Death by Chocolate

corner, and there they were with their faces hanging out—no
masks or pantyhose—plain as day.
    “And two....” She fixed him
with eyes that were star-tlingly blue. They cut through him like icy knives and
made him feel sick and small, just like he had a second before Grandma had
whacked him with Grandpa’s big leather belt. “It’s just wrong,” she said, “and
if you do something as wrong as killing somebody, you’ll pay a really big price
for it.”
    “Shut her up!” Ferris
yelled at the guy. “Shut your old lady up before I blow her head off.”
    The man’s face changed; it
actually twisted into some sort of an angry grin. And all of a sudden, it
occurred to Rodney that—except for the gray hair and the baggy clothes—he
didn’t look all that old, or weak.
    “What was that you were
saying, honey?” the guy asked the woman with the walker.
    “I was saying.... I have
three good reasons why you shouldn’t be doing this...”
    Time seemed to slow down
for Rodney. It was a moment he would play over and over again in his mind for
years to come and remember every detail: the young woman who wouldn’t give up
her engagement ring, softly sobbing behind him, the bank employees and other
customers shaking and pale in a tight circle behind the counter, the gal with
the walker, moving still closer to him, talking....
    “Three reasons, and all of
them good ones. Like I said: One, they’ll give you the needle when they catch
up with you. Two, it’s just wrong, and three—”
    Rodney didn’t know what hit
him. At least, not at first. Later, much later, they would realize it was the
old lady’s walker.
    But at the time it was just
a blur of silver, the gun flying out of his hand, an awful pain across his
face, and the taste and feel of warm blood gushing out of his nose and down the
back of his throat as he fell backward to the cold marble floor.
    He was only dimly aware of
a scuffle on the other side of the room. Ferris’s cry of pain. The dull thud as
Big Cool Swaggering Cousin Ferris hit the floor, too.
    Rodney felt the weight of
somebody on him, mashing the air out of him. Somebody heavy. Strong hands
grabbed his shoulders and flipped him over onto his belly. His bloody nose
smacked against the floor, and for a moment he saw red and white stars of pain
flashing through his head. The same somebody twisted his hands behind him,
yanking his shoulders and elbows half out of their joints.
    In the corner of his eye he
could see just enough bright yellow and pink flowers to realize.... it was
Grandma!
    He could hear Ferris
yelling, “What? What the hell? What do you think you’re doing, Pops?”
    “Arresting you, numskull.
And don’t call me Pops or I’ll put these cuffs around your neck instead of your
wrists and cinch ‘em down good and tight.”
    “Got another pair of
cuffs?” he heard the woman on top of him say.
    “Nope.”
    “Here’s some duct tape,”
said a male voice from the crowd behind the counter. “Will that do?”
    “Sure. Just wind it around
here if you don’t mind.”
    Rodney heard the rip of the
tape, saw some brightly polished black shoes appear an inch or so from his
forehead. And some gray pinstriped trouser legs.
    The bank manager had been
wearing a pinstriped suit, he recalled, as the gravity of his situation began
to press down upon him.... along with the grandma’s knees in the small of his
back. The old gal had thrown him around like she was some sort of sumo wrestler
or something.
    Shit, Rodney thought. It’s
all on camera.
    By tomorrow the whole
country, everybody he knew or would ever know, would have seen his disgrace:
Old lady and old man take out desperate bank robbers with nothin’ but a fuckin’
walker. Film at eleven.
     
     
    Savannah sat on her sofa,
pen and tablet in hand, jotting down notes furiously as she stared at the
television screen, determined to miss nothing.
    “Gourmet Network again?”
Tammy Hart asked as she bounced across Savannah’s living room to the desk in the
corner that served as “Control Central” for the Moonlight Magnolia Detective
Agency. Not that there was any business to speak of that needed controlling at
the moment.
    “Yeah. Shhhh....” Savannah
said, scribbling ingredients and instructions for the Queen of Chocolate’s
latest creation: Deep Dark Chocolate Passion Layer Cake. “I gotta get this
down. I’m going to make it for you guys tonight when the boys come over for the
weekly briefing.”
    “They’re not