Love Game (8 page)

I smiled. “You once told me coffee was the downfall of civilization. You told me coffee drinkers were the reason America was going the way of Rome—a
decaying, rotting, failed society. Once when I asked you for a macchiato, you called me a storm trooper. Just last week you told a man who ordered an espresso that he was King Kong in khakis.”

“Stay there while I get my bat,” Ruth said.

I touched Ruth’s shoulder. “Just playing with you, Ruth. No need to go Mark McGwire on me.”

“Holy crap! I think I left my Slugger at the house across the street,” she said.

I smeared some cream cheese on a bagel. “No problem. I’ll get it for you when I go over there later.”

“Why are you going over there?” Grandma asked. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

I knew it wasn’t a good idea. That house was cursed. “I’m sure it will be fine,” I reassured her. “I’m taking a tour of the premises.”

“Oh,” Grandma said. She loved the idea of snooping in someone’s house, but since she never left her property, she could get the report from me. Still, she appeared concerned. She stood up and looked out the window to the backyard. “The wind has shifted, dolly. Soon it’s all going to hell in a handbasket. Nothing is as it seems. Love is going to split into what it’s not. And it’s all because of that woman.”

Ruth harrumphed. “Where have you been, Zelda? The world’s already gone to hell in a handbasket. Went there years ago. You’re just smelling the brimstone.”

We thought about hell and brimstone for a while as we ate our brunch. We had all the time in the world, it seemed. My only case was to unmatch Uncle Harry, which had to be the easiest task ever. Ruth’s business was totaled, and the insurance people weren’t coming
until tomorrow. Grandma’s business had been obliterated by Luanda, and the Tuesday morning Second Chancers meeting was canceled.

“That woman has my Second Chancers!” Grandma cried, with onion bagel in her mouth. “They’re trusting that fake woman with their second chances.” She washed down the bagel with coffee.

Grandma took her job seriously. It was more of a calling than a job to her. I wondered if it would ever become that to me or if I was doomed to get yet another temporary job to pay my bills. I had sort of gotten attached to Cannes and the matchmaking business. I realized right there at Grandma’s table, eating an onion bagel with cream cheese, that I was thrilled I had made two real matches in town, and I was worried that Luanda really was a threat to the business and my future happiness. Maybe the job was growing on me.

“My radar is all wonky,” Grandma said. “I keep getting the rebel yell in my head over and over. It’s the Battle of Bull Run in there.” She pointed to her bouffant hairdo.

But her radar wasn’t as wonky as she thought. The rebel yell got louder until suddenly the front door burst open, and the sound of high heels on Grandma’s wood floors
click-clack
ed toward us.

“Darlin’, it’s whup-ass time,” Lucy announced, breathless, from the kitchen doorway. “I’ve been plotting all night, and I’ve got it all worked out. We are going to tan that woman’s hide until the word ‘Harry’ makes her run screaming.”

“Have some coffee,” I said, gesturing to the seat next to me.

“I don’t have time for coffee!” Lucy screeched. “We have business to do, Gladie. We have ass to whup.”

Lucy was wild-eyed, but I noticed that her eyes were still perfectly lined, her mascara had lengthened and separated each lash beautifully, and she wore a gorgeous cashmere shirtdress that must have cost thousands.

“Her ass will still be there in an hour,” I said. “Besides, there’s Danish, too.”

“Cherry?” Lucy asked, and sat next to me. “You!” Lucy yelled at Ruth, noticing her for the first time. “Listen, old woman, you’d better get back, or—”

I handed Lucy a Danish. “Already been there, Robert E. Lee. She knows nothing about it.”

Lucy looked at me like she had forgotten I was there.

“It was Luanda going rogue,” I assured her.

“You’re a little het up there,” Ruth noted. “Whose ass are you planning on whupping?”

“That Luanda woman’s, of course.”

“Take a number. Zelda wants her run out of town.”

“She does?” Lucy asked. We caught her up on Grandma’s beef with Luanda, and it incited Lucy even further. “You know, this sounds more and more like we should involve the cops. Where’s your lovely police chief at?” she asked me.

“How should I know?”

Ruth snorted. “Her lovely police chief read her the riot act on our way home last night.”

“You know he’s not that lovely, and he’s hardly mine,” I said. “Besides, it wasn’t the riot act, Ruth.”

But it was pretty close to the riot act. He had warned me to stay out of trouble. He told me it was my fault
that I stepped on a nail and had to go to the hospital. He said I got injured because I was nosy. I pointed out that I was just trying to save a man from being bludgeoned to death, but he didn’t care, didn’t listen.

“Besides,” he had said to me, “stay away from Cumberbatch.”

“The new detective?”

“The
probationary
detective. I’m just trying him out for a couple weeks.”

“He seems fine,” I said.

Spencer swerved the car. “He doesn’t seem like anything to you, Pinkie. He’s not what he seems. Stay away.”

But that was last night, when I was coming off the influence of fabulous pain meds. I hadn’t had the presence of mind to ask what he meant by Cumberbatch not being what he seemed.

“Every good-looking man who comes into this town buzzes around Gladie,” Ruth said now; she sounded like she had discovered Bigfoot was real and he’d stopped into her shop for a cup of tea. She counted on her fingers. “That chief, the tall drink of water from next door, and now the new police nerdy fella. Hey, where is that tall drink of water? I haven’t seen him lately. Maybe your magic is wearing off, Gladie.”

The kitchen grew quiet except for chewing and sipping noises. Where was the tall drink of water from next door? Was my magic wearing off? Grandma knew the whole story, of course, without me ever having to say a word to her, but all Lucy knew was that Holden had to go away for a while. She was such
a good friend, she didn’t ask any more questions, choosing to respect my privacy.

“What new police nerdy fella?” Lucy asked.

“A Trekkie with a badge,” I told her.

I poured myself another cup of coffee, and the front door opened and closed again. This time the sound of much-more-sensible shoes crossed the wood floors, and Bridget appeared at the kitchen doorway. Her cropped hair was uncombed, and her big hoot-owl glasses hung at an angle on her face. She went around the table and hugged every one of us.

“I didn’t get a minute of sleep last night,” she said. “My phone has gone bonkers.”

To prove her point, her phone went off again, and she answered it. “Would I ride what all night? Why would I be wet? It’s not raining outside.” She hung up the phone and flopped down on a chair. “It’s been like that all night. I don’t want to lose any bookkeeping clients, but I can’t make out what they’re after.”

Lucy took Bridget’s phone. “Would you mind if I answered the next time for you, darlin’? In my line of work, I’m used to handling all sorts of people.”

Bridget’s face relaxed in a wash of relief. “Oh, would you, Lucy? I need a break.”

It was only a few seconds later that her phone rang again. “How can I help you, honey?” Lucy asked into the phone. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh,” she said. “May I ask how you got this phone number, darlin’? I see. Fine. Yes. Okay, bye for now.” She clicked off the phone and took a sip of coffee.

“That explains it all nice and simple,” Lucy said. “Bridget darlin’, your number has been given out as a sex line.”

“What do you mean?” Bridget asked, pushing her glasses up her nose.

“Men are calling your number to talk dirty, darlin’.”

Bridget’s whole body snapped back in a convulsive shock wave. “Talk dirty?” She sat, stupefied, staring into space. I could easily imagine her replaying the conversations she had had since last night, and it all clicked into place in the logic centers of her brain.

“I’m a prostitute,” she said, deflated.

“No you’re not,” I told her. “It was an accident.”

“They published the number wrong,” Lucy explained. “We’ll call the phone company and get it worked out.”

“No, I’m a prostitute,” Bridget said. “I’ve been hugging the whole town. They got the wrong impression.”

“You’re hardly a sexual warrior,” Lucy countered. “You’re the victim of bad data entry.”

Bridget sniffed and slumped in her seat. “I’m a prostitute. What will I do the next time my phone rings?”

“Nothing,” Lucy said. “Your battery is dead. Your whoring is on hiatus.”

Bridget took a big gulp of air, as if she had forgotten to breathe. Her eyes refocused, and she cocked her head to the side. “Gladie—what are you wearing?”

GRANDMA DECLARED
brunch over, insisting that I start spying on Luanda immediately to prove she was a fraud and get Grandma’s business back on
track. “And save all those people from bad matches,” she stressed.

Grandma’s mission suited Lucy just fine, because she wanted to get her hands on Luanda, as well. I was less than happy about going around town in my velour tracksuit and nylon boot.

As it turned out, we didn’t have to go far. We opened the front door, and there was Luanda, wailing on the sidewalk across the street. Grandma, Ruth, and Bridget joined Lucy and me in the driveway to watch Luanda dance around and sing.

“Lord, it’s like she’s choking a cat,” Ruth said. “That’s reason enough to kill her.”

“We’re not going to kill her,” I said, more to Grandma and Lucy than to Ruth. “We’re just going to talk to her. Reason with her.”

Luanda pawed the sidewalk with her foot and sang, “Woo, woo, woo.” Her skirt was layers and layers of lace and tulle; she looked like a ballerina on acid. Reasoning with her would be challenging.

“How about we kill her a little bit?” Lucy asked.

“Let me find my Louisville Slugger,” Ruth said. She took a step down the driveway, but Grandma pushed her out of the way and ran past her, down to the end of her property line.

“You’re a fraud, a fake, a phony!” she yelled out. “You’re anti-love. You’re an ill wind!”

Luanda stopped shrieking and dancing and glanced around, trying to figure out who was yelling at her. I thought it was pretty obvious. It was the old lady crammed in a Donna Karan strapless knockoff and ballet slippers.

Luanda took a vial out of a pocket in her skirt, uncorked
it, and sprayed some mysterious liquid across the street. “Heal, heal!” she shouted in Grandma’s direction. “Allow balance to shine its light on you!”

“You’re babbling nonsense!” Grandma said, and swayed in place. I hobbled toward her and held her up.

“Are you okay?”

“Go get her! Go get her!” she yelled, pointing toward Luanda. “I’ll get her,” Lucy offered.

“Hold on, I’ll come with you,” Ruth said. “You’ll want my Slugger.”

I sighed. It was like running a day care for hyperactive toddlers.

“No!” I yelled. “I’ll get her. Everyone stay here. Except for Grandma. Bridget, help Grandma inside.” I wagged my fingers at all of them. The world is in bad shape when I’m the mature one in a group.

My foot throbbed. I had forgotten to take the antibiotics. My jaw clenched with anxiety. My neuroses clicked in. I was probably gangrenous, I thought. They would have to cut off my foot, maybe my leg, if I didn’t get medication, quick. I looked down. I kind of liked my feet. I enjoyed having two.

But as big as my fear of dying from infection was, I couldn’t let Lucy use Ruth’s bat to kill Grandma’s archenemy. At the very least, I would have too many people to visit in prison.

I limped halfway across the street. Luanda had lit a small branch on fire and was whirling it around her head. I wasn’t the only one who needed medical care. Luanda was a few cards short of a deck. I didn’t doubt Grandma’s assertion that she was a phony, but I thought it was due more to psychosis than to malevolence.
I stopped to allow a Prius to park in front of the house across the street. Mrs. Arbuthnot stepped out.

She wore a serious pantsuit and carried a handbag that wouldn’t have been out of place on the arm of the queen of England. Luanda shook the flaming branch at her, and, without preamble, Mrs. Arbuthnot took a can of Mace out of her purse and sprayed Luanda for all she was worth.

“Son of a bitch! What the fuck!” Luanda screamed, and threw the burning branch into the air.

“I think this is what’s called karma,” Ruth said over my shoulder. “Never saw it in action before.”

I was frozen to the spot. So was Mrs. Arbuthnot. I wondered if she was shocked at what she had done. Much to his credit, Michael Rellik, the flipper, ran out of the house, turned on a hose, and doused first Luanda’s branch and then Luanda’s face, which was probably burning pretty badly from the Mace.

Mrs. Arbuthnot woke from her stupor and fumbled in her purse for her cellphone. Bridget came out of the house, and she, Ruth, and Lucy joined me on the street.

“Would you look at that,” Lucy said. “The old biddy took her out for us.”

Bridget shook her head. “I hate woman-on-woman violence. What would Gloria Steinem think?”

What
would
Gloria Steinem think? We probably weren’t what she had in mind as modern, liberated women. She probably would have Maced all of us.

Luanda used the hem of her skirt to mop her face, leaving a thick, winding swath of black and blue under her eyes and over her cheeks—the remnants of
her mascara and eye shadow. She looked like she was going to do battle in medieval Scotland, and considering how the day was going, maybe she was.

“I could be safe in my tea shop right now if it weren’t for you,” Ruth said to me.

“I wasn’t the one driving!”

“Holy hell.” Bridget moaned the uncharacteristic biblical reference as she stared down the street.

Our heads snapped toward that direction. Running at a breakneck pace up the street was Remington Cumberbatch. I recognized him only through his nerdy glasses and Bruno Mars haircut. Otherwise, he could have been any random Hercules look-alike in shorts, running shoes, and no shirt, his face all hard edges, and the perfect cappuccino-colored skin of his torso, back, and arms decorated in intricate warrior tattoos.