“We got the counter right in front of us,” Lula said. “You switch on the whirly clothes thing.”
I reached for the switch and every light in the store suddenly went on. It was as bright as day. And there was Mama Macaroni, perched on her chair, a hideous crone dressed in a black shroud, sighting us down the barrel of a gun, her mole hairs glinting under the fluorescent light.
“Holy crap,” Lula said. “Holy Jesus. Holy cow.”
Mama Macaroni held the gun in one hand and Lula's dry cleaning in the other.
“I knew you'd be back,” she said. “Your kind has no honor. All you know is stealing and whoring.”
“I quit whoring,” Lula said. “Okay, maybe I do a little recreational whoring once in a while ...”
“Trash,” Mama Macaroni said. “Cheap trash. Both of you.” She turned to me.
“I never want to hire you. I tell them anything that come from your family is bad. Hungarians!” And she spat on the floor. “That's what I think of Hungarians.”
“I'm not Hungarian,” Lula said. “How about giving me my dry cleaning?”
“When hell freezes. And that's where you should be,” Mama Macaroni said. “I put a curse on you. I send you to hell.”
Lula looked at me. “She can't do that, can she?”
“You never get this sweater,” Mama Macaroni said. “Never. I take this sweater to the grave with me.”
Lula looked at me like she wouldn't mind arranging that to happen.
“It'd be expensive,” I said to Lula. “Be cheaper just to buy a new sweater.”
“And you,” Mama Macaroni said to me. “You never gonna see that car again. That my car now. You leave it in my lot and that make it mine.” She squinted down the barrel at me, leveling it at forehead level. “Give me the key.”
“You don't suppose she'd actually shoot you, do you?” Lula asked.
There was no doubt in my mind. Mama Macaroni would shoot me, and I'd be dead, dead, dead. I pulled the car key out of my pocket and gingerly handed it over to Mama.
“I'm gonna leave now,” Mama said. “I got a TV show I like to watch. And you gonna stay here.” She backed away from us, past the washers and dryers to the rear door. She set the alarm and scuttled through the fire door. The door closed after her, and I could hear her throw the bolt.
I immediately went to the front of the store and stood behind the counter so I could look out the window. “We'll wait until we see her drive away, and then we'll leave,” I said to Lula. “We'll trip the alarm when we open the door, but we'll be long gone before the police get here.”
I heard the Saturn engine catch, and then there was an explosion that rocked the building. The explosion blew the fire door off its hinges, shattered the big front window, and knocked Lula and me to our knees.
“Fudge!” Lula said.
My instinct was to leave the building. I didn't know what caused the explosion, but I wanted to get out before it happened again. And I didn't know if the building was structurally sound. I grabbed Lula and got her to her feet and pulled her to the front door. We were walking carefully, crunching over glass shards.
Lucky we'd been behind the counter when the explosion occurred. The door had been blown open, and Lula and I picked our way through the debris, onto the sidewalk.
Kan Klean was in a mixed neighborhood of small businesses and small homes, and people were coming out of their houses, looking around for the source of the explosion.
“What the heck was that?” Lula said. “And why's there a tire in the middle of the sidewalk?”
I looked at Lula and Lula looked at me, and we knew why there was a tire in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Car bomb,” Lula said.
We ran around to the parking lot on the side of the building and stopped short. The Saturn was a blackened skeleton of smoking, twisted metal. Difficult to see details in the dark. Chunks of shredded fiberglass body, upholstered cushion, and odds and ends of car parts were scattered over the lot.
Lula had her flashlight out, playing it across the disaster. She momentarily held the light on a segment of steering wheel. Part of a hand still gripped the wheel. A ragged shred of black cloth was attached to the hand.
“Uh oh,” Lula said. “It don't look good for my dry cleaning.”