A Body to die for

beaten unconscious and was in the emergency room? Would you prefer that?”
    “Yes.” I smiled at him. He smiled back. We had to twist ourselves into an uncomfortable position to kiss. It was wet and hot and worth it.
    Max said, “Is it me or is your skin five hundred degrees?” A knock on our apartment door kept me from answering. Ergort must have missed it, what with his search and destroy mission in our bedroom. I heard the tinkle of keys and then the door open.
    “Police!” we heard them yell as they burst in. Mr. Burpe had come through.
    I shouted, “In here.” The uniform, Frankie, the one who came here looking for Jack, popped his head in the bathroom. I said, “There’s a mad giant destroying our apartment.”
    Frankie spun around quickly. I heard the click of a bullet cartridge. A moment of silence floated over the apartment. It ended with an anguished scream and a gunshot. Cloddish feet thumped across the wood floors. There was a shuffle and then another shot. The silence returned.
    From under the sink, our sighs of relief echoed. Max said, “How did you know Mr. Burpe would actually call the cops?”
    “I didn’t.”
    “If he hadn’t, we’d be dead.”
    “Possibly,” I agreed.
    Max shook his head at the idea. “Kind of makes you want to get married and have kids, doesn’t it?”
    “Not really.”
     
    The cops had to call for reinforcements to carry Ergort out of our apartment. He was shot twice— once in the leg and once in the chest. It would have taken a cannon to kill Ergort. He hadn’t even passed out. The shooters were pretty amazed when I told them they’d wounded Ergort the ex-cop. Frankie said, “A year ago, you could have knocked him down with a wad of spit.” I wondered if they’d put that message on the police report.
    Ergort had been crying for darling Betty for half an hour before the cops made the connection. Then the wounded giant started blabbing his brains out. Falcone had sent him to my place. She’d ordered him to beat up Janey because she was beginning to get nervous about their plot. He fucked up and hit the wrong woman. Not knowing what to do, he just left Leeza in the Jacuzzi and waited for another chance at Janey.
    Mr. Burpe acted apologetic for calling the cops on us when he found out about Ergort. I told him to fuck off and that we were moving out at the end of the month. He hung his sorry Irish head in shame. I liked the picture, and filed it in my mental photo album.
    As soon as we could, Max and I left. I thought about Jack and how he’d saved me at the Detention Center. I wanted to go to the hospital. My arms were beginning to blister. But first, I had bigger fish to gut. We headed toward the heart of the Heights. I told Max the whole story—that Ameleth and Janey conspired to steal Larry’s formula to get rich. Barney was in on it, but he was killed. Ameleth swore she didn’t do it. But to thwart a long, probing investigation, she told Falcone about the super steroid and the chromium compound. She wanted in, so Falcone agreed to help frame Jack for the murder. Things went awry when Ameleth told me about the formulas. Had she waited, Janey could have told her she’d taken them from the murder scene herself to hide them safely. I vaguely remembered Janey hanging by the fridge that night. But Ameleth was impatient, and she opened up to me. She should have kept her mouth shut. She had the notebook—she didn’t really need the samples. Maybe she was innocent of murder. She had spilled to me because she wanted to know who did kill Barney.
    “It’s amazing you figured this out. God, you’re a lobster,” Max observed. “How long were you trapped in the tanning bed anyway?”
    “Oh, now you’re proud of my detecting skills?” I bet Ameleth went berserk when she discovered the notebook was gone. I pictured her frizzy hair standing on end.
    Max asked, “I can’t believe Leeza survived an attack by Ergort.”
    “Glad to hear you’re blaming him now.”
    “It was never your fault, Wanda.”
    “Easy for you to say now that it so clearly wasn’t,” I said.
    Max shook his head in disbelief. “You never cease to amaze me.”
    “But if I ever do, you’ll let me know?”
    “I hope that won’t be for a long, long time,” Max said. He put his arm around my waist. It felt prickly, but swell. “Where to now?” he asked.
    We’d walked a few blocks down Hicks Street to the corner of Montague. “To round up Barney’s killer,” I said. I