Lizz Lund - Mina Kitchen 02 - Christmas Bizarre (24 page)

I
grabbed the flashlight and looked around. “There’s a bunch of cinderblocks, but I don’t think I have time to lift enough of them. Besides I can barely see.”

Tina
thumped her head against the pole. “My luck, I gonna die with a stiff and a piss bucket while you get gummed to death.”

“I know, I know.
This is pretty bad.”

Tina
stopped thumping and sat up a bit. “The delivery place is going to be looking for that guy, sooner or later. What we need to do is guarantee us being here later.”

“Yeah?”

“So this is what you’re gonna do…”

Bernie came thundering
back through the door, locking it behind him. I switched the flashlight off.

“Very funny.
You think you can hide from me in the dark? Vampires
live
in the dark. I can see everything in the dark.”

Mrs. Phang and I waited
.

Bernie thumped down a few steps.
“This will make things more interesting, anyway.” We heard him creak down another step.

I
patted the chunks of cinderblock next to me, making sure they were within reach. Then I clutched the handle of the bucket.

“Olly, olly, oxenfree…
C’mon Mina, Bernie needs a nosh.”

I heard him come down another two steps.
Mrs. Phang had me count them before, to make sure. Just four more steps to go.

My
blood was pounding in my ears. I couldn’t believe he didn’t hear it even if he didn’t have preternatural powers.

Another step.
“
I can smell you…
”

Two more steps.

Mrs. Phang pretended to cough.

“Ah-ha!”
Bernie leaped toward her, directly in front of me.

I tossed the bucket of piss in his face.

“
Ughh!
”

“Quick, Mina! Now!” Mrs. Phang screamed.

I grabbed a chunk of cinderblock and tossed it in the direction of Bernie’s screams.

“Ow!”
Bernie grabbed his forehead.

“Another one! Knock him out!”

I grabbed another piece, instantly feeling guilty I was hurting a person on purpose, even if he was a deranged vampire. But I didn’t have a lot of options. I turned the flashlight on him, then hurled the next chunk. There was a squishy thud as Bernie crumbled to his knees.

“Now, Mina! Hurry!”

Mrs. Phang’s voice brought me back to the moment. His head was bleeding. I pushed him down on his belly with my foot and quickly took the gun.

Bernie lay still, breathing hard.
It looked like I’d knocked him out. At least for the moment.

“Get the keys!”
She hissed.

I felt around his back pocket and found his
key holder thingy. I brought it over to Mrs. Phang. She walked me through lock picking 101. After what felt like a decade, we had her free.

Bernie groaned.

“Hurry!”

We leaped up the stairs, fumbling with the keys.
After a half dozen tries, we found the right one and opened the lock and threw the door open.

Myron stood
waiting for us.

“Thank you, Kitchen.
I certainly wouldn’t have been able to open the deadbolt without the key.”

Mrs. Phang grabbed the gun from me.
“Back off! I’ll shoot!”

“
As will I.” Myron pointed a very high tech gun at me. There was a trail of a red laser beam aimed at my face. “Put the gun down. Here, by my foot.”

She leaned past me and
slid the gun onto the kitchen floor.

“Now,
put your hands up, behind your heads, and walk up here slowly, where I can see you.”

We trudged
reluctantly up the stairs and into the kitchen.

“It appears the mice have played, while Dexter was away.”
Myron nodded toward the take-out spread on the table.

“We got hungry,” I answered simply.

“It appears Bernard did, too, yes?” Myron gave a disgusted look toward Bernie’s plate.

A loud groan sounded from the basement.

“Yes
, well I suppose that answers that. Come upstairs, Bernard.”

“Oh, my head! Oh, my Gawd!”

Myron shook his head resignedly and shouted down the steps, “Let’s postpone the histrionics, shall we?”

“My teeth!
She broke my friggin’ teeth!” Bernie stumbled upstairs. While his being a geriatric vampire was a bit terrifying, he now looked like something straight out of a horror movie. His face was covered in blood, and he was completely soaked from head to toe in urine. That, and he was waving his teeth at us in his left hand.

“You see what you done?
You know how much these cost? You little brat!” Bernie took a few steps toward me. Myron waved at him to sit down.

He sat down at the table with a thud.
“Ugh. I should have stuck with the beef blood. This stinks.”

Myron waved a hand in front of his face.
“You certainly do. Please get changed. Immediately!”

“
All right, all right. I knew I should have stayed in my box.”

“Agreed.”

Bernie glowered at Myron a few moments. “You might want to be more careful around me, kid.”

Myron grabbed the dentures from Bernie’s hand.
“Because you’ll gum me to death?” He tossed the broken choppers in the sink. They fell with a clattering, cracking sound.

“That’s gonna cost you.”

“Terrific. Send me the bill.”

Bernie stood up.
“Don’t forget who’s the brains behind this outfit, huh? Your piece of the pie hasn’t been wired to you yet.”

Myron’s face
turned plum. “You said you were going to do that
yesterday
.”

“I lied.”

Myron’s face went purple. “You’re double-crossing me?”

Bernie held up a hand.
“You’re always such a hothead. No, I ain’t no double-crosser. Just a little insurance. To make sure I don’t leave any loose ends.”

Myron
stared malevolently at him. “Quite. Speaking of loose ends, you wouldn’t want to tell me whose car is parked out front, would you?”

“Sure. It’s the delivery
guy’s.”

“Delivery?”

“For the Chinese food.”

Myron closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“And where is the delivery guy now? Canvasing our whereabouts door to door?”

“Nope. He’s in the basement.”

“You took
another
hostage?”

“He didn’t get that lucky.”

Myron rolled his eyes. “You didn’t try to suck his blood, did you? Did you cut him? What is he doing, bleeding to death down there?”

Bernie
scratched his head. “Geez, I wished I’d thought of that. Nope. I shot him.”

Myron blinked.
“You shot the delivery man?”

“Leon.”

“Leon?”

“Leon Martini.
Like the drink.”

“Well, what the bloody hell?
Couldn’t you have just given him a tip?”

“I did!
This was the other one. He came back with the fortune cookies!”

“You shot him over fortune cookies?”

“No! I shot him because these two were crying ‘help, we’re being kidnapped’ and the guy was gonna take off.”

Myron thumped his gun down on the counter.
“Well, this is a pickle! This is a pickle, Bernard! This is quite the mess!”

Bernie shrugged.
“It’s just one body in the basement. When Dexter gets comes back, he can take care of it.”

“Precisely how do you propose he do so?”

Bernie shook his head. “We got a stiff in the basement, a motor boat, and a ton of loose cinderblock. We also got the Atlantic Ocean in our backyard. You need me to paint you a picture?”

Myron looked up, and smiled. “I misunderstood you Bernard.
Yes, you really are the brains.”

Bernie tapped his temple with his forefinger.
“Always thinking.”

“Yes, well.
I do wish you’d have thought a bit further before you got doused in piss. Phew!”

“That was a miscalculation.”
Bernie glared at me and Mrs. Phang. We tried to shrink back into the woodwork.

“We’ve got to lose his car.”

Bernie shrugged. “It’s not like he’s gonna report it stolen. All we gotta do is park it in the back. Besides, he’s probably got a pretty good security pass, for deliveries. That’ll give us an extra set of disposable wheels when we blow this joint.”

Myron squinted in thought.
“Yes. Quite. Let’s move his car, immediately.”

“Gotta get the keys.”

“You didn’t take them off him?”

“I got distracted.”
He smacked his chops in my direction. I felt my stomach lurch.

“Fine.
Go get the keys off him, and let’s move.”

Bernie rubbed the back of his neck a
bit. “Not so fast. I’m not going back down in the basement with a stiff. Besides, she konked me pretty good. The kid’s not such good luck for me in the konked noggin department.”

“Yes, I can see that.
All right, move.” Myron pointed the laser gun thingy at my middle.

“Me?” I croaked.

“Yes, you! Get downstairs and get the car keys off that guy.”

“Off the
dead
guy?”

“Now!”

I crept down the steps, dreading the given chore.

“Go on, you can go faster than that!”

“I can’t see!”

“Too bad.”

Bernie stood behind Myron at the top of the steps. “You put him near the bottom, nice and peaceful like, remember? Pull the cover from over his head, and check his pockets.”

Oh boy.

I reached the basement floor, and walked cautiously. I didn’t want to step on the dead guy and squish him by accident. My shoe bumped into a sneaker. With a foot in it. I knelt down, and felt the canvas cover. I’d found him.

“I’m-sorry; I’m-sorry; I’m-sorry,” I whispered, groping around the front pockets of his vest.
I found the keys in the second pocket I tried.

I stood up
holding the keys, and all but flew back up the steps.

Myron pointed the laser at me.
“Do you have the keys, Kitchen?”

“Right here.”
I held the key chain up for him to see.

“Good.
Now toss them up here like a good girl.”

“Mina, don’t!”

“I said DO IT!”

I threw the keys
onto the kitchen floor. They landed with a clunk.

“Now, I think you girls need a little
time out. Bernard, please escort Mrs. Phang back to her room. I’ll move the car.”

“What about the kid?”

“Oh, she’ll be quite safe.” Myron pushed me down the steps, closed the door, and locked it.

Luckily I fell on top of the dead guy, or I’d really have fall
en hard. Dead guy?
Ugh!

Mrs. Phang shouted a lot of unintelligible curses.
I heard a smack, and then silence. Then I heard shuffling up the flight of stairs to the second floor. A few moments later, I heard the front door open and shut.

I kneeled
on my knees and bowed my head. “Christ, I hope they didn’t kill her.”

“Don’t worry, they didn’t.”

I whirled around and found myself face to face with the stiff. I opened my mouth to scream, and he clapped a very firm – and large – hand over it.

“
Don’t make a peep, whatever you do!” he whispered. “We’ve only got a moment! I’m Agent Mitchell.”

I nodded.

“We’ve been tailing Bernie since last summer.”

I nodded again.

“There were two sets of steps up the stairs. Not one. You see? One had to be Tina’s.”

I relaxed a bit.

“Now, I’m gonna take my hand off you, and you’re not going to scream, right?”

I nodded.

He took his hand away.

“You’re not dead?”

“Not yet, anyway.”
He unzipped his vest. “Kevlar.”

“Then why the hell were you playing dead?”

“My first time. It kind of knocked the wind out of me. And you gals also thunked my noggin pretty good on the floor.”

“
Sorry.”

“I started to come to right as you raced up the steps into the other guy.”

I shook my head. “We totally weren’t expecting that.”

“Anyone else
here besides you and Tina Phang?”

I shook my head.

The front door banged open and shut.

Agent Mitchell put a finger to my lips, then ducked back down undernea
th the drop cloth to play dead.

I heard water rumbling through the pipes.

“Have you got her secured, Bernard?” Myron’s voice trailed up the stairs.