Live Bait

down. First the Nazis killed the Jews, right? So you know what happened right here in our fair city? Three old ass- kicking Jews got themselves a Nazi. Is that righteous, or what?’

Roadrunner gaped at him. ‘I think that’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard you say.’

‘What?’

‘Harleyey tied a ninety-year-old man to the train tracks so he’d get smushed.’

Harley shrugged, genuinely baffled. ‘He was a Nazi, for chrissake. What’s your problem?’

‘Like most civilized men, Harley, I have this little problem with murder. They should have turned him in, sent him to The Hague. Courts, lawyers, fair trial, does any of this ring a bell? It’s not exactly a new concept…’

‘Ah, bullshit. The only good Nazi is a dead Nazi. You don’t believe me? Ask any German and they’ll tell you the same thing.’

‘How do you know what the Germans think?’

‘Because, Mr Chickenshit I Won’t Fly, I go to Germany at least once a year to buy wine and party with some of the most hospitable people in the world who happen to live in one of the most beautiful countries in the world, and that’s not even getting into the exceptional quality of their lager, or the cars… and those people hate Nazis.’

Annie leaned across the aisle and whispered to Grace. ‘I am not riding all the way to Arizona with those two madmen.’

Grace sighed and smiled, totally happy to be right here, listening to Harley and Roadrunner snipe at each other, Annie complaining – the absolute sounds of family, she thought. Sometimes she loved these people so much it hurt. And some days, when she was feeling really good about herself, she felt that way about Magozzi, too.

Annie was reading her mind again. ‘You’re going to miss Magozzi, aren’t you?’

‘He’s a nice man, Annie.’

‘He’s a prince,’ Harley bellowed. ‘A hail-fellow-well-met. I love the guy. Every time I see him, I want to kiss him on the lips. How’s the old bastard doing, anyway?’

Grace shrugged. ‘It’s been a bad week.’ She looked at Annie. ‘There was a shooting last night. All part of the Nazi-Jew thing, I think. He lost a cop, and had to kill a kid.’

‘Oh, Lord. Magozzi does dearly hate to kill people. Poor man.’

Grace nodded. ‘I’m going over to his place tonight. Sort of a bon voyage dinner.’

‘You should sleep with him,’ Annie decided. ‘That always makes men feel better.’

Harley actually turned his head around to look at Grace. ‘Are you kidding me? You haven’t slept with him yet? I thought this guy was Italian.’

‘I think we should paint the name on this bus,’ Roadrunner piped up, changing the subject abruptly.

‘This is not a bus, dumbshit, but putting the name on it isn’t a bad idea. I can see it now. “Chariot” in big scripty letters on the front and sides…’

Annie looked appalled. ‘You renamed the company Chariot?’

‘No, no, Harley named the bus that isn’t a bus Chariot. He names everything. You want to know what he calls his dick?’

‘God, no.’

‘And that’s not what I meant, anyway, Harley. We should paint the name of the company on the bus. Gecko, Incorporated. I see green letters, and maybe the g is a curled-up lizard’s tail.’

Annie and Grace looked at each other. Harley just dragged a big hand down his face.

‘We are not renaming this company after a creepy little reptile,’ Annie said firmly.

Roadrunner pouted. ‘Well I don’t see any of the rest of you coming up with a new name.’

‘I’ve been thinking about it,’ Grace said quietly, and everyone looked at her. ‘Let’s call it Monkeewrench.’

No one said anything for a minute.

‘That name’s had some pretty bad press, Grace,’ Harley said.

‘So has the USA, and nobody suggested changing that name.’

Annie mulled it over for a bit, then reached over and patted Grace’s knee. ‘I like it,’ she said with a smile. ‘It’s who we are.’

44

Pleasantly warm days, cool, cool nights. That’s what the Canadian cold front had left behind when it had pushed the storms out of the state last night. By six-thirty the temperature had already dropped to fifty-five degrees, and Magozzi stood on his front porch in a heavy black sweat-shirt, wondering what it would be like to live in a place where the temperature didn’t leap or drop forty degrees in any twenty-four-hour period. Boring, probably. For a lot of Minnesotans, conversation would grind to a halt.

Bodies sunburned by the weeklong heat wave were encased in sweats and windbreakers as they took their evening jog, or walked tongue-lolling dogs along the sidewalk before hurrying home. There was a stiff, chill wind tonight, and Magozzi could already smell wood smoke rising from nearby chimneys.

It was a good night for a fire. He’d laid one in his own house earlier, then stood on the empty expanse of carpet in front of the hearth, trying to figure out where he and Grace would sit. He’d remembered to decant the red wine and chill the white, lay the table in the little kitchen, right down to forks, knives and spoons, even though he’d always thought spoons were pretty useless utensils, and then he’d imagined a cozy, languorous evening in front of a roaring fire. The one thing he’d forgotten was that he didn’t have any furniture to speak of, and he had never once seen Grace MacBride sit on the floor. She wouldn’t like that. It would take too long to jump up and shoot somebody if you had to, and Grace spent her life assuming she would have to.

‘Let me give you two words,’ Gino had said this afternoon when he’d learned Grace was actually going to visit Magozzi at his house for a change. ‘Bower birds.’

‘Thanks, Gino. I’ll cherish those two words forever.’

‘Don’t be a wiseass. I’m trying to educate you.’

‘Okay.’

‘The male bower birds – there’s a whole bunch of different kinds – build these elaborate nests on the ground, like little portable caves made out of twigs and branches and vines and shit like that, and then they go find pretty stuff, like flower petals, or sparkly bits of stone, and they scatter that all around so the place looks great. That’s how they attract females. The guy with the prettiest bower wins. Now the unhappy moral of this little story is that, Leo, my friend, you got the ugliest bower in town.’

Magozzi sighed and looked out over his scabby lawn with the dying spruce, at the single chaise on the porch and the Weber grill with its duct-taped legs. He considered digging around in the dirt for a few sparkly stones, but in the end, he just picked up the roll of duct tape that was still lying next to the grill and went inside. It was the best he could do on short notice.

At precisely 7 P.M. he opened his front door and looked at Grace MacBride standing on his porch, and felt pretty pleased with himself. He’d gotten her here without a single sparkly stone.

She was wearing a full-length fringed buckskin coat he’d never seen before over her English riding boots, somehow making the clash of cultures look right. Black hair curling a little over her shoulders, blue eyes smiling at him, even though her mouth wasn’t.

He took the grocery bag she was holding in one hand, and looked down at the laptop she was carrying in the other. ‘Are we going to play computer games?’

‘Later,’ she replied, striding in like she owned the place, taking possession of all the air. ‘I want to give you your present first.’

He closed the door and faced her in the little foyer, which was fast becoming his favorite room in the house. It had a little table on one wall where he tossed his keys, and he considered it fully furnished.

Grace set down her laptop, straightened, and gripped the front plackets of the coat, elbows out. ‘Ready, Magozzi?’

‘I don’t know. Are you going to flash me?’

The smile made it down to her mouth as she opened the coat and let it slide to the floor, and in a way, Magozzi thought, she had flashed him. Even in her jeans, boots, and black silk T-shirt, she had to feel naked, because she