Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle by Pauline Jones (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📕

names was anybody’s guess—were tall thin twins, with a useful facility for looking like federal agents. Presentable, but with the ability to be vicious, loyal and mildly ambitious, they were intelligent enough to actually get Dante’s jokes. A couple of thugs a wise guy could depend upon.

“You wanted to see us, Mr. Dante?” Abel, the spokesman of the two, asked.

Dante nodded. “Got a little job for you to do. A simple locate and pick up. With kid gloves, boys—for now.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Dante. Who you want us to grab?”

“Ah, that is the problem. She’s a client of Benny’s. You remember the oh-so-dull Benny?” They nodded. “Ask him where she lives, then pick her up, and bring her here so we can have a little chat, do a little business.”

“No problem, Mr. Dante.” As the two men slid out, Cain checked his gun and then stowed it back under his jacket.

Max turned to leave, then hesitated, a slight frown on his face.

“You got a problem, Max?”

“Just seems like small potatoes, Mr. Dante. A scam that nets dollar bills?”

“Normally bills that small wouldn’t interest me, but so many? Where did she get them? And why small bills? Why not an assortment? All these questions I don’t have answers for.” He looked blandly at his henchman. “You know how I hate unanswered questions. They disturb my sleep. Make me cranky. Next thing I know, I want to kill someone. That son-of-a-bitch Ross and his large partner are riding my ass pretty close, Max. Don’t want him to find something to smell.”

“Yes, Mr. Dante.” Max was silent for a moment. “You think she’s running a scam?”

“The idea does rather spring to mind.”

“Pretty penny ante scam when it only nets dollar bills.”

“Our bird is clever enough to start small and works up. Not much in one box, but according to Benny, there’s more where that came from. How much more? Now we can wait patiently for our bird to bring it to us package by package and lose it gambling. Or, we can find out what scam she’s running on my turf. If it’s big enough, I might let her live long enough to cut me in. Any way you slice it, she’s taking money from me.”

“What do you want?” Eddie asked brusquely. He stood impatiently by his car, looking pointedly at his watch. Edward “Eddie” Ross was as tall as Mickey, but thinner, with just a hint of a stoop starting to curve his shoulders. But age couldn’t blunt his forceful manner or lengthen his patience span.

Mickey shifted uneasily. He was over thirty, not a kid, but he still found it hard to remain cool when Eddie looked at him like that. “We need to ask you some questions. Won’t take long.”

“Gave my statement yesterday to that flunky you sent over here to snoop through my life.”

So that’s what was bothering him. Mickey relaxed. “Come on, Eddie, we could really use your help. We’re trying to find out about a guy named Reggie Seymour. The old ladies say he sometimes stays with them.”

“Reggie?” Eddie relaxed, too, leaning against his car with his arms crossed over his chest. “You think that worthless piece of dirt did the killing?”

“It’s possible,” Mickey admitted. “We don’t have anything solid on him, except a bunco record.”

Eddie nodded as if this made sense. “Only met him once. Sorry piece of work. Probably a punk when he was young. Now a gigolo wannabe. Made my skin crawl, but the ladies—” He shook his head over the gullibility of ladies. “That nutsy neighbor of theirs was fawning all over him.”

Delaney and Mickey exchanged glances. “Sounds like he ran true to type,” Delaney said.

“True to type?” Eddie asked.

“According to the ladies, their family men aren’t—great,” Mickey explained.

“Yeah, real screw-ups,” Delaney added.

“Well, I told you he was an asshole, didn’t I?” He was impatient again, looking at his watch. “Are you through with me? Cause I gotta meet Unabelle. We’re applying for the license today.”

“Just one more question, Eddie, okay? Did he seem capable of violence?”

Eddie hesitated. “Violence? Didn’t they teach you anything at the academy?”

“What?” It was stupid to get defensive.

“Anyone’s capable of violence. If they’re cornered.” He slid in his car and slammed the door. Through the frame of the window he glared at his nephew.

“I knew that.” Mickey looked at Delaney. “We just have to figure out how our John Doe cornered him.”

Eddie nodded agreement, then pulled away with a discreet squeal of tires.

“Eddie seemed a bit on edge,” Delaney commented as they clambered into his car.

“Oh, he was just pissed because I didn’t talk to him myself yesterday.” Mickey didn’t want to talk about Eddie. It made his head ache.

When they got to the house, Luci was helping Boudreaux weed the ground around a bougainvillea. To his relief, neither of them appeared to notice the two detectives. He wasn’t in the mood to spar with Luci right now. Or to get within lust range. Still mute, Louise showed them into the dining room where they found the old ladies knee deep in preparations for the party they were giving for the bride and groom this weekend. It wasn’t easy, he found, to get them to focus on the murder. Or even, he realized, to remember there’d been one.

“Murder?” Miss Theo didn’t look up from her sheaf of lists. “Weena, is dear little Luci done fixing the Nash? This list of errands is getting longer.”

“She’s helping Boudreaux in the garden,” Miss Hermi said, flecks of pink coloring her cheeks. “She said she’d go do the errands right after lunch.”

“The garden?” Theo looked up from her lists.

“I noticed the bougainvillea looks a little tense.”

“Boudreaux—” began Miss Weena.

“—is the one making it tense! You know he never liked it.”

Delaney gave Mickey a panicked look.

“You’re senior,” Mickey said.

Out in the yard, Luci tossed the last weed into a wilting pile and paused to brush stray hairs back from her face, then winced when her wrist reminded her it had been twisted recently.