Naughty Neighbor - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,43

“I slipped.”

The thumb did a fast exploratory. “Maybe you should slip more often.”

Louisa wrenched herself away. “Maybe you should eat dirt and die.”

Maislin narrowed his eyes at her. “What?”

“Listen, you miserable scumbag, you try that again, and I’ll make sure you’re in a lot of pain. You understand?”

Maislin just glared at her, and she glared back, thinking anger did wonderful things for her personality. James Bond eat your heart out.

“I’ll deal with you later,” Maislin finally said. He wheeled around and stormed off to his office.

Louisa bent to retrieve the bug. She took it back to her desk and sat quietly, waiting to stop shaking, staring down at the odious piece of black plastic. Now what? Now she was going to have to find another way to insert the blasted thing in his pocket. She was going to have to crawl back into his office with her tail between her legs and ooze up next to him. Not an appealing thought.

Pete was parked half a block away in the Porsche, listening. “Damn,” he said. “What’d he do? What’d he do?”

He wrapped his fingers around the steering wheel and counted to ten. Then he counted to ten again. He hated this. He hated sitting in the Porsche, feeling impotent.

Hellertown might have its faults, but men grew up knowing their responsibilities. Roles were clear. Men didn’t sit around, listening to their women take abuse from other men, and disputes were settled with good old-fashioned physical violence. Man to man.

It didn’t feel right that Louisa should be in there, taking all the risks, threatening to hurt Maislin. Hurting Maislin should be his job, Pete thought. Instead, he was stuck in his car with a radio strapped to his head.

He slumped in his seat, thinking he would have been happier in the nineteenth century. This man/woman business was just too complicated now.

Louisa took a deep breath and smoothed the wrinkles from her skirt. She picked some lint from her blouse and checked to see if her nail polish was cracked. She was procrastinating. She didn’t want to confront Maislin again.

“All right, already,” she said into her chest. “Don’t worry. I’ll do it. I’ll do it.”

Pete sat up straighter “What? What?” he shouted.

She took the day’s mail from her desk and headed for Maislin. The mail was a legitimate excuse, she told herself. Nothing demeaning or extraordinary about delivering the mail. She squared her shoulders, knocked twice, and entered the office. Maislin was on the phone, with his back to her. His jacket was slung over a chair by the door!

“Mail,” Louisa said, weak with relief at her good fortune. She flipped the bug into his suit jacket pocket on the way out and closed the door behind her. “Mission accomplished.”

Pete lunged out of the car and strode across the street to the Hart Building. There was a limo at curbside. Maislin’s limo, he thought. He stood, waiting for close to a half hour, with his fists balled in the pockets of his shearling jacket. At last, Maislin swept through the doors with several aides in tow and plunged into the plush interior of the limo.

Pete felt the rage centering in his chest, felt his fist itching to pop Maislin one in the nose. Patience, he told himself. Hold out for long-term satisfaction—go for a congressional investigation, criminal charges, a drug bust.

He watched the limo pull away and slowly move down the street. Then he watched Kurt move after it in a late-model midsize Ford. Pete had ridden in the car many times. It had a custom V-8 engine under the hood, and hidden under the dash was a CB, a flush-mounted tracker with a dropped display panel, and a very large gun. Stashed under the backseat were more tools of Kurt’s trade, and it was anybody’s guess what was in the trunk. His trunk could hold anything from hot watches to dead bodies to Stinger missiles.

Pete rubbernecked at the steady stream of secretaries and aides on lunch errands trickling out of the building, then he plastered a smile on his face and went after Louisa.

She was alone in the office when Pete ambled up to her desk. He had his thumbs hooked into his jeans’ pockets so that his open jacket revealed a black T-shirt stretched across smooth chest muscles and a rock-hard washboard stomach. The washed-out jeans hugged tight hips and held the telltale contour of a man who wore bikini briefs. His full mouth was curved into a lazy smile. His eyes