I heard shots being fired from the roof and it sounded like shots were being returned from the theater entrance. I flicked the flashlight off so I wouldn’t be an easy target, and I came to a dead stop in the dark. Diesel came up behind me, grabbed my hand, and pulled me along, the two of us running flat-?out. Me in blind trust, and Diesel not having a problem seeing.
We turned into the lobby, partially lit from the glass entrance doors, and beyond the glass doors I saw the black car take off.
Diesel and I pushed through the doors and stood against the building, sheltered from the rain, and watched the black car race out of the lot. My Monte Carlo was burning out of control in front of us.
“This is a pip of a fire,” Grandma said, coming up behind us with Lula and Connie.
“I was inside the theater, but I saw the Monte Carlo get hit,” Diesel said. “Who shot the rocket off?”
“I might have done that,” Lula said. “I’m pretty sure that launcher was defective.”
“Are you okay?” I asked Grandma.
“I could use some lipstick.”
Lula dropped Grandma, Diesel, and me at my apartment. We waved good-?bye and walked into the small lobby. The elevator doors were locked into the open position and a fan had been placed inside the elevator. Behind the fan was a pop-?up spring meadow air freshener.
“Someone must have left a stinker in there,” Grandma said.
We took the stairs and shuffled down the hall. There was a slight scent of horse when we entered my apartment, but it wasn’t unpleasant.
“I know this is crazy, but I sort of feel sorry for Lou Delvina,” Grandma said. “I heard him talking, and he was saying how his wife left him on account of Diesel giving him the rash and making him all swell up. That’s why Delvina wants his money back. So he can buy a big fancy house for his wife. He figures that would get her back.” Grandma slid her dentures around a little. “I tell you, that Delvina’s only got one oar dipped in the water. It’s a real sad thing to see. He used to be a respected mobster. And now he’s nutso cuckoo.”
I called my mother.
“I have Grandma here in my apartment,” I said. “I’ll bring her home in a little while.”
“Why can’t you bring her home now?”
“I’m having car issues.”
“I’ll send your father for her.”
I got Grandma spruced up as best I could, and she was ready to go when my father knocked on my door.
“There’s a fat guy who looks like a toad out in your parking lot,” my father said. “He’s talking to himself, and I think he’s making a Molotov cocktail.”
We all went to my window and looked out. Lou Delvina was in the lot, standing in the rain, trying to light a rag he’d crammed into a wine bottle. I opened the window and stuck my head out.
“Hey,” I said. “What are you doing?”
“I’m doing what I have to do,” Delvina yelled up at me.
He lit the rag and heaved the bottle. It crashed through the top pane of my living room window and rolled on the floor. Some of the carpet got singed, but the bottle didn’t break. Diesel grabbed the bottle and threw it back out the window. It smashed on the pavement next to Delvina’s black Town Car, and the Town Car was almost instantly consumed by flames.
“Eeek!” Delvina shrieked, jumping away from the fire. “Alien voodoo! Someone call the National Guard, Homeland Security, Men in Black.” He looked up at Diesel and shook his fist. “You’re not gonna get me. I know how it is with you aliens. I know what you do to people. This is a fight to the finish.” And Delvina ran out of the lot and disappeared from view.
“Poor man,” Grandma said. “Where do you suppose he got the idea Diesel is an alien?”
“As far as I’m concerned, none of this happened,” my father said to me. “I didn’t see anything. That’s what I’m telling your mother.”
I closed and locked the door when my father and grandmother left. Fire trucks screamed in the distance and black smoke billowed from the burning car. Diesel taped a plastic garbage bag to the broken window to keep the smoke and rain out of the apartment.
My phone rang and I saw from the display that it was Morelli.
“I hear there’s a car burning in your parking lot,” Morelli said.
“It’s not mine. My car was blown up and burned at the multiplex.”