“Me?” I said, startled out of my meditations on maverick medical malpractice. I had adjusted to going along for the 1 1 2
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ride, but to actually have to do something was a little more than I had bargained for. I mean, here we had two hardened warriors sitting idly by, while we sent Delicate Dimpled Dexter into danger? Where’s the sense in that?
“You,” Chutsky said. “I need to hang back and see what happens. If it’s him, I can take him out better. And Debbie—”
He smiled at her, even though she seemed to be scowling at him. “Debbie is too much of a cop. She walks like a cop, she stares like a cop, and she might try to write him a ticket. He’d make her from a mile away. So it’s you, Dex.”
“It’s me doing what?” I asked, and I admit that I was still feeling some righteous indignation.
“Just walk by the house one time, around the cul-de-sac and back. Keep your eyes and ears open, but don’t be too obvious.”
“I don’t know how to be obvious,” I said.
“Great. Then this should be a piece of cake.”
It was clear that neither logic nor completely justified irritation was going to do any good, so I opened the door and got out, but I couldn’t resist a parting shot. I leaned in Deborah’s window and said, “I hope I live to regret this.” And very obligingly, the thunder rumbled again nearby.
I strolled down the sidewalk toward the house. There were leaves underfoot, a couple of crushed juice cartons from some kid’s lunch box. A cat rushed out onto a lawn as I passed and sat down very suddenly to lick its paws and stare at me from a safe distance.
At the house with all the cars in front the music changed and someone yelled, “Whoo!” It was nice to know that somebody was
having a good time while I strolled into mortal danger.
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I turned left and began to walk the curve around the cul-de-sac. I glanced at the house with the van in front, feeling very proud of the completely nonobvious way I pulled it off.
The lawn was shaggy and there were several soggy newspapers in the driveway. There didn’t seem to be any visible pile of discarded body parts, and no one rushed out and tried to kill me. But as I passed by I could hear a TV blaring a game show in Spanish. A male voice rose above the hysterical announcer’s and a dish clattered. And as a puff of wind brought the first large and hard raindrops, it also carried the smell of ammonia from the house.
I continued on past the house and back to the car. A few more drops of rain pelted down and a rumble of thunder rolled by, but the downpour held off. I climbed back into the car. “Nothing terribly sinister,” I reported. “The lawn needs mowing and there’s a smell of ammonia. Voices in the house.
Either he talks to himself or there’s more than one of him.”
“Ammonia,” Kyle said.
“Yes, I think so,” I said. “Probably just cleaning supplies.”
Kyle shook his head. “Cleaning services don’t use ammonia, the smell’s too strong. But I know who does.”
“Who?” Deborah demanded.
He grinned at her. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and got out of the car.
“Kyle!” Deborah said, but he just waved a hand and walked right up to the front door of the house. “Shit,” Deborah muttered as he knocked and stood glancing up at the dark clouds of the approaching storm.
The front door opened. A short and stocky man with a dark complexion and black hair falling over his forehead stared out. Chutsky said something to him and for a moment neither 1 1 4
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of them moved. The small man looked up the street, then at Kyle. Kyle slowly pulled a hand from his pocket and showed the dark man something—money? The man looked at whatever it was, looked at Chutsky again, and then held the door open. Chutsky went in. The door slammed shut.
“Shit,” Deborah said again. She chewed on a fingernail, a habit I hadn’t seen from her since she was a teenager. Apparently it tasted good, because when it was gone she started on another. She was on her third fingernail when the door to the little house opened and Chutsky came back out, smiling and waving. The door closed and he disappeared behind a wall of water as the clouds finally opened wide. He came pounding up the street to the car and slid into the front seat, dripping wet.
“GodDAMN!” he said. “I’m totally soaked!”