Janet Evanovich - The Grand Finale

“We don’t have any pizzas for take-out made up yet,” Mrs. Fitz said. “But we’d be happy to take an order.”

The kid took a semiautomatic out of his raincoat pocket and pointed it at Mrs. Fitz. “How about you just empty your cash register,” he said.

Berry and Mrs. Fitz froze.

“Now!” he said.

Berry carefully moved to the cash register. “We haven’t got much money,” she said to him. “We just opened up.”

“Whatever,” the kid said. “Just hand it over.”

“Honestly,” Mrs. Fitz said to him. “Don’t you have anything better to do than to rob two women? You should be ashamed.”

“And you should be dead,” the kid said. “How old are you, anyway?”

Mrs. Fitz narrowed her eyes and gripped the sauce ladle. “I’m not too old to take care of you. You need to learn some manners.”

Berry had a hundred dollars in twenties and fives in the cash register. She gathered them up and held them out to the kid.

The kid moved to Berry, reached for the money, and Mrs. Fitz whacked him on his head with the sauce spoon. Pizza sauce splattered everywhere, and the kid’s eyes went blank for a moment. Mrs. Fitz gave him another klonk on the head, and he staggered back and dropped the gun.

“Are you okay?” Mrs. Fitz said to him. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

The kid shook his head and looked at his hand. “I’m bleeding. You just about killed me.” And he turned and ran out the door and down the street.

“It was pizza sauce,” Mrs. Fitz said.

Berry dialed the police and reported the attempted robbery.

“They’re sending someone over,” she told Mrs. Fitz. “Lock the door until the police get here and leave the gun on the floor. And don’t tell anyone else about this.” Especially don’t tell Jake, she thought.

It was ten o’clock at night and Berry and Jake sat in the dark, looking out the window of his station wagon.

“I’ll be right back,” Berry said. “This is the last pizza of the night. As soon as I get this sucker delivered we can go home.”

“Sit tight,” Jake said. “I’ll deliver it.”

“Thanks, but I’ve got it.”

“The hell you do. I’m delivering this pizza.”

“It’s my job, my Pizza Place, my pizza.”

Jake looked at the dingy yellow brick apartment building. “It’s late, and that’s a four-story walk-up in a lousy neighborhood. I’m not going to sit here cooling my heels while you’re in some dark hallway quietly getting mugged.”

“I’ve delivered pizzas here before.”

“Good. Now it’s my turn,” he said, grabbing the pizza box. “Lock the doors when I get out.”

Berry grabbed the other side of the box and tugged. “You’ll deliver this pizza when pigs fly.”

Jake gasped and looked out the window. “Look at that!”

Berry strained to see. “What?”

Jake jumped from behind the wheel with the pizza and slammed the door shut behind him. “Flying pigs,” he called to Berry.

Berry narrowed her eyes. “Son of a beet!”

She stomped into the building and climbed the stairs, catching Jake on the third floor.

“I hate being told what to do,” Berry said to Jake. “Nobody can tell me what to do. This is my business. That was my pizza.”

“After we’re married this will be a community property pizza. You might as well get used to it.”

“Read my lips. We’re not getting married.”

“You’ll come around,” Jake said, knocking on an apartment door.

“If I wasn’t so tired from all those stairs, I’d kick you in the knee,” Berry said.

The door opened and an old guy with a lot of tattoos and gray hair tied back into a ponytail looked out at them. “What is this, tag team pizza delivery?”

“She’s crazy about me,” Jake said to the old guy. “Follows me everywhere. That’ll be ten bucks for the pizza.”

The guy handed the money to Jake. “I should have problems like that,” the guy said.

“It’s not as good as it looks,” Jake told him. “She snoops in men’s windows and once she smashed my pizza.”

“She don’t look violent,” the guy said.

“Looks can be deceiving.”

Berry turned on her heel and stomped down the stairs. She was all the way to the foyer before Jake caught up with her.

“That was embarrassing,” Berry said to Jake.

“Yeah, but he gave me a nice pity tip,” Jake said. “We might have something here.” Jake opened the downstairs door and stared at the empty street. “Where’s the car?”

It was almost one o’clock in the morning when Jake and Berry trudged through the front door of his house. They silently made their way to the kitchen and began fixing a midnight snack of gigantic proportions. They carried the contents of the refrigerator to the round oak table and in the silvery light of moonbeams scoffed down pickles, sandwiches, ice cream, potato salad, and a pint of strawberries.

Jake pushed back from the table while Berry picked at the last strawberry.

“It’s okay,” Jake said. “I’ll rent a new car in the morning. The police were pretty reasonable, considering that’s the second car we’ve had stolen in less than a week.”

“In less than a week I’ve squashed a Jeep, I’ve had two cars stolen, and my apartment’s been charbroiled.” And I’ve almost been robbed at gunpoint, she silently added. “Do you think someone’s trying to tell me something?”

Jake shrugged. “That’s just the negative side. What about the plus side?”

“What have I got on the plus side?”

“Our friendship.”

Berry’s heart got happy. Jake Sawyer thought their friendship was important. Imagine that. He liked her! He really liked her. She thought about their earlier conversation in the basement and his cavalier assumption that they’d get married. Was he serious? She rolled her eyes. Of course not! You don’t just come out and announce to a woman that you’re going to marry her and have a hundred kids and community property pizza. Besides, he’d had plenty of time to continue the conversation in the car on the way back to his house, but he’d never raised the subject. A wave of disappointment washed over her. Oh, great, she thought with a grimace. Disappointment. I’m in big trouble here. My emotional clock is not in tune with my plan.

She would have to be strong. She would refuse to fall in love-and if she already was in love she would refuse to admit it. What she needed was some good old-fashioned hostility. A mean streak to cover up all those cozy feelings.

Jake took her hand in his and tenderly kissed the inside of her wrist.

Berry snatched her hand away. “Don’t kiss my wrist.”

“Okay. What would you like me to kiss?”

“I don’t want you to kiss anything.”

“What a load of baloney.” He took her hand back and kissed the soft center of her palm. “How about if I kiss your-”

“Don’t you dare!”

He sucked on the tip of her index finger. “Can I kiss it in the shower?”

“We’re not taking a shower. Stop that!” She swallowed hard when he resumed the sucking, this time touching his tongue to the tip of her finger. She bopped him on the side of the head with a bag of bread. “I said stop that.”

“Playing hard to get, huh?”

“I’m not playing anything.” Berry stood at the table. “You’re going to have to go home.”

“I am home.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot.” She carted the pickle jars and packages of lunchmeat to the refrigerator, feeling like the village idiot. She wasn’t good at this sort of thing. She was too inexperienced, too overwhelmed by his sexuality, too easily flustered by her own attraction to him.

Upstairs a door creaked open, and one of the ladies padded down the carpeted hall to the bathroom.

Jake put the last of the dishes in the dishwasher. “I’ll bet you a dollar it’s Mrs. Dugan. I can tell by that authoritarian thump, thump, thump of her slippers.”

“Mrs. Dugan’s keeping her eye on you.”

“I know. She has her radar tuned to the sound of lips meeting.” He pulled Berry into the circle of his arms. “I think we should put it to a test. Let’s see how fast we can get Mrs. Dugan out of the bathroom.”

She really shouldn’t be kissing him, she thought, but this was sort of a scientific experiment. Who was she to stand in the way of science?

“This is the first of the good-night kisses,” Jake told her. His warm lips brushed hers, and his hands splayed across her lower back, pressing her gently into him. When he spoke, his voice whispered into her mouth. “There are all kinds of good-night kisses. There are good-night kisses when you’re done making love and you know it’s been a very special night.” He kissed the sensitive spot just below her ear and moved his hand to her breast. “And there are good-night kisses that are the prelude to making love. Kisses that are hungry and impatient.” His hand tightened slightly.

The bathroom door opened and feet traversed the upstairs hallway, stopping at the head of the stairs. “Somebody down there?”

“It’s just us, Mrs. Dugan,” Jake answered. “We were having a bite to eat before coming to bed.”

“It’s late. It’s time nice young ladies were in bed.”

“I’m trying,” Jake sighed.

“Alone!”

“Why couldn’t you adopt a bunch of old ladies who were hard of hearing?” Jake asked Berry.

Berry smiled in spite of herself. “And then there are good-night kisses that simply say, Good night.”

He was doing it again. He was dressing in front of her. The man was a flaming exhibitionist. Berry huddled under her covers and listened to the sounds of buttons and zippers. He had no modesty. He had no scruples.

“Aren’t you dressed yet?” she asked.

“Why don’t you come out from under those covers and find out?”

Berry didn’t have to come out from under the covers. She knew he wasn’t dressed. She could tell by the goose bumps on her arm. Damn him, anyway.

“Why do you have to get dressed in my room?”