Cherry Bomb

“What are you doing?”

Alex pumps her hand up and down.

“What happened next, Alan?”

“We had…we had sex.”

Alan closes his eyes, and Alex feels his hips rise. She leans toward his ear and whispers, “Would you like to have sex with me, Alan?”

He shakes his head.

“You can keep your eyes closed, pretend I’m Jack.”

Alan softly answers, “No. You’re a killer.”

She grips him hard, digging her nails in. Alan yelps, his face contorting with pain and fear.

“Good,” Alex breathes. “Sex is so much more fun when it isn’t consensual.”

She slaps him across the face, then grabs the duct tape to make a gag.

Things are about to get loud.

CHAPTER 33

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE to get donuts?

My watch read a quarter to twelve. Phin had been gone for over an hour. I’m naturally paranoid, something my chosen profession compounds, so I was conjuring up scenarios to explain why he was so late, like being grabbed by Alex, or hit by a bus, or caught by the Feds, or killed by Milwaukee cops, or the most frightening of all: ditching me because he thought the sex was a mistake.

I tried the walkie-talkie, but he either wasn’t answering or he had it turned off. I counted and recounted the cash left in my purse, and calculated he either took twenty dollars or a thousand and twenty dollars-I couldn’t remember how much I’d taken from the bank, and couldn’t find the withdrawal slip.

While waiting I spent a good half an hour wondering about Alex, and how we were going to find her. I wound up coming to the obvious conclusion: We couldn’t. Not unless she let us, or she made a mistake, and she hadn’t done either yet.

So I spent the next half an hour wondering if I should put on makeup or not. Just because I’d gone to bed with Phin didn’t mean our relationship had really changed, and the last few times I’d seen him I hadn’t worried if I was wearing makeup. Putting on makeup now would mean I cared about how I looked, which meant his opinion of me mattered, which meant our relationship actually had changed. I didn’t know if I wanted to acknowledge that, or if he wanted to acknowledge that, or how he would act if I acknowledged it and he didn’t, and vice versa.

Basically, I just shouldn’t have sex. But it was too late for that, so I was stuck dwelling on it.

“If he wasn’t here, would I wear makeup?” I asked myself honestly.

Maybe. Maybe today would be a makeup day.

Which was a dishonest answer.

So I didn’t put on makeup, and stopped obsessing over it, and went back to obsessing over where the hell he was.

My ringing cell phone dragged me back into reality.

“Hello? Jacqueline?”

My mother. Mom had met Phin, and I think she liked him. But that didn’t mean I needed to blab to her that I slept with him.

“I slept with Phin,” I told her.

“I’m so happy for you,” she said in a way that sounded like she was so happy for me, “but I’ve got a real big problem right now.”

I remembered Mom’s Alaskan cruise.

“Flight delayed? Or is it TSA? Mom, you didn’t try to bring your brass knuckles on the flight, did you? I told you not to buy those.”

“I didn’t bring the brass knuckles. I’m already on the ship. And I just saw him.”

“Saw who?”

“Your father.”

I remembered Dad’s Alaskan cruise, and the astronomically high improbability that they’d both be on the same boat.

Fate’s a fu

“Are you sure it’s him?” I asked, knowing it was. “It’s been forty years.”

“I’ll remember that deceitful face until a thousand years after I die. He’s still got that smarmy, cocksure look, and that dishonest little smile. But he’s lost the little Hitler mustache. I distinctly remember the little Hitler mustache.”

“He never had a Hitler mustache. You’re projecting.”

“You were too young to remember it, and how he used to goose-step around the house, pla

I sighed. “Look, Mom, you’re both adults. This will give you a chance to work things out.”

“Work things out? Never! He left us, for no good reason.”

“He had a good reason,” I said, “but you made me promise never to mention him again.”

“And I insist you keep that promise. I don’t want to hear about the lies he told you. The fact that you even want to have a relationship with that horrible man makes me think I should have named you Ilsa.”

“He’s actually a nice guy, Mom. You’d like him.”

“I’m going to kill him.”

“Mom!”

“I’ll wait until he’s near one of the railings and I’ll push him overboard. Hopefully the sharks will get him before he drowns.”

“Mom,” I couldn’t believe I had to say it, “please don’t kill Dad.”

“Maybe I won’t have to. There was a welcome brunch, and the food was horrible. Maybe salmonella or E. coli will do the job for me.”

I looked at the front door. It didn’t open, and Phin didn’t walk in. I checked my watch again.

“You need to have a few drinks, relax, and stop plotting murders.”

“It’s too early to drink.”

“It’s never too early to drink. Have a whiskey sour. Or a bloody Mary.”

“Don’t want one.”

“Then a rusty nail. You used to drink those.”

“That’s too strong. I’ll be passed out by di

“Get a foo-foo drink then. Try a fuzzy navel.”

“What’s in it?”

“Orange juice and peach schnapps.”

“That’s too foo-foo. I’d have to drink ten of them to feel anything. Maybe I’ll have a dirty martini.”

“Good,” I said. “I was ru

“I’m telling you, Jacqueline, I don’t think I can handle ten days of being trapped on a boat with that man.”

“I’m sure it’s a big boat. You probably won’t even see him again.”

“If I do, I’m going to grab a lifeboat oar and knock his teeth down his throat, I swear to God.”

My call waiting beeped.

“I got someone on the other line, Mom. Have a nice cruise. Call me if you get arrested.”

I switched over just as Mom was yelling at some ship employee for vodka.

“Jacqueline? It’s Wilbur. I’m on the ship and I think I saw your mother.”

I sighed again. “You did. It’s her. Imagine the odds.”

“The expression on her face…well, let’s say she didn’t seem pleased.”

“You’re both adults,” I said. “This will give you a chance to work things out.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible. I mean, I’m willing to try, but Mary looked like she was going to come after me with a wooden stake and a mallet.”

Or a lifeboat oar, I thought. I glanced at the door again. Still no Phin.

“You don’t think she’d actually try to hurt me, do you?”

“Stay away from railings,” I suggested.

“This is horrible. I’ll have to spend the whole cruise in my cabin, with a chair wedged against the door. There was a thousand-dollar cash prize for bingo to night too. I hate to miss that.”

“I’m sure it’s a big ship,” I said, wishing I’d taped my earlier conversation so I didn’t have to have it twice. “Maybe you won’t even see her again.”

“Does your mother like bingo?”

What was it with older people and bingo? Maybe it was something in the genes, and once you turned sixty some kind of internal switch was flipped.

“I have no idea.”

“Maybe I’ll go. I could wear a disguise.”

“As long as it’s not a tiny mustache.”

“Think she’d accept a peace offering? Flowers, maybe? There’s a florist on board. She used to love roses.”

I pictured Dad dead in his bingo chair, two dozen roses crammed down his throat.

“Hiding is probably smarter.”

“I need a drink,” Wilbur said.

“I gotta go, Dad.” I didn’t want to play bartender again. “Call me if she kills you.”

I considered calling Mom back, warning her not to play bingo, but stopped myself. I shouldn’t be using my cell-the Feds could trace it. Besides, they’d thank me for it later, after they worked things out. What child didn’t want to see their parents back together again? Of course, they wouldn’t actually be together. But maybe they could resolve their differencs and pick up guys together.