'Til Dice Do Us Part (34 page)

Drawing a deep breath, I entered, announced the arrival of the villain, ably played by Bernie Mason, then exited stage right to watch the rest of the scene unfold. I braced myself for the part where Krystal/Roxanne tells Bernie’s character,
Take that! And that, and that!

As the tension mounted, I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. Glancing across the stage, I chanced to find Gus Smith watching me, a strange expression on his face. Our eyes happened to meet and a weird thing happened. Maybe it was the brightly striped red and yellow tie he wore that triggered my memory; I’ll never know. But whatever it was, I suddenly remembered the rhyme about the snake.

Gus Smith was the snake—a poisonous one at that. I was staring into the face of Guido, “the Killer Pimp,” one of the FBI’s most wanted. My mind flashed back to the volumes of mug shots I’d stared at for the better part of the afternoon. I now knew why one of the faces had looked so familiar. Even though the man in the photo hadn’t been smiling, his lips had been slightly parted—parted just enough to reveal a gap between the top two incisors. It was the exact same gap I was seeing now.

Guido . . . ?
I mouthed.

The final piece of the Rubik’s Cube clicked into place. Strange as it may sound, viewing the man from a distance brought everything into sharper focus. Admittedly, the stage makeup and hairpiece helped. The time I’d spent examining Most Wanted posters at the sheriff’s office and the post office paid off in aces. I was staring at an honest-to-goodness hit man. I was face-to-face with Guido, “the Killer Pimp.”

Claudia had admitted Lance had a gambling problem. They’d had to leave Vegas early. What if Lance had gotten in over his head with Bennie, “the Thumb”? What if Bennie had wanted to make an example of Lance and ordered a hit? This made perfect sense. I’d read enough mysteries, seen enough movies, to make the connection.

But the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question remained: Did Guido suspect I was on to him?

I swallowed hard. The man hadn’t avoided capture all these years by being stupid. His slitty-eyed, hard-mouthed stare was making me uneasy. I took that look as a yes. He was on to me big-time. I thought of the three a.m. phone call, the canary that used to sing, the snake on my doorstep. Next time he might not be so subtle. I was suddenly terrified. Even surrounded by others, I was no match against a certified killer. My mouth went dry; my heartbeat revved. Was EMS standing by with a defibrillator?

“Psst.” Rita poked me in the ribs. “Kate, wake up. You’re on.”

I gazed at her blankly. “On? On what?”

Janine prodded me toward the stage and whispered, “Was that a shot . . . ?”

A shot?
It took me a moment to comprehend what she was saying. It gradually occurred to me she was feeding me my line.

I wandered onto the stage. That’s the only way to describe my entrance, considering the stupor I was in. “Was that a shot . . . ?” I mumbled and felt daggers from Rita and Janine in the wings.

Krystal saw me falter, and being the pro she was, picked up the slack. I’m sure more lines followed, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember them, so I took the only option open to me—I improvised. “I think I’ll bake some cookies,” I declared in my best theatrical persona.

From the surprised expressions of my fellow cast members, I sensed cookies had nothing whatsoever to do with the scene. Krystal shot me a dirty look, then valiantly forged onward toward the conclusion. Gloria, Gus/Guido/ Troy’s secretary, made a premature entrance, no doubt confused by the script change. “W-was that a shot I just heard?” she stammered.

In the wings, I glimpsed Rita’s stricken expression as
Forever, My Darling
began to unravel. Janine and Monica looked equally appalled.

At this point Gus/Guido entered and, true to the script, uttered his lines of dialogue proclaiming to an overjoyed Krystal/Roxanne that he hadn’t been killed, but only wounded.

“I’ll empty the dishwasher,” I announced, projecting my voice like Janine had instructed.

Again the glitch, the awkward pause, as the entire cast struggled to incorporate my odd behavior into the context of the play. Only Gus Smith and I seemed to be on the same page—a page invisible to everyone but us.

“You stepped on my lines,” Krystal hissed angrily as I exited stage right.

The second I was offstage I ran to find Bill. I found him standing next to Mort at the light board. A jumble of electrical cords covered the floor like vines in an Amazon rain forest. Normally, I have a proclivity for men in tool belts—especially ones with pretty blue eyes—but tonight I ignored my libido. I had other things on the agenda.

Bill looked up when he saw me, his eyes full of concern.

I yanked him aside, not wanting Mort to overhear. “G-Gus,” I said, unable to keep the quaver from my voice. “Gus murdered Lance.”

He drew me back even farther. “That’s a pretty serious charge,” he said in a hushed voice. “What makes you so sure?”

“I saw his picture in the sheriff’s office—on a Most Wanted poster.” My words tumbled over one another in their haste to be said. “He’s Guido, ‘the Killer Pimp,’ hit man for crime boss Bennie ‘the Thumb’ Sisserone.”

“You’re certain he’s the same man?”

“Yes . . . no, maybe.” I wrung my hands, something I’d never done before in my entire life, but there’s a time and place for everything. “With the hairpiece, he looks exactly like the guy I saw in the mug shot. He’s one and the same, right down to the gap between his front teeth.”

Bill raked a hand through his hair. “Jeez, Kate, even if he is this Guido person, why would he kill Lance?”

I latched on to his shirt front with both hands and shook him. “Work with me, Bill! Work with me! I don’t have time for lengthy explanations. Guido is on to me. The play is in the last scene before the final curtain. The minute it’s over, he’s going to split, and we’ll never see him again. Claudia will be up a creek without a paddle. We can’t let that happen.”

“What do you want me to do?”

I glanced about frantically. There’s never a sheriff around when you need one. Then I remembered Eric Olsen. He might not be a flinty-eyed sheriff, but he was law enforcement. Any port in a storm, right? “Eric, where’s Eric?”

Bill peered over his shoulder. “Right now he’s onstage.”

I groaned inwardly. No help from that quarter. This was Eric’s big moment, where he confronts Krystal/Roxanne about shooting the villainous Bernie. I made an executive decision. “Call the sheriff. Tell him what I just told you and for him to get out here RN.”

“RN?” Bill was clearly perplexed.

“Right now!” I fairly exploded. Sheesh! Were Polly and I the only ones into texting?

I heard a rumble of applause signaling the end of the play. I saw Rita in the wings, pulling the ropes to close the curtain.

“Places, everyone,” Janine sang out. “Curtain call.”

“Kate, I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” Monica berated me. Grasping my arm, she herded me toward the curtain to take a bow along with the other cast members. Not that I deserved one, but . . .

I caught Gus watching me, and I read his mind like a book.
He knows that I know all right, and he isn’t happy about it.

Janine jabbed me between the shoulder blades. “Take your bow, Kate.”

Gloria and I went onstage to take our bows. Even my half-baked performance drew a rousing cheer. Next came Eric and Megan, hand in hand, followed by Bernie. Last, but by no means least, came Krystal and Gus, who drew a standing ovation. There was nothing like a packed house of mostly friends and relatives to boost the morale.

The cast joined hands for a final bow, then stepped back as the curtain closed a final time. Backstage was Ring-ling Brothers come to town. I tried to spot Bill amidst the confusion and felt a sharp prick in my lower rib cage.

Startled, I turned to find Gus at my side, a phony smile plastered on his face. He slid an arm around my waist. “Keep moving,” he growled. “One peep out of you and this knife will wind up in your left ventricle.”

I decided it prudent not to argue. The FBI had declared him armed and dangerous, skilled with a knife. This wasn’t the time to test the accuracy of their information.

“You can’t kill me with all these people around,” I said with false bravado. “You’ll never get away with it.”

He chuckled as if he found my words amusing. Granted, my protest wasn’t particularly original, but it’s hard to be witty with a knife-wielding hit man holding you captive.

“Keep moving,” he said in a low voice as we wound our way through the throng of well-wishers. “When they find your body, everyone will think it’s an accident. I’m good when it comes to staging accidents—some call me a virtuoso.”

I saw Bill in a corner, his back partially turned, speaking urgently into his cell phone. From the scowl on his face, I assumed he wasn’t having an easy time convincing the sheriff to get his butt out here. And where was Eric? Weren’t guns and handcuffs standard police equipment?

As if by magic, Eric came into my line of sight. He stood not far from us, his arm draped over Megan’s shoulder, talking and laughing with Tammy Lynn and the young man I took to be her brother.

Guido followed the direction of my glance. “Unless you want to see someone else hurt, don’t think of calling for help.”

I sucked in a sharp breath at another spurt of pain in my rib cage. For the first time tonight, I was grateful for the boned corset Polly had forced me to wear as part of my costume. Would metal stays deflect the blade of a knife? I hoped I wouldn’t learn the answer to that question.

At that precise moment, the lights went out.

“Dammit, Mort,” Bernie swore loudly. “How many times do I have to tell you not to overload a circuit?”

“Aw, stuff a sock in it, Mason,” came the angry retort.

I used the diversion to break free, twisting sharply to the right, relieved to no longer feel a knife jammed against my ribs. “Help!” I screamed. “Grab Gus. Someone stop him. He killed Lance.”

My words galvanized a flurry of activity. I heard banging and crashing coming from every direction. I groped about for a weapon and opted for the only thing at my disposal.

“Careful!” I hollered at the top of my lungs. “He’s got a knife.”

My warning was accompanied by a bone-jarring thud as something heavy hit the floor not far from me, followed by a cry of pain and an expletive I don’t care to repeat.

The lights flickered and, just as suddenly as they’d gone out, came back on.

An amazing sight greeted cast and crew. I straddled Guido, “the Killer Pimp,” who lay sprawled headlong on the floor, brandishing an orthopedic shoe over his head like a mallet. Gloria stood beside us, her long necklace at the ready like a lasso. Connie Sue and Janine were both on cell phones, ostensibly alerting the authorities. Bill came forward, pointing Eric’s gun directly at Guido.

“You can get up now, Kate. I’ve got him covered.”

I slowly levered myself off Gus/Guido. Now that the adrenaline rush had subsided, I was feeling a bit shaky. Just then a low moan caught my attention. I glanced over to see Eric Olsen, holding his leg and rocking back and forth in agony, caught in a tangle of electrical cords. Tammy Lynn Snow was at his side.

“I told you, you’d trip someone with all these cords lying around,” Bernie berated his buddy, Mort. “But do you ever listen . . .”

Satisfied with how the evening had gone, I tuned out their bickering. Not only did we break a leg, but we knocked ’em dead.

“Yoo-hoo, everyone! I’m baaack!” Claudia burst into the room, wearing a grin a mile wide.

Life just didn’t get any better, I thought as I gazed around at my friends. The Babes were gathered at Monica’s for our bimonthly bunco game. Just that very morning, Badgeley Jack Davenport IV called to inform me that all charges against Claudia had been dropped. BJ, bless his heart, knew how worried we all were about Claudia. Orange was definitely
not
her color. And as we all know, jumpsuits went out of vogue years ago.

The esteemed sheriff, Sumter Wiggins, had also called to confirm the news. Apparently the investigation into Lance Ledeaux’s death had been reopened with the capture of Gus Smith, aka Guido, “the Killer Pimp,” a frequent flier on the FBI’s elite list of crooks and felons. Through FBI contacts—I’m thinking snitches and bookies and such—it had been discovered Lance was in debt up to his waxed eyebrows to Bennie “the Thumb,” a situation the Thumb didn’t take lightly. After all, a mobster has nothing without his reputation. Bennie decreed Lance was going to be an example for those who welshed on their debts. It was pay up or else. Gus/Guido was hired to supply the
or else
.

The question remained: Why hadn’t Lance repaid Bennie? The Babes and I concurred Lance was a gambler through and through. Some thought Lance bet on Bennie’s being unable to catch up with him. I thought Lance craved one more toss of the dice that would result in a big payoff on Super Bowl Sunday. Whatever his reason, he took a chance—and rolled snake eyes.

Sheriff Wiggins confessed the case was practically a slam dunk since the state crime lab in Columbia discovered on the shell casing a partial print that was identified as Gus/Guido’s. This hadn’t been part of the original investigation, he explained, sounding a tad defensive, since a half-dozen people had witnessed Claudia pull the trigger.

Still another question puzzled me: Why didn’t Gus leave Serenity Cove after killing Lance? Why hang around? Bill had supplied the most plausible explanation. He said Gus had recently joined the ranks of retirees and had been looking for a place to settle down; a place where he could blend in. What better choice for a middle-aged man of average build, slight paunch, and thinning hair to blend into than a retirement community where three-fourths of the male population fit the same description; a place where a golf handicap mattered more than whether you’d been a CEO, ditch digger, or hit man. Who knows? Maybe Gus had unfinished business in Serenity Cove or perhaps he just wanted to bask in anonymity. After all, he thought he was safe here and far too clever for the FBI to ever find. Far be it from me to guess what goes on in the mind of a hit man.