Janet Evanovich - Naughty Neighbor

Washington was cold in February. Wind barreled up the open mall and wide avenues, and the sun hung shrunken and pale in the gray winter sky. The granite buildings seemed unrooted without their flower borders and the sere grass flattened under intrepid tourist feet. Street people huddled in plastic tents constructed over subway grates. Bureaucrats went about business as usual.

Louisa worked in the Hart Building, just north of the Supreme Court and northeast of the Capitol itself. She stretched at her desk and looked beyond the heavy teal-and-gold drapes framing windows that opened to an inner courtyard. It was six-thirty and the courtyard was dark. She was the last one left in the office, and the exodus of workers had slowed in the outside corridor. All things considered, it hadn’t been a bad day.

She’d managed to keep her boss on schedule and lint-free through two luncheon meetings, an interview with a Post reporter, a question-and-answer session with forty fifth graders, and an afternoon tea at the Australian Embassy. She’d coerced their two interns into stuffing and stamping the monthly newsletter to constituents. She’d badgered the caterer into an affordable buffet for the spring fund-raiser. And she’d secured a slot for her senator on Good Morning America.

She retrieved her purse from the bottom drawer and pushed away from the desk. She buttoned her long wool greatcoat high to her neck, switched the lights off, and closed the office door behind her. She exited the building at C and 1st Street, and her attention was immediately drawn to two men arguing half a block away. One of the men was her boss, and she recognized the other as Senator Stuart Maislin.

Maislin gave Nolan Bishop a jab to the chest with his finger, and Nolan went rigid, then stiffly nodded his head. Maislin stood with hands clenched for a moment, then wheeled around and climbed into the limo idling at curbside. The car pulled out into traffic. Bishop turned and quickly walked east on C Street.

Louisa was only mildly surprised. Maislin had a reputation for strong-arm tactics. He was a powerful man in the Senate, and some said he had Oval Office aspirations. It was also whispered about that he had bad friends. Louisa turned her collar up against the wind and marched across the street, pushing the incident from her mind. Sometimes a blind eye was called for on Capitol Hill.

It was past seven when she emerged from the Metro station at Connecticut and Woodley. She turned left at Woodley and walked one block to 27th Street through one of the many residential pockets in urban Washington. The sidewalks were tipped from tree roots and worn smooth from generations of baby buggy wheels, roller skates, and leather-soled shoes. Four-story-high trees grew in the dirt median between sidewalk and street. The street was narrow from curb-parked cars and bumpy with patch jobs done by the D.C. Department of Transportation. It was a neighborhood pulling itself out of midlife crises, struggling with genteel neglect. It was a neighborhood of double-income families who required close-by gourmet takeouts and same-day shirt service.

She had her head down, searching in her purse for her key, when she approached her house. She gasped when she realized there was a large dark form on her porch steps. She pressed her lips tight together when she saw it was Streeter in an unbuttoned shearling jacket with the collar turned up.

He stood and held her paper out to her. “I thought I should give this to you personally.”

“Why?”

He followed her up the stairs and slouched against her door, hands in pockets, feet crossed at the ankle. “You seemed unusually bent out of shape this morning. I thought maybe there was some special significance to this particular paper. Like, maybe you’re a spy and there was a microdot in the Style section.”

She stuffed the paper under her arm and continued fishing in her handbag. “I’m not a spy. I’m press secretary to Senator Nolan Bishop. I was unusually bent out of shape because I was tired, and because I hate you.”

“How could you hate me? You don’t even know me.”

She paused in her search for the key and looked up at him. “I know you well enough to thoroughly dislike you. I’d give you specific reasons, but it’d take all night, and I don’t want to spend that much time in your presence.”

“This is about the phone calls to your mother, isn’t it? You’re embarrassed because I know you aren’t sleeping with the guy you’ve been dating for the past four months.”

“Get a life.”

Streeter’s grin flashed white in the darkness. “Why aren’t you sleeping with him?”

“He doesn’t appeal to me. We’re just friends.”

“So, who are you sleeping with?”

“I’m not sleeping with-” She clamped her mouth shut and shoved her key into the lock. “It’s none of your business. Get out of my way. You’re leaning on my door.”

Forty-five minutes later she was freshly showered and dressed in a cream-colored silk suit. She slipped her feet into a pair of matching heels, shrugged into her ankle-length black dress coat, and groaned when she caught a glimpse of the clock in the kitchen. She was late for the senator’s cocktail party. It couldn’t be helped. She’d had to make calls to the coast, and then she’d had to wait for the calls to be returned. She let herself out, locked the door, and almost tripped over Pete Streeter. He was back to sitting on the porch in the dark. She squinted down at him. “I almost stepped on you. What are you doing out here?”

“Sitting.”

“You’re very weird.”

“You’re not the first person who’s said that.”

A car turned onto the street. Its headlights flashed against parked cars as it moved forward. Pete stood and backed into the deep shadows. He pulled Louisa with him.

“Let go of me!” Louisa said. “I’ll scream. I’ll turn you into a soprano. I know how to do it. I took a self-defense course.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not interested in your body. I just want you out of the light.” That wasn’t entirely true, he thought, but this wasn’t the time to go into detail.

The car cruised by, and Pete relaxed his hold on her. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette and grumbled when he didn’t find one. He searched for gum and struck out on that too.

“What are you looking for?” She was almost afraid to ask.

“Gum. I’m trying to quit smoking.”

Another car rolled by, and Louisa watched Streeter shrink back against the building. “Okay, what’s going on with these cars?” she asked. “Every time a car goes by you duck out of sight.”

“It’s a long story.”

She looked at her watch. “Can you do it in thirty seconds?”

“No.”

“Make an effort.”

“Some yokel’s threatened to vandalize my car.”

“Did you call the police?”

“Yeah, and they’ve made two pass-bys, but they can’t baby-sit my car round the clock. So I thought I’d hang out here for a while.”

A dark, late-model sedan turned the corner and proceeded down the street. The car slowed and then stopped in front of Louisa’s house. Louisa felt Streeter’s arms wrap around her and pull her flat against him.

“Move back against the wall with me,” he whispered.

The sedan door opened and there was the sound of feet shuffling on pavement. A man approached a car at curbside, raised a sledgehammer to shoulder level, and swung. There was the sound of glass being shattered. He moved quickly, smashing the windshield and the side mirror.

“Hey!” Pete yelled. “What do you think you’re doing?”

A second man stepped from the sedan and leveled a gun at Streeter.

“Uh-oh,” Streeter said. He threw his apartment door open and yanked Louisa inside.

Several shots were fired, and Louisa hung on to Pete Streeter as if he were life itself. Her heart hammered in her chest, and her breath refused to leave her lungs. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out.

Pete was having a similar reaction. He wasn’t sure if it was the result of the gunshots or the fact that Louisa Brannigan had practically laminated herself to him. She had a death grip on his jacket lapels, and her leg was securely wedged between his. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling.

He thought about the proximity of his bedroom and wondered how long her terror would last. Long enough to maneuver her upstairs? Probably not. Besides, she was mentally unstable, he told himself. And she wasn’t his type. And she hated him.

One by one, he pried her fingers off the shearling. “You’re okay,” he said. “You’re not hurt.”

“He shot at us!”

“Warning shots. He wasn’t serious. He just didn’t want us getting in the way while he trashed the car.”

He led her to the front porch, and they stood at the top of the stairs and looked at the damage. The windshield, back window, and driver’s side window had been smashed.

“That’s odd,” Pete said. “I drive a black Porsche, and the car that’s been vandalized looks like a little black Ford.”

Louisa couldn’t believe her eyes. “I drive a little black Ford. I had to park in your parking space last night because you were parked in mine. They wrecked my car.”

“Bummer.”

“That’s the best you can come up with? Bummer? First you steal my paper. Now you get my windows pulverized. And all you can say is bummer?”

“I didn’t steal your paper. I borrowed it. And I didn’t get your windows pulverized. It was fate.”

“It wasn’t fate, you imbecile! You constantly park in my parking space! Haven’t you noticed there are numbers painted at curbside? Your car belongs in the space marked ten-thirty-eight B. My car belongs in the space marked ten-thirty-eight A. It’s easy to remember. It coincides with our mailing address.”

Dear Lord, she thought, the only homo erectus dumber than this guy was the one who’d attacked her car.

“Boy, you get uptight about the damnedest things,” Pete said. “You need to relax a little.”

“I used to be relaxed. I used to be well adjusted. I used to sleep nights. Then you moved in. You were gone for months. Why did you have to come back? You probably find it hard to believe, but there wasn’t a single shoot-out in this neighborhood while you were away.”

“Boring, huh?”

The man was dealing drugs, she decided. Fabulous hair, Hollywood-type, drove an expensive car. Next thing the house would probably be machine-gunned by some rival drug lord. Tomorrow she’d look for a new place to live.

“I don’t want to know any more about this,” Louisa said. “I didn’t see it. I’m going to pretend it never happened. I didn’t like the car, anyway. It’s the wrong color black.”

She was babbling, Pete thought. She was on the edge. Probably because of her lousy sex life. Abstinence did terrible things to a person’s disposition. He knew firsthand because lately his sex life wasn’t all that great, either.

“I guess we should call the police,” he said.

She looked at her watch. She didn’t have time for the police. “I’ll call the police tomorrow.”

“Bad move,” Streeter said. “If you call the police now, they might be able to catch the guys.”

“Listen,” Louisa said, “I’m supposed to be at a cocktail party at my boss’s house right now, and if I don’t show up, I’m going to be in deep doodoo. You call the police. You probably have lots of experience with the police, anyway.”

“Hold it,” Pete said. “How are you going to get to this party?”

“I’ll call a cab.”

Pete stood there for a moment, grappling with an odd mixture of lust and guilt. He supposed he was, to some extent, responsible for the damage to her car. He shoved his hand into his pocket and came up with a key.

“That’s not necessary. You can drive my Porsche.”

Louisa felt her mouth drop open. His car? The car someone wanted to disintegrate? Was he kidding? “Nice of you to offer, but I couldn’t possibly…”

She was probably reluctant to take him up on his offer because he had such a great car, he decided. She was afraid she’d get it scratched or something. He thought that was sweet. He took her by the elbow and pulled her down the stairs.

“Don’t worry about scratching it. It already has a scratch. It’s on the right front fender just above the headlight.”

She dug her heels in. “I’m not driving your car.”

He gave her a shove. “What’s your name?”

“Louisa Brannigan.”

He opened the driver’s side door to the Porsche and settled her in.

“Okay, Lou, have a good time and try to keep your speed down. It shimmies a little at one-twenty.”

“Louisa! My name is Louisa!”

“Whatever.”

Louisa sampled a crab puff and smiled pleasantly at Sam Gundy. The man made shoes-lots of them. And he was telling Louisa exactly how it was done.