“What’s wrong?” Tony asked when he got out of the car. Marco smiled at him and he relaxed.
“Oh, nothing,” Marco replied in a teasing sing song voice. He flicked the butt away. The rear door opened and Sue Ellen slid from the seat. Marco retrieved a clipboard and pen.
“Sign,” he commanded, and thrust an official looking document in Tony’s hands. “And welcome to the team.”
With his signature on the document Tony officially joined the protection detail for assistant district attorney S. E. McConnel as the SPPD’s liason officer.
Tony was puzzled but pleased. This must have been the tricky thing Sue Ellen had mentioned the night before that she was working on. While Tony and Marco were discussing the protectee’s eventual return to the safe house Sue Ellen was talking with her Uncle Ray at the car window. Before Tony could say good bye to him Ray dropped the car into gear and took off, leaving his grinning niece standing in the road. Marco left too.
“So how does this work?” Tony was smiling and untangling keys on his front stoop. “This protection thing.”
Sue Ellen was standing back from the steps admiring the small tidy house. It was pale green-almost-gray stucco with white shutters and trim. There was a large bare tree in the yard and not a leaf in sight, the browning grass cut short, and the walkway trimmed. Tony kept his home neat.
“Anyone comes after me you shoot ’em. Pretty simple.” Sue Ellen was wearing a khaki mid-calf length skirt with a denim blouse. A heavy sweater was draped over her shoulders, but the day was warm for October, last night’s rain a memory. Her bright red lipstick was perfectly applied and inviting.
“Okay, next question. How did you get Marco and the Marshal’s Service to go along with this?” Tony finally got the door open and with a sweep of his arm invited her in.
“I sighed-a lot.” She brushed against him as she entered the house. Her perfume smelled expensive and wonderful to Tony. “I mean a lot. I’d read part of a file and sigh real loud. In a few minutes I’d do it again. Finally Marco made a call and told me to get my butt ready, he was handing me off to you for the day.”
Tony closed the front door and she slipped easily into his arms. It was a long time before either of them talked again.
Sue Ellen spied the arch over the hallway that led to the bedrooms and took Tony by the hand. She paused to peer into a small bedroom he’d made into an office and into a sparkling tiled bathroom that had either been immaculately maintained in its original vintage or restored. At the end of the hall was the bedroom. It wasn’t a large room. Nothing about the house was on any grand scale. There weren’t any clothes littering the floor. Several pictures were arranged on the dresser, photos of a couple in different dress and times-children and parents growing up in each one. The quaint double bed was neatly made up.
In a very short time there were clothes littering the floor and the quaint double bed was no longer made up. It had a delightful squeak to it, antique wood joints laughed and squealed as Sue Ellen and Tony tussled and tumbled while they made love; sometimes frantically desperate and urgent-sometimes slow, simply letting their breathing move them.
The low lazy October sun was peeking in below nearly drawn shades before they rested. They weren’t done. They were just resting. Tony had the thought that they might not be done for years. He felt very protective.
“Are you hungry?” he asked right after his stomach made a low growling noise.
Sue Ellen laughed. “And here I thought I’d finally found the perfect man. Kind, sensitive, picks up his clothes, makes the bed. And after sex all he wants to do is eat.”
“Is that a yes or no?” He was melded to the curve of her backside in the narrow bed; warm, happy, and spent. His stomach growled again. She wriggled against him.
“Don’t tell me you can cook, too.”
“I’ll do better than that missy. I’ll show you.” Tony slipped from the bed. Sue Ellen watched him search through the dresser and smiled wickedly at his trim backside and powerful legs. Then a soft cotton cloth covered her face when Tony tossed a pair of lounge pants at her. “Those will work.” He slipped into a faded pair of jeans, still grinning, and left her in the bed.
She tracked him down finally, busy in the kitchen. A rosy looking Bloody Mary waited for her on a small breakfast table by the patio doors. Outside on the deck a massive stainless steel grill stood sentinel over planters and redwood stained Adirondack chairs. Then she spied two squat bowls.
“You have a dog?”
“Part time. I’ll introduce you in a minute.”
Tony busied himself at the stove and Sue Ellen tried her drink. It was tart and not too hot, nearly perfect. She’d have to teach him that she didn’t like olives. When she looked back outside the part time dog was staring in, tail wagging. She opened the door.
“Meet Boof.”
The dog eyed her warily but didn’t bark.
“Hello Boof.” She held out her hand for him to sniff. “How do you get a part time dog?”
“He belongs to Dot and Benny next door. The yards are kinda’ small here and mine’s all fenced too. We put a gate in for him so he’d have more room to run.”
“He’s cute.” Boof apparently decided she smelled okay and gave her a lick. “What is he?”
The dog was long and low to the ground. Boof had oversized floppy ears, sad wet eyes and tremendous paws. Sue Ellen thought he looked kind of like a Basset Hound but he was covered in black curly fur.
“Good question- and not the first time it’s been asked.” Tony sipped his own drink. He was about to share the theories that had been posed over the years when his cell phone rang. “Damn it.” He looked at the screen. The caller ID number was unfamiliar.
“Ray?” It was the old woman from the apartment house.
“This is Ray.” Sue Ellen looked confused.
“That boy here now. Come in jes’ a minute ago. To that girl’s place.”
“He’s there now?”
“Uh-huh. You said to call.” Tony rubbed his face with his free hand, thinking that the old crone sure has lousy timing. No, Stuckey has lousy timing. He was starting to hate Sean Stuckey.
“How long ago did he get there?”
“I tole you, jes’ now. Not five minute ago.” The old woman sounded a little pissed.
“Okay. What’s your name? You never told me your name.”
“It’s Connie.”
“Connie, if you see him leave call me right away. Can you do that?”
“You gonna’ gimme another twenty?”
“Sure. Sure I will. Now you call me if he leaves.”
“I will Ray. You kin count on me.” She clicked off.
Tony, frowning now, turned off the stove and turned to Sue Ellen and Boof. Both of them were looking at him with raised eyebrows.
“We have to go.”
Sue Ellen sighed and gave the part time dog one more scratch. Tony dialed Ray’s number. He was afraid it was going to roll to voice mail it rang for so long, but Ray caught it in time.
“Stuckey’s at the girl’s apartment,” Tony said evenly. He was surprised when Ray responded with a healthy “goddamnit!” “Meet me there in a half hour?”
“It’ll take me closer to forty-five minutes, maybe an hour?”
The Twin Cities aren’t that big and on a Sunday afternoon traffic would be light, Tony puzzled. “Where are you?”
“I’m out in Mi…I’m a ways out.” Ray replied. Tony thought he sounded a little sheepish. Minnetonka? Lakisha Marland? No wonder the old guy thought it was worth a cussing, Tony chuckled to himself. You rascal.
“What are you grinning about?” Sue Ellen was dressed, ready to go back to the safe house and not happy about it.
“Misery loves company.”
Chapter 26
Ray made good time from the wilds of Minnetonka. He pulled in behind Tony just minutes after he had arrived. Tony was in his Ford pickup. Ray was in an unmarked Crown Victoria-unmarked but still with a siren and light, both of which Tony would bet had seen recent use.