Strange Bedfellows

by Rob Byrnes

  “So now the crooks that did the job don’t get paid, and the victim is still being blackmailed. But the victim doesn’t want to believe that his friend stabbed him in the back.”

  She nodded and gave it another five seconds. “What you’ll want to do—”

  “Not us.” Chase only then realized he might have already said too much. “This is just hypothetical.”

  The Grande Dame of the American Mystery Novel—according to People—smiled knowingly. “Of course it is. What these hypothetical crooks would want to do is go back and steal the thing one more time. Except…no, wait.”

  “What?”

  “I have to think this through.” She did and then continued. “The problem is that the blackmailer’s already been robbed once, so he’ll be better prepared for the second robbery.”

  “She.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The blackmailer’s a she.” Grant groaned and Chase stopped himself. “Uh…hypothetically.”

  “Okay.” She brushed that away. “She’s going to be ready, which means these hypothetical crooks will need help. Maybe someone inside. Or maybe a gang.” She smiled. “Or maybe you’ll have to kill her!”

  Chase’s eyes widened. “Kill her? Oh, no. Not even hypothetically.”

  “Too bad. That would be quick and easy. Make it look like a mugging. The problem is solved and the crooks walk away.” She jiggled the ice in her almost empty tumbler. “That’s how I’d do it.”

  Grant put his own spin on the hypotheticals. “How ’bout if the crooks got a woman to seduce the victim?” Lisa rolled her eyes. “Get her close and friendly with the victim, and maybe convince him to cooperate.”

  Margaret didn’t like that idea, much to Lisa’s relief. “I suppose that could work, but there are too many variables. Like, how do you know the victim can be seduced? How do you know the woman won’t double-cross the criminals? Crime fiction is rife with double-crossing femmes fatales. I’ve created a few myself. Next thing you know, the woman’s the one who’s doing the killing, and she walks away with everything.”

  Grant looked up at Lisa. “Yeah, that’s true. Some women ain’t very trustworthy.”

  “Give it a rest, Lambert.”

  The author finally drained the last trickle of bourbon. “You could try, but I’d think the premise only works if there’s a larger gang working several angles. You’ve got to take out the blackmailer, take out the backstabber, and compromise the victim. It’s complicated, but I suppose it could work.”

  “So any thoughts?” asked Chase.

  She laughed. “Are you kidding? Now you’re talking about a caper, like Westlake wrote. I write edgy, hardboiled crime novels, not capers. And why would I? There’s no money in it. No one reads that crap.” She held one hand above her head. “My sales.” The hand dropped out of sight below the table. “Caper sales. You do the math.”

  Lisa stole a glance at the clock on the wall and saw that time was running short. “This has been fun, but our uninvited guests have to be going.”

  “I think we should wait for Mary Beth.” Grant didn’t look like he intended to go anywhere.

  “And I think you’re deranged. Get out!”

  But between their lengthy talk in the office, and especially Margaret Campbell’s interrogation, what Lisa feared the most had happened. With the sound of a key in the front door lock, she knew she had finally run out of time.

  Then Mary Beth Reuss was standing in the living room, clutching only a half dozen shopping bags. Which meant it had been an easy day on Lisa’s American Express card, by normal standards.

  Mary Beth politely greeted David Carlyle and Margaret Campbell, and sort of smiled when she nodded in Chase LaMarca’s direction. Then her eyes found Grant Lambert and she didn’t have to fake it anymore.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  There was company—polite company—so Lisa tried to defuse the situation. “Grant and Chase were just leaving.”

  Grant settled back in his chair and smiled. “No, we weren’t. We were waiting for you.”

  “Me?” Mary Beth dropped the bags on the floor of the entryway. “Now you’ve seen me, so you can leave.”

  He did stand, but then started walking in the opposite direction of the front door. “I need to talk to you in private.” He punctuated the sentence by snapping his fingers at her. “In the office.”

  Chase followed Grant down the hallway; Mary Beth did not. No one had ever snapped their fingers at her.

  “I’m not talking to him,” she informed Lisa. “And I hope you didn’t, either. I don’t know what he’s got up his sleeve or how much money he wants from you, but the last thing we need is another one of his dumbass schemes.”

  “Uh, honey?” Lisa stopped her partner with a nod toward their non-criminal guests. “The sooner you talk—in private—with Grant and Chase, the sooner they’ll leave.”

  Mary Beth frowned, but lowered her voice a decibel so as to not disturb the brunch guests. That decibel dropped her volume from the equivalent of a jackhammer to that of an approaching airplane. “I’d rather chew glass.”

  From the table, they heard Margaret drawl in a Southern accent she’d largely lost unless she was into the bourbon, which, of course, she had been, “If you aren’t going to talk to them, I will. It’d be great research to watch criminals plot a crime.”

  “Hypothetical criminals.” Lisa turned back to Mary Beth. “Now see what’s happening? If you don’t talk to them, not only are Grant and Chase never going to leave, but no one else will, either.” Her eyes darted back to Margaret and David. “We barely had a chance to discuss my book before Grant and Chase got here, and suddenly they’re the only ones anyone wants to talk to. Except you.”

  Mary Beth made a face. “Your book?” Then she remembered. “Oh…right…Okay, I’ll talk to them. But I can’t guarantee the next sound you hear won’t be the noise a man makes when you kick him in the balls.”

  Leaving the shopping bags where she’d dropped them, she walked away. Moments later they heard the sound of the office door not quite slamming, but certainly not being closed with tenderness.

  And as it turned out, the next sound they heard was not that of a man wailing in almost unimaginable pain. Nor was it the sound of shattering sheetrock or breaking glass or fracturing bone.

  It was a squeal of delight.

  Even more incomprehensible, it was a squeal of delight coming from Mary Beth Reuss.

  She practically skipped down the hall upon her return before checking her happiness long enough to directly address David Carlyle and Margaret Campbell.

  “Sorry, but brunch is over, and you have to leave.”

  They looked at her in confusion.

  “Now!”

  “Mary Beth!” Lisa couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her like this. Oh, she was used to the sort of rude behavior that would lead her to abruptly tell guests to leave, but not when accompanied by such a sunshiny mood. She wondered what Grant and Chase had pulled back in the office and glowered at them as they returned to the living room.

  David burbled to Mary Beth, “We were talking about book publicity!”

  “What? Publicity for what book?”

  “Lisa’s, of course.”

  “Oh, right. That. Well, it’s not coming out for another month. That gives you plenty of time.”

  “Not real—”

  Mary Beth handed him his flute, which still held maybe an eighth of an inch of champagne and orange juice. “Bottoms up!”

  David Carlyle and Margaret Campbell were gracious enough about the hasty end of what had been an enjoyable brunch until various criminals began arriving. They left with tentative plans to get together in a more professional setting within the next few days. And then only Lisa, Mary Beth, Grant, and Chase remained in the apartment.

  Lisa sized up the others. “Okay, what’s going on?”

  Grant shrugged. “Just what we talked about. Except it turns out you don’t seem to
know your girlfriend as well as you think you do.”

  She didn’t blink. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, Lambert, but I’m gonna find out. Mary Beth, these clowns did explain to you how they want you to seduce a man, right?”

  “Sure they did.” She smiled blissfully, and Lisa wondered if she should check the office for a pod, because this was definitely not her girlfriend. “And I said I’d do it.”

  “You said…?” None of this added up. “Could you run that past me again? ’Cause the last time I checked, I was pretty sure you were a lesbian and you hated Lambert and every plan he’s ever come up with.”

  Mary Beth nodded her agreement on those items—she was indeed a lesbian, and she certainly hated Grant and his schemes, and barely tolerated Chase—but couldn’t manage to erase the smile on her lips. “All true. But then they told me who they want me to seduce.”

  She had Lisa there; that was information she didn’t have and hadn’t been interested in. Maybe it was time to get interested in it.

  Lisa turned to Grant. “So who’s the mark?”

  Grant started to tell her, but Mary Beth talked over him.

  “Austin Peebles!”

  Lisa—not a stranger to newspapers, unlike the rest of them—said, “The guy who’s running for Congress?”

  “That’s the one,” said Grant.

  “But…” She glanced again at Mary Beth, who was still grinning like an idiot. “I don’t get it. What’s so special?”

  Mary Beth clasped her hands in front of her, slightly pushing out her breasts, which didn’t really need any help. “He’s just adorable!”

  “Still a lesbian, right?”

  “Of course I’m still a lesbian! But Austin Peebles is just so cute and seductive and sexy, and…well…dreamy.”

  Dreamy? Had her very lesbian girlfriend just called a man “dreamy?” She had a hard time wrapping her head around that.

  “Are you having Bobby Sherman flashbacks?”

  Mary Beth cocked her head. “Who’s that?”

  “He was a teen idol in the sixties.”

  “Way before my time.”

  Lisa’s eyes dropped. “Never mind.”

  Chase, though, readily joined Mary Beth in the Church of Austin Peebles-as-Elvis. “We just met him! He’s even cuter in person!”

  “Oh my God!” Mary Beth squealed again and looked like she was going to melt.

  Grant and Lisa looked at each other. They seemed to share an imperviousness to Austin Peebles’s charms.

  “‘Oh my God’ is exactly the phrase I was looking for.” Lisa downed what was left of David Carlyle’s mimosa.

  When they finally left—and Lisa could not get rid of them fast enough—Grant turned to Chase in the elevator.

  “One down, more to go. And let’s hope they all go as well as this did.”

  “What’s next?”

  “We’re going to Harlem.”

  “Ah.” Chase put a finger to his lips. “Gotcha.”

  They passed back through the lobby and exited the building, and Grant squared his shoulders. “I need you to do me a favor.”

  “What?”

  “I get that you’ve got a crush on Peebles—I don’t understand it, but I get it—but try to keep a more professional demeanor, okay? Upstairs you and Mary Beth were acting like I promised to take you to a Justin Bieber concert.”

  Chase frowned. “I wasn’t like that. Not at all.” He paused. “Was I?”

  “Yeah, more than a little. I hate to break this to you, lover, but your teenybopper days are far in your past.”

  Grant walked off, and Chase followed a few steps behind. And as he watched Grant’s backside, he convinced himself that his boyfriend was only jealous because his ass no longer moved the way Austin Peebles’s ass moved. It used to, but…no more.

  Back, bladder, eyes, memory, weird neck snap, ass…Getting old was a bitch.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Hello, Dr. Walters? This is Betty from Guest Services. First, sir, I wanted to make sure you’re enjoying your visit to our hotel and the room is satisfactory.” While she listened to Dr. Walters complain that he needed more pillows, the middle-aged black woman typed gently on the keyboard in front of her. She was updating her Facebook status, but he didn’t have to know that.

  “I’ll have housekeeping take care of that within the hour, Dr. Walters. Please accept the apologies of the hotel.” She paused and gently cleared her throat. “Now, there’s one tiny thing I need to resolve. There seems to be a problem processing your credit card.” She let him speak before continuing. “Between us, Doctor, this isn’t the first time we’ve had a problem today. There seems to be a glitch with the computer, and you’re the fourth guest I’ve had to hand-process. I’m very sorry.” Another pause. “So could I get your card number again? Or information for an alternative card?”

  Betty from Guest Services waited while the guest retrieved his wallet, then took down his information. “And the expiration date? Thank you. Oh—and the unique card code?” She paused. “That’s the four-digit number on the front of your American Express card.” He read it to her, and she typed it on the keypad before triumphantly announcing, “This time it went through. Thank you so much, Dr. Walters. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, and please enjoy your stay.”

  The woman ended the call. And then she ended the Betty Ruse.

  Before five minutes had elapsed, Constance Price had ordered $16,852 in merchandise on Dr. Walters’s American Express card, directing it to be delivered to an address where no one would ask any questions and no one would answer any questions on the off-chance law enforcement officials ever went looking for the goods. And since she was a savvy shopper with a keen eye for consumer demand, every dollar she had spent could be easily fenced—or even sold on eBay—for close to forty percent of retail, meaning one phone call would soon gross her close to seven thousand dollars.

  That, she thought, was not a bad salary for less than ten minutes of work. And she was just getting started.

  Or rather, she would have been just getting started. The ring from her doorbell changed her plans.

  Constance peered between the slats in the blinds covering her window, frowning when she saw Grant Lambert and Chase LaMarca standing at the top of her stoop.

  She was going to pretend she wasn’t home, but—after another five minutes of doorbell ringing—realized they weren’t going to leave. Grant Lambert was stubborn that way.

  Her voice was weary when she finally broke down and answered the door. “What is it, gentlemen?” She did not invite them inside, a point that wasn’t lost on Grant and Chase. “This had better be good, because I’m very busy today.”

  Grant sized her up. “A scam?”

  He probably thought he appeared friendly, but she was having none of it. “None of your business, Grant Lambert.”

  He didn’t seem to notice. “You should be happier to see us. We almost didn’t pay you a visit, ’cause word on the street was you were working for the feds.”

  Constance looked at him coolly. “Gossips gotta gossip.”

  He shrugged. “Well, yeah, except in our business that kind of gossip is sorta important. You don’t want to pull a job with someone who’s turned legit.”

  “You think I’d turn legit?” She scoffed. “And here I thought you knew me.”

  Grant eyed her top to bottom and side to side. “So you’re not working for the feds?”

  She crossed her arms. “I am a free agent, Lambert. I do what I have to do to earn a living. Nothing more, and nothing less.”

  He was willing to believe her. They’d known each other and occasionally worked together for a long time. That didn’t mean he had to believe every word out of her mouth—Chase was just about the only person he mostly believed—but if she said she hadn’t turned, he’d have to accept that.

  “Can we come in?”

  She shrugged. “You here to pay a social call? Or are you working a job?”

  Th
ere was no reason to play coy. “Working a job.”

  “In that case…” She opened the door wide enough for them to pass. As they did, she added, “I just don’t know why you can’t call before dropping in.”

  Grant shook his head. “Yeah, well…”

  “I know. Because you’re a phone-aphobe.”

  He scowled. “I wish people would stop saying that.”

  Constance motioned Chase through the door. “And why can’t this one call?”

  Chase answered for himself. “Solidarity.”

  She sighed. “White boys.”

  The particular block of Harlem where Constance lived could be a bit rough, but the interior of the apartment was prim and ordered. It looked more like any stereotypical grandmother’s home than the home of a middle-aged lesbian con artist.

  “So what’s the job?” she asked, getting down to business. Constance was very no-nonsense when it came to their line of work.

  “It’s a bit complicated,” said Chase.

  “Simplify it.”

  Chase attempted to do just that. “We got double-crossed on a job and screwed out of thirty thousand dollars. So now we’ve got to make things right.”

  She shook her head. “That wasn’t simplifying. That was over-simplifying.”

  On his second attempt, Chase took more time. When he was finished, she didn’t look happy.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” she said. “But it sounds like all you’re gonna get out of this job is revenge.”

  Grant shrugged. “Maybe. I mean, we’re hoping once we get the picture back this Peebles guy will pay up, but if he doesn’t… Yeah, all we get is revenge.”

  She sat in the middle of her couch, not inviting them to join her. “I don’t know about you, Grant Lambert. Have you considered just walking away from this?”

  “Not at all.”

  “We did earn that money,” Chase noted. “We deserve something.”

  “Even if that something is just revenge?” They both nodded. “You two are the biggest fools. You’d risk going to Rikers Island for revenge?” They nodded again.

  “The thing is,” said Grant, “if we get screwed and take it, that sets a very bad precedent. Pretty soon everyone is gonna start to think they can take advantage of our specialized services without paying. They could do it to you, too.”