“Did you have to scare the wits out of my mail clerk?” Lulu said with a growl. “The next thing I know you’re going to be handcuffing the cleaning staff and strip-searching the secretaries.”
Noah grabbed the box out of the trash and pulled the lid off, brushing off her words. “Who sent you these flowers?”
Lulu sighed studying the white roses nestled against the plain white interior of the box. “Carlo Fiore. He’s wooing me.”
“Where is Carlo Fiore and what does he do?”
“He’s this horrid little banker in Rome. We met three years ago and he’s been pursuing me since. I—” She stopped talking.
Noah dumped the flowers on her desk and took out his cell phone. “I need you to run a check on a Carlo Fiore, an Italian banker in Rome. Is sending Lulu flowers on a regular basis.” He hung up and stuffed his phone in his pocket. “You forget to tell me about him?”
Lulu shuddered. “Trust me I have no intention of dating him. He knows I don’t want to date him. I’ve told him over and over again in French, Italian and English. He’s one of those men who believe his money will get him whatever he wants along with the personality of a trashcan and a skinny wife. I’m a big girl who is into fashion. If he were serious, he’d have sent handmade Italian shoes or cannoli.”
Noah tried not to laugh as he put that info in the back of his head. Lulu’s dramatics were just too funny at times. “What’s wrong with him besides being married?”
“I can’t pinpoint what, but there is something just unsavory about him. He makes my skin crawl.”
“I thought women liked bad boys.”
“I like naughty boys. I don’t like bad boys. Bad boys have friends like…I don’t know…defense attorneys and bail bondsmen.”
The door opened before he could answer and Gideon came in. Lulu looked relieved.
“Lulu, Noah says some Italian has been sending you flowers. How long has this been going on?”
She shrugged. “For a couple years now.”
Noah felt the urge to shake her. Why didn’t she think this was important?
Gideon whipped out a notebook and pen. He flipped open the notebook. “What do you know about him?”
Lulu sat down on the sofa and crossed her legs. Noah found himself admiring the sleek lines of her thighs.
He braced himself against her desk.
She tugged on the hem of her dress. “He’s a banker, he’s Italian, and totally repulsive.”
Gideon sat across from her. “How did you meet?”
Noah watched as she worked through the answer. He could tell she was trying to come with something diplomatic.
“Several years ago I was in London for my Cupcake get-together.”
“Cupcake?” Noah asked before he could stop himself.
She licked her lips and rubbed her temples. “It’s a social club…thing.”
She was being evasive. He didn’t like that. “Do you get together and eat cupcakes? Or sell cupcakes, sort of like cupcake Girl Scouts?” Noah had a vision of her going door-to-door with cupcakes in hand to sell in a little Girl Scout outfit which he thought was perverted because it would be sexy on her.
“Why is this important? I’m not dating him.”
Gideon smiled at her. “He could be upping the ante because you aren’t responding.”
“It’s been two years. If he’s not smart enough to get that I don’t want to date him can he really be smart enough to be a stalker?” Lulu looked defiant, but troubled.
“How did you meet?” Noah insisted.
“While I was there, I mentioned I was going to be at Christie’s auction house bidding on a Marc Chagall. Les Ly Magiques, it is one of his most romantic paintings. Fiore showed up and started a bidding war with me. I knew I had to save that beautiful painting. The bidding was quite fierce, but I prevailed. Fiore said he let me win and I should have dinner with him to express my eternal gratitude. I turned him down and he’s been after me ever since.”
“I’ve heard of Fiore,” Gideon said. “You have good instincts.”
“What’s going on?” Noah thought the name sounded familiar, but nothing came to him.
“Fiore isn’t a very nice person,” Gideon said, his hand moving quickly over the notebook paper. “You remember the kidnapping of the Italian treasury advisor a last year? Italian officials felt Fiore had something to do with it, but couldn’t prove anything.” Gideon turned back to Lulu, “Are you sure you didn’t do anything to piss this guy off?”
“I haven’t seen him since the auction. If he really hated the way I outbid him, why wait so long to come after me? That doesn’t make any sense.” Lulu held up her hands.
Noah wanted to hunt this man down now. “Something could have set him off.”
She sighed. “What are you going to do?”
“First, we need to find out where this guy is,” Gideon said.
“If he’s the stalker, how are you going to make him stop?” Lulu rubbed harder at her temples and closed her eyes.
Noah wanted to take her in his arms and soothe her. He could see the fear and worry in her face.
“We’ll have a nice long talk with him and see how that goes.” Gideon scribbled something else in his notebook, closed it and tucked it inside his jacket pocket. “If talking doesn’t work maybe we’ll call in some favors and put him out of your misery.”
Lulu gave him a sharp glance. “That doesn’t sound particularly nice.”
“Lulu,” Gideon said softly, “I’m not nice.”
“Unlike some people who shall remain nameless, you’re nice to me. And that’s all that really counts.” She gave him a saucy wink.
Gideon stood. “Noah, I need have a word with you outside.”
Noah nodded at Lulu and followed Gideon out into the hall. He closed the door and turned to Gideon. “There’s more isn’t there?”
“Carlo Fiore is under suspicion for laundering money for several terrorist organizations. Nothing was ever proven, the key witness disappeared and Carlo went on his merry way. The fact that he’s crossed paths with Lulu is not good.”
“Find him, than pay him a visit.”
“Looks like I’m on my way to Rome,” Gideon said. He dug his phone out of his pocket and walked toward the elevator.
Noah went back into Lulu’s office. She sat on the sofa chewing her lip, looking a little forlorn. “Explain Cupcake a little more.”
She squirmed a little under the fierceness of his gaze. “It’s nothing. Really. Just a bunch of girls who like to get together every few months.”
“That’s all?” She didn’t act like it was some sort of social club. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her.
She fidgeted, looking more and more uncomfortable. “We don’t need to talk about it since I’m not going.”
He could stop worrying about guard duty then, but he was still curious. He couldn’t stop his imagination from picturing rows of cupcakes marching in orderly lines. He tried not to grin. “What the hell do you do there? Have orgies or something?”
Lulu blushed. “I’ve never participated in that type of behavior, so I can neither confirm nor deny your comment.”
“I don’t want to know this, do I?” Lulu was full of surprises. The kind of surprises that unnerved him.
“It’s like Fight Club. Nobody talks about it,” she agreed too readily. “I already canceled for the next meeting so you don’t have to worry about my stalker tracking me there.”
“I need to know anyway so tell me.”
Lulu sighed, her shoulder slumped. “Do you want the nice explanation?”
“Okay, that will do.”
“Cupcake is a place where women get together with men who like women who have some meat on their bones.”
Noah frowned. Then what was she embarrassed about? “What’s so secret about it?”
She had an odd look on her face, as though he was supposed to just understand. Well, he didn’t understand.
“It didn’t
used to be, at least not in the beginning. A lot of men out there are embarrassed about liking full-figured women. I don’t date men like that, but Cupcake allows them to get together with the women they like and let nature take its course.”
Noah was more confused than before. “It’s an underground sex club, isn’t it?”
“No! Sex happens, but that’s not the purpose. Or, again, it wasn’t how it started out.”
“Why is it some secret?” Noah had never seen her so flustered before. “I’m all ears.”
“Heavens, you are so pushy. I don’t think I like that.”
“I’m waiting.”
She tilted her head at him. “From the dawn of time…”
“Do you have to go so far back in the past?”
She held up her hand. “Just a little historical perspective. What is desirable in women has always been dictated by what men like. Back in the Middle Ages, a big woman was a status symbol, proof that you were a wealthy man.”
Noah would be the first to admit, history wasn’t his strong suit. “I’ll bite, how so?”
“If you had a woman who was large, the world knew you could feed her on a regular basis and she didn’t have to work. A large woman was a status symbol.”
“So a big girl equals ‘I have a Porsche.’”
She nodded. “Exactly. Nowadays, men want a supermodel on their arms because she is something he can brag about, a visual barometer of his success. In modern times, big women fell out of vogue. But people have always liked what they like and Cupcake is a way for men of a certain social status to meet women they like. Most of men who go to Cupcake aren’t there on the sly, but some of them are. There are men who just don’t like the world to know they prefer meatier women.”
“Are you okay with this?”
“The group started to morph into something different. The women started picking up men and our meetings started getting clandestine as though they’d all stopped being proud and started to be ashamed of what they are. I haven’t attended for a while, I thought I’d go and get in touch with some of my friends. You don’t have to worry, I already said I canceled. I can’t expose them to danger.”
He thought about her words for a few seconds. “Did you ever pick up a man?”
“I dated a few of the men I met, but nothing turned serious.”
“Who?” He asked.
“Do you really need to know? It was just a couple of dates for both of them and we never got to the hanky panky stage.”
“Yeah,” he said, pulling his phone out of his pocket.
She didn’t say anything for a several long moments.
Noah waited patiently.
“Lance Minor.”
“The hockey player?” Noah said in surprise as he entered the name into a text message.
“You seem surprised that he would like full-figured women.”
“I’m surprised you would date someone like him. Hockey is so… so—“
“Yes,” she said stared at him defiantly.
“Blue collar.”
She started to laugh. “Sometimes the bourgeois like to slum.”
“You didn’t mention him earlier,” Noah said with a frown.
“We went out three times. He and his wife were separated and his heart wasn’t in it. He wanted to be back with his wife and children so I worked my magic and got them back together. He’s very nice.”
“Who else?”
“Ivan Betts.”
He punched the name into a text message for Harrison and Mark. “I know that name.”
“He won the Nobel Prize in physics three years ago. Sweet man, but I don’t think I was smart enough for him.”
“A physicist and a hockey player.” He finished adding the man’s name. “Your taste in men is all over the place.” The kind of taste that made him fell inferior. He knew she was as attracted to him as he was to her, but he couldn’t help thinking that he wasn’t in the same league as Lance Minor or Ivan Betts. “Anyone else?”
“No, just Lance and Ivan.” She sounded a little sad. “I’m looking for interesting. I like interesting men, like you.”
His eyebrows shot up. He didn’t think he was interesting. “I’m not interesting.”
Suddenly she turned flirtatious. “Noah Callahan, there are layers to you that would take a woman years to peel away, and she would enjoy every minute of it.”
“What are you saying, Lucinda?”
“Weren’t the kiss hint enough?”
“We’re not flirting. We’re not dating, we’re not having any kind of relationship. Those kisses were an accident. You were having a bad day. It won’t happen again.”
“Oh really,” she replied with a quirky smile.
“You may be Lucinda Bennington. You may get anything you want, but not me.”
“Is it because you don’t want me, or are you having some sort of ethical dilemma?”
Noah didn’t have an answer.
Lulu patted him on his knee. “You just told me everything I need to know.”
His phone rang and he half jumped.
“I need to see you,” the Geek said. “I’ve found something.”
He pocketed his phone and stood. “The Geek found something. I have to go.”
“Go,” she said. “This conversation isn’t over.”
“Stay here and don’t leave. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Hurry up. The sooner you deal with this the sooner we can discuss our personal lives.”
Noah tried not to sigh as he walked to the elevator. That woman was going to be the death of him.
Noah found Mark in the conference room, leaning back in his chair. Across from him sat a man in a gray uniform. The name on his shirt said Benny McCall. He was a large man with sandy hair and deep brown eyes. He sat very straight as though he were at attention. Benny appeared to be around twenty-five and had a serious look on his face.
“I work wherever I’m needed. I was in the mailroom when this guy walks in and hands me an envelope. Told me to deliver it to Mr. Bennington’s office right away. He wore a security uniform.”
“There were no fingerprints on the envelope,” Mark said.
Benny shrugged. “After the anthrax scare, we all wear latex gloves.”
“Describe the man,” Noah demanded as he hovered over Benny.
“Tall, maybe two inches shorter than you, light brown hair, a bland face. Nothing that stood out in my memory.”
“White, black, Asian?” Noah asked.
“White, no beard. Just normal. I didn’t think anything of it. I get orders like that all day long.”
Noah wasn’t really getting a read off the guy. “How long have you worked here?”
“A couple months. I’m attending NYU.” He seemed to hesitate. “I was in Iraq for one tour with the Army reserves.”
“Me, too,” Noah said. “Where were you stationed?”
Benny’s eyes lit up. “I was a medic at the hospital in Baghdad.”
“I was there a time or two,” Noah said, trying not to remember those times.
Benny grinned. “Maybe we ran into each other and just didn’t know it.”
“Maybe.”
“You didn’t recognize this guy who gave you the envelope?”
“I don’t work in the mailroom all the time. Last week I worked in the studio. The week before that I worked with the catering people. I just come in and the boss tells me where to go and that’s where I go,” Benny said with a shrug. “Anything else? I need to get back to the mailroom. They’re real shorthanded this week.”
“Yeah, you can go,” Noah said. “If you think of anything else, let us know.”
Benny heaved himself out of his chair.
“Thanks, Benny. You’ve been a great help.” Noah smiled at the young man.
“Glad to be of service to Lulu.” Benny opened the door and left.
Noah sat in the chair Benny had vacated. “Did you check his employment records?”
“Yeah, he’s
legit.” Mark typed on his laptop. “He did a tour in Iraq with the Army reserves and was hired on here a couple months ago. He lives in Queens and lists a mother in Saratoga and a sister in Chicago. Nothing else.”
Chapter Ten
Lulu sat back in her chair. She had one more meeting before she could call it a day. It was seven and outside her window she could see Times Square lit and ready for the night. “George Clooney,” Aiden said looking up from his iPad resting on the table in front of him. “He’s busy until the end of March. But his agent says April is a definite yes.”
“Okay,” Lulu said. “Give him three or four dates to choose from and have them get back to us ASAP. What about that girl from the Mike and Molly show? Is she available?” Lulu scribbled on the calendar in front of her. She’d been working on the list of guests for the next two months before she took her summer hiatus. “You know Hilary Clinton and I have been trying to do a show on the women in government. Let’s nail her down.”
Aiden continued down the list. “Melissa McCarthy is booked through June. Now that she’s retired, you and Oprah can have a love fest. Oh I’ve got this great idea for a show in Fiji.” He continued down the list of names he’d already scheduled and confirmed. They just had a couple holes in the schedule, which should be easy enough to fill. When he was done, Lulu smiled. Her slate was almost done for the year.
“I want to do some more serious episodes,” Lulu said. “Do you have any ideas?”
“Don’t kill the messenger.”
“Sweetie, throw it out there.” She had a suspicion on what he was about to say.
“Maybe we should do something a little more personal,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Do you know how many people are stalked at any given time?”
“I’m okay with that, but not until this is over.”
He reached over and patted her hand. “How are you doing?”
She hesitated a moment, opened her mouth and then closed it.
“Listen you don’t have to put on a brave face for me.” He pulled his handkerchief out of his breast pocket. “I’m armed and ready.”
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