More Muffia (The Muffia Book 2)

by Nicholas, Ann Royal

  Vicki momentarily turned off her camera so she could move faster. Hopefully, Kiki had the presence of mind to shoot what was happening. Unlikely, or she wouldn’t have abandoned the plan and run ahead.

  My phone buzzed. It was a text from Frank:

  The police are here. Time to leave.

  That was fast. “The police have arrived,” I reported to the others in a loud whisper.

  We headed toward the foyer and the stairs, each of us with our phones out, hoping to capture some incriminating footage. The group of us was on the first landing when the front door opened, and male voices could be heard in the foyer. As we reached the top of the stairs, we inched our way down the hall toward the voices. Kiki sounded out of control. Rachel and I looked at each other. What was Kiki thinking?

  Not more than a few feet from the door behind which people were yelling, the door burst open. A man and woman, robes hastily wrapped around their obvious nakedness, bolted out and collided with Maddie, while I got the whole thing on my phone. These two were followed by one of Kiki’s neighbors, a short swarthy man we’d seen in the backyard—the “director,” most likely. Then we saw Kiki emerge from the room.

  “I got it all on digital recorder. You are bad, bad people, and I can prove it!” she yelled after their disappearing bodies.

  She got it!

  “Why’d you run ahead?” said Rachel. “You might have wrecked everything.”

  “Sorry, I got excited.”

  “Where are they going?” said Jelicka, concerned, as we watched the three porn makers hastily run in a direction away from the stairs.

  “There’s another stairwell,” said Kiki. “But Frank’s outside, right?” She called to the cops who were coming up the front staircase. “They’re fleeing out the back. Quick!”

  Two of the cops reversed course, while the third, the most senior among the uniformed officers with short-cropped gray hair, escorted us down the front stairs.

  “You ladies mind telling me what’s happening here?”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions, Officer,” said Kiki. “And FYI, we have a lawyer here.”

  Maddie turned to me again and mouthed a silent, “Whaaaaat?”

  Moments later, Frank and the two other officers came into the living room, where we’d gathered, surrounded by unused pieces of film equipment. Saul came in through the front door with Otis.

  “If anyone else is up there, I suggest you come down now,” Senior Cop called out. Almost instantly, a door opened, and two more presumed crewmembers came walking down the stairs with their hands up.

  “All right, who’s going to tell me what all this is about?” said Senior, looking from Frank to Saul, completely leaving out the Muffs.

  “They broke into my house,” said the swarthy man.

  “Oh, come on, your people let us in,” said Kiki.

  “Hold on a second,” said Senior whose badge said Holt.

  “My wife can tell you.” Saul gestured to Kiki.

  “I don’t think she wants to.”

  “Look,” said Kiki. “We have been trying to get the attention of the city for months about the illegal businesses being operated out of this house, and the city has done nothing, so we decided to prove it ourselves.”

  Kiki continued to explain as Frank sidled up to me. “Our work is done. We need to slip out and leave your friends to answer questions.”

  “Won’t the cops notice?”

  “I identified myself outside. They’ll be in touch if they need us.”

  Nice to be part of the brethren, I thought. But then, the Muffs have a pretty tight bond, too. I caught Maddie’s eye and she nodded she understood.

  “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 24

  “It’s good to see you,” said Steven, his lips quivering, his eyes searching. “How I’ve missed you, Quinn.”

  It was nice seeing him, too, but there was not going to be any romance novel-type make-up sex, and I knew better than to encourage him in any way, shape, or form.

  “Why did you need to see me so badly?” I said, cool as the overcranked AC at the Peninsula Hotel.

  “I had to talk to you, babe. You weren’t returning my calls.” He was really edgy, like he was on something maybe. His clothes—usually so carefully chosen and well kept—appeared slept in, and his hair was a disaster, far beyond its usual deliberate level of dishevelment.

  “You told me never to call you,” I said, avoiding his eyes. “Besides, I didn’t think there was anything more to say.”

  He picked up When Will There Be Good News? from the table next to the front door. “Book club?”

  I nodded.

  “When will there be good news?” he said. “I’d like to know the answer to that question myself.” He licked his lips.

  “Steven—sorry, but can you get on with it?”

  He put the book down. “There’s something I’ve just found out and it involves you.” He walked to the window and peered between the slats of the shutters.

  “Why are you acting like you were followed?” I asked.

  “Claudia,” he said. Claudia was his wife.

  “Claudia? You think Claudia followed you?”

  “I’m looking around because she might have had me followed.”

  “Either way, it strikes me that if you are being followed, one of the last places you should be is at my apartment.”

  Oh, yeah, I forgot to say—we were in my apartment. But this time, I knew my resolve would remain strong because Frank Sexton was also inside, hidden, listening to everything that was being said. Watching Steven in his “agitated” state—as Frank put it—and learning about Claudia, I now knew why he’d been sitting in his car in front of my apartment; she had kicked him out.

  “I had to risk it. I needed to see you, even if it meant coming here.” His eyes softened, his voice cooed. It had always worked before, so he must have thought why mess with success? But studying him now, I found, to my great relief, that I was no longer attracted to this man who’d been my illicit lover for far too long.

  “Steven, don’t flirt with me. We’re done.”

  “I know; I know we are but… ”

  He looked ready to cry, and I wondered what Frank was thinking listening to us.

  “You said you had something to tell me, and we shouldn’t be in a public place.”

  “Quinn, please—”

  “So were you thinking you’d get me up here and we’d have sex and be back to how it was at the beginning? The only beginning you can go back to is the first page of a book.”

  I sounded quite convincing, I thought.

  He made a step toward me, and I could tell he wanted to sweep me up and make promises. I recognized that particular grand gesture.

  “Something’s changed. It could mean a whole new beginning for us.” His tone was obsequious—no other way to describe it.

  The thing I wanted, above all else, when we were “together” was for us to be a legitimate couple. And the only way that could happen would be if something else occurred first. A divorce from Claudia was what he had promised me early on in our relationship. He said it was inevitable—that he and Claudia were incompatible; that there was no love between them anymore and that they never had sex; that she was smothering the kids, and that he felt his sole purpose as a husband was to supply the funds to continue the family’s upward progression on the socio-economic ladder. In short, his reasons for wanting a divorce could be described as the stereotypical litany of complaints that drive a married man to cheat. But when he and I were new, those reasons hadn’t sounded so stereotypical; I’d wanted to rescue him. Silly me.

  For two years I’d been hoping he would tell me they had filed the paperwork, the custody of the children amicably decided, and the divorce imminent. For two years I had asked him, no pleaded with him, to tell me when, and he had promised me, “soon.” But there had, of course, always been some reason that “now was not the right time.”

  It was, therefore, a relief to not f
eel the quickening of my heart; nor the hope that he would tell me the divorce was official. In fact, at that moment, I found myself hoping that the change he was referring to was not an impending divorce.

  “You’re splitting up?” My voice sounded as hollow as I felt.

  “It’s inevitable, I think. Claudia’s gone off the deep end. Probably delayed post-traumatic stress after Kyle was born.”

  “Kyle… your son?” He had to be kidding. “That was five years ago!”

  He glanced down. He must think I’m even stupider than I thought he thought I was.

  “Well, we don’t really know why,” he said. “But she’s been acting erratically, and that’s why, well one reason I’m here. God, it’s good to see you, Quinn.”

  “Will you please get to the point?”

  Frank would probably prefer that Steven get to the point as well. He was probably crouching in the kitchen or the closet—uncomfortable, waiting, and listening in case his services were needed. I wasn’t sure where he was hiding because I’d given him my key to go in first. I let myself in with the spare.

  “It was Claudia who sent those photographs to your boss,” said Steven.

  “Wait. Claudia?! That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Not everything makes sense, Quinn.”

  “And you let it happen?” My mind tried to twist into a scenario where this was any kind of reasonable.

  “I just found out,” he protested.

  “That can’t be true.”

  “She’s been having you and me followed…for months.”

  “Months?”

  “Yes, preparing her case.”

  “A case for what?” The only thing I could think of was that Claudia was after sole custody of the kids. He didn’t answer me but instead moved closer.

  “You just came from pole dancing, didn’t you? I can tell by the way your face is flushed.”

  “Wait, you can’t just drop the subject. What case is Claudia supposedly preparing?”

  “Will you put on those pink shoes I like and dance for me?” The distance between us had narrowed considerably. “You know, you’ve never danced for me, Quinn.”

  “Steven, we are done.”

  His voice dropped another five notes. “I’ve heard that before.” It was so low and resonant it was like his voice box had moved to his groin.

  I backed up, which was as close to a dance move as he was going to get. “Stay there.”

  “You look so lovely, Quinn.” Suddenly, his hands were on me, my arms captured between them.

  “You need to go, Steven. Steven—!”

  And in a flash, Frank was on him, leaping from behind the couch and pulling Steven off, tossing him on the floor. So skilled a tosser-offer was Frank that not a single piece of furniture was touched on Steven’s fall.

  “Was that necessary?” Steven asked, rubbing his temple as he sat up. “You might have told me you had someone here.”

  “Shut up,” said Frank. “The lady said she was done with you and you weren’t listening. You deserve more than you got.”

  “Is this your new boyfriend?” Steven asked, dismissively. “Kind of rough around the edges.”

  Steven was the one being coarse.

  OK, so…I liked Frank stepping in to defend my honor. Nothing like that had ever happened to me; it was the stuff of the movies I had a peripheral hand in making but was never in. But I wanted Frank to know that as much as I appreciated his putting Steven down, I was the one with a greater reason to do so.

  I slapped Steven’s face as hard as I could.

  “Owww! Why’d you do that?”

  “Because,” I said, feeling empowered, “he’s right. You weren’t listening to me, Steven. That’s for all the women out there who don’t get listened to.”

  Steven’s hand shifted from his head to his cheek, and I was tempted to slap him on the other cheek but restrained myself.

  “Sit down, Steve,” Frank demanded, indicating the chair he’d fetched from the dining area. “Tell us about your wife having you and Ms. Cunningham followed.”

  Steven babbled on and on, but the upshot was Claudia had known Steven was, if not unhappy, certainly discontented. When he stopped soliciting sex, she’d suspected there was another woman and finally hired an investigator to follow him to me; and from there, follow me wherever I went. The P.I. was also tasked with getting pictures of Steven and me in flagrante, as well as any she might use to humiliate Steven or me separately. For example—she was hoping to hurt Steven by proving I was a poly-amorous slut, but that hadn’t happened (not that I hadn’t tried for something with Viggo). All the investigator was able to get was a picture of a crazed-looking me with the Hello Kitty conventioneers at the Narita Airport. Apparently, Claudia had been charging the P.I.’s services using her Visa card, and one day Steven, going over the bills, spotted several unexplained charges. When confronted, she at first denied everything. She finally came clean, but not before sending the pictures to Jamie Harris at Talent Partners, whose email address is public knowledge.

  Claudia had all the evidence she needed to establish the affair that her husband and I were having, but that wasn’t enough. She wanted to take me down and thought if my character were maligned and I got fired, Steven would find me uninteresting and ultimately dump me. If he was as shallow as he now appeared, she was probably right. My fall from grace might also serve as a warning to any other would-be mistresses that her husband might take up with.

  And the P.I. she’d hired to tail me? It was Yankees, of course; aka Freckles, the man at the Narita airport who helped me after I fell and to whom I, regretfully, spoke so harshly to. No wonder he had it in for me, too.

  All this meant that Titania was telling the truth when she said she hadn’t sent Jamie any pictures of me, though she still could have been lying about not having seen them. I was pretty sure that as Jamie’s lover and assistant, she’d seen them in the process of screening Jamie’s emails. In any event, Titania really didn’t matter now. At this point, I should be able to assuage Jamie’s concerns that I was not going to embarrass the agency. We just had to make sure that Steven would now do the right thing by Claudia and me.

  “So that’s what you’re going to do, Steve,” said Frank, deliberately leaving off the “n.”

  “You’re not a judge,” said Steven, acting like a brat. “You’re not even a cop.”

  “Yeah, but he was with the Navy Seals that took down Bin Laden,” I said.

  Steven shot a look to Frank, a fearful respect there all of a sudden. I had no idea if Frank had been in Seal Team Six. But it seemed like he could have been, and saying it had the desired effect.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Steven said, defeated.

  “Go back to Claudia,” I said. “She obviously loves you enough to fight for you.”

  Steven looked none too sure about that.

  I felt bad even though there was no reason to anymore. I’d made a mistake and was now trying to fix it. It’s not like I was the first woman to have made this particular error. And falling in love with a married man wouldn’t get me pounded with rocks unless I was a Muslim woman living in rural Turkey.

  Steven rose to leave, and it was all feeling sort of final.

  “She has your word you’ll make sure there’s no trace of the photographs?” Frank asked.

  “Yes.” Steven looked at me. “I’ll make sure. What would be the point now?”

  As he walked out the door, I felt a twinge of sadness, but that’s all it was. No breakup is ever “all good,” and saying it is belittles what was there.

  “It wasn’t Team Six,” Frank said after Steven had gone. “It was Team Twelve. We were nowhere near Bin Laden’s compound. What gave it away?”

  “From the first day I met you, you struck me as one of those really capable, no-bullshit types. But it was just a guess.”

  “Don’t tell me,” he said. “You recognized the character from the movies.” There was an almost imperceptible smile on his face, b
ut I couldn’t tell if he was teasing me.

  “You know,” I said, smiling, “movie characters are often based on real people. They’re just ‘embellished,’ with timelines speeded up for full effect. But I’m sure if someone were to put Frank Sexton in a screenplay, no embellishment would be needed.”

  Except, of course, if a screenwriter were writing the script for Frank and me, he’d need to add the scene that hadn’t happened—the one where the handsome private detective and the woman he’s protecting make crazy, undeniable love in the midst of playing a dangerous cat and mouse game involving international forces of evil wielding the technology sector’s most advanced weaponry. The guy’s right, Quinn; your life is not a Tom Cruise/Matt Damon/Dwayne Johnson/Jason Stratham movie. But oh, how I wanted it to be.

  What I really wanted was for Frank to take me in his arms and hold me; the holding would hopefully develop into more active movements. He liked me, I could tell for sure now, but that didn’t mean he felt romantic toward me. Slugging Steven had been within the purview of any decent man seeing another guy abuse a woman, let alone Frank Sexton, P.I., who was supposed to be watching out for me. Any man worth anything would have done the same thing in his situation, so I shouldn’t interpret his chivalry as any sort of testament to how he felt.

  On the other hand, I didn’t feel him pushing me away. And I wasn’t making it up when I’d caught him watching me a few times when he thought I wasn’t looking—like at Kiki’s house.

  Maybe there was some rule or protocol in his company against having sex with your clients. But hell, that rule gets broken all the time, doesn’t it? What about Klute? Or Someone To Watch Over Me? There I go with the movies again, but it can’t be said enough: Movies are sometimes based on real life! Clearly, life and art had merged dangerously in my head.

  “My life wouldn’t make much of a movie,” he said, his hand reaching into his pants pocket and coming out with his phone, which he flipped open.

  Was he just being modest? Or did he really think himself uninteresting? Either way, his humility seemed refreshing after all the male bravado I’d been exposed to in my own line of work.