“Did you sell some old-timey whiskey for Freddie?” I asked.
“No.”
Leona aimed her pistol more precisely. “Want to taste lead, buster?”
Vinny raised his hands in surrender and plastered his back against the wall. “Okay, okay! Freddie contacted me, wanted to meet. And we did. He wanted to know if I could find a buyer for a stash of whiskey he’d found. Good stuff. I said I thought I knew a guy, but I’d have to get back to him. Next thing I heard, Freddie was dead.”
“Did he ever bring you the booze?” I asked.
“Just one bottle, to that first meeting. You know, like a sample of the merchandise.”
“Maybe you decided you didn’t want to be the middleman,” I said, thinking on my feet. “Maybe you thought you’d steal the stash of booze and sell it yourself.”
“I don’t even know where to find the stash,” Vinny protested. “Freddie never told me.”
Carmen reached her cane over the display case and pinned him to the wall with it. “You could have followed him.”
“But I didn’t! I swear!”
Vinny was a lowlife and a crook, but was he a killer? I wasn’t sure. Maybe he was telling the truth about Freddie. I had a hunch that he was. But I didn’t exactly have the best judgment when it came to people, especially men.
When Carmen pulled back her cane, Vinny took a step forward and reached beneath the display case.
In a flash, he whipped out a baseball bat and brandished it in the air. “Get out of my shop, you crazy old bats!”
“I’m twenty-eight!” I objected.
“And still as nutty as a fruitcake!” he shot back.
Leona held her pistol steady. “We ain’t leaving without Bitty’s jewelry.”
She and Vinny stared at each other. I could almost hear Wild West showdown music playing in the background.
Vinny broke first. “Fine!” Keeping hold of the baseball bat, he used his free hand to grab items out of the case. He slammed thebrooch, pearls, necklace, and three rings onto the counter. “Take them and get the hell out of here.”
Carmen swept the jewelry into her handbag and snapped it shut. She leveled a glare at Vinny. “Your mother must be ashamed of you. Bitty certainly will be.”
Vinny raised the bat and came running out from behind the display case.
“Pizza!” I screamed, shoving Agnes and Carmen in the direction of the door. I grabbed Leona’s arm and dragged her along with me. “Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!”
We burst out the door and onto the sidewalk, stumbling into one another.
For one terrified second, I thought Vinny would follow us out onto the street with his bat. Instead, he yanked the door shut and locked it.
Emboldened by the glass door between us, Agnes stuck out her tongue at him.
Vinny glowered at us and raised the bat again.
I grabbed Agnes’s arm and ran off down the street.
Chapter
Forty-Two
“I think I’ve aged ten years this week,” I said to Bodie as I slouched on a barstool.
I’d stopped by his place of employment after leaving the pawnshop, driven by a powerful need to see him again. Maybe I should have ignored that desire, but I was getting tired of denying my feelings.
