But comical as this dilemma was, it was bound to get serious fast if other people started returning to the house. Then I’d really be up shit creek. I needed to get moving.
I reached for my cell phone. Time to call in the cavalry.
Chapter 18
I waited. I could almost hear an imaginary clock ticking while the two men in the family room continued to banter as they passed the bong back and forth between them.
“I need a Heinie. You want one?”
“Yeah.”
I couldn’t see the man approach, but I heard him when his footsteps left the carpeted family room and stepped onto the tiled area in the kitchen. He walked over to the refrigerator.
“Yo!” he called out. “Last two.”
“Go ’head and get another six-pack out the pantry and throw it in,” the man in the family room called back. Uh-oh. That quick, I was out of time.
I reached down and silently drew my sidearm. When kitchen-man opened the door in about two seconds, the element of surprise would be all mine-at least for a few moments. I needed to capitalize on it. I made a quick plan. I would scream and burst out into the kitchen the moment the door opened. I’d shove kitchen-man back toward the family room with my left hand while covering both him and family room-man at the same time with my gun hand. Hopefully, I’d have them both covered before either of them had a chance to draw a weapon.
I heard the clinks as kitchen-man set the bottles on the counter. My weapon was raised-I was ready to go. But the door didn’t open. Instead, I heard two phfft sounds as he removed the tops.
“You want a glass?” he said.
“No.”
Now he turned to the pantry. I heard a footstep as he approached and then another when, suddenly, the doorbell rang.
“Check it out,” family room-man said. “I got your back.”
Kitchen-man’s footsteps receded as he moved to answer the door. Through the crack, I saw family room-man move into the kitchen, where he had a clear view of the front door. His right hand held a large-caliber revolver. “Who’s there?” he whispered loudly.
“Damn,” kitchen-man said. “It’s some fine-looking bitch, that’s for damn sure.”
“Lemme see,” family room-man said. He holstered his weapon and left my field of view as he made his way to the front door.
My opening. I swung the pantry door open and silently crept to the end of the kitchen. I pulled out my mirror and looked around the corner. I could see one man looking out the window from one side of the door and the other man looking from the other side. The doorbell rang again.
“I’ll get it,” family room-man said.
I watched from behind as he opened the door.
Toni stood there, smiling one of her mega-watt dazzling smile. “Hi, there!” She’d tied her blouse up, exposing her midriff. She’d also unbuttoned the top couple of buttons, partly exposing jaw-dropping cleavage framed by the edges of a black lace bra. The blouse had short sleeves, and her full-sleeve tattoo on her left arm was on full display.
The sudden appearance of Toni, combined with his impaired mental facilities, was too much for family room-man. He was completely incapable of getting a word out. In all honesty, it wasn’t really fair. I don’t think very many men would have been composed enough to respond quickly when faced with a full-on frontal assault by Toni-forget the effects of the weed. I know I’d have been tongue-tied-and I don’t get stoned.
Seeing his partner’s slack-jawed expression, kitchen-man grabbed the door and opened it wider, so he too could see.
“Whoa,” he said, when he saw Toni standing before him.
“Hi!” Toni said, again cheerfully when she saw him. “How are you guys? I’m out today with the Petition to Normalize Marijuana laws in the state of Washington. I wonder if you two might have time for a couple of questions.”
I almost burst out laughing. From my vantage point, I couldn’t tell if the men were looking at Toni’s eyes or her chest, but it didn’t matter. They were goners. If Toni had asked them for their weapons, their money-anything-they’d have probably turned it over.
I stepped out from behind the kitchen wall. Toni, looking over the shoulders of the two men, saw me. For the barest moment, her eyes showed surprise, maybe even alarm.
I blew her a silent kiss and stepped across the hallway to the other side of the room.
Five minutes later, we drove away. “Oh my God, you’re completely insane,” Toni said, smiling and shaking her head slowly. “Blowing kisses to me while those two guys were standing right there.”
I smiled. “I waited to leave until I heard them close the door-until I knew you were out of there. And if you’re talking about them maybe seeing me? Forget it. No friggin’ way they were going to turn around. They had a much better view facing your direction, believe me. Besides, how was I supposed to know those idiots were going to pop back home so fast in the first place? And by a side street we didn’t have covered? I ended up spending fifteen minutes in a dark closet that reeked of marijuana listening to those clowns get stoned.” I paused for a second. “Good thinking on the diversion, by the way.”
She smiled. “Sorry it took so long. I had to do a little prep work with the wardrobe.”
“No shit,” I chuckled. “That dude opened the door and saw you standing there with your shirt the way it was. He didn’t know what to think. Poor bastard went rigid-I thought he was gonna have a seizure. You were fuckin’ hot!”
“I know what he was thinking,” she said, nodding her head and smiling.
“Well, who could blame him? Damn. Him and his buddy, too.” I paused. “Anyway, thanks. Thanks for bailing me out.”
She smiled. “What are friends for, right?” She leaned over and kissed me. “You’re pretty hot, yourself, you know.”
I smiled. “It’s the uniform, isn’t it?”
She sat back upright and looked at me. “Well, now that you mention it, I think it is.”
I smiled. I was a lucky man, no doubt about it.
We were on our way back to the office. I’d already radioed Doc and Kenny to let them know what had happened. They were headed back to the office as well. Toni selected a pop station on her radio dial, and Katy Perry sang “Wide Awake.” Toni tapped her fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of the song. “So what’d you find while you were inside wandering around pretending to be Sherlock Holmes, anyways?” she asked.
“No sign of Isabel, I can say that,” I said. Toni drove under the freeway on Fiftieth and then turned south onto the on-ramp. “The house is big. It looked kind of like a frat house-even more so because of the pot and the porn. Other than that, nothing very remarkable.” I paused. “Well,” I said, “there was one interesting thing. There were like six bedrooms upstairs and one down. One of the upstairs rooms was set up with lights and a camera on a tripod. Like a permanent porn studio.”
“Perverts,” she said.
“I started taking pictures of everything, but I wasn’t all the way through when they got home. I finished the main floor, and then I checked the upstairs for occupants-there weren’t any.”
Toni merged onto the freeway. “Was there a basement? Were you able to check that out?”
“I don’t think there is one because I didn’t see a basement door when I checked the main floor.” We drove south on I-5 without speaking for several minutes. The freeway arced gracefully more than one hundred feet in the air as it crossed over Lake Union.
“Hey,” Toni said suddenly. “You remembered that your dad’s taking us to Daniel’s Broiler on Friday for your birthday, right?”
I nodded. “Yep. I remember.” Friday, June 15-the big three-oh. Danny Logan turns thirty. Can’t believe I made it. When I was a boy, I always thought that if I ever turned thirty, I’d be old as dirt. Back then, thirty was a l-o-n-n-n-g way off. Then, I graduated from high school, joined the army, and almost immediately I was in the war. Thirty was a lot closer, but I tried not to think about getting old then. I suppose I didn’t want to jinx myself. Now that I was safe and sound and two days away from the milestone, I actually felt pretty good-not old at all. I was healthy-probably the best shape of my life, actually. My parents were healthy. Business was good-a little slow at the moment, but good. I had good friends. And best of all, I was with a great woman-someone so far beyond what I’d ever imagined that I could hardly believe it. I smiled as we drove, the tires thumping over the expansion joints on the freeway. All these years, I’d been dreading this birthday, and now it looked like I’d been worrying for nothing. My thirties might not be so bad after all.