“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes. Do you have Annie and Bernie in the Civic?”
Diesel picked some hedge off the windshield wiper. “Yes. Is this car driveable?”
“The right-side tire is making grinding noises.”
Diesel checked out the right-side tire and pulled a large piece of hedge from the wheel well.
“That should help,” he said. “Hop over the console. I'm driving.”
I scrambled into the passenger seat, and Diesel took the wheel. He eased onto the road, drove a short distance, and made a U-turn. Flash did the same. Diesel waved Flash on, and Flash took the lead. We flew past Delvina's house and retraced our route until we were over the bridge and back in Jersey.
"So far as I can tell, Delvina doesn't know about Annie's
apartment,“ Diesel said. ”I'm going to bring Annie and Bernie there to regroup."
“Did Bernie give himself hives?”
“Apparently he went out of control and infected everyone around him, including himself. I didn't get a chance to find out much more than that.”
We motored through town, parked in the underground garage, and took the elevator to Annie's floor. Diesel opened the door, and I turned and looked at Flash and grimaced. His face was breaking out in hives.
“Oh shit,” Bernie said to Flash. “I'm really sorry. I'm not doing it on purpose, I swear. The rash is just leaking out of me.”
Flash scratched his stomach. “They're coming out all over. What do I do?”
“Get away from Bernie and try a cortisone cream,” Diesel said.
Flash ran down the hall and punched the elevator button.
Bernie limped into Annie's apartment. “I've got hives on the bottom on my feet,” he said to Diesel. “I've got them everywhere. You have to help me. I don't ever want to see another hive.”
I was keeping as far away from Bernie as possible. I was in the hallway leading to the bedroom, looking at everyone else in the living room.
“What about Annie?” Diesel said. “Are you going to leave her alone?”
“I've been chained to Annie for two days. I don't ever want to see her again either.”
“I thought we bonded,” Annie said.
Bernie scratched his arm. “Yeah, maybe. I guess you're okay. I don't know. I can't think straight. I just want to soak in some cold water or something.”
“I talked to Betty,” I said to Bernie. “She'd like to stay married, but she has some requests.”
“Anything! Cripes, look at this. I've got a hive under my fingernail!”
“I'm going to take you home and get you some salve,” Diesel said, “but first I need to know about Delvina. How'd he manage to get you and Annie?”
“I was nuts,” Bernie said. “I was trying to get to Annie, but you moved her out of her house, and I couldn't find her. So I got this idea that maybe she left something behind that would give me a clue. You know, like an address written on a pad. It happens all the time on television. Problem was, I broke into her house and ran into two goons who were tearing the place apart. I'm so dumb. I just walked right in on them.”
“Delvina was the original owner of the necklace,” Annie said. “We overheard him and his driver talking and pieced the story together. The necklace had a bank account number engraved on the back of it. It sounded like Delvina was being investigated for tax fraud, and he didn't want the necklace on his property, so he gave it to his girlfriend. When he found out she hocked it he almost had a seizure.”
Annie started to scratch her arm and stopped in mid-scratch and rammed her hands into her pockets. “He came really close to getting the necklace back, but for some reason the pawnshop owner decided to fake the robbery. So of course, Delvina came looking for me.”
“It was bad timing that I happened along,” Bernie said. “They didn't find the necklace in Annie's house, but since I broke in they figured I had to have some connection to Annie. And then they were fooling around and found her number in my cell phone. So one of Delvina's men called her and said he was me.”
“He sort of sounded like you,” Annie said. “He said he had something important to say to me. I was hoping you'd calmed down and wanted to talk. I didn't want to miss the opportunity.”