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

hesitated, then said, “He didn’t feel it, you know. It’s not even attached—”

Mickey shook his head. “I’ll get your—statement later.”

She nodded soberly, her hands clasped behind her back, as she looked straight ahead. “I suppose it’s a—touchy subject for a guy.”

If she smiles, he decided, I will shoot her with my gun. And no jury on earth will convict me. Not if I call the old ladies to the stand.

Perhaps she read his thoughts. Or his intentions. She didn’t smile, didn’t even look at him as sirens once again wailed in the distance.

Artie didn’t like the rock and hard place he found himself in. Fern and Donald were positioned at one end of the street doing something pretty odd again with the map they’d been pretending to study. Sirens could be heard coming toward them from the other direction. And he’d scuffed his new shoes and couldn’t do anything about it because the blind guy he was pretending to be wouldn’t know he had scuffed shoes. He hadn’t thought this particular disguise through, but he had to get into the house, and who could say no to giving a blind guy a drink of water? Not even Louise the Heartless. Now the cops were coming and he was boxed in.

Not that anyone was likely to bother a blind guy, but he was sticking out like a sore thumb on the soon to be less quiet street. He’d just have to continue tapping his way toward Fern and Donald, but would they penetrate his disguise? And why weren’t they getting out of here with the cops coming? He’d had a bad feeling when he’d seen Luci and Boudreaux digging near the bougainvillea. Just went to show you couldn’t even count on a bush to keep your secrets for you.

As the sirens got louder and closer, he backed up and up. One minute he was watching Fern and Donald’s car, the next he was wrapped in leaves and branches. Sharp little buggers, but at least he was out of sight when the cop cars came squealing around the corner.

13

“What the—?” Donald’s voice faded into choking incoherence as he stared at the police cars that once more engulfed the house.

“There’s the forensics van.” Fern looked at Donald. “These people have done more killing than we have, in less time!”

“What’re we doing wrong?”

“Everything, apparently.” Fern shifted in the seat. It wasn’t easy being a wheelman with her arm in a sling, but the Town Car with the automatic was a big help. “Let’s go. We can’t plant the bomb with the police crawling all over the place.” Just being this close to police made her skin crawl.

“Wait. Look.” He pointed past the confusion down the street. On the edge of the action, but not in it, sat the Nash, alone, unattended under a shade tree just past the driveway. “Busy bodies’ll be watching the bulls. Bulls’ll be working. I’ll just be an old man tinkering with a car. Bet no one will even remember me.”

“I don’t know, Donald.” Fern was uneasy. Everything that could go wrong with this hit had gone wrong. Why should today be any different? And when it did go wrong, what chance did they have of getting clear with half the police department crawling everywhere?

“Sit tight, stay cool,” Donald directed, sliding out the door with the bag containing the bomb, also purchased from Teddy.

It wasn’t east to sit quietly, her arm throbbing in sync with her pounding heart while Donald strolled over to the Nash.

After a quick look around, he popped the hood, opened the bag and installed the bomb with a deftness that peeled away the years. Dang, if the old boy can’t still surprise the hell out of me, she thought with a half grin.

The grin froze when the gate opened and Luci came out.

Artie saw his opportunity and untangled himself from the tree, adding only a few more scratches to his face and hands. He righted his glasses and started tapping his way down the street away from Fern and Donald. He had to pass Luci, but that seemed like the lesser of two evils right now. He considered warning Donald, but discarded it. With Donald on the verge of discovery, this was not a good moment to link himself to him.

Luci turned to close the gate as Donald closed the lid of the Nash and dusted his hands down the sides of his pants. Donald started back to the Town Car while Luci started toward the Nash. They passed within a few feet of each other, but with their backs to each other, neither was aware of it. Donald slid into the passenger side of his car as Luci tossed her handbag onto the seat of the Nash, then slid behind the wheel.

When Fern started the car, it only took Artie a couple of beats to realize what Donald had just done to the Nash and what was about to happen. Yes, it would solve his little problem, but it could also end his problems permanently. Tapping faster, he turned and almost stepped out in front of a painfully familiar black Buick. It honked, giving him a good reason to jump back. He did a quick about-face. At the moment, bombs and the hit couple seemed the lesser of the evils confronting him.

He didn’t know how Dante’s boys had managed to find him, but maybe, just maybe, they wouldn’t recognize Cloris’s erstwhile groom in the blind man with scuffed shoes.

“Well.” Donald’s voice was a couple of octaves higher from the close call, and he dabbed at the sweat breaking out on his forehead. “Least we get to see the show.”

Fern let the car roll forward, her whole attention directed to the rear view mirror and the girl taking a long time to settle herself in the seat, find the keys and get ready to insert them in the ignition.

“I put it on a delay. Ten seconds after the engine