Devil's Food Page 21

  Eclairs!

  Her nemesis and her comfort. Cream custard on the inside, a shell as light as air, a thick stripe of rich chocolate on top. It had been so long since she’d had one. Her stomach was pleading like a dog under the table. But she knew she shouldn’t. This was no time to eat. Besides, she shouldn’t be eating these things anyway. But she’d been subsisting on grass and twigs for the past two days. She needed something to keep her going. She needed her strength. She needed support.

  She reached out for an eclair, pinching the sinful delight between her thumb and index finger. This was necessary, she told herself. She’d been through a lot. She needed sustenance. If she were back in the produce aisle, she would’ve taken a carrot. But she wasn’t in produce, she was here, in the bakery department . . . thank God.

  The eclair floated toward her lips on cherub’s wings. She took a bite, light-headed, anxious, totally justified. Her eyelids fluttered in ecstasy. Salvation.

  “Oouufff!” A sharp blow to the kidneys knocked the air out of Loretta, dislodging the piece of eclair from her mouth before she even started to chew. It flew across the room and hit the wall. Loretta wheeled around, furious.

  “Eating again, huh, tubby?” Martha Lee was brandishing a long metal oven paddle, slicing the air in front of her as if it were a scythe. “Get out of my way, fat stuff. I’m getting out of here.”

  “The hell you are,” Loretta snarled. She was about to hurl what was left of the eclair at her attacker when she stopped to take another bite, then threw the rest at Martha Lee, hitting her in the chest.

  Martha Lee lunged with the paddle, going for Loretta’s throat. Loretta ducked and suddenly spotted a squadron of can-nolis lined up in formation on a bottom rack. She snatched one and took a quick bite. Sugar shot through her limbs like the bullet train to Tokyo. She was Popeye the sailor man.

  Martha Lee lifted the paddle over her head. “I’m gonna chop your big fat head off. I swear to God.”

  “Go ahead. Try it,” Loretta said, defying her to attack again.

  The sharp edge of the paddle came rushing down toward Loretta’s head, but she quickly picked up a large pumpernickel loaf from the counter and held it up in front of her face. The blade of the paddle sank into the loaf but didn’t touch Loretta.

  She let go of the pumpernickel and grabbed the end of the paddle, doing a tug-of-war with Martha Lee for control of the weapon.

  “Let go, fatso.” Martha Lee shouted as she strained to keep the paddle.

  “Give up. You’re under arrest.” Loretta wouldn’t let go.

  Martha Lee pulled. “I’m not going back to prison.”

  Loretta yanked. “Oh, yes, you are.”

  Martha Lee yanked back. “Oh, no, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No way!”

  “Yes way!”

  Loretta stuck out her butt and put her bulk behind it as she pulled back hard.

  “Whoooa!” Martha Lee hung on like a monkey in a hurricane. She slammed into the oven doors. But as soon as she turned around to flee, Loretta had the paddle to her throat, pinning her against the ovens.

  “You’re under arrest,” Loretta shouted, leaning her weight on Martha Lee’s throat.

  “It’s hot,” Martha Lee croaked, flailing her arms. “I’m getting burned.”

  “You gonna come quietly?”

  “Let me go! It’s hot!”

  “You gonna come quietly? Answer me.”

  “Yes! Yes!”

  Loretta let up on the paddle and grabbed a fistful of Martha Lee’s dark hair, forcing her down to the floor and dragging her along on all fours. “You’re going back to Jersey,” Loretta declared.

  Martha Lee was making a fuss, crying and shouting and carrying on, but Loretta couldn’t understand a word of it as she hauled the prisoner out to the front of the store.

  Marvelli was already there, standing over Torpedo Joe’s motionless body. He was holding a fresh roll of duct tape. “Where were you?” she said, still pissed at him. “I was looking all over for you.”

  Martha Lee was squirming like a cat under Loretta’s grip. “Let me go! Let me go!”

  Loretta nodded at the duct tape. “What’re you gonna do with that?”

  “I was gonna tie up Joe before he wakes up.” She shook Martha Lee by the scruff. “Tie her up first. Before I kill her.”

  Loretta hauled Martha Lee up and held her arms behind her back while Marvelli taped the wrists together. When he was through, Loretta used her foot to bend Martha Lee’s knees and get her down on her belly, then sat on top of her to keep her still while Marvelli taped the ankles.

  “Let me go, you big fat slob! Get off me!”

  Loretta grabbed the the roll of tape from Marvelli’s hand, ripped off six inches, and plastered it across Martha Lee’s mouth.

  “There. Chew on that for a while.”

  “Okay, let’s do Joe now,” Marvelli said.

  They crouched over the unconscious biker, Marvelli turning him over and crossing his wrists behind his back while Loretta scratched at the roll of tape to get the end.

  “You think duct tape will hold this monster?” she asked.

  “It better,” Loretta said.

  “Marvelli! Loretta! Where are you?”

  They both froze, recognizing the voice. It was Lawrence Temple.

  “Shit!” Loretta hissed.

  “Ssshhh. Stay down.” Marvelli pushed Martha Lee into a checkout lane.

  Loretta followed them, peering over the conveyor belt. Temple and his IRS goons were coming into the store, and Roger Laplante was with them. In his raspberry sports jacket, he looked like a parrot surrounded by a pack of vultures.

  He was yakking at Temple, all red in the face and righteously indignant. “Martha Lee is responsible for all of this. I’m telling you, Temple. You’ll see. You’ll see”

  But Temple was ignoring him. “Marvelli! Loretta!” he shouted. “We want Martha Lee Sykes. If you’ve already apprehended her, she’s ours.”

  “The hell she is,” Loretta grumbled.

  “Ssshhh!” Marvelli gestured for her to shut up.

  Martha Lee started humming frantically, her eyes popping out of her head.

  Loretta pinched Martha Lee’s nose, cutting off her air. “Quiet!” She looked at Marvelli, her jaw set. “We’re not giving her up.”

  “Damned straight we’re not,” Marvelli whispered. “She’s ours.”

  Loretta could’ve kissed him. Finally they were in agreement about something.

  “Marvelli! Loretta!” Temple shouted, then he turned to his men. “Find them,” he said. “Hurry up.”

  24

  “Quiet!” Loretta shouted over the backseat of Marvelli’s rented Mustang. Martha Lee was in the trunk, kicking the lid, making a racket.

  Marvelli was behind the wheel, doing a steady sixty-five on the interstate, heading for the airport. They passed under a big green-and-white sign that spanned all three lanes—FORT MYERS, NEXT FOUR EXITS—and Loretta let out a long breath. They were on the homestretch.

  Martha Lee started thumping on the lid again.

  “Quiet, I said!”

  Marvelli glanced over at Loretta. “You think we should take the tape off her mouth? So she can breathe?”

  Loretta frowned. “She sound weak to you?”

  Marvelli looked in the rearview mirror. “Guess not.” He checked the side mirror.

  “Are they following us?” Loretta was worried that Temple and his crew were on their trail. “I don’t think they saw us leave,” she said. “I’m pretty sure they didn’t.”

  Marvelli shrugged. “Who knows. They may not have seen us carrying Martha Lee out, but maybe they saw us driving away.”

  “Yeah, but wouldn’t they have chased us down by now?”

  Marvelli gave her a look. “These are IRS agents we’re talking about, Loretta, not real feds.”

  “They carry real guns, don’t they?”

  “Doesn’t mean they know h
ow to use them. . . . Of course, that could be worse, couldn’t it?” He was chewing on the inside of his cheek.

  “Are you trying to make me feel better?”

  “Oh, that reminds me.” He reached into his waistband and pulled out a chrome-plated automatic. He handed it to Loretta. “Hold onto this, will you?”

  Loretta inspected the gun. It was loaded. “Where’d you get this?”

  “It’s Martha Lee’s. I found it in the parking lot after you crashed into the shopping carts. Take it. I don’t like carrying a weapon. I always lose ’em.”

  She handed it back to him. “I don’t have any pockets in this thing. Sorry.” She plucked at the detestable muumuu.

  Marvelli took back the gun and stuck it in his waistband.

  “Uh-oh,” he said a moment later. He was looking in the rearview mirror.

  Loretta turned around. About a quarter of a mile back, a speeding gray sedan was lane hopping, passing on the right to get around cars in the fast and middle lanes. “Is that them?” she asked.

  “Only IRS agents drive that bad.”

  “Crap.”

  Martha Lee started thumping in the trunk again.

  “Shut up!”

  “Calm down. They don’t have us yet,” Marvelli said. A funny little smile pushed its way into his cheeks as he gunned the engine. A loud thud in the trunk was followed by flurry of panicked thumping. “Sorry,” Marvelli said, then turned to Loretta. “Remind me she’s back there if I start driving crazy. We’re supposed to bring ’em back alive.”

  But Loretta was too busy looking out the back window, keeping an eye on the gray sedan. “They’re definitely following us. Crap! We’ll never get Martha Lee back to Jersey.”

  “Positive mind, Loretta,” Marvelli said. “Got to have a positive mind.”

  A sign up ahead said: AIRPORT, 1/2 MILE. Marvelli tailgated a minivan in the fast lane until the driver took the hint and moved over. Up ahead a trailer truck was doing seventy-five in the center lane. Temple and his boys were six car lengths behind and gaining on them.

  “What’re you gonna do?” Loretta asked.

  “You know anything about basketball?”

  “A little.”

  “You know what ‘setting a pick’ is?”

  “No.”

  “When the guy with the ball is being chased, sometimes he’ll use one of his teammates as an obstacle.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Just watch. You’ll see.”

  Marvelli inched up on the truck, running neck and neck with its cab.

  Loretta spotted another sign: AIRPORT, NEXT EXIT. “You’re gonna miss the turn,” she said in a panic.

  “No, I’m not.”

  Loretta looked back. The gray sedan was closing in on them. One of the skinny geeks was driving, blowing the horn and flashing the headlights. The other geek was sitting next to him up front, Temple by the door. He was holding a revolver on the dashboard, so that Loretta and Marvelli could see it.

  The exit was coming up on the right, and they were over in the fast lane. “You’re gonna miss the exit,” she shouted at Marvelli over the roar of the truck right next to her window. “They’re gonna get us.”

  “Positive mind,” he repeated as he suddenly zoomed ahead of the truck. “Watch my right.” He pulled ahead of the cab, then cut the wheel to the right, cutting in front of the honking truck and crossing into the slow lane in one move. They screeched onto the exit ramp, leaving sixty feet of rubber behind them. The gray sedan whizzed past, blocked from following by the speeding truck.

  “Hey! It worked!” Marvelli said, glancing in the rearview mirror. “How about that?”

  Loretta’s heart was thumping louder than Martha Lee in the trunk. He’d almost turned the car over. “You could’ve gotten us killed,” she gasped.

  “Nah . . . positive mind. Works every time.”

  Loretta clutched her chest. She could feel the little globs of cholesterol that had been jarred loose by the scare coursing through her veins.

  Marvelli zipped around a cloverleaf and followed the signs to the airport. As he took the exit for the airport access road, Martha Lee started kicking again.

  As the terminal came into view, Loretta bit her bottom lip. “Now what do we do? You didn’t get tickets, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Have you arranged with an airline for transporting a prisoner?”

  “No.”

  “Have you done anything?”

  “I got us here.”

  “Great.”

  “Calm down. We’ll improvise.”

  “This isn’t jazz, Marvelli.”

  He didn’t answer. At the cargo terminal, he pulled over and stopped at the curb. “Go in and find out when the next flight to Newark leaves.”

  “In this?” She plucked at the muumuu. “I can’t go in there like this. I’m barefoot.”

  “Don’t worry about it. This is Florida.”

  She made a face at him but did it anyway, watching her step and avoiding the hot blacktop as she got out. Fortunately, there were two TV screens right inside the automatic doors, one for arrivals, the other for departures. She ignored the Federal Express and UPS clerks staring at her from their respective counters. After scanning the departures, she rushed back out to the car.

  “There’s a flight on Wild Goose Air leaving in twenty minutes. The next one is a Continental flight that leaves at one-seventeen.”

  Marvelli checked his watch. “That’s almost two hours from now. We’ll take the Wild Goose flight.”

  “How?”

  “Positive mind, Loretta. Keep telling yourself: positive mind.”

  As they drove away from the curb, Loretta wondered if this was what he told Renée when she was at her worst.

  Marvelli drove out of the terminal and got back on the access road that circled the airport. He passed the exit for short-term parking and took the one marked: EMPLOYEE PARKING. A yellow automatic gate blocked the way. There was no guard, just a machine for inserting an ID.

  Loretta frowned at him. “Now what, Mr. Positive Mind?”

  “I dunno. Should I break it down?”

  “Hang on.” Loretta got out of the car and manually lifted the wooden gate. It wasn’t hard to lift, but an alarm started ringing as soon as she did. Marvelli drove through quickly, and as soon as she dropped the gate to its former position, the bell stopped ringing. She jumped back in, out of breath.

  “That was easy,” he said.

  “Positive mind,” she grumbled. “Now go.”

  Marvelli drove to the end of the parking lot closest to the terminal. The tails of three jetliners were nearly hanging over their heads they were so close. One of them had the Wild Goose Air logo painted on it: silhouettes of three geese flying in formation into the sunset. The parking lot was surrounded by a high cyclone fence topped with barbed wire.

  Loretta just looked at him.

  “Keep thinking positive,” he said, scanning the runways through the fence. “Just think positive,” he mumbled to himself.

  “I’m thinking positive,” Loretta said, “but nothing’s happening.”

  “Don’t nag.”

  “I’m not nagging.”

  “And don’t get mad. It doesn’t help.”

  She wanted to strangle him. “I don’t want to pressure you, but don’t you think we’d better do something quick? Temple must’ve called the local cops to come looking for us.”

  “Doubtful,” Marvelli said, still scanning the tarmac. “Feds don’t like to get the locals involved unless they really need the muscle. They don’t like to share.”

  On the other side of the fence, four baggage handlers in green coveralls were loading luggage into the cargo hold of the Wild Goose jet, emptying the first of two trolleys stacked high with suitcases, duffel bags, and boxes. Loretta focused on something on the second trolley. “If we could just get over that fence . . .,” Loretta said.

  One of the baggage handlers, a young guy with long
sun-bleached hair tied back in a ponytail, went over to the fence, looked both ways, then pried back a section, sneaking into the parking lot. He walked quickly over to a parked car, slunk down behind the wheel, and lit up a crooked cigarette. Loretta didn’t have to smell it to know that it was pot.

  Marvelli smiled. “See? You gotta have positive mind.”

  She gave him a withering look. “Just pull the car up to the hole in the fence.”

  “What’re you thinking?”

  “Unlock the trunk and follow me.”

  “What’re you going to do?” Marvelli insisted.

  “I’m gonna get us home with Martha Lee. What do you think I’m gonna do?” That and save my life, she thought.

  They got out of the car, and Marvelli opened the trunk. Martha Lee was drenched in sweat, blinking at the sunlight, humming like crazy. She was like a newborn, wet and cranky.

  “Stand her up,” Loretta said. “We’ve got to get her to that luggage trolley.”

  “What’re you gonna do? Put her in a suitcase?” Marvelli asked.

  “I’m not that cruel.” Loretta grabbed Martha Lee by the upper arm and sat her up. She weighed next to nothing, so she was easy to move.

  Marvelli took Martha Lee’s other arm and hauled her out of the trunk. She tried to struggle, but they were both much bigger than she was. She squirmed and hummed and flailed her head as they lifted her off the ground and carried her to the fence. Marvelli backed through the flap, pulling Martha Lee through, Loretta coming last.

  “Over there,” Loretta said, high-stepping it across the hot pavement all the way to the shady side of the luggage trolley where the baggage handlers couldn’t see them. “Go distract those guys. All I need is a minute or two.”

  “You sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “Just do it, Marvelli. Have some positive mind.”

  “Okay.” He sounded dubious.

  Marvelli went around the trolley and walked up to the baggage handlers. “Hey, any of you seen what’s his name with the long hair?” he called out. “Security’s looking for him . . .”

  While Marvelli chatted them up, Loretta found what she’d spotted through the fence, a big beige plastic pet carrier. She forced Martha Lee down onto her stomach and kept a bare foot on the small of her back as she opened the door of the pet carrier. Inside, a groggy German shepherd looked at Loretta with forlorn eyes, barely able to lift his head. “All doped up for the trip, huh?” Loretta muttered. “Poor dog.”