I tensed, waiting for Lawless to pick up the phone and interrupt Notch’s nightly edit meeting with the glorious revelation that he’d found me snooping. Notch would love nothing more than to fire me in front of all the editors as proof of how willing he was to exert his power. He would have done really, really well in the Crusades.
But Lawless didn’t pick up the phone. Nor did he lecture or warn me. He said, “I followed you back here so we could talk. Dix Notch is out of control and we have to stop him.”
This made me shut the file drawer much louder than I intended. “What?”
“I know, I know,” he said, hitching up his trousers legs and perching at the edge of Doris’s desk. “You and I aren’t famous for getting along. But in these circumstances I think it’s best that we join forces.”
“Okay.” I pulled out Doris’s fancy ergonomic backward chair. “Keep talking.”
“He’s psycho about this stupid Shatsky case, which seems like a routine accidental poisoning if you ask me. I mean, the woman had an allergy to latex and died. So what? Lots of people have allergies and die. To bees, to penicillin, some to peanuts. Though, if you ask me, I think that one’s way overblown.”
I swallowed. Where was Lawless going with this?
“I don’t have a conflict of interest—unlike you—and I’m the cop reporter. I’m supposed to be writing this, right? It’s my fucking job.”
“Right.” Though Lawless would do one heck of a lazy job.
“I mean this is standard stuff. But not to Notch. Jesus H. You’d think this stupid fatal allergy involved the White House the way he’s all over it. He wants total control. Won’t let me make one phone call.”
“Not one phone call?”
“Can’t even discuss it with my standard sources. Threatened to fire me if I did, too.”
I leaned back in Doris’s goofy ergonomic chair and nearly fell over. Lawless actually saved me by reaching over and catching the back. “This fucking chair cost two grand, you know,” he said. “I don’t know what Doris has got over Notch but she uses it to acquire some pretty useless shit.”
Lawless liked to swear. He was a swearing virtuoso.
I steadied Doris’s chair and said, “So who’s covering the Shatsky homicide if you’re not?” Like I didn’t already know the answer.
“That pipsqueak rookie Alison Roach.” Lawless snarled. “Notch is calling her into his office every ten minutes and she’s reporting on this exactly the way he wants. I swear, she must be giving him hummers because he can’t leave her alone.”
“Full Sweeneys,” I said.
“Pardon?”
“Full Sweeneys. That’s our term for hummers.”
“What’s a partial Sweeney?”
“A very bad Saturday night.”
Lawless scratched his ear. “Whatever. The point is that while I’m not one to run with conspiracies, I’m beginning to think with the way he’s controlling this story, Notch has something to hide. Now I’m questioning whether this wasn’t a freak latex poisoning death, but maybe more. Maybe”—Lawless coughed as though he were choking on his own words—“maybe you’re, um, right.”
This time I held on to Doris’s desk so I didn’t tip backward. “Can I have that in writing?”
“Don’t be smug. Listen, if you tell me what you’ve found out, I might be able to put it together with what I know and we can compare notes to determine if Notch has some connection to this murder.”
I couldn’t see how. Besides, I didn’t trust Lawless. He could be spying on me for Notch, though what Lawless said about Notch and Alison Roach was true. It did raise the possibility that Notch was snuffing a story for his own purposes. Notch had a lot of close ties into Lehigh’s business community. He did not operate independently, as newspaper editors should. He was more concerned with greasing his own wheels than the wheels of justice.
Then again, this was coming from Lawless.
“I can see you’re not sure about my proposal. Fine. I understand. You think I might be a mole for Notch. So, to show I’m on the up and up, I’ll share some juice a cop told me this afternoon.” Lawless walked over to the library door and shut it. “Ern Bender came to the police station last night looking for protection. Said his life was in danger and he couldn’t protect himself because, as a felon, he’s not allowed to have a gun.”
Lawless scrutinized my reaction carefully. I still wasn’t sure if he was on the take, so I tried to keep my expression neutral, even though this validated my hunch that the Christmas tree lot hadn’t been shot up by the violent wing of the anti-Christmas lobby. It was good to know Bender was alive and not killed by the .22 caliber one-shot that had killed the blue spruce.
“Here’s something else. I got a call this morning from a guy I’ve written about for five years. Louie Murray, aka Louis Moran aka Lucky Louie aka Lola Lou. That was during his drag years.”
“Sounds like a busy man. Except for his drag years.”
“That’s Louie all right. Busy. Used to run a craps game in Freemansburg. Been in and out of jail a dozen times. Anyway, he read Roach’s story this morning about Shatsky being a successful travel agent and all, how she was a fifth-degree queen of the muckety-muck for the Order of the Eastern Star and such. Fucking church lady. Seems he had quite a problem with that.”
Something in Lawless’s statement hit a nerve, triggered a memory I couldn’t quite place in context. I hate when that happens. It’s like forgetting what you want to say. I just knew this was what my senior years were going to be like if I didn’t start eating gingko by the bucket.
“Are you listening to me?”
“I’m listening,” I said, still trying to remember.
“Louie claims Shatsky hired him last year, during one of his brief vacations from the clink, to work on one of her Love Boat cruises off Atlantic City. Wasn’t interested in him serving drinks or swabbing the deck. Louie claims she wanted him to put his con artist skills to good use posing as a rising Lehigh steel exec looking for the perfect wife. Louie said he got laid on that cruise more times than he could count and still Debbie paid him big bucks for his services.”
That was it! The night before in the women’s room, either Tess or the brunette had mentioned the “lust boat” cruises being filled with ex-cons. But why would Debbie use ex-cons to pose as loopers? Why didn’t she use the real thing?
Loopers were men, always men, who ground out successive six-month stints at the steel plants in Baltimore, Williamsport, Johnstown, Lebanon, Pottstown and, if they were fortunate, San Francisco, before being deemed worthy of vice president status. They were the industrial equivalent of circuit riders, lonely and often single, looking for women willing to pull up roots twice a year and move on. Either that or settle for a one-night stand.
For many in Lehigh’s working-class community, marrying a looper meant a step up the economic ladder, a financially secure lifestyle. A looper who survived the circuit was assured a six-figure salary, a nice house in a good neighborhood, an automatic membership to the country club and the permanent title of vice president.
I had to hand it to Debbie. Booking cruises so single women in Lehigh could meet lonely loopers was an inspired idea. That was, if the lonely loopers were really loopers and not ex-cons.
Hold on. “Did you say Louie got laid?” I asked. “More often than Mohammed’s prayer rug. If what he says is true, it’s a helluva story, ain’t it?”
And how much better a story it would have been if I could interview women who’d been victims of Debbie’s scam. Women like Tess and the brunette. Then again, what was I saying? Tess despised me. Damn. And she would have been so perfect!
“You’re thinking and that scares me,” Lawless said. “It’s unnatural. You’re supposed to put on mascara and lipstick, tease hair, not think.”
I carefully slid off Doris’s chair. It tottered back and forth. “Could you get Lucky Louie to confirm on the record that he was hired by Debbie to pose as a looper?”
Lawle
ss shoved his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know. Louie doesn’t want to go back to jail. He wants to keep his name out of the papers for now. He’s looking at a job in substitute teaching, should the teachers go on strike next month. Wants to keep a low profile.”
That sounded like another page-one blockbuster right there: Con Subs for Scabs. Too bad I didn’t have the time. “You think he’d be willing to go as background? Maybe he could find other ex-cons. Surely he wasn’t the only bachelor on board.”
“I’ll try it, see if I can entice him. When she died, Debbie owed him five hundred bucks for the last cruise, so he might be inclined. What about you?”
“There are some women I could talk to.”
“From the salon?”
“No. But that’s not a bad idea.”
The phone on Doris’s desk rang. Lawless picked it up.
“Uh-huh,” he said, eyeing me. “She’s here. No . . . no. I won’t let her go.” He hung up and I flew at him.
“You set me up!” I screeched, feeling his chest for a wire, reaching around to detect if a tape recorder was concealed in the small of his back. “You are a spy for Notch and now he’s coming to get me.”
Lawless clinched me in a bear hug. “Knock it off, Yablonsky. Get ahold of yourself. It’s not Notch who’s on his way. It’s your nutty mother.”
Mama stood frowning in the doorway next to Genevieve, who was holding a large garment bag. “Well, I never. Less than a week before the wedding and still throwing herself at men.”
“What can you do? It’s the Lithuanian in her,” Genevieve said. “We got a sex drive that just won’t quit.”
Lawless and I snapped apart. He fled that room faster than the hot summer when he was gypped out of a Push Pop and chased the Good Humor truck four blocks.
Mama watched him go. “I know you told us not to show up when you were at work but since it’s after five we figured it would be okay. Turns out you were just making hoohaa in the library, anyway.”
She was in a new Christmassy outfit of a cranberry-colored flared skirt and a green cardigan decorated with snowmen and snow-covered houses and a lot of snow-related activity. Genevieve, on the other hand, wore a black turtleneck and, gulp, Aberdeen plaid trousers. Her thighs were larger than the entire landmass of Scotland. Angrier, too.
“We weren’t making hoohaa. Lawless and I were talking business.”
“Hmph,” Mama hmphed, unconvinced.
“If it was sexual harassment, I got my home castrator in the Rambler,” Genevieve suggested. “Might be a bit rusty after the incident at Niagara Falls and whatnot.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind. Not for Lawless. I got other rusty home castrator candidates. I could make a list. A long list.” I pointed to the garment bag. “What’s in there? Your outfit for the Christmas pageant?”
“Hardly,” Mama said. “Give it to her, Genny.”
Genevieve thrust out the garment bag, which was surprisingly heavy. “It’s for you.”
“We went to Jersey yesterday to find camels. And we saw it in the window of Loehmann’s. We had to buy it.”
I sniffed the garment bag. It smelled vaguely of a circus. “They’re selling camels at Loehmann’s now?”
“Don’t be silly. Try it on. Genny and I can’t wait.”
There was only one bathroom in the library and it was for Doris’s personal use. She kept it locked when she was off the clock. Even when it was available, it was more her space than the News-Times’ space. She stored a coffeemaker in there, a box of tampons, her toothbrush and toothpaste and a collection of makeup that didn’t seem to do much good.
“I’ve got nowhere to change and I’m not going into the newsroom.” I handed the dress back to her. “I’ll try it on when I get home. Dan’s going to be here soon. We’re getting our marriage license tonight.”
Mama slapped her cheek. “Oh, thank heavens. We were worried you were going to miss the license deadline. That’s a load off our mind.”
“I got an idea,” Genevieve said. “Why don’t you and I stand guard out in the hall, Lulu? If we see Dan, we’ll run interference. Meanwhile, Bubbles can try on the dress here.”
“What’s the rush?” I said. “I’ll try it on tonight. No biggie.”
Mama shifted her feet and looked furtively at Genevieve. “The thing is, tonight might be too late.”
“For what?”
“To make closing time at Loehmann’s,” Genevieve said. “We gotta get the dress back by then.”
“Especially if you like it,” Mama added, tossing the garment bag back to me. “It’s your wedding dress.”
I couldn’t believe it. She was at it again. Shoplifting—my wedding dress!
Mama had a bit of a problem in the kleptomania department, depending on her medication levels, though Genevieve had promised to keep an eye on her. I didn’t think taking the dress outside “to check it in the natural light” would work as an excuse this time, not with the crossing of state lines.
“If this dress is over three thousand dollars, then it’s a federal felony which might require investigation by the FBI,” I said. “That is, if it’s stolen.”
Mama blinked, all the color suddenly gone from her rouged cheeks. “It’s not worth more than three thousand dollars.”
I thought so. And here I was, holding the hot merchandise.
Genevieve waved me on. “Go on, try it. Look at it this way. You’re test driving a dress like a car. Don’t buy a car until you test-drive it, right?”
This made sense in a distorted, oversexed Lithuanian way. “Okay. But you two have to not budge from the hallway and give me a high sign if anyone comes.”
“How about . . . ‘Get that stolen wedding dress off, Bubbles. It’s your boss!’ ” Mama said. “Is that a good high sign?”
I told her that would do. My firing was looking more and more imminent, anyway.
They left and I hung the dress up on the handle of a filing cabinet. Carefully, I zipped it open, fully expecting an explosion of toile or chiffon. Mama preferred dresses that resembled the white crocheted canister covers in her kitchen. You know, the ones with the doll sewn in the top. Her bedroom bureau was covered with them.
The bag opened. I peeked inside and was flabbergasted. This was not a crocheted canister cover by any stretch. This was a beautiful V-necked gown with a ruched bodice and faux pearls and silver beaded straps in ivory silk. It was gorgeous!
I pulled off all my clothes and stepped into it. I couldn’t wait. The dress slid over my skin like water and fit like a gem, hugging my waist and flattering my hips. It wouldn’t have to be altered at all. The silver beads made the most of my shoulders and the ruched bodice lifted my bust regally. This was too good for Dan. This dress was too good for Cinderella.
There was a knock on the door.
“Just a minute,” I called as I struggled with the side zipper.
“Bubbles,” Mama croaked from the hallway. “Get that hot dress off. We got trouble.”
Oh, crap. Notch. And here this zipper was stuck. I pulled it up, down. Nothing. Finally, I just kicked my clothes and looked for a place to hide. There was scuffling on the other side of the door and a man’s voice, low and gruff.
I thought of throwing myself into a file cabinet, but they were all stupidly stuffed with files. Doris’s desk wasn’t any help and her bathroom was locked, damn it.
There was no out. I watched dumbly as the handle turned and the door opened, covering my eyes so I didn’t have to meet Notch’s furious gaze. There were footsteps and then the door shut. I waited, counting to ten before I peeked between my fingers and saw that it wasn’t Notch.
It was Stiletto.
Chapter Nineteen
Slowly I brought my hands down. Remembering that I was in a wedding gown, a very sexy wedding gown at that, paralyzed me into self-consciousness. I stood frozen against the filing cabinets, submitting myself to Stiletto’s inspection, which he insisted on conducting despite my obvious mortification.
/>
He said nothing as he let his dark blue gaze travel over me, from my bare shoulders and exposed cleavage to my relatively narrow waist and the outline of my thighs. I could tell he approved, at least according to the way he smiled knowingly at his favorite parts.
“New career style?” he asked.
“Not exactly.” I held out the skirt and let it drop. “Just trying it on before the cops arrest Mama. It’s hot.”
“You might say that.”
I brushed back a strand of hair, remembering our fight from the night before. It helped to dissipate some of my uncharacteristic modesty. “I’d take it off except the zipper’s stuck.”
“Want some help? I’ve had some experience with dress zippers, you know.”
This could be trouble.
He didn’t wait for my permission. Instead, he placed the files he had borrowed on Doris’s desk and took the matter into his own hands. He knew exactly where the zipper was and exactly how to unstick it. I held my breath as his capable fingers swiftly unsnagged the head and he slowly proceeded to unzip.
“That’s far enough,” I said, pushing his hand away. “Thank you.”
I looked down. Stiletto’s rough hand was on my bare hip and not showing any signs of budging. He was very close. So close I could feel his breath on my neck, smell the leather of his jacket.
“You better take this off,” he murmured. “Your mother says Dan’s going to be here any minute to get a marriage license. Don’t want him to see you like this before the wedding, do you?”
But I didn’t think Stiletto really cared whether or not Dan saw me like this before the wedding. Emily Post wasn’t foremost in his thoughts. I had a hunch what was foremost in his thoughts and it had absolutely nothing to do with etiquette.
“Do you mind?” I said.
“What’s the matter, Bubbles?” He paused. “Don’t you trust me?”
Oh, what a bastard he was to throw the trust issue back in my face. “We’re done discussing that, Stiletto. I have very good reasons for marrying Dan and you have offered nothing to show me why I shouldn’t.”
“How about the fact that you can’t stop thinking about me?” He grinned, cocky, enjoying the torment he was putting me through.
Bubbles All The Way Page 16