“Watching you eat one of those is always exciting. It’s almost a turn-on.”
He swallowed. “They’re so damn good. What are you thinking about the banking job?”
“I’m not holding my breath. There are a lot of people with more experience than me out of work.”
“Yeah, but you’re good. And Lutz recommended you. That’s gotta carry some weight. Be prepared if they offer you the job.”
She switched to a sitting position next to the sofa. “That would be nice.”
“Would you take the job?”
“I think I’d have to. I need health insurance. My benefits from the old job will expire soon and it’s expensive to buy my own. Plus, I need to get out of my parents’ house.”
After three bites, Frankie set the sandwich on the cushion next to him. Might as well take a break and see how it settles in. “Is it that bad?”
“Well, Joey is Joey, but he’s been laying off. I think he feels bad about the dognappings. And my mom is a dream. She’s saving my butt helping with the sewing.”
“What’s the problem then?”
Lucie hesitated. “The old neighborhood is too stifling. And when my father calls, we have to practically line up to talk to him and all he does is lecture me about wasting my education.”
“That’s because you haven’t told him Coco Barknell could be huge. You could open shops all over the country. Then will your education be wasted?”
“Frankie?”
“Yeah?”
“I have a business plan. I did production estimates and salary and benefit options. I’ve got it all figured out.”
Good girl. A pulsing nailed him right in the gut. Might have been the sandwich, but he wanted to think it was the business plan. “You could open a store downtown.”
“Not right away. It’s too expensive. Unless I get another investor.”
“I can give you more money.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want you risking any more of your money. I was thinking I should ask Mr. Lutz. He may want to do it. If he doesn’t, he’d be able to hook me up with the right people.”
“Luce?”
“What?”
“Are you sure about taking the bank job if they offer it? You’ve got all this Coco Barknell stuff figured out. Might be worth the risk.”
Seemed like a no-brainer to him, but Lucie didn’t have that warrior instinct. She liked to play it safe. Analyze the figures, the market conditions, the possibilities.
“It’s the medical benefits. With a banking job, I have a safety net. All the money I’d spend on benefits could go into my savings. Once I’m working again, I can do Coco Barknell part-time until I have enough money saved to go full-time.”
Frankie understood her thinking, but being unemployed seemed like the perfect opportunity for her to get Coco off the ground. All she needed was the capital. And a good dose of self-confidence.
But Lucie didn’t like taking risks with her personal life. Over the years, her father’s lifestyle meant living on the edge and she had never gotten comfortable with that. If only Frankie could get her to take a chance. “Then I guess you’ll take the job if they offer it to you?”
“I guess I will.”
Something about that seemed like a damn shame.
* * *
After the interview, Lucie jumped into a cab to meet Joey at the Bernards’ so they could finish the dog walks.
“Thanks for handling the morning run for me,” Lucie said when Joey came off the elevator with the dogs who, as usual, greeted her by pawing at her feet in a play bow. She bent low and rubbed each of them under the chin. “Good girls. I missed you too.”
“On a schedule here.”
Lucie laughed. For a change, someone else worried about time. “I have jeans in my bag. Let me change and we’ll finish up.”
“How’d it go?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Sounds like a good place to work.”
“Yeah, but did you get a vibe?”
“No, Joey. I’ll know when I know.”
He waved her off. “It’s all bull anyway. This is why I like my job. I don’t have to deal with this crap.”
Now he was comparing being a bookie to banking? Priceless. “You also don’t have a 401K.”
And there was nothing he could do about it because bank accounts could be seized by the government, and he wasn’t about to leave a money trail.
“Hey, I got some cash saved.”
Probably in a box in the attic. Which she’d find by the time she was finished searching for the diamonds. “Doesn’t it bug you that you can’t have a normal bank account?”
“Nope. It’s safer.”
“Oh, please.”
“When you got your last investment statement, how much was it down?”
Oh, no. She wasn’t buying into this.
Joey grinned at her. “Guess how much my retirement account was down?”
Nope. Not biting.
He made a zero with his thumb and index finger.
“But when the market comes back, my money has the potential to grow where yours doesn’t.”
“It also has the potential to tank.”
She shook her head. “Forget it. You’re like a brick wall.”
“Yeah, but I know what I see when I look in the mirror.”
Lucie hefted her tote bag on her shoulder and squeezed the strap. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“What do you see, Luce?”
What did she see? Some days she thought she knew. But those were the days where all this rising above smothered her like an extra thirty pounds. Those thirty pounds made taking an extra step a struggle.
In some ways, she wanted to be more like Joey. He never worried about what the world thought or where his life would lead. He lived in the moment, day to day and that suited him fine.
“Joey, don’t you ever want more?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I’m okay with my life. I don’t dream about being some corporate schmo. I can have everything I want doing what I’m doing. Hell, if I moved to Vegas I could work in a sportsbook and I’d have a legal job.”
“So, there you go. Why not move to Vegas and be legitimate?”
“Too hot there. And everything I want is here.”
She slid her tote off her shoulder, stared down at it while the girls sniffed around the bottom. “We are so different. All I want is to get away from Franklin and all you want is to stay.”
“Pretty much.”
She lifted the bag with her clothes. “I need to change.”
“Yeah, you do.”
Chapter Fourteen
Frankie walked into Petey’s a little after seven o’clock with his head still pounding like a mother. A big one.
“Ho,” Jimmy yelled when Frankie pushed through the door.
“Ho,” Frankie yelled back in his Jimmy voice.
Didn’t this crew ever go home?
Frankie went to the counter to order. “Did you guys eat?”
“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “Petey! Get Frankie his sandwich.”
“Doing it already,” Petey said.
Normally, Frankie liked the familiarity in Petey starting his sandwich before he’d even ordered. Tonight though, it felt ordinary. Typical. Boring. “Petey, did you start it yet?”
Petey turned to him, bread knife in hand. “I just cut the bread.”
“Make it an eggplant parm.”
“What?”
“Ho.”
“I think that fall scrambled his brain,” Lemon added.
Part of this scenario scraped against Frankie’s nerves. Had he become that predictable? Looked like it, because the guys were getting a hell of a ride out of it. “Yeah. Eggplant parm today. I’m living large.”
A big, hulking guy with a head the size of a movie marquee came out of the back room. He spotted Frankie, swung around and went back the way he came.
What was that about?
Something about the guy tapped at
Frankie’s memory. Where had he seen that big square head?
He straddled the vacant chair between Jimmy and Lemon. “Who was that guy?”
Jimmy waved. “He’s some mope on one of the other crews. He don’t come around too much.”
“Good thing too,” Lemon added.
“Why is that?”
Lemon shrugged. “Thinks he’s a smart guy. I’d like to show him how smart he is.”
“I’ve seen him before,” Frankie said.
“He’s been around a while. Maybe you saw him somewhere.”
“Maybe.”
Petey slid a tray onto the counter. “Eggplant parm.”
From his seat, Frankie stared at the tray, but his eyes wandered to the back room. He knew that guy. Or at least he’d seen him somewhere before. And it was recent.
Leaving the sandwich, Frankie headed to the back room. “Be right back.”
“Ho,” Jimmy called. “You’re food is up. Don’t let it get cold.”
But Frankie ignored him. He needed to put eyes on this guy. He strode down the short hallway with the banged up steel gray walls and the cracking linoleum floor, halting when he got to the door where the sound of muffled voices came through. One of those voices belonged to his father. He raised his fist to knock and stopped.
Walk in. Surprise them.
Frankie’s temples throbbed—damned concussion—but he set the pain aside and wrapped his fingers around the ancient crystal doorknob.
He pushed the door open. “Pop?”
His father sat behind Petey’s desk with the square-headed guy standing on the opposite side. Dude angled back, saw Frankie and whipped front again.
“Frankie!” His father shot out of his chair, came around the desk and put a hand on his arm to usher him out. “I’ll be right out.”
But Frankie’s eyes were on the tall dude with the square head who wouldn’t make eye contact. How the hell did he know this guy?
He pulled his arm from his father’s grasp, stepped toward tall dude and extended his hand. “I’m Frank Falcone.”
Tall dude nodded once. “How are ya?”
“Not bad.” He burned the image of this guy’s face—brown eyes, scar next to his right eye, thick nose that had to have been broken a time or two—into his head.
“Frankie,” his father said, “order me a sandwich. I’ll meet you outside.”
His father wanted him gone. Frankie usually didn’t come back here when his father conducted business. Not that his father ever told him to stay out, but he never wanted to know what went on behind this closed door.
Today, his father wanted him out. Why?
“Sure, Pop.” He turned to the tall dude. “What did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t.”
Okay, then. Flaming moron.
Frankie went back to the table, inhaled his sandwich and bolted. He walked the few blocks back to his house and called Joey on the way.
“I can’t talk,” Joey said. “The Bulls are down by three. I could lose my ass.”
Frankie blew that off. With a seven o’clock start, it was way too early to be worrying about the ending. “There was a guy at Petey’s before. I need to know who he is.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I’ve seen him. Can’t figure out where. Jimmy said he’s on one of the other crews. I went to the back office and he was in there with my father. He wouldn’t give me his name.”
“What’d he look like?”
“Tall, dark hair, square head. Big guy.”
“Square head?”
“Yeah.”
“Had to be Neil. He’s on Mickey’s crew.”
“How would I know him?”
“Couldn’t tell ya. He doesn’t come around Petey’s much. They have their own place on the west side.”
Frankie reached his house, stopped in front and grazed his sneaker over the patch of lawn. Why was Neil talking to his father? The crews generally stayed within ranks. “Why would he be meeting with my dad?”
“Couldn’t tell ya,” Joey repeated.
Could Lucie’s father have something to do with it? Frankie knew his father typically discussed business with Joe during his visits. They had been forced to work out their own coding system due to the constant recording of conversations, but they still managed to do business. “When are you seeing your dad?”
Joey sighed. “Well, Princess Puff-Puff, if you can get out of bed and play bodyguard to my sister, I’ll go tomorrow.”
Princess Puff Puff? Frankie should kick his ass. “I’ll be ready to roll tomorrow. Ask your dad about Neil. Don’t make him suspicious.”
“What is it with you and Neil?”
“I don’t know. He kept turning away from me like he didn’t want me to see his face.”
“Dude, he’s probably in a jackpot and wants to keep it quiet.”
“No. It’s me he’s got a problem with. Everyone in Petey’s saw him, but he avoided me.”
“Maybe he doesn’t like your pretty boy looks?”
“Or maybe he doesn’t like my connection to these dognappings?”
* * *
The following evening, Frankie, Joey and Lucie sat huddled around the dining room table anticipating Mom’s return from her poker game. Yes, her mother had a weekly poker game. No real money exchanged hands. Bingo chips only and Mom had a knack for raking those babies in.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” Joey said. “What’s up?”
Mom usually got home between nine-thirty and ten and the clock hovered at nine-forty-five.
Of course, Lucie and Frankie had to wait for Joey to join them at the house and now he was moaning about being short on time. Typical.
“How’d you do you with your dad today?” Frankie asked.
“Good and not so good. He’s not pissed at Lucie anymore.” Joey turned to her. “You need to get up there this weekend. He’s done lecturing you about finding a job, but if you don’t get your skinny butt up to see him, he’s gonna blow.”
She hated visiting her father in prison. No one wanted to think of their parent as a caged animal. “Fine. I’ll get on the list.” She looked at Frankie.
He backed away. “Me?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll go if you want me to, but that’ll lead to him asking if we’re back together.”
“Are you back together?”
“We’re dating,” Lucie said. Frankie nodded.
Joey scrunched his face. “Dating? Is that like a friends-with-benefits thing?”
Imbecile. “Don’t be a jerk,” she said. “Tell us about dad.”
“Right.” Joey flicked his eyes to Frankie. “He doesn’t know about any deals Neil and your dad might be involved in. Neil is a good earner though.”
“Didn’t he want to know why you were asking?”
“No. I told him I saw him having lunch at Petey’s with a couple of guys.”
Holy cow, Lucie thought. “You lied to Dad?”
Joey looked at her with a bored expression that telepathed he thought she was cow dung. “I didn’t lie. The guy was at Petey’s. He could have had lunch there.”
“And he wasn’t surprised by that?” Frankie wanted to know.
Joey stuck out his bottom lip. “Not really. Mickey likes the pepper-and-egg sandwiches at Petey’s and sometimes makes Neil the delivery boy.”
“Crap. I got all stoked thinking he was involved in the dognapping thing, and I’ve probably just seen him at Petey’s buying a sandwich.”
Lucie reached for Frankie’s hand. “You’re thinking too much.”
“Dammit.”
She understood though, because she’d lost plenty of sleep worrying about the dogs and the diamond and the ongoing search of the attic that had turned up nothing. For Frankie, it was worse. He’d promised her father she’d be safe. If he broke that promise, he’d hear about it for the rest of her father’s life. And her father was a healthy guy.
“Who is this Neil? Do I know him?
”
“I don’t think so. He’s not from the neighborhood. He’s part of Mickey’s crew and doesn’t come around much.”
“He’s a big, tall dude.” Frankie held his hands next to his head. “Square head.”
She didn’t know anyone with a square head. “I should get a look at him. See if I recognize him.”
Joey sat back and blew his cheeks out. “Here we go with the conspiracy theories.”
“It couldn’t hurt,” Frankie said. “Where does he hang out?”
“For Christ sakes. Let it go.”
When Joey swung his gaze to Lucie, she said, “We should at least check this Neil guy out. If Frankie is this worried, there might be something to it.”
Joey snorted. “You two have fun schlepping around Jasper to find this guy.”
“No. It’ll look suspicious if Frankie goes. You’ll have to take me.”
“Hell no. I’m not following Neil.”
Frankie flung a hand out. “She’s right. If he sees me with Lucie, it’ll look strange. All you need to do is ask around, see where he hangs out and take Lucie there. In fact, you may not even have to get out of the car. Do a role reversal and pretend you’re the feds. For a change, you’ll be the one sitting in the car.”
Joey grinned. “Nice.”
Frankie leaned forward on his elbows, made eye contact with Joey. “I’ll take your shift with the dogs next week.”
“Now we’re talking.”
“Both shifts.”
That lit up Joey’s face. “Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner. You walk the mutts with Luce and I’ll find Neil. Piece of cake.”
“Well, I’m glad you boys figured that out.” Nothing like feeling completely useless.
Frankie didn’t miss the implied comment and grabbed Lucie’s hand. “Your turn comes when he finds Neil. Something about that guy rubs me wrong. I feel like I’ve seen him recently. Maybe you’ll recognize him.”
Lucie shifted toward Frankie. “Do you think he’s involved with stealing the accessories?”
He ran a finger over her cheek and the heat shot right to her lower core. God, she loved him.
“I don’t know, but we’ve pretty much run out of ideas.”
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