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“I’m sorry, Livie,” he said, but he sounded more uncomfortable than sorry.
“Between you and my mother—” Lisa Livia just shook her head.
Shane cleared his throat. “I suggest we put the guns away. There are a lot of secrets here. And I’m tired of them.”
Frankie nodded at him, keeping his gun out. “So, you know about your parents?”
“What about my parents?” Shane frowned as Frankie looked at Joey. He caught Joey glaring, raising the gun a little, and he stiffened, but Frankie spoke again.
“You know. That I’m your uncle Frankie. Your good uncle, not your lying snake of a shit-head rat-fuck uncle, the Don.”
“Jesus, you’re a bad liar,” Shane said, and Frankie started to swing the gun his way, and Joey raised his even more, and Carpenter said, “Guns away, gentlemen,” from the doorway, in that deep voice that brooked no argument, and then Agnes came around the counter, her arms full of food, looking like she had every dish in the refrigerator, and dumped it all on the table between them.
“This is my kitchen,” she said, an edge of hysteria in her voice, “and enough goddamn people have been shot in it. You are my family, you’re the only family I’ve got, so you’re going to put those guns away and eat something right now. Or there’s gonna he hell to pay.”
She slapped a loaf of bread down on the table and looked at them both, blood in her eyes, and Joey and Frankie both hesitated. “You do not want me angry,” Agnes said, and they both nodded once and, like the unhappy, dysfunctional family they were, they put the guns away together.
Rhett sighed and went to sleep.
“And now you’re gonna eat,” Agnes said.
“What’d you come back for, Frankie?” Shane said as Joey began to help Agnes take the covers off the dishes.
“My granddaughter’s wedding, of course,” Frankie said, craning his neck to look into the bowls. “I read about it in the paper and I thought it would be nice. Hey, are those ribs?—?”
“Cut the crap,” Shane said. “Where’s the five million? And what score are you settling with the Don?”
“I was wondering about the five mil myself,” Agnes said as she slung plates around the table like she was dealing cards, clearly still mad as hell. “And the necklace. That was a lousy thing to do to me, Doyle.”
“Aw, Agnes,” Frankie said.
“I mean it. I worried about you, I fussed over you. I fed you—” She smacked the container with the ribs down in front of him hard. “Darlin’, I know it?—”
“And you put a necklace on my dog and almost got me killed.” Agnes finished almost throwing his plate at him. “What the hell was that about?”
Frankie looked shamefaced but relieved, Shane thought. Doesn’t want to talk about the Don.
“That was just a joke,” Frankie told Agnes. “Justice for Brenda. I been knocking around all over the world while she stayed here livin’ the good life, never paying for half-killing me, never losing one night’s sleep over it, so I thought, ‘That bitch needs some payback.’ So I put the necklace on Rhett so she’d see it and start to worry?—”
“Jesus.” Lisa Livia sighed and look the cover off the turkey bowl. “You are a piece of work.”
“What?” Frankie said, picking up a rib. “I just?—”
“Because of you,” Agnes said, her voice like cut glass, “Four Wheels sent his grandson here to die. Because of you, Four Wheels came here and died. Because of you, Brenda thought there was five million dollars here and hired hitmen to kill me.”
“What the hell?” Frankie said, jolted. He looked at Joey, who nodded. “That bitch hired those hairballs?”
“Because of you, she got so desperate, she killed Taylor tonight with a meat fork,” Agnes went on savagely. “I don’t even know what the collateral damage is, what happened when Shane went to Savannah that got blood all over my fondant, or if that body bag over Carpenter’s shoulder is part of this?—”
“No, no, this is professional,” Carpenter said.
“—but your joke killed at least five people?—”
“Six,” Shane said, thinking of Rocko.
“—so forgive me if I’m not slapping you on the back right now.”
“Aw, hell,” Frankie said, waving the rib at her. “I didn’t kill them, Brenda did.”
