More Muffia (The Muffia Book 2)

by Nicholas, Ann Royal

  “I was feeling better,” Kiki said, returning to her state of frustration.

  “This sucks,” said Jelicka. “Our tax dollars, hard at work.”

  Rachel chimed in. “You’d think Kiki’s rights as a quiet, law-abiding citizen would trump what is clearly a violation of zoning laws.”

  “Come on, Maddie. There has to be something we can do,” I said.

  Maddie thought for a couple of seconds. “My friend in the film office said that sometimes the vice squad will investigate, and they can be very good at blending in—they’ll get invited inside, observe film equipment moving in and out, meet the actors, etc. But with this being a private home, anyone who’s not supposed to be hanging around will be noticed immediately. And if the film equipment gets unloaded inside a closed garage with all the windows blacked out, it might be impossible to prove what they’re doing, even though you see what are obviously actors, actresses, and other film-related people and equipment coming and going.”

  Kiki sighed again, disconsolately, and the rest of us did what we could to bolster her sagging spirits. Despite Maddie’s gloomy prognostications, we came up with a plan to rendezvous on a night when Kiki was certain they were shooting and we’d spring a coup de main. The fine points still needed to be worked out, but basics were set, and I planned on asking Frank Sexton for help. Certainly Lauren wouldn’t mind if he did a little extra extracurricular “work” for Kiki, given that doing so would still fall under the general heading of “helping The Muffia.”

  First, however, I wanted to yell at Mr. Frank Sexton for keeping me out of the loop about what was going on with Picturegate. I didn’t buy that he had nothing to report. He had to have something to tell me. Meanwhile, time was not my friend, and I had nothing but a picture button to suggest that at least one person I knew wasn’t playing fair.

  CHAPTER 18

  Considering Frank Sexton had shown up at S-Factor and Shooter’s Paradise without advance warning, it wasn’t far-fetched to conclude he could choose any other moment he wished to make his presence known. In fact, he must be tracking me a good part of the time. Otherwise, how would he know I was in Oxnard? I supposed it was possible that he, like Jelicka, regularly went to Shooter’s Paradise and just so happened to choose that particular Saturday to go for target practice. But this would have been a coincidence in a sea of other coincidences, which meant he had been following me. This sent me into a tizzy reconstructing the time line and realizing that Lauren told me about my new private investigator before I went on that disastrous date with John, and that meant Frank was already on my case that night. It also meant he might have been watching. OMG, could this get more embarrassing?

  Notwithstanding my mortification at that thought, knowing that at any moment Frank might be nearby gave me the idea that if I simply paid better attention when I went somewhere, I would see him, and thus be able to confront him. So, in the quest for more information, I called Lauren as soon as I returned from Kiki’s the previous evening. I didn’t want to bother her, but I was hoping she could get a message to Frank somehow that I needed to talk to him as soon as possible. Otherwise, his paranoia—my word, not his—about not creating a digital connection between us meant I had to wait until he physically appeared. Fortunately, she said she would.

  Work on that Monday started off slowly, but one of my pet projects—negotiating a four-million-dollar deal for a legend in the music business, Wylie “Big Mouth” Cotton, now broke, to become spokesman for a growing fast food empire—had been given the green light. This was a deal I was proud of; not only because it had been my idea to track the old bluesman down, but because Big Mouth really needed the money and, if I was to believe him, booking that gig meant he could save his family.

  Steven sent a cryptic, innocuous text: “Call me”—the kind I used to respond to right away but which I’d been ignoring for over a week. And at another point that morning, Sameer appeared at the edge of my cubiffice, head wagging, to tell me about the latest sexting scandal plaguing Bronco’s tight end and client, Tyroil Wallace-Ibrahim, who’d just been busted, threatening his lucrative Gatorade contract. Sameer was also curious about how my online dating was progressing and whether I had dated a farmer yet. Not wanting to land another blow, I said, “On one level, we are all farmers, don’t you think, Sameer?” He seemed to like this answer and walked away smiling.

  Jamie summoned me into her office at noon to discuss several ongoing deals and to check my progress on Picturegate. From all outward appearances, she and Titania were still getting on famously. It was looking highly unlikely that the two of them would break up in time for Jamie to be open to the idea that the woman on the picture button might be her lithe and lovely love bunny—or that Titania masterminded my takedown to advance her career.

  No, if I showed Jamie the button of Titania and the guy kissing now, while she and Jamie were still an item, I still believed one of two things would occur: (A) Jamie would say it wasn’t Titania on the button and think me a desperate woman with absolutely no evidence to exonerate myself; and (B) She’d think me a malicious, spiteful bitch trying to destroy the happy couple. There would be no winning with that button; not if it’s all I have.

  No matter how bad things looked, I still had approximately forty-eight hours to come up with convincing evidence, not that I had any idea where I was going to get it—thanks a lot, Frank Sexton—which would prove that my impending social network sabotage was no longer a threat to the solid industry reputation of Talent Partners. But I suppose the truth was, even if I produced that sort of proof, it would be impossible to absolve myself of all wrongdoing—at least in Jamie’s eyes—because, after all, it was me in the pictures and she had seen them. She would always know. That’s the thing about the Internet, too. It’s a wonderful tool until somebody wants to use it to take someone else down, which they can easily do with doctored photos, mug shots taken when they were teenagers, or with words on Facebook. It’s left for the person wronged to clean it up, and that costs money. Once a rumor is out there online, it never completely goes away.

  “Well?” Jamie interrupted my thoughts. “Is there anything you can say or show me in your own defense?”

  “I’ll have something for you by Wednesday,” I said with conviction.

  “Have you found out who sent the pictures?”

  “A couple of strong leads, but I don’t think I should say anything until I know for sure.”

  I sounded confident, but I feared the worst. What I wanted to tell her was that she shouldn’t fire me over the stupid photographs when they could have been sent by anyone who was pissed off at me. There had to be someone—though I hadn’t been able to think who—who was angry enough or malicious enough to try to sabotage me. I knew I should broaden my pool of candidates, but Titania was still the most likely person.

  There seemed no sense in saying anything more. Besides, at the end of the day, pinpointing who didn’t like me wouldn’t have made any real difference. Jamie’s only concern was sparing the agency embarrassment. It didn’t matter who was making the threat or why—it just needed to be stopped.

  I knew that I needed to be more pro-active. I’d been too complacent, relying on Frank Sexton who, so far, had been a disappointment, and hoping something that could help me would just appear. Enough. As uncomfortable as it made me, I would defend myself because I wasn’t ready to give up my career. I was going to confront Titania.

  CHAPTER 19

  When I left work that evening and stepped onto the second floor of the parking structure the agency shared with a department store and blue chip law firm, I spotted Frank Sexton leaning on my car. My first inclination was to smack him one, as soon as I got close enough, for taking so long to resurface. But seeing as that would be unproductive, I smiled and continued walking toward him and my trusty nine-year-old Rav4, which I’d been advised by Jamie, on more than one occasion, to trade in for something more “appropriate.” There had been more than a few memos sent in which Talent Partner
s suggested its agents drive a Lexus, Audi or BMW. Now I was very glad I hadn’t obliged because I owned my Rav4 outright. Buying or leasing a new, Talent Partners-approved vehicle would have meant a car payment at a time when my future livelihood looked uncertain.

  It was actually good to see Frank. He wore khakis and had on a white oxford cloth shirt, just like the previous two times I’d seen him but, contrary to my first reaction upon seeing this outfit, I found it comforting, rather than that he suffered from a lack of imagination. The only thing new was the pair of mirrored aviator-frame sunglasses he had on, making him look as though he came out of a 1980s cop drama.

  “Hello, Frank,” I said, as I rummaged around my purse for the car key. That was one thing about the car I’d change if I could. It pre-dated keyless entry, so I was always looking for my keys.

  “Get in quickly,” he directed, doing a scan of the area.

  “Hello to you, too,” I said, once inside, watching him slip in beside me. “Why haven’t you contacted me? I’ve been dying to know if you found anything. It was all I could do not to follow you out of Shooter’s Paradise.”

  He smelled clean, and my nose picked up the scent of expensive cologne, which I did not remember from our earlier meetings.

  “You handled that very well, by the way.” He pulled the door closed.

  “It wasn’t easy, trust me. Where have you been? It’s been over a week!” My voice sounded whiney and thin; I’d better pull myself together.

  “I told you I’d be in touch when I had some information to impart.”

  I let out my breath. “Well, given my situation, one might have thought you’d have ‘gotten in touch’ before now if, for no other reason, than to tell me you didn’t have anything.”

  “What would be the point of that?”

  “Because I’ve been freaking out, that’s why.” Dial it back, Quinn.

  “That’s why I’m here now,” he said, calmly.

  Was he deliberately being obtuse? Why did this guy continue to grow on me?

  “There have been some recent developments I came to inform you of.”

  “Could you be more specific?”

  “I will get to that.”

  What was he waiting for? I stared at him for a beat or two. His face was directed forward, out the windshield—no expression, save for a barely perceptible twitch of his jaw muscle.

  “Drive,” he said.

  “Drive?”

  “Yes, drive,” he repeated, all Schwarzenegger in The Terminator—the first Terminator, when he was all hunky and sexy. There was more than a passing resemblance.

  I peered out the opening of the parking structure to the rear-facing windows of Talent Partners’ offices a floor above. The sun, long past mid-point, glinted off the tempered glass guaranteeing that if someone was watching, we wouldn’t have known.

  “Where am I driving?”

  “Anywhere you like.”

  “A tour of stars’ homes?”

  “If you wish.”

  “That was supposed to be funny,” I said, but judging from his reaction, he clearly hadn’t found it so.

  I pointed the car toward the down ramp and onto the exit, over the “don’t-back-up” spikes and out through the access alley. I had vague plans to go pole dancing later in the evening but, at that moment, one direction was no better than another. I turned east, toward my apartment.

  “The man you call Yankees is a private investigator,” he said, once we’d hit Wilshire Boulevard.

  “Another private investigator is following me?”

  “He’s not following you any longer.”

  I flashed Frank what must have seemed a panicked expression. “You didn’t do anything to him, did you?”

  “He’s in good health.”

  “Good, because I don’t need any more trouble by adding a dead body,” I said, relieved.

  “Several days into my surveillance, I saw a man matching the description you provided sitting in a car outside your apartment. I followed him, observed him from a distance, and subsequently approached.”

  “Are you allowed to do that? I would think there would be some sort of secret private investigator code of conduct?”

  “He would not tell me who hired him. That’s standard. But I determined it was this man who took the photos of you at Narita.”

  I swerved to the curb and put the Rav4 in park. “But that was several days ago, and you’re just telling me?”

  He turned his body to face me. “Please, Ms. Cunningham, try not to get upset. It has been necessary for me to keep my distance. There was always the possibility that some other plot was afoot. It was also necessary to wait so as to better ascertain who it was who hired this man.”

  “Was this before or after I saw you in Oxnard?”

  “I believe it was after.”

  Way to keep it vague, Mr. Sexton.

  “How’d you do, by the way?” he asked, surprising me.

  The question, being so off topic, threw me.

  “Your target practice.”

  “Fine, not as well as last time, but… ” I stopped, finding myself getting angry. “What—? Are we making nice conversation now? By the way, how did you know I was there?”

  “I was there before you. It was simply a matter of tapping into your phone and determining your destination prior to your arrival.”

  “Oh, really? Simply a matter of tapping my phone?” I knew spying had gotten easier, but was he serious? Something told me no. “That’s not true,” I said.

  “Correct. It’s not true. I put a GPS locator on your friend’s car.”

  I flashed on Udi and his supposed embedded chip—the reason given by his friend Nissim and Nissim’s oversized associates for knowing he’d died and showing up at Maddie’s to collect his body. But I wasn’t sure I should believe that, either, though I’d seen it in enough movies.

  “You didn’t put a GPS locator on my friend’s car.”

  “Correct again. But I could have.”

  Now he was playing with me—something I would not have thought he would know how to do, given his by-the-book demeanor. Did this mean there was a sense of humor in there somewhere?

  “So you did follow us,” I said in a softer tone.

  “I was in danger of losing you briefly. Your friend, Angelica, drives very fast.”

  “It’s Jelicka—and yes, that’s her speed.”

  He said nothing but sat back against the car door, assessing me. There were opinions and thoughts going on behind those polarized lenses—positive ones, I hoped—but he was none too generous about sharing them.

  “So you’ve been following me this whole time?” I already knew the answer.

  “In between pursuing other leads, yes. I’ve kept my eye on you,” he said quietly. “Just as I said I would.” It almost sounded like a pass, and I felt a flip-flop in my chest.

  “So how come the only time I’ve seen you was at the shooting range?”

  I couldn’t see his eyes, but I’m pretty sure he rolled them.

  “If you’re doing your job, I’m not supposed to see you, right? Okay, that was a dumb question. You wanted me to see you.”

  “I have also been watching your boss, Ms. Harris, and have followed Ms. Cibulkova as well.”

  “And?”

  “The two of them have met eleven times that I am aware of, outside of the office where intimacies were likely exchanged.”

  “Hmmm...that’s an interesting way to put it. Covers a lot of things, don’t you think?” A teasing quality had trickled into my voice. I felt the desire to tease him further but kept it in check.

  “It could, yes. Ms. Harris attends many screenings and also spends a good bit of time on the treadmill at her gym.”

  “The treadmill, huh. I would have thought she was more of an elliptical type. What about Titania’s workout routine?” I joked. Miss Moldovan Molotov had quite the hot bod.

  “She does an assortment of exercises, including extensive Pilates poses,” he
said, missing my tone. He paused. “You were right about her, Ms. Cunningham.”

  “What?” What did he mean? “What was I right about?”

  “She is bisexual and has a boyfriend by the name of… ” He pulled out his little pocket pad and flipped a couple of pages.

  “Yes!” Partial vindication anyway.

  “...Boris Sizmansky. I obtained some photographs.” He put his pad away and produced his phone with a few racy pictures on it.

  “Wow, you sure did.” I scanned the grainy shots of Titania and Boris in degrees of nubile nakedness assuming a variety of provocative poses.

  I couldn’t tell what Frank actually thought about the duplicitous bi-babe, but chances were, if he was like other guys, he enjoyed visualizing two women together—even if one was decidedly hotter than the other. However, the idea of inserting a guy other than himself into that lesbian lusciousness put an immediate kibosh on the first visual.

  The shots were incontrovertibly Titania—unlike the female image on the picture button I’d found. And the guy was definitely the same. Same chin, same pecs, same beautiful washboard stomach. Jamie would for sure have a reaction to these pictures.

  “These are really good; really good resolution, too. Were you outside her apartment with a telephoto lens? Or did you somehow install a remote camera?”

  Glancing at Frank’s tight lips, it was clear he had no plans to supply the details of how he’d obtained the pictures, and maybe I didn’t want to know. Those lips were tight, but they looked soft.

  He closed the phone and started to put it away.

  “I hope you’ll email me a few of those; they might come in handy.”

  Pulling the phone out once more, he opened it, making a display of doing as I asked. “I am sending an encrypted email to the company. They’ll make sure you get them. These are for your private use only, for purposes of keeping your job,” he warned.