As I said, it had been a long night, and I was more than a little slow. Lucky for me, Bunny was fast enough for both of us.
“I thought we was goin’ to be sharin’ a room, Mr. Skeeve. That’s the whole idea of my bein’ here, ya know? What’s wrong? Ya think I got bad breath or sumpin’?”
“Aahh … ummm …” I said intelligently.
“Hi, Guido … Nunzio. Who’s … oh wow!”
That last witty line didn’t come from me. Massha had just entered the room with Markie in tow and lurched to a halt at the sight of Bunny.
“Hey. Boss! What’s with the kid?”
“Guido, Nunzio, this is Markie . . . our other house guest. Massha, Markie, this is Bunny. She’s going to be staying with us for a while … in the pink bedroom.”
“Now I get it!” Bunny exclaimed. “You want we should play it cool because of the kid! Well, you can count on me. Discretion is Bunny’s middle name. The pink bedroom it is!”
I could cheerfully have throttled her. If her meaning was lost on Markie, it certainly hadn’t gotten past Massha, who was staring out at me from under raised eyebrows.
“Whatever!” I said rather than take more drastic action. “Now, Nunzio, you get Bunny set up in the pink bedroom. Massha, I want you to get Markie settled in the blue bedroom next to mine … and knock it off with the eyebrows. I’ll explain everything in the morning.”
“That I want to hear,” she snorted. “C’mon, kid.”
“I’m not tired!” Markie protested.
“Tough!” I countered. “I am.”
“Oh,” she said meekly and followed Massha.
Whatever kind of a crumb her father might be, somewhere along the line she had learned when adults could be argued with and when it was best to go with the flow.