And the flower person stepped forward into my apartment and leveled a gun at me. It was Maxine.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk," she said. "Fell for the old flower delivery routine. What'd you just get off the banana boat?"
"I knew it was you. I just wanted to talk to you, so I didn't let on."
"Yeah, right." She kicked the door closed and looked around. "Put the flowers on the kitchen counter and then stand facing the refrigerator, hands on the refrigerator door."
I did as she said, and she cuffed me to the fridge door handle.
"Now we're going to talk," she said. "This is the deal. Stop being such a pain in the ass and I'll let you live."
"Would you really shoot me?"
"In a heartbeat."
"I don't think so."
"Miss Know-it-all."
"What's with these clues?"
"The clues are for the jerk. I wanted to make him jump like he made me jump. But you had to come along, and now you do all his dirty work for him. What is it with this guy and women? How does he manage?"
"Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm doing it for the money."
"I'm so stupid," she said. "I did it for free."
"There's something else going on here," I said. "Something serious. Do you know about your apartment being ransacked? Do you know about Margie and your mother?"
"I don't want to get into that. There's nothing I can do now. But I can tell you one thing. I'm going to get what's coming to me from that son of a bitch Eddie Kuntz. He's going to pay for everything he did."
"You mean like scalping your mother?"
"I mean like breaking my nose. I mean like all the times he got drunk and smacked me around. All the times he cheated on me. All the times he took my paycheck. And the lies about getting married. That's what he's going to pay for."
"He said you took some love letters that belong to him."
Maxine tipped her head back and laughed. It was a nice honest throaty laugh that would have been contagious if I hadn't been chained to my refrigerator. "That's what he told you? Boy, that's good. Eddie Kuntz writing love letters. You probably own stock in the Brooklyn Bridge, too."
"Listen, I'm just trying to do a job."
"Yeah, and I'm trying to have a life. This is my advice to you. Forget about trying to find me because it isn't going to happen. I'm only hanging around to have some fun with the jerk and then I'm out of here. Soon as I'm done yanking Kuntz's chain I'm gone."
"You have money to make you disappear?"
"More than God has apples. Now I'm going to tell you something about that box. It's filled with dog doody. I spent all day in the park, filling a plastic bag. The clue is in the doody in the plastic bag. I want the jerk to paw through that doody. And trust me, he wants to find me bad enough to do it. So back off and don't help him out."
I felt my lip involuntarily curl back. Dog doody. Ugh.
"That's all I have to say to you," Maxine said. "Go look for somebody else and stop helping the jerk."
"Are you the one who wrote on my door?"
She turned to leave. "No, but it's a pretty cool message."
"You're going to leave the key to the cuffs, aren't you?"
She looked at me and winked and waltzed away, closing the door behind her.
Damn! "I'm not the only one after you!" I yelled. "Watch out for that bitch Joyce Barnhardt!" Shit. She was getting away. I yanked at the cuffs, but they were secure. No knives or helpful kitchen utensils within reach. Phone too far away. I could yell until doomsday and Mr. Wolensky, across the hall, wouldn't hear me over his TV. Think, Stephanie. Think! "Help!" I yelled. "Help!"
No one came to help. After about five minutes of yelling and fuming I started to feel a headache coming on. So I stopped yelling, and I looked in the refrigerator for something that would stop a headache. Banana cream pie. There was some left from Saturday. I ate the pie and washed it down with milk. I was still hungry, so I ate some peanut butter and a bag of baby carrots. I was finishing up with the carrots when there was another knock at my door.
I went back to the yelling "Help!" routine.
The door swung open and Sally stuck his head in. "Fucking kinky," he said. "Who cuffed you