If Wishing Made It So (19 page)

Hildy witnessed none of the morning glory. Jarred into consciousness by the strident tones of Nirvana, she slapped down the alarm on the clock radio, silencing Kurt Cobain’s whining about a gun in midchorus. She had decided to get up early, meaning to run five miles when the streets were still empty and the day was young. But inertia kept her from moving. Her legs tangled in the white sheets, she lay on the bed, slowly collecting her thoughts.

How was she supposed to distinguish fantasy from reality when the dividing line had blurred? She reviewed the strange and wondrous occurrencesof the past two days: Mike appearing like a white knight to save her life. His night visit ending with lovemaking on the beach. A violent attack by mobsters. A total makeover with hair, designer gown, and makeup courtesy of Tony G.’s genie magic. A cruel catnapping. The inexplicable return of those same cats courtesy of an old lady on her doorstep.

Hildy had no possible way to predict what might happen today.

She rose and climbed down out of the sleeping loft to find her coffee poured into her favorite VIRGINIA IS FOR CAT LOVERS mug. It sat on the Formica table waiting for her. Tony G., wishing only to please, stayed discreetly out of sight. Hildy sipped the hot liquid greedily. She immediately determined one important thing: She needed to take control of her life again. It seemed to have slipped away, leaving her spinning around like a towel in the clothes dryer.

Her coffee mug in hand, she walked into the enclosed porch and stepped into a pool of sunlight. It bestowed warm kisses to her bare feet. She smiled. She smelled the salt in the air. She loved it here. She wasn’t sure she ever wanted to leave.

She turned her attention to her current situation. She created a to-do list for the day, to wit:

A pang of sorrow hit her in the solar plexus when she contemplated the loss of Tony G. He was like the big brother she never had. Nevertheless she mentally moved on to the next item.

She finished the coffee. She felt stronger. She could see clearly now. She had her day in order.

Her cell phone rang. She fished it out of her tote bag and answered. And her to-do list went the way of many best-laid plans—straight to the crapper.

Issuing from the silver Nokia in Hildy’s hand, her sister’s disembodied voice informed Hildy that she was in Edwardsville, on Zerby Avenue, and you wouldn’t believe how much traffic there was. She was at St. Vladimir’s, which was running another excursion to Caesar’s. Father John had a dream about a huge pile of gold. He believed it was a vision and they had to trust in God to provide. But by going to Atlantic City? Corrine just didn’t get it unless Father John’s pile of gold came out of a slot machine.

Anyway, Corrine said she was waiting to board the bus right this minute. It was due to arrive in AC at eleven thirty. Hildy had to pick her up. Don’t argue. Obviously Hildy was in an emotional crisis and all alone. Corrine was riding down there to straighten things out.

Then Corrine said to excuse her a minute. Her voice addressed someone on Zerby Avenue, Hildy assumed. ‘‘What? Of course, I’m coming, don’t be rude. This call is very important. I’m speaking with my little sister who is being seduced and abandoned nearly right this very minute.’’

Hildy sputtered and attempted to interrupt, but Corrine, unaware of Hildy’s protestations, was back on the phone to tell Hildy they were insisting that she get on the bus and she had to run.

Hildy tried to say once again that she was just fine, tried and failed. Her words fell on deaf ears and a disconnect. Corrine was on her way.

‘‘Mike hasn’t even tried to call me this morning.’’ Hildy’s voice held just the slightest wobble. She gave Tony G. a sour look. ‘‘I thought my long blond hair was supposed to make him lose his reason. All he lost, evidently, was my phone number.’’

‘‘Patience is a virtue.’’ Tony G. busily scrubbed the kitchen sink. His laurel wreath slipped down over one eye. He pushed it back with a soapy hand. ‘‘You gave him a lot to think about. You have to wait it out.’’

‘‘While I wait, he’s still sharing a hotel suite with his
fiancée.
Kiki is probably naked and falling all over him.’’ The very thought of that shrew touching Mike made her squeamish. The thought of Mike doing . . . doing anything with the shrew made her feel as if she were going to retch.

Tony G. reached into the cabinet under the sink and took out a bottle of blue window cleaner. He figured he’d tackle the sunroom. He could have done the job by magic, but he was bored out of his mind. He needed another Punic War to keep him occupied, or maybe a real job. He left the kitchen. He started spritzing. The cats hung around at his feet, curious. Hildy followed.

‘‘I guarantee he’s not feeling amorous toward her. The relationship is dead. It just needs a proper burial,’’ he said at last.

‘‘From your lips to God’s ears. But I don’t share your certainty. I’d like to know where Mike slept last night; then I might feel better. Or worse.’’ Hildy’s heart thumped against her ribs, heavy like lead. She went to the closet and scooped up her makeup kit in her right hand. Then she headed for the only mirror in the cottage, the one on the bathroom medicine chest.

When she got a look at herself, she discovered that her hair had returned to the razor cut and highlighting of yesterday afternoon. She took out the wand from a tube of mascara and leaned forward. Her blue eyes stared back at her, but something about them had changed.

Hildy had dressed in a pair of new white mid-thigh shorts, rope-soled espadrilles, and a light blue cotton top with spaghetti straps. There was nothing magic about them; she bought them on sale at Macy’s when she went shopping with Corrine. It didn’t matter. Even with her own clothes on, she didn’t look like the same person she was two days ago. She—what was it?—
sparkled
. She supposed the genie had something to do with it.

‘‘By the way,’’ she called out to Tony G. from the bathroom, ‘‘my sister is coming to visit. I have to leave for the casino in a couple of minutes to pick her up.’’

Tony G. exited the sunporch and came to stand outside the bathroom door. ‘‘You’re telling me this why?’’

‘‘You can’t go. You need to guard the house and the cats. For all I know Jimmy the Bug will try to burn me out next. But Corrine’s visit presents us with a dilemma. What do I do with you when we come back here?’’

Tony G. shrugged. ‘‘You introduce me as Count Arigento. Your foreign student.’’

Hildy shook her head. ‘‘You don’t know my sister. She has this sixth sense. She’ll know I’m lying. She’ll know you’re a phony. It’s not going to work.’’

‘‘So what’s the alternative? I can’t leave the premises unless I take Shelley and Keats with me. And where will you tell your sister the cats are? Getting a tan? Visiting the lonely cat Henry next door?’’

Hildy’s face lit up. ‘‘Why, that’s perfect! Let me ask Mrs. Baier if she’ll catsit. I think I’ll give her my spare house key too. Jimmy the Bug won’t know where they are. They’ll be completely safe. You take the day off. Really. Go to the beach. Whatever.’’

Tony G. kept a poker face. ‘‘That’s a great idea.’’ Suddenly he twitched his nose and tossed some glitter toward the ceiling. A lovely musical crescendo danced up some invisible scales and then slid back down again. A camera phone appeared to float in front of the genie. He plucked it from the air.

‘‘What’s that for?’’ Hildy asked, her eyes big as saucers.

‘‘I think I’ll drop in on Kiki while you visit with your sister. We can keep in touch.’’

‘‘Why is it that I think you’re not telling me everything?’’

Tony G. winked at her. ‘‘Because I’m not.’’

The sound of coffee hitting the inside of the cup made Mike wince. He kept his sunglasses on. He declined the offer of a menu.

Jake told the plump Spanish waitress pouring the java that he’d have the usual: scrambled, bacon, rye toast, OJ. When she left, Jake said, ‘‘You look like shit.’’

‘‘I have a headache.’’

‘‘Hangover?’’

‘‘That too.’’

‘‘Maybe you need the day off.’’ Jake’s annoyance soured his words. They were in the middle of a case. Mike needed to pull his weight, not be out partying until the wee hours.

‘‘Don’t get all pissy on me. I’m not taking any sick leave. In fact, I’d like to head back to Camden this morning. You go this afternoon. I just need an aspirin.’’ Mike fumbled around in his jacket pocket for the bottle of pills he bought at the hotel’s gift shop.

‘‘What happened at Marty’s last night? Anything shaking?’’

Mike opened his mouth, threw back three pills, and gulped the coffee. ‘‘Nothing. The lights downstairs went out at eight thirty. I figured that meant he was taking in the welcome mat. The bathroom light upstairs shut down before nine. I guess Marty Biz needed his beauty sleep. I sat around for a while but nobody showed. So I left by ten.’’

Jake said he figured that made sense. While Mike took the morning shift, he’d start nosing around to see if any construction equipment had been spotted at a truck stop or highway rest area. He’d also check warehouses in a fifty-mile radius to see if the stolen equipment was being stored, although usually the buyer for the stolen machines was waiting somewhere to take delivery, no questions asked.

Then Mike and Jake kicked around the idea of setting up a van to watch Jimmy the Bug’s house directly. They killed that option fast. First of all, Jimmy would probably spot them since he’d been spied on by one agency or another for the past thirty years. Two, the Feds were probably already there. And three, Jimmy was too smart to lead anybody to anything incriminating at his own home. Marty Biz was a better target. They considered tapping his phone.

Then Mike told Jake he bought a new car, was going to ditch the Mercedes, and would start looking for someplace to live down the shore as soon as he could.

Business taken care of, the food arrived. Jake began eating his breakfast and spitting out what was bothering him. ‘‘Mike, you going to be able to operate with half a head? You got something on your mind, and if I had to take a wild guess, I’d guess it’s booty.’’

Mike reached over and snagged a piece of rye toast from Jake’s order. ‘‘I’ll get it straightened out. Don’t worry about it. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I see Hildy and I’m like a man in a trance. Then I make up my mind to break it off with Kiki, and go and do something stupid that digs me in deeper.’’ With a sigh, he spilled out what happened last night when he returned to the suite.

‘‘Let me get this straight,’’ Jake said, forking down his scrambled eggs. ‘‘You were dead drunk. You have no clear memory of actually having sex. It’s true you’re young and you think you’re a hot stud, but I doubt you could have, even if you would have. If you get what I mean.’’

Mike paused midbite. ‘‘I assumed I did. She was naked and looked pretty satisfied.’’

‘‘You know what they say about
assume
. It makes an
ass
out of
u
and
me
. If you ask me, and you did ask me, I’d say you were being worked. You follow me? Kiki is shrewd. You weren’t doing what she wanted about the wedding, so she manipulated it. She’s going to keep manipulating, my friend.’’

‘‘But I don’t know for sure. What I do know is I’m acting like a dog, with both of them.’’

Jake mopped up bacon grease on his plate with the rye bread. ‘‘Now, my mama always told me that one thing I should never do is get between a man and a woman. So I should keep my mouth shut. But I have to ask you one thing. Do you see yourself spending the rest of your life with either of these ladies? From what I can gather, you’re already hiding the truth from your fiancée about your job, your car, where you’re going to be living, and what you’re doing with an old girlfriend. What’s that all about?’’

Mike stared at Jake; understanding switched on like a lightbulb in his brain. ‘‘It’s about me being an idiot,’’ he said. Mike signaled the waitress. The aspirin must be working. Suddenly he wanted something to eat.

Chapter 19

Only one road led onto Long Beach Island; only one road led off. The Route 72 Causeway ran in a wide single ribbon across Barnegat Bay, linking the three small islands between Manahawkin and Ship Bottom in a series of bridges. For the past several hours, John Pugiliese had parked in the CVS Pharmacy lot, where he could see Hildy’s car the minute she turned off Long Beach Boulevard onto the causeway. Jake and Mike weren’t alone in running a surveillance operation. Jimmy the Bug had decided to keep tabs on Hildy’s goings and comings. It was simple.

At almost exactly ten thirty a.m. on that hot, humid day, Hildy’s bright red Volkswagen Beetle zoomed past. Puggy pulled his black Lincoln Town Car out of the lot to follow her.

Listening to the radio, switching channels frequently to avoid any sad golden oldie love songs, Hildy took the by-now-familiar Route 72 past the strip malls until she reached the Garden State Parkway. She entered the toll road at Exit 63 and headed south.

Puggy made an accurate guess that she was headed for Atlantic City. He phoned back to the boss, who sent Sal and Joey to watch for her when she exited the parkway onto the Atlantic City Expressway.

The two thugs got there in plenty of time. They easily spotted the bright red car. Their Nissan Pathfinder hugged it close as Hildy headed east toward the gambling mecca. The black SUV continued to stick right behind the VW Bug up the ramp into the Caesar’s parking lot. Puggy’s Lincoln rolled into the same entrance not one minute later.

Hildy saw no evil, heard no evil, spoke no evil. She had her mind on Mike and his lack of calls, not on her own security. It never occurred to her that she could be followed. Being stalked was not part of the sheltered, safe world she had always known.