by Lori Avocato
I hesitated. Had to, in order to clear my confusion, astonishment and impending fear. A short pause. There. Now I might be able to come up with some questions. “Actually, Fabio, I do have several—”
“Go have Adele introduce you to Goldie. Nick’s out on a job. Goldie’s a vet. Goldie’ll show you the ropes.” He spun around toward the window, set his feet on the counter and leaned back.
I guessed a nap was in order but didn’t stay around to find out. I left my coffee cup on his desk, thinking it wouldn’t be noticed in the debris and knowing if I tried to carry it, my trembling hands would spill coffee all over my suit. No sense wasting money that I didn’t have on a cleaning bill.
Adele had her head bent forward with earphones tucked beneath the polka-dotted bow in her hair. She typed on a keyboard, obviously transcribing notes. And with gloves on, no less. I hated to interrupt but needed some motherly comforting—and had a feeling Stella Maciejko Sokol wouldn’t volunteer when she heard about all this.
The gun part wouldn’t leave my thoughts.
I tapped at the door, but Adele didn’t turn around. So I went inside and gently tapped on her shoulder. Her head flew up, the wire of the headset caught on her flailing hands and a giant potted fern took the brunt of her actions and ended up on the floor.
“I’m so sorry!” I scrambled to help pick up the pot. Luckily it was plastic made to look like pottery and didn’t break.
Adele looked at me, took a deep breath and sighed loudly. “Adele doesn’t do well with sneaking up on her. Not since eighty-eight, when I was convicted.”
I couldn’t help myself, yet I’d never been the nosy type. “You were convicted?”
She straightened her hair while looking in the shiny part of the electric coffeepot next to her desk and reapplied her cherry red lipstick. “Embezzling. Learned my lesson. Thank the good Lord Mr. Scarpello found it in his heart to hire me after I got out.”
Got out? Geez. She was adorable but an ex-con. Pauline Sokol never did well with change and this is exactly why. I figured it wasn’t prudent to ask for any more details, since she wasn’t offering.
Then she said, “My old lady was sick. The big C. Ate her up to nothing. And, to boot, no medical insurance. I needed that money. The jury was right to convict me. Don’t matter the need, you can’t steal.” She held up her gloved hands. “Burned in the joint.”
I could only nod. Adele sat silent for a minute. I figured she was thinking of her mom, so I said, “Fabio said I should have you introduce me to Goldie. When you’re ready.”
“Oh … sure . Sure thing.” She leaned near and touched my arm. “Don’t be afraid now, chéri. Goldie can help you. Don’t pay attention to the outside.”
Outside? Outside of what? Oh … my … God. And here I thought the “gun” thing was frightening.
The hallway behind Adele’s office narrowed toward the end. Stale cigar smoke coated the walls, causing the burnt scent to overpower the musty odor that permeated the reception area. Two doors, one on each side, were at the end. One open. One closed. I guessed that one was Goldie’s.
Through the open one I noticed a young man and a woman at desks, typing on keyboards, talking on phones. Adele said that was the extent of the office staff and she’d introduce me later. “No one there can help you, chéri,” she said as she hesitated outside the closed door.
“Maybe we should call first?” I stepped back, not even admitting how stupid that sounded.
Adele looked at me. “Hmm. I never thought of that. We have an office intercom, but it don’t work, and Fabio is too cheap to get it fixed.” Again she touched my arm. “Don’t you let meeting Goldie get to you. Adele is right here. Just remember that Goldie is … well, Goldie.”
Instead of it getting creepier that she spoke of herself in third person, I convinced myself that it was motherly. I told myself not to be afraid with Adele standing next to me.
After a quick knock with her still-gloved hand—Adele’s other hand gripped my own—a muffled sound came from inside.
“Is someone in there with Goldie? Because if they are, we could come back,” I said.
Adele tightened her hold on my hand. “Chéri, that is Goldie,” she whispered to me.
“But it sounds like—” A man? A woman? One with a baritone voice? No, what the hell did it sound like?
The door swung open.
I pulled back behind Adele. She stepped to the side and let me face Goldie … alone.
A hand with long fingers that piano players would kill for reached out to me. I cringed, then reluctantly reached out.
“Hey, suga, you must be the new mole.”
Adele stepped back toward me. “Chéri, this is Goldie Perlman. Ex-Army intelligence.”
I glared at what had to be six feet of well-endowed woman in front of me. Goldie had on silver skintight slacks, looked like the stretch kind. Her feet, maybe size eleven, well, maybe twelve, sported gold spike heels with pearl-covered bows on them. Ack. My feet hurt looking at them. Not good for running, I’d imagine. Then again, with her size, she probably didn’t have to run from anyone.
I looked past the pants to her shirt. A tiger’s face nearly jumped out at me until I realized it was three-dimensional artwork, or at least looked like it. So real, yet sparkly too. Lots of gold and bronze colors. Actually very pretty, but not my taste. The two golden tiger’s eyes glared at me.
I moved to the side, out of tiger view.
She smiled, revealing a set of damn fine white teeth with a slight overbite. But they sparkled like the shirt and pants. Her makeup, muted earthy tones, was done to perfection, as far as I could tell. Of course I’m no expert, since all I ever use is Maybelline pink blush and matching lipstick. Miles always nagged at me to buy more expensive stuff or at least to let his friend Carl, who worked at Macy’s department store, do a makeover.
Goldie didn’t need a makeover.
She was beautiful. I tucked the idea of asking her for help with my makeup into the back of my mind. I shook her hand and winced at the grip. Wow. She must work out more than I did.
Geez. She really didn’t look like my idea of an investigator. More a movie star.
Adele smiled at Goldie. “How’s it hanging, chéri?”
Goldie chuckled. “Long, honey child. Long.”
They howled.
I started to join in, then froze. Hanging? Long? Long!
I looked up at Goldie. Really looked at her, past the beautiful skin, the perfect nose that any Pole like myself would kill for, those darn teeth and—I swallowed so loudly that Adele and Goldie glared at me.
Goldie was a he.
Now I realized his wrists were too thick to be a woman’s. Should have been a dead giveaway, but I had been mesmerized and didn’t notice. Okay, that didn’t bode well for my investigative skills.
Adele must have seen my mouth gape open. She reached out with a gloved finger, very nonchalantly I might add, and ever-so-gently pushed my lower jaw closed. “Miles introduced Goldie to Fabio. Goldie is from New Orleans.”
As if that would explain why a six-foot-tall, maybe Cajun, man would be dressed up in an outfit snazzier than any I owned for New Year’s Eve and still look as if he could win the Miss America title after waking up with wrinkles in his cheeks and his auburn hair spiking out all over. He was that good-looking. Shit. Maybe I could fix him up with Doc Taylor to get him off my back.
I realized why I was here and decided I’d hang on to the doc a bit longer. I really needed that, soon.
Miles’s friend. Now it made sense.
I’d been so overwhelmed by the job, Adele and Goldie that I hadn’t put two and two together. Miles might have mentioned Goldie a time or two, but … I had no idea he looked like this.
Feeling as if I really had stepped through the looking glass, I smiled at Goldie. “Pauline Sokol. Nice to meet you.”
Adele slapped herself in the head. “Where are my manners? Sorry. Oh, Pauline is the new investigator Fabio might have mentioned to
you—” She turned toward me. “Goldie calls all of you moles.”
Goldie laughed. “Come on, suga, we need to talk.” He pulled me into his office, and Adele clattered down the hallway.
With Southern manners any mama would be proud of, Goldie showed me into his office and offered me a drink. As I looked at the moss-covered tree growing in the corner, the zebra-striped couch next to the glass coffee table resting on elephant legs and Goldie’s desk made of chrome and more glass, I mumbled, “Scotch, neat.”
“A girl after my own heart.” He turned to open a mahogany cabinet near the window then pulled out the hidden bar.
“I mean … coffee.” Scotch? Where’d that come from? This was getting worse. I couldn’t help but stare. Even his voice didn’t give him away. I’d seen Ru Paul on television a few times, and Goldie could give him a run for his money, although Ru was gorgeous too.
He looked back. “I’ll take the Scotch. You get the Joe.”
As I sat and sipped the coffee latte he’d whipped up, I decided I liked Goldie. Although the most flamboyant friend of Miles, I automatically considered Goldie a friend of mine, too. He told me how he’d been in the Army, worked intelligence as Adele had said and went back home to New Orleans, where he wanted to open his own private investigating firm but never did.
After nonstop work and burning out (been there, done that), he met Miles at a Mardi Gras parade. Amid the ruckus and the gaudy plastic doubloons thrown from the floats, Miles convinced him to move north and work for his uncle, Mr. Scarpello.
Goldie said he never looked back.
“Now, Fabio gives you the file and you’re pretty much on your own. You get yourself some good equipment, suga. Not that cheap stuff that breaks down before you know it and you’re paying twice as much cuz you have to buy more. A good video camera is a must.”
“Thank goodness I have one already.”
He polished off his Scotch, wiped a long finger across his bottom lip. “Let me guess. One of those older models that is about two feet long with a dick of a microphone sticking out on the end long enough to poke someone in the eye?”
“Why … yes.” That wasn’t a good thing? Not the dick in the eye thing, but the long microphone?
“Suga …” He walked to the wall unit and turned on the television. While I watched Emeril pour some batter into a Bundt cake pan, Goldie snapped off the tiger’s left eye from his chest.
“What are you …”
He opened the eye, which still stared at me, and took a cord from the back of the television and connected it. With the aplomb of a Boston Pops conductor, he waved his hand toward the TV.
A few seconds of snow, followed by a blue screen, and then …
“Oh shit!”
I materialized on the screen, standing in the hallway and obviously trying to hide behind Adele. Whoever said television added ten pounds was correct. I decided I would run an extra lap that night. “How’d you do that?”
He shook his finger at me. “See how you’d be too obvious with your dick camera?”
“Completely.” I did, but those ten extra pounds wouldn’t leave my thoughts.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do, suga. The right equipment is a must in this business. Come on.”
After hours of Goldie’s Fraud Investigation 101, I really did need that Scotch. I settled for a Coors while Goldie poured himself another Scotch.
“I had no idea there was so much to the job. I might be in way over my head.”
Goldie leaned back in his black leather chair with leopard armrests and said, “I have no doubt that you are, suga. But what the hell.” He lifted his glass in a toast. “Life is short. Go for it.”
I looked around the room that obviously Goldie had furnished himself and said, “I’ll do just that.”
But, truthfully, inside I screamed, “Help! I’m about to drown!”
I poked my toe out from the bubbles. One thing about Miles: He knew how to live. I always teased him that he was born with an interior-decorating gene.
Our tub was sunken into the floor of the bathroom, all salmon-colored marble. Gold water spigots shaped like dolphins sat at one end, and at the other were the controls for the stereo system, phone and the jets that were now massaging my sore muscles.
I’d done that extra lap and two more.
No man was going to look better than Pauline Sokol!
Alongside the tub was the tan folder, on suspect Ms. Tina Macaluso, that Fabio had given me. My first case! What a rush! What was I doing?
I’d read it over and over, until my bathwater cooled. Still I remained submerged in thought. Goldie had made this investigation stuff sound so easy—and obviously it had been, for him.Then again, he was ex-Army Intel.
He probably did great with the investigating—it certainly didn’t look as if money was a problem for him. And he’d said Fabio gave decent bonuses for good work. Adele had said Goldie’s conviction rate of frauds was in the hundreds and the monies recovered in the millions.
Damn.
I could do this. I could get my first case solved. Goldie’s “Go for it” had said as much.
Tina Macaluso was a dead woman.
Three
Okay, Tina Macaluso wasn’t really a dead woman, but she’d soon be tucked neatly away in jail if I had anything to do with it, and I might get a Christmas bonus this year. Then again, I think in Goldie’s Fraud Investigation 101, he’d said the DA didn’t incarcerate most of the time. The money just had to be paid back.
According to her file, Tina had conned the Global Carriers Insurance Company out of $33,892.77. Wow.
And I planned to help them get every penny back. Sure, I’d like to see her butt in jail, but I’d settle with her getting caught and having to pay the money back. It rankled me that others got money so easily. From an insurance company, no less, and me without any coverage until after my probation. That alone made me feel driven to succeed with this case.
Although being the honest person that I was, I had to admit that I had no idea how to do it. Still, I wasn’t going to let on to Fabio about my shortcomings. Goldie had offered to help, and I’d damn well take his offer.
With my toe, I lifted the knob that opened the drain and as the water ran out, I stood, toweled myself off and stuck on my robe. I padded to my room and looked out the window. Snowflakes skittered across the lawn. Although not a major storm, the roads would be slick. Still, I had work to do.
It was odd making my own hours. The urge to sit and watch the Jerry Springer Show with the morbid curiosity that draws one to rubberneck during a car accident had to be tamed by the stark reality of my bank account. Once dressed, I grabbed my purse. Time was of the essence, Fabio had said, and besides, he only paid “per job.” No salary. Ack.
Also, being a newbie on probation, I wouldn’t get anything until the first assignment was completed. If I did a good job in a timely manner, I could get some interim pay from then on. It’d be only part of the payment for the full job, so I’d have something to live on until I made the big bucks.
More cases—more money.
Right now, I had nada.
I stuffed an old pair of binoculars that I’d used for bird-watching back in my nature-loving days of the eighties, a 35 mm camera with film from my cousin’s wedding two years ago still inside (please don’t get my mother started on that), and two chocolate power bars into my bag and looked at the video camera on the counter. A prehistoric elephant was smaller. Still, I couldn’t buy anything new yet. Goldie needed all his stuff for a job he was working on, and couldn’t stop since he was nearly finished. So, no loaners.
Okay, I’d wing it.
Adele was a whiz at getting personal info on the claimants, I’d found out through Goldie. She’d given me Tina’s address and where she worked. Damn if Tina wasn’t a nurse too. Small world. Goldie had said he’d start me out first thing on Monday with “on-the-job training” by working on this case with me. But that was days away, and that money thing wouldn’t lea
ve my thoughts.
Hey, what could it hurt to start on my own?
I let Spanky out and back in, gave him a hug and made sure he had enough water before going out the door.
Out in the parking lot, I climbed into my Volvo and drove out rather exhilarated. There was something mysterious, almost orgasmic about heading off to spy on someone—legally. My fingers danced across the steering wheel while the tires crunched along in the snow, and Frank Sinatra crooned on my favorite AM station. Wow. Who would have thought a non-nursing job could cause such excitement.
What a natural rush!
I reached over to my purse, dug out my cell phone and punched in Doc Taylor’s number. Got his voice mail. Shoot. “I’m free for dinner Saturday. Call me.” No need to mention that was the real reason I’d called.
Snow had my windshield wipers going nonstop. Damn. It wasn’t going to be the best of days for surveillance. Surveillance. Pauline Sokol on surveillance. My laughter mixed with Frank’s singing as I turned onto Maple Avenue.
Hope Valley wasn’t a metropolis, to say the least. But it was a decent-size town and had a decent-size hospital. A very ethnic New England town. Immigrants from Italy, Poland, Russia, Germany and several other countries had settled here. I can only assume they heard the name and thought it would bring them good luck and lots of hope. They remained in their little ethnic groups: Even the Catholic church in each neighborhood was attended by predominantly one nationality. Needless to say, the Sokol family belonged to the Polish one, Saint Stanislaus Church.
My great-grandfather must have had the same idea when he arrived in the United States at the ripe old age of eighteen on the S.S. Ethiopia from Glasgow, Scotland, landing on Ellis Island. Not that he was Scottish. That was only his point of departure from Europe. He and his soon-to-be wife, Amelia, came from what they referred to as White Russia in Poland. Thus my very ethnic clan ended up in Hope Valley.
Hope Valley had some manufacturing left from the 1900s, a mall and—of great interest to me now—one of the biggest insurance companies in the country. Global Carriers was several blocks over and certainly the biggest outside the Hartford area. I turned down Pine Street, heading to the residential area Adele had told me about.