“You don't want to know. And I don't want to tell you. Let's just leave it alone for now.”
“I've been thinking about Beaner. Maybe we should talk to Mrs. Beaner. Does she live in the Trenton area?”
“She lives in Hamilton Township.”
“Is she Unmentionable? Does she have scary, evil skills?”
“She's mildly Unmentionable. Doesn't do much with it. Mostly parlor tricks. Bending spoons and winning at rummy. I interviewed her when I got the Beaner assignment.”
“And?”
“You know everything I know. She said she was tired of marriage. Wanted to try something else. She told me Beaner blamed it all on Annie Hart, but Annie didn't have anything to do with it. Annie was just a friend. She didn't know where Beaner was staying, but clearly it was in the Trenton area because he was determined to get even with Annie.”
“That's it? Why didn't you ask her to lure Beaner over to discuss things, and then you could jump out of the closet and do your bounty hunter thing and capture Beaner?”
“She knows better than to be around when Beaner goes down. There'll be fallout, and she wants no part of it.”
“What about you? Aren't you afraid of Beaner?”
“It takes a lot to damage me, and Beaner doesn't have that kind of power. The best he could do is make me mildly uncomfortable.”
“Okay, how about this? We get Mrs. Beaner to lie to her husband. Set up a bogus meeting.”
“Tried that. She wouldn't do it.”
I mushed a piece of bread around in my leftover sauce. “You know what that means.”
Diesel did a palms-up. He didn't know what it meant.
“She still cares about him,” I said. “She doesn't want to betray him. She doesn't want him captured and neutralized or whatever it is that you do.”
Diesel helped himself to a second chunk of lasagna. “Maybe. Or maybe she just doesn't want to get involved.”
“I could talk to her.”
“Probably not a bad idea,” Diesel said. He looked at his watch. “Here's the plan. I get Albert out into the air and walk him around the block and try to figure out what the heck he wants to do about getting married. You talk to your sister and see if she's on board. And at eight, we try our luck at Ernie's Bar. If thing's don't work out, tomorrow you visit Mrs. Beaner.”
Stephanie Plum 12.5 - Plum Lovin
Chapter 7
We were in my car, on our way to Ernie's. It had stopped snowing, but the sky was moonless black, and the air had a bite to it.
“How'd it go with Albert?” I asked Diesel.
“He didn't faint, but he wasn't real coherent. From what I can tell, he wants to get married, but the thought of the ceremony freaks him out. Apparently the poor guy's even tried getting hypnotized, but he still can't get down the aisle.”
“How about tranquilizers?”
“He said he tried them and had an allergic reaction and went gonzo.”
“I talked to Valerie, and she pretty much told me the same thing. Not that I didn't know it already. He's really a sweet guy. He loves the kids, and he loves Valerie, and I know he would love being married. It's getting married that's the problem.”
Diesel cruised down the street and pulled to the curb across from Ernie's.
“Is he in there?” I asked Diesel.
“I don't think so,” Diesel said after a couple beats, “but it wouldn't hurt for you to take a look anyway.”