Agnes and the Hitman (12 page)

The hell it will.
Agnes opened her mouth, but Lisa Livia got there first.

“My daughter wants a flamingo theme here,” Lisa Livia said quietly. “And I believe it’s her wedding.”

“
Ma,”
Maria said, warning in her voice.

Agnes shook her head slightly at Lisa Livia.
Fight for the location not the theme. The theme’s a joke.
“So we’ll compromise,” she began, and Maria nodded, but Evie overrode them.

“Maria is very young,” Evie said, smiling at Lisa Livia with the kind of smile that came on crocodiles. “She needs
guidance.
No flamingos.”

Maria opened her mouth, looking eager to agree, but Lisa Livia missed it, crossing her arms under her red tube top.
“Guidance,
you say,” LL said softly.

“We need to talk about this,”
Agnes whispered to Lisa Livia, trying to signal her off.

“Oh, no, it’s decided,” Brenda said, happily. “And really, darlings—”

“
The hell it’s decided,”
Agnes snapped at her, and Brenda blinked at her, shocked.

“Maria wants flamingos.” Lisa Livia smiled at Evie, the Fortunato smile that had launched a thousand cement overshoes.

Maria evidently saw the same thing, because she said, “No,
Ma,
it’s
okay,
I—” just as Agnes said, “LL, you—”

Lisa Livia jerked her head up toward the second floor of the house. “You know that second window from the right up there?” she said to Evie in a conversational tone that fooled no one. “That was my bedroom window when I was a kid. I got stuck up there a lot when Ma had her parties. You wouldn’t believe what I saw.” She tilted her head, looking Evie right in the eye. “Like Simon Xavier feeling you up underneath our big oak tree. And that wasn’t all. ...”

Brenda said,
“Lisa Livia!”
Evie stiffened, and Agnes sat down and poured herself another glass of wine.

“I’m trying to remember if you were married then or not,” Lisa Livia was saying to Evie, sounding genuinely puzzled. “I’d have to ask around. You know. For
guidance.
To get my dates straight.”

“Wine?” Agnes said to Maria, who nodded and sat down next to her, equally resigned, picking up her mother’s wineglass.

Evie pressed her lips together so tight, they made a white line in her face.

“It’s not the kind of thing I’d ever do,” Lisa Livia went on. “I mean,
ever
do, talk like that, I mean, unless somebody, you know, tried to
fuck my daughter over
on something she wanted, because in that case,
if that happened,
I would pour lye over
every single fuckin’ inch
of this town. You think Sherman did some damage on his march through here? I’d make him look like fucking Merry
Maids,
what I’d do to you and everybody in this godforsaken hole if you or anybody else
fucks with my kid,
or her
happiness,
so if she says she wants fuckin’ flamingos, she gets fuckin’ flamingos right here at Two Rivers. The wedding will
not
be at the country club, it
will
be here and it
will
have flamingos and
anything else my kid wants,
do you understand?”

Agnes drank some more wine and so did Maria. She was pretty sure Evie understood. The First Lady of Keyes might not be Caesar’s wife, but she was Jefferson Keyes’s wife, and Jefferson Keyes’s wife did not get felt up under an oak tree by a cop or, God forbid, laid, not even twenty-five years ago.

A quiet fell over the group.

Then Evie stood up. “Very well.” She nodded to Maria. “I think this is a terrible mistake, but your mother is correct, it is your wedding. You may have your flamingos here at Two Rivers.”

“Now
wait a minute,”
Brenda said, but Evie turned and walked down the steps and around the corner of the house to her Lexus, her dignity unspoiled even if her reputation had a dent in it.

Brenda turned to Lisa Livia. “Well, that was certainly a disgusting display worthy of your father’s family.”

“Shut up,
Ma,” Lisa Livia said, her hands on her hips. “Like you weren’t born in the Bronx, and the Fortunatos weren’t a big step up for you. Now you listen to me. You try to move this wedding away from Two Rivers again, I’m gonna clean every skeleton out of every closet you got and make them dance, you hear me? I’ll dig up everything you ever buried, including my daddy, and then I’ll sink that beat-up rowboat you’re living on so you’ll be out in the street with nothing. Do not fuck with my kid and do not fuck with my friend, they are all the family I got, and they are off-limits to you. Understand?”

Brenda drew back as if she’d been slapped, and then she glared at LL, and for a moment they were mirror images, two curly-haired mini-furies, one blonde and one dark, little but lethal. Then Brenda said, “I’m not going to listen to that kind of talk from my daughter,” and turned to Agnes. “I’d like to speak with you before I go,” she said coldly, and went into the house.

“I thought she’d never leave.” Lisa Livia turned to Maria, who was sitting on the porch swing beside Agnes, her arms crossed in mirror image of her mother, the third fury in the triumvirate, although she looked more exasperated than enraged. “You got your flamingos, baby,” Lisa Livia said, her voice doting.

“I don’t
want
flamingos, Ma,” Maria said. “I was just trying to make them crazy so they’d give me the wedding I really do want. I’d have talked them back to Two Rivers with the butterflies and the daisies and everything I wanted, but now thanks to you, I got
flamingos.”

Lisa Livia stared at her daughter for a long moment, and then she said, “I hope someday you have a daughter, and when you do, I hope she breaks your heart the way you just broke mine.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Maria said, and went into the kitchen.

Agnes held out the wine bottle to Lisa Livia. “We tried to head you off. Wine?”

“Fuck that,” Lisa Livia said. “Get me a bourbon.”

“Kitchen,” Agnes said, and they both went in.

Brenda was just inside the door, staring openmouthed at the kitchen wall, where the outline of the basement door could be seen easily now since so many people had gone through it.

“Agnes,
what is that?”
she said, as if Agnes had done something vile.

“The door to the basement I didn’t know was there,” Agnes said. “Your husband’s old den is down there. Which you failed to mention when you sold me the house.”

“Daddy’s rec room?” Lisa Livia said, and went over to it. “Is the Venus still down there?” She pushed open the door and poked her head through. “My God, I’d forgotten all about this.” She sounded ready to cry, which was not like Lisa Livia.

“Ma?” Maria said to her, momentarily distracted from her own anger.

Agnes got out the bourbon. “Coming right up, LL.”

“If you don’t want the Venus, can I have it?” Lisa Livia said to Agnes.

“God, yes,” Agnes said. “You can have everything that’s down—”

“
Why is this door open?”
Brenda said.

“A boy named Thibault fell through there and broke his neck,” Agnes said.

“Thibault?”
Brenda put her hand on the counter to steady herself.

“He came to dognap Rhett,” Agnes said.

Brenda sank down on the counter stool. “Oh, my God.”

Agnes took the bourbon to Lisa Livia, who was still peering into the basement, biting her lip now. “You okay?”

“My daddy loved this place,” LL said, and took the glass. “Just loved it. My God. And the Venus is still down there?”

The front door slammed, and somebody walked across the hall, and then Shane came into the kitchen, Rhett trailing behind him.

When he saw the four of them standing there, he paused, and Rhett flopped down beside him.

He looked tall and broad and dangerous, all dressed in black. He looked damned good, in fact

“Joey?” Brenda whispered, dead white now.

“This is Shane, Joey’s nephew,” Agnes said. “Shane, this is Brenda Dupres. Fortunato—”

“Shane, oh, my God.” Brenda put her hand over her heart. “Shane. Of course, what was I thinking? Well. You’ve grown up since the last time I saw you.”

“That’s Little Shane?” Lisa Livia whispered to Agnes. “Who knew he was gonna grow up to be that?”

Shane eyed them all warily.

Lisa Livia waved to him. “Hi, Shane. Remember me, Lisa Livia?”

“Hello,” Shane said, still cautious, which was something, given the effect Lisa Livia and her tube top usually had on men.

“You think the next time you’re in the basement, you could bring up that Venus statue?” Lisa Livia said.

“It’s a crime scene, LL,” Agnes said, trying not to watch Shane’s face. “We’ll get it to you, I promise.”

“Welcome home, Shane,” Brenda said, holding on to the counter now. “Whatever are you doin’ back in Keyes? Something for Joey?” Her voice shook a little on
Joey.

“Looking out for Agnes,” Shane said. “We were wondering why nobody cleared out the basement before it was boarded up.”

“Cleared out?” Brenda said, her voice a little higher than usual.

“You got a bar full of booze down there, racks full of wine, a good pool table, and that real nice statue of the
Venus de Milo—”

“Real
nice,” Lisa Livia said, while Maria looked at her in disbelief.

“—but it all got boarded up. Why?”

Brenda blinked at him. “Oh, Frankie. It just all reminded me so much of Frankie, so I just nailed the door shut and papered over it after he disappeared.”

“My ass,” Lisa Livia said in Agnes’s ear. “She killed him. She probably buried him down there, that’s why she’s so spooked it’s open again. She’s probably got him buried under the Venus.” She sighed. “He’d have liked that.”

“Shh,” Agnes said, praying that was a joke. “Brenda, what did you want to talk to me about?”

Brenda looked back at her, as if she wasn’t quite sure who Agnes was. “What? Oh, Agnes. Well, about the wedding, of course. I was hoping you’d be reasonable about moving it to the country club since you’re never going to get the house painted in time but—” She looked back at the wall and then at Shane. “—I think I’m just going back to the
Brenda Belle
now and we’ll talk about it tomorrow.” She smiled weakly at Shane. “Tomorrow’s another day.”

“It always is,” Agnes said.

“I’ll go with you, Grandma,” Maria said, and Brenda didn’t say a word about the “Grandma.”

Shane moved aside, and Brenda glided past him, tottering a little on her heels, still beautiful, but very pale. For the first time, she looked close to her real age.

Maria shot one last baleful look at her mother and followed Brenda out the door.

“What’s the
Brenda Belle?”
Shane asked when they were gone.

“Her yacht,” Agnes said. “She’s been living on it since she sold me this place.”

“It’s an old tub,” Lisa Livia said and looked at Agnes. “Do you believe me now?”

“Maybe,” Agnes said. “Believe what?” Shane said.

“I’ll tell you later.” Agnes picked up the phone and dialed. “I have to tell Taylor first” Lisa Livia rolled her eyes, but Agnes said, “It’s his personal business, LL.” She listened to the phone ring once and then Taylor’s answering machine clicked on. When she heard the beep, she said, “I need to talk to you tonight. No excuses. Nine o’clock is good.” She hung up and turned back to Shane. “So Maria went mental on Evie and Brenda, then Lisa Livia told Evie she saw Xavier feel her up twenty five years ago, and now it turns out there’s a chance I’m going to lose this house, and I’m definitely going to be up to my ass in plastic flamingos by Thursday. How was your day?”