Wicked Appetite (19 page)

Diesel and I were snug in the Cayenne, in a dark spot on the street between gas lamps and under the shade of an oak tree. After ten minutes of watching the Spook Patrol, Diesel slid an arm around me and nuzzled my neck.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Yes! Stop it.”

“The girls never said that when I was in high school.”

“This isn’t high school. We’re supposed to be stopping a maiming. And besides, the monkey is watching.”

Diesel stared out the window. “There’s no maiming going on.” He flicked a glance at the backseat. “And the monkey is sleeping. So what’s the problem?”

I sucked in some air. “You make me nervous.”

“I noticed.”

“I go into a panic when you get close.”

“Does that happen with all men or am I special?”

“It’s you.”

Diesel smiled, his teeth white against his usual two-day beard. “I like it.”

“It’s uncomfortable!”

“I could make you even more uncomfortable,” Diesel said, “but you’re off-limits to me. Unmentionables can’t join with other Unmentionables. There are consequences.” He ran his finger along the nape of my neck. “That’s not to say we can’t fool around.”

My heart jumped to my throat at his touch. “What sort of consequences?”

“One of us would lose all Unmentionable power,” Diesel said.

“Are you serious?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Isn’t this typical. Every time I meet a great guy who actually has two eyebrows, he’s either gay or married. And now I can add Unmentionable to the list of unavailable men.

“No problem,” I said. “Just because you throw me into a panic doesn’t mean I would fling myself into your arms at the first opportunity. I’m perfectly in control of the situation.”

“Lizzy, you have no idea. My Unmentionable skills aren’t limited to opening locked doors.”

“Jeez Louse.”

“Yeah,” Diesel said. “I could make us fit together like a Chinese puzzle. Unfortunately, we have a job to do that requires both of us keep our skills.” A smile twitched at the
corners of his mouth. “And it would be a shame if you were the loser and you started making lousy cupcakes.”

A light flashed on over Wulf’s front door, and we both turned our attention to the house. Mel and Gorp were standing on the small cement porch, instruments in hand.

“Guess they got tired of waiting,” Diesel said. “Looks like showtime.”

The door opened and Wulf appeared. He was in his usual black. Black shirt, black slacks. He looked at Mensher, and then his eyes moved left and locked onto Diesel’s Cayenne.

“Uh-oh,” I said. “Can he see us?”

“Yes.”

“So he knows we set him up.”

“Yes.”

Mensher said something to Wulf, and Wulf didn’t respond. Wulf looked like he was sending death rays in our direction. Mensher pointed to the ghost-o-meter in Gorp’s hand, but Wulf paid no attention. Mensher took a step back, raised his camera, there was a flash when Mensher snapped a picture, and Wulf snatched Mensher by the neck with one hand and lifted him off the ground. Wulf had reached out so fast, it was like the flick of a lizard tongue snagging a bug from a tree limb.

“Yow!” I said, jumping in my seat, leaning forward. “Do something. He’s going to kill him.”

Diesel stayed relaxed behind the wheel, watching Wulf with an expression that was somewhere between mildly annoyed and mildly amused.

“He won’t kill him in front of me,” Diesel said. “Even if I wasn’t here, I doubt he’d kill him. Wulf has a code of ethics.”

Wulf released Mensher, and Mensher fell back on his ass with his hands to this throat. I was guessing Mensher would wake up tomorrow with a unique burn scar on his neck. Wulf swept past Mensher and Gorp, down the short sidewalk to the van. He walked behind the van, momentarily disappearing from sight. He circled the van, stepped back, and gestured toward it. A circle of fire raced around the van and the van exploded. Tires flew into space, a black cloud rose to the sky, and the van turned into a fireball.

Carl popped up in the backseat and looked out the window. “Eeep!”

“No big deal,” Diesel said to Carl. “Just a lot of flash.”

“Effective flash,” I said to Diesel. “It’s going to get rid of Mensher.”

“For the moment,” Diesel said. “Don’t underestimate Mensher. He’s like a dog with a bone. He might not know exactly how to categorize Wulf, but he knows for sure he’s not normal.”

Wulf calmly walked up the sidewalk and disappeared inside his house. Mensher and his team huddled together in front of the burning van. Fire trucks screamed from blocks away.

“We can go home now,” Diesel said, cranking the engine over. “The Wulf Show is done for the night.”

Twenty minutes later, Diesel pulled into a strip mall in Swampscott and parked in front of an all-night supermarket.

“We need food,” he said. “You cleaned us out when you were on your eating rampage.”

We slid out, locked the Cayenne, walked a few feet, and . . .
beep, beep, beep
.

“Tell me again why we have this monkey,” Diesel said.

“No one else would take him.”

“And?”

“That’s it.”

“Why can’t we put him in a basket and leave him on the Humane Society doorstep? Or even better, pack him up in a box and FedEx him to India. They love monkeys in India.”

“I thought you were friends.”

“I knew him in a previous life,” Diesel said.

Beep, beep, beep, beep
.

Diesel jogged back to the SUV, opened the door, and Carl bounded out.

“Do they let monkeys in the supermarket?” I asked Diesel.

“Put him in a shopping cart and make him sit on his tail, and people will think he’s a hairy kid. If anyone makes a remark, tell them you have rights and threaten them with a lawsuit.”

We got as far as the produce aisle with Carl in the cart, and a guy stacking grapefruits stopped me.

“Is that a monkey?”

“Are you making fun of my child?” I asked him.

“No, ma’am, but he’s kinda hairy.”

“He gets that from his father.”

The produce guy looked at Diesel.

“Not my bad,” Diesel said.

“Well, you gotta have clothes on your kid,” the guy said. “We don’t let naked kids in here, no matter how much hair they got.”

There was a small display of kids’ clothes by the checkout. Mostly T-shirts with
Massachusetts
written on them and a couple toddler-size shirts with pink elephants. I slipped an
elephant shirt over Carl’s head, bought a package of Pampers, and taped Carl into one.

“What do you think?” I asked Carl.

Carl looked at the elephant and gave it the finger.

“It’s the best I could do,” I told him. “They don’t sell Armani here. Anyway, it’s cute.”

“It’s pink,” Diesel said.

“And?”

“Just saying.”

We made our way through produce and into prepared foods. Carl was slouched in the cart, arms folded across his chest, lower lip stuck out in a pout, not happy with the pink elephant. He perked up when we got to the cereal aisle.

“Would you like some cereal?” I asked him.

Carl jumped to his feet, snatched a box of Froot Loops off the shelf, ripped it open, and stuck his face in the box.

“Hey!” I said to him.

He took his face out of the box and looked at me.

“Manners.”

He threw the box over his shoulder, into the basket, and focused on the display of Frosted Flakes. “Eeee?”

“Okay,” I told him, tossing Frosted Flakes into the basket beside the Froot Loops, “but this is the last of the cereal.”

“Look at us,” Diesel said. “We’re the all-American family.”

We rounded the end of the cereal aisle and quickly walked past women’s personal products and men’s sexual necessities. I paused at dental care.

“Does he brush his teeth?” I asked Diesel.

“I don’t know, but he should,” Diesel said. “I’m not looking forward to waking up to monkey breath.”

“Do you brush your teeth?” I asked Carl, showing him a toothbrush.

Carl looked at the toothbrush and shrugged. He didn’t know toothbrush. I tossed the toothbrush and some toothpaste into the cart. We rounded the end of the aisle and pushed into cookies and crackers.

Carl was instantly standing again. Carl liked cookies. “Eep!” he said, pointing to Fig Newtons, Oreos, Nutter Butters. “Eep. Eeeep.” Carl was in a frenzy, jumping up and down, wanting everything. He grabbed at the Mint Milanos.

“Wait,” I said. “I don’t know if monkeys can eat chocolate.” I looked at Diesel. “Can monkeys eat chocolate?”

“Lizzy, I can open locks, sniff out evil, and I can give you the best time of your life, but I don’t know a whole lot about monkeys.”

“Let’s stick to peanut butter and gingerbread,” I said to Carl. “When I get home, I’ll Google chocolate.”

We added a couple bags of cookies to the cart and moved on to dairy. I needed butter, eggs, and milk.

Carl spied rice pudding and frantically pointed to it. “Woo, woo, woo!” he said.

“Sure,” I said, handing him a tub of rice pudding.

Carl opened the tub and looked inside. He swiped some up on his finger and tasted it.

“You’re not supposed to eat it now,” I told him. “You have to wait until we get home.”

Carl looked at me and then looked at Diesel.

“I don’t think he understands,” Diesel said.

“Later,” I told Carl. “Not now.”

Carl stuck his face into the tub and slurped up rice pudding.

“Listen, mister,” I said to him. “That’s unacceptable behavior.” I cut my eyes to Diesel. “You need to do something with your monkey.”

“
My
monkey? Sweetie Pie, he is not
my
monkey.”

“Okay, maybe he’s
our
monkey.”

Diesel took the tub of rice pudding from Carl. “I’m only admitting to joint possession of the monkey if I get joint possession of the bed.”

“You have that anyway. I can’t get you out of it.”

“Yes, but you have to like it.”

“No way. You can’t make me like it.”

“I could if I had half a chance,” Diesel said.

Carl tried to grab the rice pudding from Diesel, but Diesel moved it out of his reach and put the lid on it.

“Eeeee!” Carl shrieked.
“Eeeeeeee.”

“Do something!” I said to Diesel.

“I don’t carry a gun, but I could choke him until his eyes pop out,” Diesel said.

“You need to go outside and take a time-out,” I said to Carl.

“Eee?”

“Yes, you.”

Carl thought about it a beat and gave me the finger.

“That’s it,” I told him. “You’re grounded for life. No television. No dessert. And forget about the Froot Loops.”

Carl reached for the Froot Loops.

“No!” I said.

Carl gave the Froot Loops the finger, climbed out of the cart, and stood next to Diesel, shoulders slumped, knuckles dragging on the ground.

A skinny teen with spiky purple hair and multiple studs and rings stuck in his face stopped to look at Carl.

“Whoa, lady,” he said. “That’s an ugly kid you got here. He looks like a monkey.”

Carl shrugged.

I guess from a monkey’s point of view, it was difficult to tell if that was a compliment or an insult. From my point of view, it was clearly an insult, and I experienced a bizarre rush of maternal outrage.

“I don’t like you trash-talking my monkey,” I said to the spike-faced guy. “And your face looks ridiculous.”

“Not as ridiculous as your hairy mutant in that shirt,” he said.

Carl snapped to attention. “Eep?”

“It’s a girlie baby shirt,” the kid said.

Carl threw his arms in the air in an
I-told-you-so-and-I-knew-this-shirt-was-stupid
gesture. He ripped the shirt off, turned around, pulled his diaper down, and mooned me.

“That’s my boy,” Diesel said.

Carl pulled his diaper up, grabbed an egg from my carton, and threw it at the spike-faced guy. It missed the guy, smashed against the dairy display case, and slimed down the glass. Carl reached for a second egg and Diesel scooped him up and held him at arm’s length.

“We’re going to have to work on your throw,” Diesel said to Carl.

“Get him out of here
now,
” I said to Diesel. “I’ll finish shopping and meet you at the car.”

Diesel tucked Carl under his arm and sauntered off. I looked at the spike-faced jerk, and it was like grade school all over again and I was back to being Buzzard Beak. I marched up to him, smashed an egg on his forehead, and dumped the remaining rice pudding on his purple hair.