in as Carpenter pulled up a chair next to her, making Joey and Agnes scoot over, which brought her close to Shane.

Right where I want to be,she thought, and watched to make sure everybody had enough food. When the table was pretty much cleared she said, "Okay, here's my last word: Nobody shoots anybody tonight. We're a team now, one big happy family. We need each other. If everybody shows up here tomorrow breathing and with all working body parts, and I do mean everybody, I'll make breakfast. Anything you want. But if anybody hurts anybody else on the team, I'm going to be upset. Understand?"

Joey and Frankie looked in different directions.

"And nobody wants Agnes upset," Shane said.

Joey and Frankie nodded.

"Good." Agnes shoved her chair back. "Now let's all get some sleep. And somebody check on Garth, please."

"I'll check on the lad," Frankie said, getting up. "You're not fucking Irish," Joey said, getting up to go with him. "Family," Agnes said, steel in her voice.

"I can't wait for the holidays," Xavier said, and left them to their slumbers.

Shane followedAgnes up the stairs to the second floor as she said, "Do you think any of this is going to work?"

"It's a place to start," he said. "We'll play it by ear—what's wrong?"

Agnes had stopped at the top of the stairs. "Maria and the bridesmaids are in three of the bedrooms up here, and Carpenter and LL are in the other one. We'll have to use the housekeeper's room again?—"

"Nope," he said, and steered her toward the attic stairs, his hands on her waist.

She hesitated and then went along, saying, "I suppose you're right," sounding exhausted. "That whole saving-the-attic-bedroom-as-commitment thing was dumb."

"Nope," he said, letting his hands slide down to her hips, patting her beautiful round butt as she climbed in front of him. His world was going to hell, but Agnes still had a great ass and right now that was enough.

She opened the door at the top of the stairs and then went into the bedroom on the right, and the moonlight flooded the room from the low windows, making it feel almost underwater, peaceful. The big low bed had looked inviting before, but now Agnes said, "Oh," with an ache in her voice that was almost a moan, and he felt the same way.

Shane looked at her in the dim light, round everywhere. "Long day."

"I need a shower first," she said. "I was in jail."

"Been there," Shane said, and watched her pad across the hardwood floor to the half-finished bath on the other side, telling himself that she was exhausted and they were both mind-fried from thinking about the next day until he heard the shower go on, and then he gave up being the Sensitive Guy and stripped and went in to join her.

She hadn't turned the lights on in the bathroom, either, so he found her by the moonlight coming through the skylight, making the soap blue on her wet skin. "Hey," she said, but it was a soft welcome, not a protest, and his hands slid on her soapy lush curves, and he forgot the next day and lost himself in Agnes and in the feel of her hands as she stroked the soap over him, and the soft sound of her giggle and sigh under the water, and the taste of her as she tangled her tongue with his, the way her body yielded to the shove of his, the way she shivered against the scrape of his beard, drew breath at the slide of fingers, and urged him on, hungry for him as he invaded her, but mostly the way she wanted him, wrapped herself around him and demanded him, and by the time they fell onto the bed, she was so hot, so desperate for him, and he was so insane for her, that he drove into her, into the shock and the need, into everything she was, obliterating himself in her, nothing but him in her, rolling in those satin sheets, until they both exploded, and when he came back to the cool blue room and the moonlight and the quiet with Agnes shuddering in his arms, holding on to him as if she'd never let him go, for the first time in his life he thought, Don't let go, and held on.

The sunlight wokeAgnes up because it came in at such a funny angle, and then when she realized where she was, she sat bolt upright and said, "Oh, my God!" and Shane sat up, too, and said, "What?" reaching for his gun, which, probably for the first time in his life, wasn't within reach because she'd kicked it last night, flailing around. Even Rhett jerked awake under the windows and looked around.

"I overslept. I think." Agnes looked around for a clock, but there wasn't any. "Do you have a watch? What time is it?"

Rhett gave them both a dirty look and went back to sleep. Shane reached over her, which felt so good that she didn't fall back against the pillows until he pressed her down there with his body as he grabbed his gun and his watch out of the pile of clothing next to the bed. "Six," he said to her, keeping her pinned down.

"Oh, good," she said, nestling back into the pillows. "I still have to get up, but it's not a complete disaster. How's your gun?" She grinned at him, and he put the gun on the bedside table and rolled her to him so that they lay side by side.

"My gun is fine," he said, and pulled her leg over his hip so she could feel him hard against her.

"I guess it is." She settled in closer as he began to kiss her neck. "This was a good idea, sleeping up here. I should have been up here a long time ago instead of saving this place for some dumb commitment idea."

"Nope," he said, and kissed her, and she settled into the kiss the way she'd settled into his body as his hand slid down her stomach, practically following a path by now. She started to giggle at the thought—Shane blazing a trail—and he said, "What?" but he grinned against her mouth.

"You're going to wear a groove there," she said, and then stopped smiling. "Not that I'm assuming you're staying?—"

"I'm staying," he said, and kissed her again.

When she came up for air, she said, "You don't have to say?—"

"Can we have this conversation tonight?" he said, and she looked up at him, not sure. "I think a lot of things are going to happen to both of us today. But I know I'm going to be back in this bedroom with you tonight. Can we talk about this then?"

Agnes swallowed. "Sure." He knows he's going to be back here tonight. She wriggled a little with happiness, and he grinned and pulled her closer.

"Because if we keep talking, you're going to have to leave to go do wedding stuff," he said, letting his hand drift lower, "and I'm not going to get laid."

"Right," Agnes said, and sighed against him, but she thought, God, I hope we're both still alive to be back here tonight.

Then he kissed her, and she stopped thinking at all.

An hour later,the buzz of Shane's sat phone woke him up.

"I hate that thing," Agnes murmured, buried under the blanket, her head resting on his chest

Rhett lifted his head from his place on the floor and communicated his displeasure with a long look before he collapsed back onto the pillow Agnes had put there for him.

"Yeah, I'm starting to feel that way, too," Shane told them both as he checked the phone.