Lizz Lund - Mina Kitchen 01 - Kitchen Addiction! (26 page)

Trixie
rummaged around in her handbag and pulled out a tube of smelling salts and held
them under Vito’s nose. After a few dozen seconds he came to, looked around and
blinked his eyes.  “What happened?” he asked, rolling over.  The fellas
scrambled out quickly.

“Well,
I was just about to ask Mina if she knew the gal we caught with her purse. Her
name is –”

“Not
important,” Trixie cut across, eyeing Vito’s face as its color began to drain
all over again.  He looked close to another faint.  “After all, Mina’s got her
purse and wallet and stuff back, and none of it was used, right?” Trixie leaned
into Appletree.

“Well,
yeah, but –”

“And
that’s the main thing, right?”

“Well,
that and assuming Mina is pressing charges,” Appletree finished.

Vito
rubbed his head.  “Is that really necessary, officer?  I mean, Mina’s got her
stuff back.  Maybe it was just a case of mistaken identity,” he said.

“Nope,
there’s no mistake about it.  Her ID has Helena Pryz… Prychchitch….
Pryzchntchynzski all over it.”

“Bless
you,” Ike said.

Vito
swallowed hard.  “Actually, I meant the identity about the handbag.  Maybe this
kid has one that looks just like Mina’s?”

Appletree
stared at Vito.  Trixie rolled her eyes.

“Yeah,
well, uh, maybe,” she said, whilst simultaneously backing down the hall and
toward the front door.  “Hey, I almost forgot; I’m late for something,” Trixie
faked.  Appletree stared back at her.  “Would you mind moving your cop car?
You’re kind of parked behind me,” she said.

“I
thought you just got here?” Appletree asked.

“Yeah,
but I forgot something that I’m late for now,” she fibbed.

Appletree
shrugged and handed me his card.  “Give me a call in a couple hours, so we know
where we’re going with this.  I have to know if we’re hanging onto this kid, or
letting her go,” he said, and exited, shaking his head.

Vito
sat up and put his head in his hands.  “That’s it.  I’m cooked,” he sighed.

“How
do you mean?” Bauser asked.

“Helena’s my niece.”

“So?”
Ike asked, munching on another pierogie.  We all looked at him.  Then I
realized he’d been asleep during Vito’s midnight confession.  I looked at
Ethel.

“I’ll
fill you in later, Ikey,” she said.  Ike shrugged and chewed.

“If
she spills the beans about me, I’m toast,” Vito said.

“Why
would she do that?” Ethel asked.

“I’m
guessing she’s pretty sore at me.  On account of I’m the one who put her
boyfriend in jail.”

“Her
boyfriend?” I asked.  I had to – some things you just can’t help.

“Yeah.”
Vito sighed.  “Mickey the Mouse.  He was one of the young Turks I fingered.”

“Mickey
the Mouse?”

“Yeah,
on account of he really likes a good cheddar.  And he was also a bit of a
pest,” Vito said.  “Anyway, Mickey the Mouse wasn’t a bad kid.  I guess he
wanted to make a name for himself, but there was no way he was gonna fit into
our family.”

“You
mean he’s not Polish?”

“Worse:
he’s Irish.” Vito shook his head.  “If he’d wanted to really join the mob, he
should have gone with his own family into politics.”  We all nodded in
agreement.  Clearly, Mickey O’Mouse was confused.  “We should have taken him
under our wing.  Instead we kept trying to get him into something legitimate. 
Like shoe sales.  You have any idea how much dough is in ladies shoes?”

Ethel
and I nodded energetically.  Our personal shoe hero, besides Ma and Mu, was
Imelda Marcos.  All legends.

“Next
thing you know, he’s talking big about the New York Italian family.  It all
went down the sewer pipe from there.

“I
always thought Helena had a thing for Mickey, ever since their first Halloween
in kindergarten.  Helena got all dressed up as the Good Fairy and she wanted a
wand.  So I made one for her out of a 3/4” dowel, and jigsawwed a star out of
plywood.  Painted it silver with glitter and everything.  We stopped by
Mickey’s house for tricks or treats – you know, just to be polite and all.  And
because Helena kept bugging me.  Mickey shows up at the door dressed like a
little devil, with plastic red horns and a little red tail. Helena tried to
whack him, straight off.” He smiled.

Ethel
gasped.  “Your niece tried to kill him?”

“No,
no, no.  She whacked him with her wand.  Which probably kind of hurt on account
of the dowel and wooden star and such,” Vito answered.  “Why would you think
she tried to kill him?”

“You
said she whacked him.”

“You’ve
been watching too much TV,” Vito tutted.  He took a pause and sighed.  “Yup,
those were the good old days, back when I knew my little Helena-noosh loved her
Uncle Vlad.  I mean Vito.” He sniffed.  I rolled my eyes and grabbed some paper
towels and forked them over to him.  He nodded thanks and blew his nose. 
“Anyways, when Mickey got into trouble, Helena got pretty upset.  Then my
brother sent her off to visit our dead aunt in Vermont.”

Ethel
stared at Vito wide-eyed.  “You mean her family sent her away?” she asked.

Vito
shrugged.  “Pieotre, my brother, wasn’t all that keen on Mickey either. 
Especially as he’d been seeing a lot more of him hanging around Helena.  I can’t says I blame him,” he said.  “Mickey could really be a pest,” he added. 
Not to mention the extra supply of cheese, I thought.

“Anyways,
that was the last I heard of my niece before I left.  And I don’t know why, but
Pieotre was pretty much avoiding me.” Vito grimaced.  “Which was pretty unlucky
on account of having to leave town unexpectedly, sort of planned for like and
all, because I couldn’t get the chance to tell him goodbye.” He sniffed again. 
I handed him the full roll of paper towels.  “I always worried about leaving
him with sore feelings and such.”

Bauser
got up and handed Vito a half a mug of Hawaiian Orchid.  Vito nodded thanks and
gulped.  Norman held out his towel, which Vito took for comfort, eyes tearing
up again.  “Yous sees what I means?  You kids are really swell,” he said
sniffily, and sipped some more.  I was just glad he didn’t blow his nose in Norman’s towel.

“Okay,
so now what am I supposed to do about Helena and Officer Appletree?” I asked.  “It’s
not like I’m going to press charges against Vito’s niece.  I mean, I got my
purse back, that’s the main point.”

Vito
shook his head.  “It don’t matter.  Charges or no charges, Helena’s gonna
blab.  I’m pretty sure of that. And Federal protection or not, there might be a
few outstanding, err… disagreements I’ve had with the police.  In the past, I
mean,” he added quickly.  “Then again,” he continued, “if you changed your head
and decided to press charges, that could get pretty bad too.”

“How
do you mean?” I asked.

“Well,
you might have the Moils out of Bumville after you, along with the flaming
fecal flingers,” he said.  I made a puzzled face at that; Bauser pointed his
index finger at his temple and pulled his thumb-trigger to make sure I
understood.  Oh.  Yikes!

“You
know, maybe this was all some kind of family misunderstanding,” Ethel said. 
“After all, Helena has no connection with Mina and she obviously wasn’t trying
to steal anything.  Maybe it was a desperate cry for help, to her uncle?” she
asked with a misty-eyed look.

“Hey,
ya think?” he asked.  “I always was her favorite uncle.  Even if I am the only
one.  That is, I was her favorite uncle until I got Mickey put in the pokey.  I
heard she was pretty sore at me about that.”

“Well,
maybe the best thing is for Mina to go downtown and talk with her,” Ethel
offered.

“Huh?”

“Well,
you have to go return the insurance papers to EEJIT anyway.  Isn’t the police
station right across the street?” Ethel said.

I
sighed.  She had a point.  Even if it was at the top of her head.

Vito
looked at me hopefully.  “You’d do that, for me?” he asked all watery-eyed.

“Sure. 
What the heck,” I said.

“But
what if she blows Vito’s cover at the station and starts yelling and stuff?” Norman asked warily. He quickly added, “Not that I think your niece is the yelling kind.”
I looked over at him.  He had an over-stocked knowledge about female yelling,
between his two teenage stepdaughters and his wife.  I gulped.

Vito
shook his head.  “You’re right.  And she is,” he added meekly.

“So
what’s our plan B?” Bauser asked.

Vito
folded Norman’s towel and handed it back to him.  “Throw in the towel, of
course,” he said.  “That’s what Mike and Annie are for.  Let’s just hope we
don’t have to use them.  Because I don’t think I’m ever gonna fall in love with
Tampa.” He sighed.  I shuddered, remembering Vito’s hair-stained shirt.

We
got the pierogies and pots and pans cleaned up, and mixed together a game plan,
even if it was half-baked. Bauser and Norman filled Vito and Ethel and Ike in
about the buddy brigade for me.  I looked on hopefully – but unfortunately they
all agreed and my privacy dissolved. So, Bauser, Norman and Jim were going to
escort me back to EEJIT and to the downtown police precinct, hopefully while
Appletree was still on duty.  We figured Appletree left a wider range of
maneuvering.  Especially since I could hold Appletree a virtual hostage where
Trixie and his wife were concerned.  Ike was going to take the Ratties and Vito
out to the dog park.  And maybe also have a quick peek on Vito’s would-be
terrier, Stanley, in the hopes Stanley’s former owner remained at large.  Ethel
was gonna stay at home and keep an eye on my house, Vinnie and Marie.  She was
also going to call Ma and Aunt Muriel to check up on them, and make sure their
sleepover hadn’t morphed into another Atlantic City escapade.

On
my way out with the boys, I made sure to lovingly hiss in my kid sister’s ear
that maybe she might want to try out the numerous pregnancy test kits that were
hiding in my closet.  She gulped her milk and nodded.

I
crammed into the backseat of the Aspire next to Jim, with Norman sitting
shotgun and Bauser driving.  We led the parade with Vito and Ike bringing up
the rear.  We turned right on Millersville Pike, heading downtown, while Ike
and Vito made a left toward Rohrerstown Road and the animal shelter. Part of me
nervously hoped Ike wouldn’t get inspired to dump the Ratties there, if we
found out that Ethel was actually pregnant.

Bauser
pulled up to the Chestnut Street entrance and parked.  Which was a big no-no:
there’s a ten minute limit for loading or unloading stuff.

“Ummm,”
I said, looking at the sign.

“We’re
unloading,” Bauser said.  I looked at him.  He shrugged.  “We’re unloading
insurance papers.  Sort of.” We trudged through the glass doors, with Jim
hopping along, while Bauser carded us inside.

“Can
I help you?” an anonymous uniformed security guard asked at the front desk. 
Huh.  Where the hell was he when I was getting konked on the noggin?

“EEJIT,”
Norman replied, nodding his head upward.

The
guard looked at us.  We nodded.  Even Jim.  Then he shrugged. “IDs, please,” he
said.

Norman
and Bauser produced their badges, and I produced mine – albeit after digging
around in my very clean purse that still held the same old crap.  After
flipping some coupons, a Tylenol and a Tampax onto the counter, I withdrew the
badge just as the guard waved me off.  “Lady, I believe you, I believe you,” he
said.  I shrugged.

The
guard looked at Jim.  “He’s with me,” Bauser said.

“Is
that a dog for handicapped service?” the guard snapped.

“Yup,”
Bauser said.  Well, at least he was only half lying.  Jim was handicapped.

I
looked at the elevators. They were sans ‘Out of Order’ signage today.  “Is it
okay to use the elevators today?” I asked.

“Sure!
What’s wrong with the damn elevators?” the guard barked. 

“Uh,
nothing,” I mumbled, and shuffled toward the elevator bank and pressed the up
button.  I looked sideways from Bauser to Norman and down at Jim. They each
exchanged peripheral raised eyebrows at me.  The elevator bank binged and all
three elevators opened.  I sighed and looked at Bauser.  He pulled out a
quarter.

“Call
it,” he said.

“Tails.”

Bauser
looked.  “Heads,” he replied, and held open the middle elevator door.  We all
shuffled in.  Bauser pressed ‘7’.  The doors closed.

“What
would you have called if it had been tails?” Norman asked me.

“Individual
elevators, with Jim using the stairs as backup,” I said.

“Wow.
You really do have a paranoid thing about these elevators.”

“That’s
only because they hate me.”

“Oh,”
Norman said, and rubbed at his non-gunshot wound.

EEJIT’s
lobby seemed to be back to normal.  There were no more mega fans blowing smoke
through the lobby’s glass doors.   In their place instead was a lot of stale,
smoked fertilizer-esque smells.