Free The Perfect Scream by James Andrus Page B

barrel of a shotgun and the angry face of a young man behind it, who said, “You better start talking quick and hope I don’t have a reason to pull the trigger.”
     
     
     
    Tony Mazzetti sat in front of his fifty-two-inch Samsung flat-screen TV in the most comfortable La-Z-Boy recliner ever made with a Swanson’s extra-large, microwavable turkey dinner with peas and yellow corn. He never took moments like this for granted. This was a guy’s nirvana. On the giant TV, the CBS pregame show appeared on screen, with Dan Marino giving insights as to how the Detroit Lions were going to blow another Thanksgiving Day game.
    He had already made the obligatory call to his mom and his sister. They were both insisting he start using the computer for video calls. Jesus Christ, it wasn’t like he was eight years old. He was thirty-nine and his looks didn’t change that much between visits back to Brooklyn. His sister didn’t make the trip from Westchester County down to see his mother much more often than he made the flight up to see her. Sure, his sister was a judge and had a family and claimed that her time was already tight. But she was only thirty miles from the house they had both grown up in. Besides, his mother loved seeing her grandchildren. He understood that. He also understood that she expected him to start producing his own crop of children soon. That was one of the reasons he had yet to tell her that he’d broken up with Patty. He wouldn’t lie to her, but he avoided the subject. Today when she’d asked about Patty, Mazzetti had mumbled something about her eating at her parents’ house down in Ocala. As far as he knew that was true.
    There was a rap at his front door. It was strong and steady, almost like an official police knock. He sighed and carefully set the plate full of food on the arm of his La-Z-Boy. He padded through the living room, glancing out the window to see if he noticed a car in the driveway. He had no idea who’d be knocking on his door in the middle of the day on Thanksgiving.
    He twisted the dead bolts and opened the door and was surprised to see Lisa Kurtz standing there with her arms folded and her red hair in a ponytail flipped over her shoulder and running down to her chest. She had on an all-weather coat that went all the way to her knees, almost like a trench coat. She was tapping her right foot impatiently.
    Mazzetti stared at her silently for a moment, then said, “Ah, Lisa, um, everything okay?”
    “Are you trying to avoid me?”
    He thought about his policy of not lying to people and decided silence was the best choice in this case.
    Lisa didn’t wait for an answer anyway. “Do you like me?”
    “Of course I like you.”
    “Are you certain you like me?”
    He wasn’t lying. He did like her. He just wasn’t sure he liked being around her. But he didn’t feel like getting into this right now. Not before an afternoon football game. He said, “I think you’re terrific.”
    A broad smile spread across her face. She opened her coat to reveal nothing but some very sheer lingerie, silk stockings, and lacy garters. Before Mazzetti could say anything or react, she stepped inside and enveloped him so quickly with her arms and legs that it felt like she was an octopus and he was the octopus’s next meal, but somehow he didn’t mind one bit.
     
     
     
    One of the first things Stallings learned in the police academy was never give up your gun . No matter what. He looked up the barrel of a shotgun and tried to assess the young man behind it. This was no stoner. This was a businessman protecting his merchandise.
    Stallings did his best to keep calm and said, “Don’t get worked up, son. I’m not here to cause any trouble.”
    “You’re on private property, which is completely surrounded by a six-foot-high fence, and you just walked through a million bucks of marijuana. I think you are here to cause trouble and I can’t let that happen.”
    “I guess this is the wrong time to