“Nice try, but no. And I don’t have bacon.”
I squished to the bedroom, took a quick shower, and dressed in dry clothes. I took the laundry basket from my closet, put my wet clothes in it, and carried it to the foyer. There was a huge pile of damp, discarded clothes in the foyer. Part mine. Part Diesel’s. I needed to do laundry.
I left the basket by the door and went to the kitchen and watched Diesel. He was making grilled cheese. He slid one out of the pan onto a plate and handed it to me.
“Thanks,” I said. “This looks great.”
My cell phone rang, and I looked at the screen.
“It’s all zeros,” I said to Diesel.
“It’s Wulf,” Diesel said.
“Ms. Plum,” Wulf said. “It has been brought to my attention that you were responsible for a fire that destroyed twenty-?three of my X-12 King rockets. I’m afraid I must demand that you replace them in twenty-?four hours, or I will have to sacrifice Gail Scanlon.”
“Sacrifice?”
“I’m sure you are familiar with the term. You may call this number when you are ready to deliver my rockets.”
“It was all zeros.”
“Just do it,” Wulf said. And he disconnected.
“Boy, he’s kind of cranky,” I said to Diesel.
“He’s not used to having his rockets blown up.”
I ate some of my sandwich. “He said they were X-12 King rockets, and I had to replace them by this time tomorrow, or he’d kill Gail. Where am I going to get twenty-?three rockets?”
Diesel finished his sandwich.
“Cuddles might have a source. We’ll hit the mall first thing tomorrow. If the mall is open, Cuddles is there. Turns out he’s not too crazy about Mrs. Cuddles. Likes to spend as much time as possible at the office.”
SINCE THE MALL didn’t open until ten o’clock, I took the luxury of sleeping late. I straggled into the kitchen at nine-?thirty a.m., ate a strawberry Pop-?Tart, and polished off a mug of coffee. Diesel was already up, slouched against the counter, watching.
“Ready to rock and roll?” he asked.
I put my coffee mug in the dishwasher, went to the foyer to grab my bag, and realized I didn’t have any clean sweatshirts. My denim jacket was in the laundry basket soaking wet. Munch’s jacket was in the laundry basket. My only remaining jacket was a black wool peacoat.
“What?” Diesel said.
“I haven’t got a sweatshirt to wear.”
His backpack was sitting on the floor
in the foyer. He pulled a black sweatshirt out of the pack and tugged the sweatshirt over my head. I had an extra six inches on the sleeves, and the bottom of the sweatshirt almost came to my knees. Diesel pushed the sleeves up to my elbows.
“Perfect,” he said. “Let’s go to the mall.”
A half hour later, we found Cuddles in the food court sucking down a chocolate milk shake. He was in his fifties, average height, glasses, extra-?curly brown hair that blossomed out in a white man’s Afro. Bald on top. Baggy tan pants. Red plaid shirt. He was the last person in the mall I’d pick out to be selling contraband rockets and barium. He looked like Woody Allen all swollen up.
Diesel and I sat down at Cuddles’s table, and Cuddles didn’t look happy to see us.
“This table is for paying customers,” Cuddles said.
“We might be paying,” Diesel told him.
“Oh?”