Mixed Up with the Mob

“Great’s my favorite.”

She hummed a few bars of the old song about the Purple People Eater. Mark giggled. Just as he always did.

The normalcy of the moment helped set her fears at bay. But she knew it was just a temporary reprieve. Something had happened last night. Something terrible. And she didn’t know why.

But she had to find out.

If not for her sake, then for the sake of the child she loved so much.

“Wanna watch my shows, Aunt Lauren.”

“Sure thing, kiddo.” She grabbed the remote and clicked on the children’s educational program Mark liked. She pulled out ingredients and mixed batter for the waffles. She sprinkled water to test the heat of the electric waffle maker, then spritzed it with nonstick spray, and finally poured the thick mixture onto the distinctive, ridged surface.

The scent of food made her stomach rumble.

As she withdrew a plate from the warming drawer where she’d put it five minutes earlier, the doorbell sang with the Westminster chimes.

“Whozzat?” Mark asked.

“Good question.” Lauren wasn’t expecting company. And no one she knew would just show up so soon after a death in the family.

“Only one way to find out, kiddo.”

Mark nodded, his attention on the television set.

“Stay here, okay?”

He nodded again.

“I’ll be right back.”

“’S okay, Aunt Lauren. Go on.”

She headed toward the front of the house, a smile on her lips.

A smile that died when she looked out the tiny round peephole.

The stranger on the front stoop didn’t exactly give her a case of the warm fuzzies. Although he was well dressed in an expensive-looking charcoal summer-weight wool suit, his hard-set features and brooding gaze alarmed her.

She’d just about decided to pretend she wasn’t home, when the guy rang the bell again. The melodious chimes were followed by pounding.

“I know youse in there,” he said, his voice a low growl. “So open up already.”

With a prayer for protection, Lauren opened the door—but only as far as the chain on the lock would let her.

“Yes?”

The man looked startled. “Oh. It’s you.”

It was her turn to be surprised. “Of course, it’s me. I live here. Who’re you?”

His chin, just shaved but already darkened by the regrowth of heavy beard, jutted. “So where’s your old man?”

“My old man?”

“What’s wrong with youse? Can’t you hear right?” He shook his head. “Where’s Ric? Last time I spoke wid him he told me to be here by ten. And no one can say ah…er…Boris Martinez is ever late.”

A spooky feeling overtook Lauren. Boris Martinez had talked to Ric. And what kind of phony, cooked-up kind of name was Boris Martinez, anyway? Who really was this guy? “You…you talked with Ric?”

He muttered something.

She was glad she didn’t quite catch it.

“That’s what I said, ain’t it? I talked to Ric, and he told me to be here by ten. I’m here, and you ain’t him. So where is he?”

Tears filled her eyes. Too many emotions to identify any one ripped through her. Lauren closed her eyes for a moment, prayed for help, for peace, for this horrid person to leave her alone.

“Ric’s dead, Mr. Martinez.”

That shocked him. After a few moments of slack-jawed surprise, he clamped his mouth shut and narrowed his gaze. “How can he be dead, lady? I just talked to him…oh, not three weeks ago. And I woulda heard if someone’d—” He stopped, cleared his throat. “I woulda heard if something’d happened to him.”

Lauren had had it with her unwanted visitor. “Well, something did happen to him. Three weeks ago, as a matter of fact. And it doesn’t matter whether you heard about it or not. My brother died in a car accident twenty-four days ago, Mr. Martinez. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a lot to do. Goodbye.”

He stuck the pointed toe of his hand-sewn leather shoe in the crack between the door and the frame. “Not so fast, lady. I don’t believe a word you said. Ric DiStefano ain’t dead. And you better not try and pull a fast one on me. He owes me a whole pile of dough. And he ain’t about to stiff me by pretending he’s stiff—you get my drift?”

All she wanted was for him to leave. So she said, “Fine. I’ll be sure to tell him the next time I see him. At the cemetery, when I go put flowers on his grave.”

“We’ll see about that grave thing,” he groused.

Lauren looked down at his fancy footwear, then, with determination and total disgust, she did what she should have done at the start. She shoved her foot against his, dislodged it enough to gain a scant advantage, and shut the door.

Despite the house’s heavy construction and the thick wooden door, she heard his objections all the way to the kitchen.

If he didn’t leave in the next five minutes, she was calling the cops. No matter what.

Because now she realized that the deer-in-the-headlights feeling she’d experienced last night had been no accident. Something was going on. Something dangerous. Something she didn’t like.

And she wasn’t going to just sit and take it.

She was going to find out what was what.

Lauren didn’t know how or why she knew it, but she did know her life depended on what she learned. Worse yet, Mark’s life depended on it.

And no one was going to hurt that little boy.

No matter what.

FOUR