He looked like hell. Rosie had never been one to worry about personal hygiene overly-much, he groomed enough to make it not gross that he was serving coffee.
It was clear he’d slept a helluva lot less than I had and hadn’t had a shower since I last saw him.
“Rosie!” I cried. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking all over and worried sick.”
“Where are the diamonds?”
Uh, excuse me but this was beginning to piss me off. Why did everyone think I had the diamonds or knew where they were? I hadn’t even seen the fucking things.
He moved the gun jerkily and I quit thinking about the diamonds.
“Where are the diamonds?” he shouted.
I stopped staring at Rosie and started staring at the gun.
“I don’t know where they are.”
“Duke’s gone, they aren’t at his house.”
My eyes moved back to Rosie. He was definitely freaked out, panicked, and not in an artist-on-the-verge kind of way. It was far worse than that.
“You didn’t toss Duke’s house did you?” I asked.
“No! It was like that when I got there. I thought it was you and that crazy guy who taped me up.”
“I haven’t been to Duke’s but Duke’s coming back and I’m sure he knows where the diamonds are.” I tried to be calm and calm him. “Rosie, put down the gun, you need to stay someplace safe. I can call Lee –”
Rosie started waving the gun around and I stopped talking and stepped back.
“Don’t call that maniac. He taped me up! It took him, like, two seconds. I didn’t even get the chance to yell. I didn’t even hear him come in. He’s nuts.”
“Okay, I won’t call Lee. But Rosie, you have to be smart. Your friend –”
“He’s dead, they shot him. They fucking shot him!” He was shouting now, waving the gun around and seriously freaked out.
“Rosie –” I started.
“Yoo hoo!”
I heard the call from out the backdoor, complete with the clickety-clack of high heeled shoes and Chowleena’s nails on the bricks.
My neighbor, Tod.
“Tod, go back!” I yelled but Rosie had turned and pulled the trigger, shooting wild out the backdoor, three shots were squeezed off in as many seconds. I saw Tod’s arms flung out before him as he hit the deck and Chowleena started barking, each bark sending her upper body straight in the air. I knew this because I could hear the click of her nails hit the bricks every time she landed.
Rosie stared at the gun as if he forgot he was holding it and then ran out the door.
I ran after him.
“Rosie! Come back here! Don’t be stupid!”
But Rosie wasn’t listening to me. Rosie threw himself in a dark gray, old-model Nissan Sentra that was parked blocking my back alley and took off. I managed to read half the license plate before he turned left on Bannock and disappeared.
I ran back to the house. Tod was standing at my backdoor wearing a pair of white, to-the-knee jeans shorts, a wife beater and a killer pair of high heeled, strappy black sandals with sweet little bows on the peek-a-boo toes with rhinestones in the bows. He had his hand at his chest, his face was pale and considering the bloody areas, he’d scraped his knees and palms.
“Great shoes,” I said, trying to stay calm.
“I was coming over to show them to you, bought them yesterday,” Tod replied.
“Can I borrow them sometime?”
“Sure.”
Chowleena walked forward and shoved her face against my shins, completely unfazed by the gunplay. She was beige, small for a chow, fluffy in the extreme around her ruff with her butt shaved. The shin-butt was her way of giving a hug and saying, “hi” and, “give me a dog biscuit”. Her Dads were pretty strict about her diet but Auntie Indy was a pushover, one Chowleena hug and I had the dog biscuit box out.
We walked into the kitchen and I grabbed my cell, scrolled down to Lee’s number and hit the green button.
“Yeah?” Lee said after one ring.
“Rosie was just here. Took off north out of the alley onto Bannock in a dark gray Nissan Sentra.” I gave him the part of the license I could remember and he related the info to someone he was with, then he came back to me.
“How’s he look?”
“Not good and he had a gun.”
“How do you know he had a gun?”
“He was waving it at me and then he shot off three rounds when Tod came over for a surprise visit.”
Silence for a beat and then, “Tod?”
“My neighbor.”
Another silent beat, then, “Everyone okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Why’d Rosie come to you?”
“He thinks I know where the diamonds are.”
Lee sighed.
“Be there in ten.”
I flipped the phone shut, threw Chowleena a dog biscuit and deposited a still-stunned Tod in a chartreuse chair and ran up the stairs to my bathroom to get my medical supplies.
I was sitting on the ottoman, dabbing at Tod’s palm with alcohol-soaked cotton balls, then blowing on it to take the pain away, when Tod said, “I thought you were making up a story when you said you’d been shot at. I thought it was another one of your stories.”
“I don’t have any stories, all that shit I tell you actually happens.”