I said, “I’m not in the mood, Vanilla. You could kill me, maybe. But I might not die so easy.”
“Yeah, you would. This is a twenty-two. Not a big caliber. But I can put a bullet where I want to standing this close. I can write my name in bullet fire on your forehead before you hit the ground.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But I bet you’d have to leave out one of the l’s.” She smiled.
“What’s the warning?” I said.
“Let’s start with don’t open your door, because if you do, you’ll get blown out into the street.”
I looked at the door.
“How do you know?”
“I know. I’ve already checked. But I didn’t disarm it. Wanted you to see me do it. I wanted you to know I’m not here to kill you.”
“I was here not long ago,” I said.
“And they must have been here a few minutes ago,” she said. “While you were in No Enterprise looking up Jimson. Don’t look so surprised. I passed you as you were going in, stopped by the road getting something out of the trunk. A gun would be my guess.”
“Sawed-off. I left it on the seat. Now I wish I hadn’t.”
Vanilla put her gun away, came up on the porch, turned the key, and unlocked the door. I stepped back off the porch. Way back.
I saw her push the door open ever so slightly. She reached in her coat and took out a little leather parcel. She pulled a small flashlight from it and turned it on and put it in her teeth. She knelt down on one knee and removed something else from the parcel. She used it on something near the bottom of the door. A trip wire I figured. I heard a slight snip, and then another snip.
“Disarmed,” she said, and pushed the door open.
Inside, just for safety measures, we turned on the lights and looked through the house. There was a bomb at the back door too.
Vanilla cut some wires like before. She said, “This would have blown you in half. Either one of them. You pushed the door open, it would have pulled the wires, and that would have pulled a trigger. You go boom, baby.”
She picked the bomb up and carried it inside and placed it on the kitchen table, which is where she had put the other one. She walked into the living room, looked around. Her coat fell open and one long, black, panted leg poked out. Just for the record, she was wearing what Brett calls sensible shoes, low slung and soft and easy to move in. Even under the circumstances, I couldn’t help but note she was breathtakingly beautiful-an evil wet dream with vanilla creme skin, sea blue eyes, and bloodred lipstick.
“Cozy,” she said.
We stood across from each other. I still had the revolver in my hand. She said, “You really ought to put your rod away.”
I put the revolver in my coat pocket.
“We never seem to meet just to say hi,” she said.
“This is only the second time we’ve met,” I said.
“But it was such an exciting meeting.”
“Truth is, I don’t feel like a lot of chitchat right now.”
“Because of Leonard,” she said.
I hesitated before I answered. “That’s right. How would you know about that? How would you know to check my house for a bomb?”
“I’ve been watching you. I wasn’t watching Leonard. I wasn’t sure I was going to warn you. I was here to do it, but I wasn’t sure I’d go through with it. I was down the street, parked in a car at the curb when Leonard left. I saw it was him, I stayed. I’m here to protect you, not him. Later, I followed you to the hospital. I figured things out. I know how to ask the right questions at a hospital desk without seeming nosy. I told them I was your sister. They told me whatever I asked.”
“How clever of you.”
“You and me, we need to sit down on the couch and talk.”
“I don’t feel all that chatty. Thanks for not letting me get blown up, but I got things to do.”
She looked back at the kitchen. “You have anything to drink?”
“Vanilla…”
“No. Really. We need to talk.”
60
“So,” I said, when we were seated on the couch, “you were just in the neighborhood.”
“You don’t have any vodka?”
“No. You already asked.”
“A beer?”
“Nope.”
I had given her a diet soda, and she was sipping it. I was so nervous I was about to vibrate out of the room. She seemed very casual. We had turned off the main lights. She thought it a good idea, in case anyone was watching the house, waiting for it to blow.
The only light on now was the little plastic fish-shaped light plugged into the kitchen outlet over the counter. The light from it stretched into the living room, but it was faint and soft.
“You didn’t get blown up, so they’ll come back,” Vanilla said.
“Are you Devil Red as well as Vanilla Ride?”
“Devil Red,” she said. “That’s a funny name.”
“So is Vanilla Ride.”
“That’s the name I was given,” she said. “Devil Red, that’s made up.”
“But you know who I’m talking about?”
“I do. And we can use that term if you like.”
“Considering you tried to kill me before, you’re awfully pleasant.”
“I’m always pleasant.”
“I’ve seen you less pleasant.”
“Oh, come on, Hap. Let bygones be bygones. We made up, remember.”
“We never quarreled. And still, you tried to kill me.”
“Killing people for money. It’s what I do.”
“Look, Vanilla, my brother may be dying. Someone shot him. Someone is gonna die if I have my way. If that’s you, or whoever-”
“It’s not me. But it is…” She hesitated as she worked the words around in her mouth. “Devil Red.”
“All right, now I know. I just have to find him.”
She looked at me and smiled faintly. “You’re not up to it, Hap. You’re not up to me.”
“So, why are you here? Tell me where I can find Devil Red, and let me get about my business, up to it or not.”
“Don’t you wonder how I knew you were in trouble?”
“It’s not high on my priority list right now.”
“Let’s put it there. Jimson called me.”
By then, of course, I knew that if she had seen me beside the road, that it was her who had given Jimson a visit. But I didn’t let on. I wanted to hear it from her.
“I thought he was afraid of you,” I said.
“He wanted me and him to be friends. He wanted me to know the whole thing about deciding to have me killed was just business.”
“How’d you take that?” I said.
“I understood his position. I understand business. I would probably have just taken the job he was offering
