Part 15 (1/2)

”Holly Spivak,” Christine gushed, nearly going to her knees in delighted shock. ”You know Holly Spivak? From Fox News? OhmiG.o.d, Steve, why didn't you tell me you know someone famous!”

Maggie leaned close to Saint Just. ”Hear that faint chopping noise, Alex? That's me, under the knife. Chopped liver. I love people. Really. I can't imagine why I don't try to get out more, don't you?”

Saint Just manfully repressed a smile. Maggie was such a-writer. Longing for anonymity, upset when no one knew who she was. ”Then that's one suspect eliminated, left-tenant, good. However, Maggie and I intend to visit Valentino Gates and George Bryon tomorrow, simply to satisfy our own curiosity, if you were about to ask. Oh yes, and one thing more. After you left our small party earlier, we all realized that we might have found a connection between the rats and our killer.”

Maggie stepped slightly in front of Saint Just. ”My story, Alex. It's true, Steve. You see, all the people who got rats also had all contributed to this one book together and-”

”All the people who got rats are connected through a book? Bernie didn't tell me that. Well, I sort of cut her off, I guess, because I was running late, picking up Christine here. Sorry. So you found a connection. Let's hear it.”

”We don't really know much more, Wendell. There are still a few names to check on, two here in the city, and one out west.”

”Then you've got a hunch, a lead, but nothing definite yet. All right, good work, but we'll still need to concentrate on the CUNY area, if that's all right with you junior detectives-at least until we have something more definite to go on. I'll call you tomorrow morning sometime, Blakely, and get the names from you. You two want to check on Gates and Bryon, be my guest, but I'm betting they're harmless. Just run-of-the-mill flakes. But that's it, then you're out of it, agreed?”

”Out of it?” Maggie jammed her hands on her hips. ”You had spit before we figured out the connection, Steve, and don't hand me that CUNY connection again, because I'm not buying it-that's politicians thinking CYA and public relations. So don't tell us we're out of it. If Alex and I are right, I could be a target, you know. I got a rat, remember. Two of the authors left town-Alex, do you remember their names? Never mind, it's not important. What's important is that someone sent rats and now one of the someones who got one is dead and some of the someones who got rats took a hike, cutting down on the number of local targets still available to Rat Boy-and I'm one of those targets. So don't you tell me to-”

”Maggie?” Saint Just inquired gently as she stopped talking, her finger still in the air, her mouth still open. ”You've harangued yourself into an unhappy conclusion, haven't you, my dear?”

”I'm a target,” she said quietly. ”Me. A target. Somebody could be wanting to kill me. Be watching me, right now. Waiting for his big chance. I don't feel so good. Alex? Let's go get Sterling and Socks and go home. And lock the doors ...”

”If you'll excuse us?” Saint Just said, inclining his head to Wendell and Christine. ”Miss Munch, it truly has been a delight. And don't worry, Wendell. I won't leave her for a moment.”

”Yeah, I already had that one figured out,” Wendell said flatly. ”Like I said, I'll get those names from you in the morning, of the local authors. Pay them a visit. Just keep her safe. House arrest until this is over.”

At that Maggie rallied. ”House arrest? Hey, I'm not the bad guy here, d.a.m.n it! It's Christmas. I've got shopping to do, a life to lead. Don't you say house arrest to me, Steven Wendell.”

Saint Just sighed. ”You never knew her very well, did you, Steve?” he said kindly. ”But it's not to worry. I've long since known that my mission in life is to be at Maggie's side,” Saint Just said. ”Miss Munch, please forgive our interruption and enjoy the remainder of your evening.”

Within five minutes Saint Just had rounded up Sterling and Socks, who had gotten to precisely the head of the line and were next up to pay for rink time. Sterling protested for a moment, but then looked at Maggie, who was still rather pale. ”Has something gone amiss, Saint Just?”

”Nothing more than earlier, no, Sterling,” Saint Just told his friend as they all four climbed into the cab Socks had hailed with his usual expertise. ”Maggie has just belatedly realized that she may have somehow become the target of a killer. Happily, we are here to protect her.”

”Protect me, yes. But don't smother me, okay? I mean, I'm not one of those stupid women who say, oh no, I refuse to stop living my life, change my routine, when they know d.a.m.n full well some depraved stalker with a machete and a hockey mask is out to kill her. I mean, I'm not stupid. But I've got Christmas staring me in the face in a couple of weeks. I've got things to do.”

”So, first on the list, my dear, would be to solve the crime, yes?”

Maggie blinked several times, and then a slow smile lit her face. ”Exactly! And did you see Steve back there? Tomorrow is soon enough for him to hear the other authors' names and just how we put it all together? Oh yeah, he's all hot to solve the case. Not! He's playing patty-cake with Christine Mun-something, that's what he's doing. Well, you know what? We're going to solve it for him.”

”Because you need something to do, because having something to do-anything to do-is better than locking yourself in your condo until the miscreant is locked in a cell.”

”You betchum, Tonto!”

”She is woman, hear her roar,” Socks piped up from the front seat. ”Have I ever told you guys how much I like being a part of the gang?”

”We have a gang?” Sterling asked, concerned. ”A coterie, perhaps, but a gang? Isn't that above all things wonderful! Should we have a name? Gangs have names. I know this because Vernon and George used to belong to a group called the One-hundred-and-thirty-fifth Street h.e.l.l Warriors. Although Mary Louise told me it was purely a social club. Still, I think we should have a name.”

”Maggie's Menagerie,” Maggie suggested drily, sliding across the cracked leather seat and into Saint Just as the cabbie took the turn too fast.

”Alex's Allies,” Saint Just teased, if only to see some color coming back into her pale cheeks. ”Blakely's Boys-oh, wait, that rather leaves you out, doesn't it, my dear? Shame on me. Very well, we'll be all-inclusive, shall we? A bit you, a bit me? We'll call ourselves Saint Just's-”

”We're here,” Maggie said, cutting him off. ”And it's Maggie's Menagerie, end of discussion. At least give me the illusion that I'm in charge of something in my own life.”

Chapter Sixteen.

Maggie barreled into the foyer of the building ahead of everyone else, still trying to come to grips with the obvious. The obvious that should have been obvious from the beginning. And not one obvious, but two.

Obvious One: She never should have gone to bed with Alex. Twice. She most definitely shouldn't have taken up his invitation to call him darling in front of Steve. But that was just all too, too bad. Mistake or not, and even though he drove her crazy half the time, she was keeping him.

Obvious Two: She was walking around with a target on her back. The object of a deranged killer, because un-deranged killers don't send rats to people. A nut job was after her, and he'd already killed poor Francis Oakes. Knocked him senseless and then strung him up like a chicken in one of those grocery store windows down in-”Daddy?”

Evan Kelly stood up slowly from the lobby couch, his smile bordering on sickly. ”h.e.l.lo, pumpkin,” he said quietly, then sort of held out his arms, sort of didn't ... leaving the option of hugging him or just standing there gawking at him up to Maggie.

Who stood there and gawked at him.

”Is something wrong? Mom? Is something wrong with Mom?”

The graying, slightly built man held out his hands-to ward off Maggie's fears, she supposed. ”No, no, pumpkin, your mother is fine, just fine. Well, as fine as a woman can be when she's just discarded her husband of nearly forty years.”

”She did what? She threw you out? OhmiG.o.d. How ... how long have you been here?”

”I ... I'm not sure,” her father answered, looking both frazzled and distracted. ”A little over an hour? I told that fellow over there I was here to see you, but he didn't know where you were. Why?”

Maggie needed a target, that's why. It was stupid, but either she exploded over something or she'd start thinking about how she'd suddenly become a sort of pseudo-orphan, a child of divorce ... and, not unimportant to consider, a woman who was soon going to have her father bedding down in her guest room and her lover sleeping across the hall. The whole thing stank from any angle she wanted to see it from.

”Paul!”

The part-time doorman looked up from his copy of Guns And Ammo and blinked at her. ”Huh?”

”You left my father sitting down here for over an hour? He told you who he is, I know he did. Why didn't you let him into my condo?”

Paul, who was a manly man, an imposing, dangerous figure, but only in his dreams, got off his stool behind the podium and hitched up his uniform pants. ”Couldn't do it, miss. Against the rules. Can't be too careful who you let upstairs, you know.”

”Was it against the rules a couple of weeks ago when you let those robbers into-h.e.l.l, I don't remember his name. You helped the crooks carry out a wide-screen TV, for cripes sakes! But my father? Oh, no, not my father. What? He's got the look of a criminal? He's got a dangerous glint in his eyes behind those bifocals? Maybe he's carrying concealed Metamucil? You have got to be the worst-”

”Mr. Kelly, what an unexpected pleasure,” Alex said, deliberately walking between the cringing, clearly terrified doorman and Maggie the Terrible. ”Maggie neglected to tell me you'd be visiting the metropolis.”

Maggie deflated. What was the point, anyway, except to delay the inevitable. ”Mom threw him out,” she told Alex, then headed for the elevator. ”Come on, let's all just go upstairs and figure this out, all right?”

”h.e.l.lo, Mr. Kelly,” Sterling chirped, just entering the lobby in his usual happily oblivious way, Socks right behind him. ”Do you remember me? Sterling. Sterling Balder. You and I had the drumsticks on Thanksgiving. Oh, and this is my friend, Argyle Jackson. Socks, say h.e.l.lo to Maggie's father.”

Socks stepped forward, extending his hand. ”We've met once before, I think, sir, when Maggie first bought the condo. Good to see you again, sir.”

”Yes, thank you.” Evan Kelly smiled weakly, and then turned to Alex, who had already secured the man's one small piece of luggage. ”What is he wearing? Is he in a Broadway show of some sort? He walks the street like that?” He shook his head. ”I don't understand New York.”

Maggie grinned at Socks, who for the first time that evening seemed to believe he might want to cover his crotch with his hands. ”Come on, Dad. I'll make you something to eat-I've got lots. Oh,” she said rather inanely, she knew, as everyone piled into the elevator and the door slid closed on Socks, who waved good-bye with only one hand, ”But I don't have any puffed rice ...”

Fifteen minutes later, with everyone settled in Maggie's living room, all of them watching Evan Kelly spoon potato salad into his mouth, she finally asked for details, even though she didn't want to hear them.