Page 20 of Love vs The Ooze Monster!
“Mr. Carmine kept all the trucks in this town running on time.” She persisted. “Did you even think about that? Highway 99 is a reliable corridor for distribution. His organization was good enough, for now. It was easy to deal with him, because he was predictable.”
“Someone else would have bumped him off, eventually. The man was dabbling in opium smuggling and God only knows what else.”
“Oh,Iwould have bumped him off, eventually.” She waved a dismissive hand. “But that’s not the point. The timing is bad, Boyd. When you make these huge, unilateral decisions without consulting me, there’s bound to be scheduling issues…” She broke off when he turned to stare at her in astonishment. “What?”
“You just called me ‘Boyd.’”
Drat.
Shehadcalled him ‘Boyd.’ “No, I didn’t.” She sniffed anyway.
His mouth curved. Even in the dim light his smile was beautiful. “Keep doing it.” He instructed and gave the knob a practiced twist. The door creaked open, without him even looking towards it. “Come on.” He rose to his feet. “Let’s find out what your live-in boyfriend is up to.”
“Norris isn’t my boyfriend and you know it.”
“Oh, Idoknow it. If Ididn’tknow it, he’d already be swimming with Carmine.”
She rose above that cheery remark. “Most likely, Norris is up to nothing, but crossword puzzles and planning wakes. There are plenty of other sources for formaldehyde, in Volstead.”
“When you’re looking for a shitload of formaldehyde, you go to a mortician first.”
Boyd still quickly substituted “heck” for “fuck,” but otherwise he’d given up censoring his language around her. Oddly, Mabel saw that as a huge victory. It meant that he was feeling more comfortable with her and not thinking through every single word before he said it. He was simply being himself.
Since he’d decided Mabel was a gangster, his superficial politeness had been dropping away. He wasn’t struggling to be a consummate gentleman. He was being… just Boyd. Since she doubted he was ever “Just Boyd” with anyone else in the world, it was an excellent sign.
Also, he probably had a point about Norris, but Mabel wasn’t admitting it. She followed him into the funeral home, her voice pitched to a whisper. “If wedofind something in here, we’ll discuss what to do about Norris,beforeyou summarily dispose of him. I mean it.”
“Just so the discussion ends with him dead.”
“Why do you hate the poor man?”
Boyd grunted, sweeping his flashlight around the room. “I don’t like the look of him.”
“He’s not very attractive.” Mabel allowed, not really thinking through her words, either. “But, not everyone can look like you, so it’s unfair to judge poor Norris on his appearance.”
He sent her another slow grin.
Drat.
As Boyd began speaking more freely, so did she. Mabel had wanted that. In theory. In practice, it wasn’t always a good thing.
She pushed her glasses up her nose and cleared her throat. “Handsome men, like you, often pass judgment on people not born with exceptional looks. But physical appearance can’t be helped. I know better than most.”
His brows compressed. “Why do you know better than most?”
“Because…” She fumbled for words. “I was not born with exceptional looks, of course.”
Boyd scoffed like her words made no sense. “Are you fishing for compliments right now? You know you’re beautiful.”
Was he serious? Mabel stared at him in confusion.
Boyd stared back, looking just as baffled. His head suddenly tilted to one side. “Mabel…”
She cut him off, disliking this whole tangent. “I told you I have to be back at Mrs. Patten’s by eleven, right? She has a very strict curfew for her tenants.”
Boyd rolled his eyes, either at the subject change or at her prim words. “You really need to move out of that boardinghouse. Did Sylvester steal Lew’s house from you? Is that the inheritance you’re trying to claim?”
“No, I sold the estate.” Mabel didn’t like that subject, either. She looked around, trying to focus on the matter at hand. The funeral parlor was a converted Victorian home, like so many of the buildings in Volstead. They’d broken into the kitchen, which was clean and sparsely furnished. “Where would they keep formaldehyde, do you think?”
