by D. A. Bale
***
Piddling in panties – check. ‘Cept it wasn’t for the reason I’d originally imagined.
A clipped response to one of my earlier texts told me Janine was once again in full-fledged freak-out mode as she readied preparations for the semester’s start – which in my book said she needed a break. Plus, with my heart threatening to pound right out of my chest, I could use some back-up to tame the cowardly lion courage coursing through my veins.
Whatever qualms I’d had about dragging Janine along as Watson to my Holmes whisked away. The neighborhood we drove through was elegant, with homes much larger than the average and beautiful, old-fashioned streetlamps dotting every corner like the gas ones at the turn of the twentieth century. I tapped my GPS a couple of times to make sure it hadn’t taken a trip to la-la land. I felt as if I’d taken a trip alright – into storybook fantasyland.
I pulled to a stop beneath a streetlamp to double-check I’d correctly input the address into GPS. Then a quick check of what I’d written down when setting the appointment. At this rate, I had to have written it down wrong. Blame it on a case of overwrought nerves when I’d made the call earlier.
“Why are we stopping?” Janine whispered.
“This can’t be right,” I said, squinting at the paper in the ambient dash lights and comparing it to the GPS readout.
The details written were the same as the electronic input. I put the car into drive and continued up the hill.
Dozens of Victorian homes, their turreted spires rising three stories in most cases, sat on two and three acre lots surrounded by scrolling wrought iron fences. Gingerbread practically dripped from wraparound porches that screamed for Hansel and Gretel to come over and enjoy a bite – ‘cept in the one I was looking for waited a wicked warlock instead of a witch.
A couple more corners and then I stopped before a gate when the disembodied feminine voice explained I’d reached my destination. The fence here appeared higher, poured concrete with occasional wrought iron peek-a-boos for decoration and a scroll along the top like ornamental barbed wire to satisfy some sort of area building covenants.
Looked like a more decorative attempt at those old concentration camp pictures from World War II to keep prisoners in – but in this case I imagine it was more to keep people out. From what I’ve heard, those homeowners associations were like Nazis when it came to keeping to an authentic neighborhood theme – in this case with all that wrought iron.
Janine spoke up, staring through the gates at the monstrosity. “Are you sure this is it?”
“No,” was all I could think to say.
“Check the address again.”
“I’ve triple checked it, Janine. Quadruple checked it.”
“But that house looks like someplace a sweet, little, old grandmotherly lady would live.”
I nodded. “A rich, sweet, little, old grandmotherly lady.”
“That’s a given,” she returned before scrunching up her petite nose. “A gang leader lives here?”
“That’s what my source told me.”
Janine snickered. “Is that source the old woman in a shoe who had so many kids she didn’t know what to do?”
I sneered. “Ha, ha, no.”
About the time I considered turning the Vette around and hightailing it out of there, the alarm I’d set on my phone buzzed, signaling the moment of truth had arrived. I was now officially late for this meeting. Maybe I could call the number Ambassador Juarez had provided and explain the situation. But what would a notorious gang leader do to a girl if she missed a meeting entirely? The thought made me shudder.
The box at the gate squawked and brought back that panty-piddling warmth. “Name and purpose?”
Nothing like getting to the point. I glanced at Janine then rolled down the car window. “Vicki Bohanan to see Swi…Mr. Ricardo.”
Silence. That didn’t bode well.
“Should you give them my name too?” Janine asked.
“Yeah, that’d go over well,” I whispered. “You might as well jump out of the car and tell them to hold you for ransom.”
Holy… What had I done? Like a bolt of lightning I realized how stupid I’d been to bring my best friend with me. A blue-eyed, blond virgin? A De’Laruse no less? At the home of a criminal? I may as well have found the nearest volcano and thrown her in as a sacrifice to the gods.
I was just about to shift the Vette into reverse and blow out of there when a mechanical hum arrested my attention and the gates swung open. I listened for the rabid bark of guard dogs, but heard nothing. Maybe this really wasn’t Switch’s abode and was instead a lonely old man looking for a little company. Someone like Derek Summers.
I should probably whip the car around and make a run for the border.
But Mr. Summers reminded me of Lorraine and what she might be doing to Reggie. So instead of running for the border, I crept inside the compound and parked along the elliptical drive near the front entrance, listening for dog barks, old men snoring – and gunshots.
A man in a tailored black suit walked onto the porch and hustled down the steps toward us. I shot a glance at Janine and handed her the keys.
“Twenty minutes,” I said.
Janine nodded in silence.
I continued, “If I’m not back by then, or you see anything suspicious during that time, you slam the car at full speed through that gate and head straight to Zeke.”
“What if the gate’s closed?”
I took a deep breath and imagined my baby launching against the wrought iron at Mach 1. Tears came to my eyes as I pictured the crumpled accordion hood then reminded myself that skin was more important than steel.
I think.
I took another deep breath and let it out with a shudder. “Just hit it with both barrels and get out of here.”
She winced then nodded again.
Maybe Zeke was right. Maybe I was a complete idiot with a death wish – and I’d gone and gotten Janine involved.
Black Suit beckoned me to exit the car by tugging the door open. I stood to allow Janine to maneuver into the driver’s seat then closed the door and turned to my escort.
Talk about your panty piddling. Someone get me some clean underwear stat.
Chapter Twenty
“Seth?” I squeaked.
Hard dark eyes addressed me before the hiss of Radioman’s lawyer friend broke through the shock. “Keep your voice down.”
“This is the entertainment you left the bar for?” I asked.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” Seth whispered. “Play along like we don’t know each other, okay?”
“Not what it looks like?” I whispered, my tongue stumbling over my lips.
“I’ll explain later.” He held out his hand for my purse.
My brain glazed over like a donut. That’d be good right about now ‘cause I could use something sweet to counteract the sour that flooded my stomach.
“Please,” he said as another tall, dark, and scary man stepped from the house and followed the same path Seth had – ‘cept at a slower gait. “For both our sakes, act like we’ve never met.”
Never met? Not what it looked like? And Grady had been worried about my association with Banker Boy. Oh, we were so going to have a conversation later – and this time I’d be happy to include Grady in it. For now, I plastered on a mask to hide not only my association with Seth but to cover up the questions of what I’d really stumbled into here. I wondered again if I’d gotten the address written down wrong.
I realized I’d written down the address correctly when the second, older gentleman patted me down and emptied my purse across the car hood, waving a metal wand across the contents before stuffing most of it back inside and handing it to me, sans the phone and pepper spray. I handed them over to Janine and offered an encouraging smile that probably looked more like I wanted to hurl.
Satisfied, Mr. Tall Dark and Scary offered his arm like a proper escort. “Were you not instructed to come alone?” he asked.<
br />
My throat tightened and a single word came out more like the croak of a choking frog. “No.”
“Your friend will stay in the car then, understood?”
I didn’t trust my voice to tell him that was my plan too, so I nodded instead.
Tall Dark and Scary addressed Seth with a finger pointed toward Janine. “Watch her.”
“Yes, sir,” Seth responded.
I shot Seth a scowl to wither his genitals and send home a message – something along the lines of there’s a castration in your future if something happens to my bestie.
Mr. TD & S tugged me toward the house. “You will address my employer at all times as Mr. Ricardo,” he stated.
I still didn’t trust my voice so nodded compliance again.
“You are here as a guest and will only go where I escort you.”
“K,” I squeaked.
The stairs were more stable than I was as we stumbled up onto the porch. Sometimes I wished I’d paid more attention during those cotillion classes growing up. I needed to project a confident assurance I didn’t feel, not trip along like I was on this side of a drunken stupor.
“As a guest, you will be under the full protection of my employer while on the premises, Miss Bohanan.”
“Understood.” My voice came out stronger this time. “My friend?”
“Will receive the same protection,” he replied. “However, you will speak to no one about the contents of this meeting. Not even to your friend there.”
“Got it.”
A calculated look ricocheted over me before Tall Dark and Scary opened the front door. “Once you leave these premises, this agreement and all codicils are null and void.”
Codicils? Null and void? I found my voice. “Who are you? Switch’s lawyer?”
“Mr. Ricardo,” he emphasized.
My knees started knocking all over again at the glint in Tall Dark and Scary’s eyes. I prayed my mention of lawyers hadn’t just given away my association with Seth. Right about now it would behoove me to practice a little self-control as Rochelle and I had discussed mere hours ago – this time over my disease-ridden mouth.
‘Cause it wasn’t just my life on the line here – no matter what the guy attached to my arm said. Lawyers were good at twisting words. Sometimes they could be downright slimy – evidenced by the guy standing by my car.
I was starting to have second thoughts about my date with Radioman.
The door swung open to reveal a staircase straight out of one of Janine’s romance movies. Scarlett O’Hara wouldn’t dare sniff at that winding mass of mahogany trailing up to the next floor. For the second time that night, I felt as if I’d taken a trip into another dimension – but instead I stood in the foyer of a gang leader’s home.
“This way,” Mr. TD & S directed up the stairs.
I heard every squeak of the wood. Felt every slight shift as I placed my feet upon each tread. If not for the live bodies standing guard nearby, I’d have sworn the house was haunted.
Or maybe it was all in my overwrought and scaredy cat mind – ya think?
After the boneheaded traipse through gang territory the other night, I shuddered to think what Zeke would do to me if he found out where I was right at that moment. I could almost hear him now – What’s the matter with you? What’s with the death wish? Why’d you drag Janine into it this time? Are you dumb or just stupid? That last one really got my dander up. Me stupid? How dare he.
When I walked into the darkened study, I began to think maybe Zeke was right. What name did Ambassador Juarez say to use? Bernard? Barry? No, Benny. Yeah, Benny was the one responsible for getting me into this.
Well technically Reggie, but I didn’t want to take time right then to mince words – er, thoughts.
The scent of cigars and leather permeated the air and sent my thoughts on a quick memory lane jaunt with Janine and her Louisiana-based grandfather. That man had loved only two things in life – his wife and some of the most expensive cigars on the planet. I still wasn’t sure which killed him in the end.
A desk lamp provided the only light in the room and cast shadows as the hulking man rose from behind the gigantic carved block of wood. Even with the clipped crop of silver hair, I entertained no doubt he could pick up the desk and toss it at me with a spiral guaranteed to make a pro quarterback jealous.
When he brought his hand up, I expected I had less than five seconds to state my case before the report of a gunshot silenced me forever. Maybe that was why the carpet was red. Better to conceal blood residue. Instead there was a snap of fingers and illumination of the room before Tall Dark and Scary left with a click of the door loud enough to make an elephant jump.
Beady eyes stared from a face carved of stone. A few deep pockmarks from a bad case of pubescent acne marred it – at least that’s what I hoped it was. But the scar trailing from the corner of his eye, across the cheek and to his jaw bespoke a life I’d once thought of when faced with Jimmy-the-Super. ‘Cept in this case, I don’t think a medical condition or military service would explain it.
“Miss Bohanan, welcome.” The deep and gravelly voice reverberated through me like a command. “Please be seated. Drink?”
Mr. Ricardo indicated a chair before stepping from behind the desk to a wet bar inset into the mahogany paneling. I was so ready to drink a little – or a lot – of everything I saw in the decanters to calm my nerves.
Instead I politely deferred. “N-no, thank you.”
Noodley legs would’ve sat me down right where I stood, but I managed to wait until the wingback chair was behind me before I collapsed in a whoosh. In my life, I’d been in the presence of some pretty influential figures – none of them more fear-inspiring than the massive man daintily pouring himself a drink. With difficulty, I managed to dredge from the depths some of the manners Mom had tried to teach me when facing powerful heads of state.
“Th-thank you for seeing me, Sw…Mr. Ricardo,” I stammered.
He sat in a matching chair opposite and reached into a humidor on the end table. “It’s not every day the only daughter of one of Dallas’ wealthiest oil men asks for a meeting with a lowly goods distributor.”
Lowly? Goods distributor? The man had given himself a promotion from gang leader to drug runner to goods distributor. From the look of his palatial home, the guy had done his work well. He’d also done his homework well – on me.
With Seth standing guard over Janine outside, and Ricardo well-versed in who I was, I surmised we’d mistakenly walked into a more dangerous situation than my traipse into gang territory – and this without any weapons on display. In this case, it was very possible Ricardo planned to kidnap me and hold me for ransom. Or sell me to some Saudi prince as part of his harem, though I don’t know how valuable a slightly used woman would be to such a man.
Okay, okay. A little more than slightly used. I kept information about the virgin in his driveway to myself. No need to tempt fate.
Mr. Tall Dark and Scary had escorted me into the house with all that legal mumbo jumbo about contracts and codicils. Since I’d walked into the place of my own freewill, this was no kidnapping, but we’d have to classify anything past twenty minutes as unlawful detainment. Time to approach this predicament – Vicki style.
“We only share a name these days, I’m afraid,” I offered. “My father and I don’t see eye-to-eye when it comes to money, marriage vows…pretty much everything.”
“And that is why you live on your own and tend bar?”
I swallowed the acidic discomfort that erupted in my belly and put on a brave face. “I prefer to control my own destiny without shackles forced upon me.”
Did the scar near his mouth just twitch? Was that amusement twinkling in his eyes? The flick of the lighter covered any reaction in a puff of smoke.
He settled into the tufted cushion with a sigh. “I understand we have a mutual acquaintance.”
“Yes, sir,” I responded, grateful to get the conversation on track as the minutes c
ounted down toward my Vette’s potential demise. “Benny thought you might be able to provide some information.”
“Ah yes, Benny. I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing him in many years. How is the old man?”
Talk about your pot calling the kettle black – or in this case gray. “He’s good, considering.”
“Considering?” The drug lord leaned forward.
“W-well,” I stuttered again. I never thought to ask Juarez what I should and shouldn’t talk about with Ricardo. In all the hours I’d fussed and fretted about this meeting, never once did I imagine sharing a smoke and cocktails over polite conversation. “He lost his daughter a few months ago.”
A slow nod. “Yes, I remember hearing about that. To find out you have a daughter only after her death…unfortunate indeed.”
Another languid draw on the cigar while he gauged my reaction. I harbored no doubt he was fishing for more information. In this instance, my disease ridden mouth stayed shut. It took a proverbial hammer and nails, but it stayed closed. Silent. Mr. Ricardo wouldn’t get anything else from me.
Finally he released smoke in a long and elegant exhale that reminded me again of Janine’s grandfather. “Now he repays your kindness for catching her killer.”
“I didn’t exactly catch him,” I admitted.
“But you led authorities to the killer.”
“You could say that.”
I crossed and uncrossed my legs like a nervous teenager on her very first date. Ricardo already knew pretty much everything about the situation with Amy. About my involvement. For a man who hadn’t seen his friend in many years, he stayed well informed about the ambassador. Was it possible the Juarez cartel already suspected Benny of playing in the wrong pond with authorities? If so, was that the real reason I’d been granted this interview?
Twenty minutes ticked down quick, so I had to keep him talking. “I must say, Mr. Ricardo, you have a lovely home for a mere goods distributor.”
Another tip for you, ladies. If you ever need to redirect conversation to a new topic, just stroke a man’s – er, ego. Ask him about his job. His accomplishments. Show appreciation for those material possessions like his car or house – unless his name is Nick. Once started, most men will brag about their prowess in spades. Until the evening wanes. Until you can’t wait for him to drop you off at your place and leave.