Agnes and the Hitman

“Damn it, Rocko!” Shane yelled, but it was already over, the gator came out of the water, an explosion of green scales and big teeth, and closed the ground between them in seconds, its jaws snapping shut on Rocko’s leg. Rocko screamed, and Shane fired a couple of rounds into the gator, feeling bad for it, but the bullets seemed to have no effect as it rolled with Rocko into the dark water, dragging him into the depths.

The surface of the water boiled for a few seconds, then became still.

Shane waited to see if Rocko would reappear, but after a couple of minutes he knew Rocko was sleeping with the gator.

He got back into the Defender, pulled onto the dirt trail, and accelerated, heading for the refuge exit. They don’t make ‘em like Rocko anymore, Shane thought as he drove back toward Keyes. Darwin had pretty much explained why. He’d have felt bad except that Rocko’s next stop would have been heading to Two Rivers to drill Agnes in exchange for five large after having sent two assholes to terrify her two nights ru

And now nobody else would be showing up to shoot Agnes.

One more stop at a jeweler Joey knew to cash in Agnes’s engagement ring for top dollar and then he could go home and see what was in the bomb shelter. First guess, Frankie’s body. Second guess, five million dollars. Third guess, a bunch of bad survival food and a dozen Playboy magazines from 1982. The third one was the most likely-

Shane’s sat phone rang, the tone designating the cut out number he had used to call Casey Dean. Shane looked at the text message:

sorry i missed your call.

enjoy the wedding.

see you there. cd.

“Humor,” Shane said to the phone. “Har.” He punched the jeweler’s address into the GPS and wondered what Agnes was making for lunch.

“I know a little more than I did before I left,” Shane said as he drank the tall glass of lemonade Carpenter had brought out onto the porch after lunch. “I know the Marinelli/Macy contract was let on Agnes. I don’t know who let the contract, except that a woman made the call, and Rocko thought it was mob related. Whatever that means.”

“Well, that’s a help,” Joey muttered.

Shane turned on his uncle. “Don’t start with me, Joey. You called me into this mess and you’re still holding something back from me. I think the contract is defunct, given that I’ve taken out the food chain, but I still want to know who hired Rocko in case whoever it is decides to try again. Plus we’ve still got your old pal Four Wheels out in the swamp sending his descendants in here.” He looked at Carpenter, who was leaning back with his lemonade, smiling as he listened to Agnes and Lisa Livia talk in the kitchen. “And then I got this.” Shane handed his cell phone to Carpenter, letting him read the text message from Dean.

“Interesting,” Carpenter said.

“What’s the status of the hatch?” Shane asked him.

“The lock’s burned through,” Carpenter said. “I rigged a hydraulic jack to pull it open when you got back, so whenever you’re ready.”

“Who’s in there?” Shane asked, nodding toward the house.

“Agnes, Lisa Livia, and some woman named Kristy,” Joey answered. “Wedding photographer. A box came full of flamingo pens with pink feathers on their heads, and they’re lookin’ at ‘em.” He seemed bemused by that.

“Why-” Shane stopped when he spotted Xavier pull up to the bridge and park just short of it and Doyle come crawling out from underneath the bridge like some kind of troll. “What the hell is Xavier doing here?”

“Damned if I know,” Joey said.

Xavier got out of his car and came over the bridge, where Doyle met him, but the detective’s focus was on the house as he crossed the lawn, Doyle following, yammering at him.

“Let’s just invite the whole damn town.” Shane looked at his uncle. “You know, Joey, if we find Frankie in there, and anything at all points to you having killed him, there isn’t much I can do to keep Xavier off your ass.”

“I ain’t worried,” Joey said. “I didn’t kill him. I just want to know what happened that night.”

Xavier came up the porch steps, Doyle stomping up next to him.

“What can we do for you, Detective?” Shane asked.

“I understand there’s been some excavation work in the basement,” Xavier said. “I even heard a rumor there’s some sort of bomb shelter out there in the backyard and a tu

“You sure heard a lot,” Joey muttered.

“And where is Detective Hammond?” Shane asked, not wanting that doofus wandering around unsupervised.

“Detective Hammond appears to have taken a long lunch break,” Xavier said. “I believe at the marina. Missing all the excitement, that boy is. Sort of like when they opened Capone’s vault on TV.”

“There was nothing in Capone’s vault,” Shane noted.

“I’m hoping for better results here,” Xavier said.

“Some could say you was trespassing,” Joey said.

“Some say you might have some trouble if that bomb shelter gets opened,” Xavier said.

“Like who?” Joey demanded.

“Oh, there’s been a lot of talk.” Xavier pulled a piece of paper out of the pocket of his white coat. “For example. This here is Miz Agnes’s criminal record. I was quite surprised to note the contents. Turns out she’s wielded a frying pan before with violent effect.”

Shane looked at Joey and noted that shut the old man up for the moment.

“I also heard your Miz Agnes is pretty handy with a cooking fork to the neck.”

Fucking Taylor, Shane thought. There was going to be one fewer chef in the world shortly.

“Somebody swear out a complaint?” Joey said, still cool.

“No,” Xavier admitted, and Shane thought, Not Taylor then, somebody Taylor told. The detective scowled toward the river. “What the hell is that noise?”

“Flamingos,” Joey said. “So all you got is some gossip and some old paper, I don’t-”

Agnes came out onto the porch with Lisa Livia and a trim brunette draped in cameras. Opening the shelter was not going to be the clandestine affair Shane had had in mind. He had indeed forgotten what Keyes was like. He looked toward the bridge, expecting to see the local high school marching band come across with cheerleaders and the rest of the town population.

“I brought a flashlight” Xavier cheerfully held up a heavy-duty light

“I rigged lights,” Carpenter said. “You won’t need it”

“Can we get this over with?” Lisa Livia said, and Shane could feel the edge coming off her, nothing like her usual voluptuous vibe. He glanced at Agnes and she nodded curtly, but her tension was for LL, standing at her elbow, and he remembered that for Lisa Livia, Frankie wasn’t some dead mobster, he was her father, and they might be about to open his tomb.

“You sure you want to-”

“Yes,” Lisa Livia snapped, and Shane led the way into the house, past the kitchen table that held a box full of lurid pink pens with feather tops, and down the ladder, holding it in place as everybody else climbed down.

They all waited in the rec room while he and Carpenter went down the fifty-foot tu

“Grab that,” Carpenter said. Shane grabbed the lever indicated. “Ready?” Carpenter asked. Shane nodded. “Let’s do it.”

In concert, they began to apply pressure. At first there was no obvious result except a tightening of the steel cables. Then an ominous creaking of the wood blocks, the cables ran over. “Don’t worry,” Carpenter said. “I’ve done this kind of thing before.”

“Opened twenty-five-year-old bomb shelters?”