I needed a good laugh, and the hangdog expression on his face combined with the confession of pumpkin mayhem was priceless.
Honey, walking by with a pair of beers, shook her head. “Confessing, was he?” she asked me.
She must have gone home—or somewhere—to shower and change, too, because she was groomed back into her usual elegant self, complete with trousers and silk shirt. She was one of those women who knew how to wear makeup so that it drew your attention to her features and not to the makeup.
I nodded. “He hit me with a pumpkin,” I said, assuming a wide-eyed expression of astonishment to accompany my version of Ben’s English accent.
Ben was facedown on the table by this point, and he slapped it once. “With a pumpkin,” he agreed in a choked voice.
Honey grinned at the pair of us—the expression making her perfect face more human. “If I didn’t know better,” she said, “I’d ask what you’ve been drinking.” She looked at me. “Did you hear that Human Resources asked Ben to change how he answers his phone?”
“No?” I said in a tell-me-more tone.
“They informed me that ‘What the fuck’s your problem?’ was inappropriate,” Ben said without lifting his head.
“I heard it took two weeks before they asked him to go ahead and resume his old phrase,” Honey said.
“All of the new ways he answered his phone were even worse,” said Carlos from a nearby table.
“It only took them six days,” Ben said smugly.
Ben was dragged off by a pair of pack mates not long after that and I was left alone.
Adam sat back down in his chair, replacing my empty glass with another limeade.
“Ben fessed up,” I told him. “There was no secret plot to make you a widower via flying itty-bitty pumpkin. It was an accident.”
“I saw the two of you over here laughing like loons,” he said.
“He hit me with a pumpkin,” I told him, in my bad British accent. “He was gutted.”
Adam laughed.
2
George was the first to leave.
“I just got called in early tonight,” he told Adam, raising his voice to be heard over the music, as they exchanged hand grips. “Something went down at one of the grocery stores.”
Adam tensed. “Violence?”
George shrugged. “They are keeping it quiet for now—or they just don’t know yet.”
“Stay safe,” I said.
“You should talk,” George said, his eyes going to my bruised face. “I’ve taken bodies to the morgue who have been hit just there. Weak place in the skull.”
“Me, too,” said Adam, though his voice didn’t tighten. I realized that he must have been thinking that when he saw me fall at the corn maze. Sometimes knowledge only makes things worse.
“Not dead yet,” I reminded them. “I am hardheaded, I guess. When it’s my time, I’ll go, and it will probably be something stupid. But if heaven is kind, it won’t be a pumpkin that takes me out.”
“Fair enough,” acknowledged George with a faint smile. He touched his finger to his forehead in a final salute and headed for the exit.
“Let’s go talk to Zack,” Adam said.
Step one of the final planned task of the night. My stomach clenched, but at the same time, I felt an odd sort of relief. Waiting around sucked eggs.
“You don’t need me for this part,” I told him.
He gave me a half smile. “I like having you around.”
I left my fresh glass by the empty one and followed him to Zack’s table.
“I need you to stay for a bit after everyone else goes,” Adam murmured to him. “I can give you a ride home when we’re done.”
Next to Zack, Warren grunted, lifted up his hips, and pulled out a Subaru key fob that still had the dealer’s tag attached. “I’ll catch a ride home with someone. Zack, you take my car.”
“You have a new car?” I asked. Ever since I’d known him, Warren had driven a battered old epoxy-and-blue-and-rust truck.
“Present from Kyle,” Zack said, taking the fob from Warren without an argument.
I was momentarily distracted from my worry. Warren didn’t take presents that big from Kyle.
Warren and Kyle had lived for a long time in the World War II–era duplex Warren used to rent instead of Kyle’s upscale house because Warren was opposed to depending upon anyone else. Even after they had made Kyle’s house their home, Warren had clung to his apartment for a while. Accepting a gift as expensive as a new car was as big an admission of trust as anything I’d ever seen from him.