Hard Eight (Stephanie Plum 8)

Kloughn lay there for a moment, eyes glazed, breath shallow. “Does anything look broken?” he asked. “Did I mess myself?”

“What are you doing here?” Abruzzi asked. “And how did you get in?”

“We came to visit Evelyn,” I said. “The back door was open.”

“You and your fat whore friend always wear rubber gloves?”

Lula opened an eye. “Who you calling fat?” She opened the other eye. “What happened? What am I doing on the floor?”

“You fainted,” I told her.

“That's a lie,” she said, getting to her feet. “I don't faint. I never fainted once in my life.” She looked over at Kloughn, who was still on his back. “What's with him?”

“You landed on him.”

“Squashed me like a bug,” Kloughn said, struggling to stand. “I'm lucky I'm alive.”

Abruzzi considered us all for a moment. “This is my property,” he said. “Don't break in again. I don't care if you're friends of the family or lawyers, or murdering bitches. Got that?”

I pressed my lips tight together and said nothing.

Lula shifted her weight foot to foot. “Hunh,” she said.

And Kloughn vigorously nodded his head. “Yessir,” he said, “we understand. No problemo. We only came in this time on account of—”

Lula gave him a kick in the back of his calf.

“Yow!” Kloughn said, bending at the waist, grabbing his leg.

“Get out of this house,” Abruzzi said to me. “And don't return.”

“I've been employed by Evelyn's family to look after her interests. That includes stopping by here from time to time.”

“You're not listening,” Abruzzi said. “I'm telling you to stay out. Stay out of this house and stay out of Evelyn's affairs.”

Bells and whistles were going off in my head. Why did Abruzzi care about Evelyn and her house? He was her landlord. My understanding of his business was that this wasn't even an important piece of real estate to him.

“And if I don't?”

?

?I'll make your life very unpleasant. I know how to make women uncomfortable. Benito and I had that in common. We knew how to make women pay attention. Tell me,” Abruzzi said, “what were Benito's last moments like? Was he in pain? Was he afraid? Did he know he was going to die?”

“I don't know,” I said. “He was on the other side of the glass. I don't know what he was feeling.” Aside from insane rage.

Abruzzi stared at me for a moment. “Fate is a funny thing, isn't it? Here you are back in my life. And you're, once again, on the wrong side. It will be interesting to see how this campaign unfolds.”

“Campaign?”

“I'm a student of military history. And, this is to some extent a war.” He made a small hand gesture. “Maybe not a war. More of a skirmish, I think. Whatever we call it, it's a contest, of sorts. Because I'm feeling generous today, I'll give you an option. You can walk away from Evelyn and this house, and I'll let you go. You'll have bought amnesty. If you continue to participate, I'll consider you to be enemy troops. And the war game will begin.”

Oh boy. This guy is a total fruitcake. I held my hand up in a stop gesture. “I'm not playing war games. I'm just a friend of the family, checking on things for Evelyn. We're going now. And I think you should do the same.” And I think you should take a pill. A big pill.

I ushered Lula and Kloughn past Abruzzi and Darrow and through the door. I hustled them into the car, and we took off.

“Holy crap,” Lula said. “What was that? I'm totally creeped out. Eddie Abruzzi has eyes like Ramirez. And Ramirez had no soul. I thought I put all that behind me, but I looked into those eyes just now and everything went black. It was like being with Ramirez all over again. I'm telling you, I'm freaked. I got the sweats. I'm hyperventilating is what I'm doing. I need a burger. No, wait a minute, I just had a burger. I need something else. I need . . . I need . . . I need to go shopping. I need shoes.”

Kloughn's eyes brightened. “So Ramirez and Abruzzi are bad guys, right? And Ramirez is dead, right? What was he, a professional killer?”