Polterheist(32)

I regretted the chilling idea as soon as I had it, half-afraid that the Evil menacing the store could hear my thoughts.

I needed to find Max and Lucky, I realized, and tell them what had just happened.

"What's going on here?" demanded a pale, pot-bellied security guard.

"This insane woman attacked my husband, and I want-"

"NYPD," Lopez said loudly, giving his mother a warning glare. Looking distracted, he patted his pockets, searching for his badge, as he said to the two guards, "There was a little mishap."

His mother blanched. "A little mis-"

"But it's all under control now." He found his gold shield and flashed it at them. "Detective Lopez, Organized Crime Control Bureau. I'm investigating the hijackings."

"Hijacking?" the guard bleated. "Has someone taken Mr. Fenster's helicopter?"

"What? No. I meant . . . Never mind," Lopez said. "We've got it covered. And I'll deal with this situation, too, guys. But I appreciate your alert response."

"Alert response?" I repeated incredulously. "Are you kidding me?"

"Not now," Lopez said to me between gritted teeth.

"Oh, yeah, detective, now I recognize you. From yesterday, on the fourth floor," said the other guard, an older man. "Wait a minute. I recognize that elf, too! She's the one who caused all the trouble there!"

"That's not fair," I protested. It was hardly my fault that I'd been attacked by a possessed tree.

"Did she? Well, I'm not surprised to hear it," Mrs. Lopez said to them. "A little while ago, I saw her attack a store manager!"

Lopez gave me a sharp glance.

"I didn't," I told him.

"Good," he said.

"I was attacking Naughty and Nice," I explained.

"What?" he snapped.

"You see?" said his mother.

"Mom, will you please stop?"

"Well, no, I wasn't attacking them," I amended. "I was trying to, um, apprehend them, I guess. They . . ." I sighed. "Never mind. It's not important now."

"Then, by all means, let's cross it off our agenda," said Lopez.

"Detective, should we escort this elf from the store?" asked the older guard.

Bridget Lopez gasped in protest. "You can't just unleash her on the general population! I insist that you lock her up!"

"Mom, that's enough."

"I guess we could put her in the holding cell on the sixth floor," said the pot-bellied guard, perking up at the idea of incarcerating someone.

His partner said, too enthusiastically for my taste, "Hey, that's right! That cell is mostly used for shoplifters, but if the elf is causing trouble, we could-"

"No," I said, taking a step back as he took a step toward me.

Mrs. Lopez said to them, "That's an excellent idea."

"Mom."

"Querida, I think you should let your son handle this."

"Thank you, Pop." Lopez said firmly, "No one will be locking up anyone."

"Damn right," I said.

The security guards looked a little deflated. Mrs. Lopez looked miffed. Her son sent me a glance warning me to keep my mouth shut.

Lopez said to the security guards, "Guys, I've got control of the elf. The singing bear. The whole situation. So you can leave it in my hands. Really."

"Well, okay, if you're sure . . ."

"I am. Thanks again for your help."

"Their help?" I said.

"Not now, Esther," he muttered as the departing guards left us to our own devices.

"In what way have they helped? Now or yesterday?" I demanded, attracting curious glances from fresh passersby in the crowded store. "I could have been-"

"Esther!" he snapped, hoping (in vain) to make me shut up. "Let it go, would you?"

His mother drew in a sharp breath. "What did you call her?"

Lopez blinked. "Huh?"

"Did you just call her Esther?" his mother demanded.

"Uh . . ." Lopez sighed and his shoulders sagged. "Shit."

His father said, "I don't like to hear you using language like that in front of ladies, mi perrito."

"Sorry, Pop," Lopez said, looking warily at his mother.

"Esther?" Mrs. Lopez said, gazing at me with an appalled expression. "The chorus girl with ties to the mob? That Esther?"

"Yes," Lopez said darkly.

"No!" I was offended. She'd gotten that description of me from the tabloids after I witnessed Chubby Charlie Chiccante getting murdered at Bella Stella.

Seeing my outrage, Lopez amended, "She's an actress, not a chorus girl, Mom. I told you that."

I was about to add that I also didn't have ties to the mob . . . but since my relationship with the Gambello crime family was undeniably complicated, I decided to leave that subject alone.

"This is Esther?" Lopez's mother said to him in undisguised horror. "This is who you . . . you . . ."

"Eh?" Carlos' eyebrows lifted in surprise as he looked at me. Then he asked a few quick questions in Spanish, and his son replied in the same language. The gist of it seemed to be that, yes, I was the woman whom Lopez had told his parents about. His father looked bemused and concerned; but at least he didn't look stricken with simultaneous nausea, vertigo, and stunned rage-the way, for example, that Mrs. Lopez looked right now.

"This half-naked lunatic is the woman you've been seeing?" she demanded of her son.

"I am completely clothed," I said irritably. Sure, my costume was uncomfortably brief for that chilly store, but it wasn't as if I was showing a depraved amount of flesh.

"Now, querida, your son is a grown man, and-"

"She is the reason," Mrs. Lopez continued, pointing at me, "that you wouldn't even call Kathleen O'Malley's daughter when I asked you to? That you refused even to meet Jennifer Gonzalez when I suggested it?"

"You're still using me as an excuse to get out of dating her friends' daughters?" I asked Lopez.

"It's convenient," he said with a shrug. "Anyhow, just because you and I aren't dating doesn't mean I don't still . . . still . . ." He fell silent as he realized that his parents and I were all three staring at him with varying degrees of surprise, waiting for him to finish that sentence.

His father asked, "Do you mean that you're not still seeing Miss . . . ?"

"Diamond," I said. "Esther Diamond."

"You are no longer involved with Miss Diamond?" Carlos asked.

"I'm still involved with her," said his son. "I'm just not seeing her."

Since that was a pretty accurate description of our relationship, I let it stand.

"I don't understand," said his father.

Lopez sighed. "I'm not dating her. We haven't been on a date in . . . months."

"You lied to us?" his mother exclaimed.

"I lied," he confirmed.

"You lied?" she repeated.

"Yes, I lied," Lopez said wearily. "Can we move on now?"

"But why?" his father asked in bewilderment. "Why did you lie, perrito?"

"What did you call him?" I asked.

"Oh, why do you think, Pop?" said Lopez, gesturing to his mother.

"Ah. Yes." The old gentleman nodded.

"What does that mean?" Mrs. Lopez snapped at her husband.

"It means," said her son irritably, "that no matter how much you nag, I'm not going out with any of the women you try to throw in front of me, Mom! Not ever. Never. How can I make this any clearer to you?"

"You shouldn't talk to your mother in that tone," his father chided.

"And, what's more, you can both just stop asking me for grandchildren!" Lopez included his father in his diatribe now. "Because you're not getting them!"

"My son!" Carlos exclaimed, looking wounded.

"I mean, not anytime soon," Lopez said more calmly. "So just stop asking, would you? Enough already! Because I don't even feel like going out with anyone else while I'm still . . . still . . . while . . ."

"Yes?" his mother prodded coldly.

Lopez glanced around the busy store. Happily, people had ceased paying attention to us. After all, now we seemed pretty much like anyone else at Fenster's in this festive season of joy-tense, tired, bickering, and stressed.

"Go on," said Mrs. Lopez, though her tone was not encouraging.

"No, we're stopping there," her son said firmly. "I've just exceeded my annual quota of discussing this subject with you."

"Well, I'm not through discussing it," she said, gearing up.

"I had a feeling," I muttered.

"I'll have you know, Connor, I was still recovering from the brawl this woman started in the cosmetics section-"

"I didn't start a-"

"-when I got here and found her assaulting your father!"

"Now, Bridget," said her husband, "I'm sure it was just a misunderstanding."

"I can't believe this is happening," Lopez grumbled, shaking his head and staring abstractly at the floor.

"And if you think that I will accept this-this-this deranged elf as the mother of my grandchildren, Connor Lopez, then you have got another thing coming!"

"Whoa!" I said. "How did you get from ‘we're not dating' to me giving him children?" I could see it really was a mania with her.

"This is a family matter!" she snapped at me, offended that I had intruded.