“Thank you,” she said. This guy was really beginning to bug her.
The early-morning quiet was gradually invaded by a rising din coming from Julius’s office. Loretta stopped to listen. Vissa and Marvelli were going at it again.
“C’mon, Julius,” Marvelli was saying. “This is ridiculous. She doesn’t need me for this. Anybody in the office can go with her.”
Vissa started whining. “You’re the only other PO who knows what he looks like, Marvelli. How many times do I have to say it?”
“Case closed,” Julius overrode them both. “Vissa, you can have Marvelli for the day. But that’s it. I want to see you back here tomorrow morning as usual, O Marvelous One. And at your desk—not out back in the holding cells with … you know.”
“But—”
“No buts. Just go.”
Vissa’s loud hooting laughter drowned out whatever argument Marvelli was making.
“Go,” Julius ordered. “I have made my decision, and there are no appeals. Get out of here. Andale, andele, pronto.”
Freddy was shaking his head. “Poor bastard,” he said. “I feel sorry for him.”
Loretta looked up from the form. “Why?”
“I only had to spend three hours with Vissa. Your buddy’s stuck with her for the whole day.”
“So? What’s wrong with that?”
Freddy didn’t answer right away. He studied the ash on his cigarette. “Let’s just say Vissa Mylowe is a lot of woman.”
“Meaning what?”
He took another drag as he considered his answer. “Lemme put it this way. If Vissa worked for me, she’s be my biggest earner and my biggest headache.”
Loretta put the pen down. “The headache part I can understand, but what do you mean she’d be your biggest earner?”
Freddy laughed with the cigarette wedged in the corner of his mouth. “It always amazes me how dense broads can be about other broads. Let me clue you in. Vissa Mylowe is one sexy babe. And not bombshell sexy—I mean genuine sexy. The kind of broad guys get cuckoo over.”
“I’m not following you.” Loretta wasn’t sure she wanted to.
“There’s just something about her that’s unbelievably sexy. The way she says things, the way she looks at you, the way she can change gears in the middle of a conversation and then change right back again. I mean, look what she did with your friend. She was bitching at him like crazy, ready to scratch his eyes out, then just like that she turns around and gets all playful with him, melts him right down to nothing.”
“She did not melt him down to nothing,” Loretta objected.
“You don’t think so because you’re a woman,” Freddy said. “You didn’t see it the way a guy would.”
Loretta picked up her pen. This mutt was full of crap, she thought. Right up to his brown eyeballs.
“I’m telling you, though,” he said. “If I had her working for me, it would be like money in the bank. Johns pay big for girls like her. She’d be the kind guys fall in love with and pay through the nose to be with. She’d be a freakin’ gold mine.”
“Right … ” Loretta shifted her attention back to the form. Freddy was a jerk, she decided. She shouldn’t even bother listening to him.
But as the pimp fished another cigarette out of his pocket and lit it with the end of his last one, Loretta glanced back toward Julius’s office. Sure, the woman was sexy and flirty, but Marvelli’s not that shallow, she thought.
Besides, he doesn’t seem to like her at all. And they’re only going to be together for a day. What could possibly happen in one day? Nothing, she told herself. Absolutely nothing.
Freddy was blowing smoke rings, tracking them with his eyes. “You think she’s good in the sack?”
“How the hell would I know?”
“I’ll bet she’s something else,” he said admiringly.
“If I ever sleep with her, I’ll let you know,” Loretta said sarcastically.
Freddy stopped blowing rings and stared at her. “You go that way?”
“What way?”
“With other women.”
Loretta scowled at him. “No.”
“You go both ways? Boys and girls?”
“Keep it up, Freddy. You’re doing a great job getting on my good side.”
Freddy shrugged, pulling an innocent face. “I’m just asking. That’s all. Personally I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that kind of stuff.”
“Did I say there was?” Loretta heard herself getting loud. “Did I?” she said, toning it down.
“Hey, you know what I say? I say, whatever gets you through the night. Long as you don’t hurt nobody else. What people do behind closed doors is their business. That’s my motto.”
“Just as long as you get your cut,” Loretta pointed out.
“Only if they’re doing it with one of my employees. It’s a free country. Amateurs can get laid, too. I don’t mind.”
“That’s big of you, Freddy.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Loretta scrunched her lips to one side of her face as she stared at the form. “I don’t have your file here, Freddy. Where did you last serve time?”
“Leesburg.”
“Where were you arrested?”
“Wildwood.”
“Do you remember the name of the presiding judge at your trial?”
Freddy exhaled his disgust. “Do I remember? How could I ever forget that big mo? Stanislaw ?. Kopinsky. Gave me the maximum and said he would’ve given me more if he could’ve. They call that guy the Time Machine.”
Loretta couldn’t help but laugh. “Freddy, every court in the country’s got a judge they call the Time Machine, and every con I’ve ever met says he’s been screwed by the Time Machine.”
“Hey, I don’t know nothing about the rest of the country, but in my case it’s true. That old bastard Stanislaw is the original Time Machine.”
“Sure, Freddy, whatever you say.”
Freddy took a long drag off his cigarette, the smoke slowly filtering out through his nose. “You mind if I ask you something?”
“What?”
“How much do you people make?”
“Parole officers?”
“Yeah.”
“None of your business.”
“Can’t be much,” Freddy said, scratching the underside of his chin. “It’s a state job, right?”
Loretta looked at him. “You thinking of applying?”
He laughed, hissing through his nose. “Not me, man. I’m just thinking about Vissa. I bet she don’t make more than thirty-five, forty grand a year. I could triple her salary easy if she came to work for me.”
Loretta just shook her head in disbelief. “You are incredible, Freddy. You just got caught violating the terms of your parole, and here you are discussing future illegal activities with an officer of the court. Are you brain-dead or what?”
Freddy’s mouth formed a deep frown as he shook his head. “No way, no how,” he said. “I never said what I wanted her to do for me. How do you know I’m not looking for a cleaning lady?”
“Yeah, right,” Loretta said. She went back to the form. “You’ll have to find out if she does windows, though. I have a feeling she doesn’t.”
“She can do my windows anytime,” he said with a lascivious grin. “You, too.”
Loretta dropped the pen and reared back to slap him silly when she suddenly realized that he was still handcuffed. POs are not supposed to use excessive force, and they are definitely not supposed to strike a parolee when he or she is in restraints.
Freddy puckered his lips and closed his eyes. “Ooooh, baby,” he moaned. “Hurt me. Hurt me good.”
“That can be arranged, Freddy. And you won’t like it.”
He grinned. “You never know.”
Just then Marvelli and Vissa emerged from Julius’s office. They were both laughing about something.
“This mutt giving you a hard time, Loretta?” Vissa asked.
“No more t
han any other mutt I’ve ever had to deal with.”
Freddy rotated his shoulders like a stripper. “Ooooh, ladies,” he growled in his throat. “I love it when you talk about me.”
“Ignore him,” Vissa said. “He’s been doing this crap ever since I picked him up. I think he turns himself on.”
“Not like you do,” Freddy said under his breath.
Vissa struck like a cobra, grabbing him by the throat and digging her nails into his flesh. She tipped his chair so far back he was on the verge of toppling over. “Behave,” she grunted. Her thumb was on his trachea, cutting off his air supply. When she finally let him go, he wheezed and coughed, sucking in as much air as he could get.
Loretta raised an eyebrow. “He’s still in cuffs,” she reminded Vissa.
“I know,” she said, keeping her gaze on Freddy. She didn’t seem to care.
Loretta looked to Marvelli. He didn’t seem to approve either, but he held his tongue.
“Here,” Vissa said, picking up the Violator Reentry form, “let me finish this up. Mind if I use your desk, Loretta?”
“No problem. Take your time.” She wandered toward the coffee machine where Marvelli had gone to fix himself a cup. “A little on the rough side, don’t you think?” she said in his ear.
“That’s her style,” he said, shaking out two packets of sugar. “She believes in the iron-fist approach.”
“You gonna be able to deal with that?”
“Oh, yeah. Don’t worry about that. Anyway I don’t expect anything to come of this Krupnick thing.”
I hope not, she thought. She didn’t want Marvelli spending any more time with Vissa Mylowe than he absolutely had to. Freddy’s assessment of her lingered in Loretta’s mind.
Marvelli was stirring his coffee with a wooden stick. “You don’t mind me partnering with her today, do you?” His eyes had that pathetic backslant that she adored. But why was he asking for her permission? she wondered, a little peeved that he’d asked.
“I don’t mind if you go with her. Why should I?”
“No reason,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll call you tonight. Unless we find Krupnick, which I doubt that we will. Nothing’s gonna happen.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Either way, I’ll call you.”
“Fine. I’ll be home.”
Loretta glanced at Vissa sitting at her desk, filling out the rest of the form, and wondered why Marvelli was going out of his way to assure her that nothing was going to happen. She watched him drinking his coffee at his desk.
4
Vissa’s complexion was green in the dim glow of the parking lot lights. There were no stars in the sky, but the moon was bright, turning the passing clouds silver. Marvelli sat in the passenger seat of Vissa’s 1986 white Cadillac Seville, Vissa behind the wheel. She was staring intently through the windshield at the plate-glass windows of the Dunkin Donuts shop across the parking lot, focusing on a fat man with a full gray beard waiting in line at the take-out counter. Marvelli was staring just as intently at the pay phone out front.
“It’ll take two seconds,” Marvelli said. “I just want to call Loretta and let her know I’ll be late.”
“No way,” Vissa said, her eyes glued to the Dunkin Donuts. “Krupnick is right there. What if he remembers your face? You’ll spook him.”
“That was eight years ago, Vissa. And I was with him for only a minute or two. I really doubt that he’ll remember me.”
“You never know. And Krupnick’s not just anybody. He’s very smart.”
“C’mon. Loretta’s gonna be wondering what happened to us.”
Vissa turned her head and looked at him straight on, most of her face embedded in shadows. “I’m gonna give you some advice, Marvelli, even though I know you don’t want it. Office romances are just plain stupid. I don’t care if Julius is looking the other way. One of you two is gonna get hurt.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Now don’t get all defensive on me, Marvelli. I’m just looking out for you.” She reached over and stroked his cheek with the back of her hand.
He froze, wanting to recoil but not wanting to overreact. Vissa didn’t mean anything by this, he told himself. That’s just the way she was. She liked to touch.
When she put her hand down, Marvelli turned his head and stared out at the doughnut shop. Three customers were ahead of the fat man, and there was only one waitress working the counter. Plenty of time to run over and make a quick call to Loretta.
“Will you calm down, Marvelli? Loretta can manage without you for one night. Trust me.”
Vissa flashed what could have been a flirty grin at him, but he wasn’t sure because of the shadows.
He reached for the door handle. “I’m gonna go call Loretta. I’ll make sure Krupnick doesn’t see me—”
“Wait.” She grabbed his hand and held it tight. Hers was very warm, but Marvelli felt chills running up his arm. He stared down at their linked fingers as if their hands were a couple of crabs getting fresh on his thigh, as if they had absolutely nothing to do with him.
He pulled his hand away. “Vissa, you’re not trying to—? You know.”
“Me?” She laughed, and her eyes sparkled. “Why do you think that?”
Marvelli didn’t answer. This line of conversation could end up someplace he didn’t want to go.
“Well, you are cute,” she said. Her mouth was hidden in the shadows, and her husky voice came out of the darkness, like a ghost’s. “I’ve always thought you were cute. You know that.”
Marvelli looked at her sideways. “Now I know you’re playing with me.”
“Sure. I’d like to play with you.”
“C’mon, Vissa. Stop fooling around.”
“You mean, stop fooling around so we can start fooling around?”
He laughed nervously, hoping to keep things light. “You haven’t changed a bit, Vissa. You’re still a big tease.”
“You’re afraid of me, aren’t you?”
“No. I’m not afraid of you. Why do you say that?”
“Then you’re afraid of Loretta.”
“I’m not afraid of her, either.”
“Then why are you so nervous?”
“Because I don’t know what I’m doing here. I mean, do you really think that’s Ira Krupnick in there buying doughnuts? Or was this just some elaborate excuse to get me out here alone with you?”
She stared at him for a long moment. “Maybe both,” the ghostly voice said.
“I don’t think so.” He reached for the door handle again, ready to go, but she grabbed his hand.
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” she said. “You used to have a sense of humor, Marvelli. What happened?”
“I still have a sense of humor.”
“Not like before.” She circled his kneecap with her frosty pink fingernail. “Remember?”
He closed his eyes and heaved an annoyed sigh. “I knew you were gonna bring that up again.”
“How can I not?”
“It was one time, Vissa. It was a moment of weakness.”
“Whatever it was, it was great. You are one hell of a lover, Marvelli. That’s why I hate to see you wasting yourself on someone like Loretta.”
Marvelli’s face was burning. He resented Vissa for putting Loretta down when she didn’t even know her, and he resented even more her proprietary attitude with him. Yes, they had slept together, but it was only once, and it was a big mistake. He’d regretted it before it was even over. It had happened a long time ago, when Vissa worked at the Newark office, long before his wife had gotten sick. He and Rene had been having marital problems, and she’d thrown him out of the house. He’d complained to Vissa about it, and she offered him her couch. Vissa was just someone he worked with, so he thought it was no big deal to accept her offer. But that night they were on the couch watching TV, and one thing led to another, and by the time the Seinfeld credits were rolling, they were down on the carpet, tearing each other’s clothes off. He’d never tol
d his wife about it, but part of him wished he had. To this day, he still felt guilty.
“All right, all right,” Vissa said, taking her finger off his knee. “I’ll behave … if that’s what you want.”
“Yes, Vissa, that is what I want.” His face felt hot. He wished to hell he didn’t find her so damned attractive.
“Look,” Vissa said, suddenly sounding serious as she nodded toward the doughnut shop. “Krupnick’s at the counter.”
Marvelli focused on the fat man pointing at the trays of doughnuts, telling the waitress which ones he wanted. He must’ve been buying a dozen because she was using a box instead of a bag. Marvelli narrowed his eyes and spotted the tray of chocolate glazed doughnuts—the only dark tray he could see—and suddenly he felt hunger pains.
A few of those would be nice right about now, he thought. With a jumbo cup of coffee. Coffee and doughnuts were made for stakeouts. Or maybe ice cream. Arnie and Barry’s Elmer Fudge Whirl. That would be even better, he thought.
His stomach rumbled loud enough for Vissa to hear.
She reached over and patted his belly. “You miss me, baby?” she asked his stomach. “Loretta’s not feeding you well enough?”
“Enough, Vissa.” He removed her hand. “Pay attention to your man over there. He’s paying for his doughnuts now.”
The fat man handed a few dollar bills to the waitress, who opened the register and counted out his change. He picked up the box of doughnuts from the counter and headed for the door. Vissa turned the ignition key and started the engine before the fat man came outside.
“Here we go,” she said. The idling engine filled the silence. Her eyes were keen as she watched the fat man cross the parking lot, her face all business now.
Marvelli tried to get a better look at the man’s face, comparing it to his eight-year-old memory of Ira Krupnick’s face, but from this distance it was hard to tell if it was the same person.
The man got into a pearl gray Jeep Grand Cherokee. He started his engine and switched on his headlights. When his white backup lights went on, Vissa put her car in gear, ready to follow.
Marvelli arched his stiff back, hoping they could finally make an approach this time. When they’d arrived at the man’s address earlier that afternoon, the man was just pulling out of the driveway. They’d followed him to a crowded mall, where he went to a movie. Vissa and Marvelli had no choice but to wait in the parking lot and watch his Jeep until the movie was over. As they waited, they spent a lot of time speculating on which movie at the omniplex he’d gone to see. Vissa was sure Krupnick’s choice would be the new Al Pacino cop drama, but Marvelli was split between the Steve Martin comedy and the Bruce Willis let’s-blow-up-everything-in-creation thriller. Marvelli remembered Krupnick as being sort of a wiseass, so he’d probably relate to Willis and Martin more than to Pacino.
Hot Fudge (A Loretta Kovacs thriller) Page 3