Wanna Bet?

by Chula Stone

  Jenny hoped that Tobin recognized this for what it was: a clear ploy to establish who belonged where in the pecking order based on family lineage. “I have lived in Hathville for over a decade now, but my father’s people were the Rodgers, originally from Charleston.”

  As if a clear signal had passed between them that something else which would need to be filed would crop up if she pursued his pedigree any further, Mrs. Nearfin closed her mouth and swallowed her next comment.

  Tobin took the offensive when he saw a hole in the maternal defenses. Jenny had to admire his technique.

  “Mr. Nearfin, I am proud to announce to you that your future son-in-law is moving up the ladder in the company. He needs to set an example for the other staff members. I know this may seem a bit odd, but this wedding is going to turn into a corporate affair, actually. The guest list will, of necessity, be extensive, so the church and reception venue will have to be concomitantly large. In light of these circumstances, of course, I fully expect to…” He made a gesture with his hand as if to lead someone onto a dance floor. It was his way, Jenny thought, of avoiding using a dirty word like “pay” or “money” or, heaven forbid, “foot the bill.”

  Jenny’s mother smoothed her flowing, filmy skirts and cleared her throat. “Now, Mr. Tobin, it is the bride’s family’s honor and privilege to take care of such matters. In the South, we hold tightly to our traditions.”

  “Very admirable, I’m sure,” Tobin replied, “but these are special circumstances. I will be more than happy, since it is my request that your daughter humor me by having such a large wedding.”

  Mr. Nearfin leaned forward to speak, but Mrs. Nearfin cut him off. “I’m sure there will be no difficulty at all, Mr. Tobin. Jennifer Lee is our only daughter, so of course we wouldn’t hear of…”

  Jenny knew her father was the best at handling her mother. This had been the secret to their long and rather interesting marriage. Patently ignoring her mother’s irrelevant story about the by-gone glories of southern weddings, Jenny sent a look of appeal to him and he nodded discreetly back. His excusing himself at this critical moment was not what Jenny had meant, but she had to trust him. He reseated himself just at the moment when her mother wound down and Tobin drew breath to prepare for his next salvo.

  Stepping on Tobin’s comment as neatly as if it had been a paving stone, Mr. Nearfin said, “Our guests look thirsty, Nell Ann. Why don’t you go get them some tea? You’ll join us, won’t you?”

  “Please don’t bother…”

  “No, we don’t want to impose…”

  “Of course, they’d love some. I’ll help,” declared Jenny, hustling her mother into the kitchen.

  Mrs. Nearfin went to the refrigerator and looked around. “I could have sworn there was a full pitcher of tea in here and now it’s gone. Your father must have drunk it this morning.”

  Or poured it down the sink just now, Jenny thought, mentally giving her father a huge hug. It took several minutes for the water to boil and the tea to be ready. When they returned to the living room, the men were smiling and conversing pleasantly.

  “Is everything all right?” Jenny asked suspiciously.

  “Of course it is,” Mrs. Nearfin replied for the men. “We will be happy to work with Mr. Tobin on the details and plan as large a wedding as he needs. Isn’t that right, dear?”

  “Of course,” Mr. Nearfin replied. “Well, I mean to say, my little girl only gets married once. Isn’t that right, Jenny Lee?”

  Jenny choked on her tea then looked from one man to the other, trying to figure out which one looked more amused. All she knew for sure was that if any of them wanted to go into used car sales, she thought he would make a mint.

  “Do you know how much St. James costs to have a wedding in? And the Excelsior for the reception? Why not just fly everyone to the Ritz in New York? It would be cheaper! And did you know he’s ordering champagne? And fireworks? Fireworks, for crying out loud!” Jenny was at her full, fuming finest and Jeep couldn’t help but admire her. He had missed living with her every day, waking up with her every morning, and taking her to his bed every night, but he loved seeing her at work and catching up.

  “No, I don’t know, and neither should you. Mr. Tobin has it all under control. That’s all we need to know. How did you find out, anyway?” Jeep asked.

  “I saw my mother’s checkbook. The fees are astronomical.”

  “Are the checks bouncing? How’s the balance look?”

  “My mother doesn’t keep a running total! She just assumes if she writes a check, the funds will be there to cover it.”

  “Having met your mother, why does that not surprise me?”

  “As you saw from their house, my parents are not wealthy people. Mother’s family came from money, as we say, and she never got the hang of treating it normally. Thank goodness she doesn’t like to shop or my father would have been in the poorhouse years ago. But she insists on handling the wedding details, including writing the checks. It’s preposterous! We have to do something!”

  “What we have to do is trust Mr. Tobin. We worked everything out. If you don’t trust Tobin, trust me.” He leaned in to kiss her, but it was like kissing a porcupine. Not liking her attitude, he reached around and popped her bottom.

  “Ouch! Not in the office, Jeep!”

  “Shape up, then, or I’ll take my lunch break early. The apartment is not far from here. We could make it there and back in plenty of time.”

  “It’s my apartment and I’m not hungry yet.” Jenny had obviously caught his implication, he thought.

  “If I got you alone in that apartment, I’ll bet I could make you hungry,” he leered. Oh, how he loved that blush. He leaned in closer and this time he did kiss her. There was no trace of porcupine left. “And then we could have lunch,” he added with a joking shrug. “After I wore your little tail out. Now, chill out or that’s how it’ll go down.”

  He left her then and went to Tobin’s office right next to his own new office. He had never had his own desk before, much less his own door and window, but he was getting used to it, especially since he didn’t spend too much time there. He was still a field man and liked it that way.

  There were just some client consultations and planning duties Tobin wanted him to carry out. For some reason, the six-foot-five Jeep seemed to have a knack for getting slow-paying customers to come through with the cash. And persnickety people had a tendency to see reason when he looked down at his white board to draw out security details or alarm system specifications. He didn’t mind at all.

  “You wanted to see me?” Jeep enquired, sticking his head in at the door.

  “Come in and close the door,” Tobin answered.

  Jeep realized it couldn’t be good. On the desk, he observed another manila envelope, just like the one in which the pictures of Jenny and the other candid shots had been delivered so many months ago. Wordlessly, Tobin opened it and fanned six black and white photos out on the desk.

  All candid, all featuring Tobin, and again all involving women with whom Tobin was associated. Jenny’s face. Mrs. Abernathy’s shoulders and the back of her head. The cleaning woman, Consuela. Two others Jeep only vaguely recognized.

  Professional detachment. “The two new ones?”

  Controlled fury. “Files on your desk in an hour. Clients I also see socially.”

  A look passed between the two men before Jeep spoke again. “As soon as this is over, you’ll have my resignation.”

  “What the…?”

  “This is happening on my watch! It was my operation that put Chalk behind bars. He obviously wasn’t the problem. I’ve been hunting the wrong snake. My fault.”

  “Your operation? It was my idea, from start to finish and I was the one who blamed Chalk. It was Chalk. This isn’t the same camera man or the same threat. These are all women.”

  “But the manila envelope. The pictures. It’s too similar to…“

  “Same snake charmer behind the snakes, Jeep. It’s Van Dy
ke again. He isn’t giving up just because we bagged one snake. This is not your fault. It’s mine. And I don’t resign, so I don’t expect you to. We get back to work and start beating the bushes. First of all, we bring in the subjects and figure out how these pictures were taken. Last time, we didn’t need to look into that. We knew Chalk was the one. Now, we need to find a connection and…”

  “I’m on it,” Jeep replied. “What about the wedding. With all this…?”

  “Let me get back to you on that. We’ve still got some time there. In the meantime, I’ll put Salk and Pepper in the apartment next to Jenny’s.”

  “Tob, I need to move back in!”

  “And tip our hand? Play it like last time? No, we do things differently this time. He wants a reaction. Let’s not give him one. I’ll probe the clients. You take the in-house subjects but discreetly. We’ll get to the bottom of this quietly. Tell no one. Not even Jenny.”

  “I don’t know how long I can—”

  “Trust me. Van Dyke is going for the long game. It may take some planning, but we’ll get him.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Mr. Tobin!” declared Jenny as she barged into his office a few days later. “I have to talk to you.”

  “I think you are talking to me, my dear,” he answered, not looking up from his papers.

  “This whole thing is going too far! It’s been more than a week!”

  “A week since what?”

  Jenny could not understand why the man was bristling so. She noticed the manila envelope on his desk, but it didn’t look significant to her. Bad news came in business envelopes. She shrugged it off. The man was just being obstinate because she was daring to get in his way. “You know what! And Jeep isn’t helping.”

  “He wasn’t supposed to tell you,” Tobin informed her. “Much less help you. You stay out of this.”

  “But I can’t just stay out of it! Don’t you think I have a right to know what’s going on?”

  “You already know too much and it’s merely worrying you. Please, keep your voice down. This is supposed to be kept out of the public eye. We can’t do that with you shouting so.”

  “I’ll shout if I have to!” she shouted, but then her voice got calmer. “And I am worried. My poor parents.”

  “I hardly think this will reach as far as them, my dear. You are exaggerating the peril.”

  “I would think even you would understand that this wedding is putting them in peril! My father just retired. He’s on a fixed income and what his investments will make him. If he spends every penny he has in the bank on this wedding…”

  “What?”

  “The wedding. The checks. I’ve seen the sums and they’re astronomical. Fireworks? Peacocks? An ice sculpture? I know to a man like you, they’re chump change but to us, they represent years of security my parents have saved for and deserve! And now they won’t have them because of this circus you call a wedding!”

  To her everlasting annoyance, Tobin sat back abruptly at that point and laughed. A hearty, gut-busting laugh akin to nothing she had ever heard him give. Passing a hand over his eyes, he scrubbed at his face before he looked up at her.

  “You little ninny! Bring me that file.” He gestured to a mahogany cabinet in the corner on which lay a folder marked: “Payroll.”

  She brought it to him, then waited while he opened it up and flipped pages. Finding a particular one, he turned it to her to read. “What is that?”

  “It’s a…bank statement.”

  “And the third item down?”

  “An entry for a…payment to…uh, my father.” Puzzled, Jenny read it again. “But it’s huge. And there’s another one. And another. What is this?”

  “Now go back to the cabinet and get the file marked New Hires. It’s filed alphabetically. Look for your father’s offer sheet. They’re in alphabetical order, too.”

  A minute later, she announced, “It says that you are offering him employment as a consultant. What can my father consult about?”

  “About the wedding, of course. And a great many other things, it turns out. He’s a great chess player, a very wise man, and after thirty-two years in the Navy, he’s seen a good bit of life. I’ll probably ask him if he wants to stay on even after the big event, though the salary will be more reasonable. Right now, you see, his salary from Sentry will more than cover the wedding expenses. He’s quite a quick negotiator, your father. And he introduced me to the joys of sweet iced tea.”

  The pieces of the puzzle fell into place and Jenny blushed. “Oh.”

  “Yes. Oh.” Tobin turned his attention back to his papers.

  “But wait a minute. You said something about peril. What were you talking about? And why did you laugh?” Jenny could see Tobin tense again, then his face cleared and he seemed to get an idea.

  He picked up his phone and pushed the button for Jeep’s extension. “Come in here for a minute, please, Jeep. I have something you’ll want to take care of on your lunch break.”

  Jenny began to squirm. She didn’t know how much other people in the office knew about their infrequent lunch breaks together, but they never turned out well for her backside.

  “Yes, Mr. Tobin,” Jeep said as he came in the office.

  “Our little Jenny here has seen fit to burst into my office unasked and proceed to berate me with regards to my handling of your wedding.”

  “She did what?”

  “Normally, I would not interfere with how a man handles his family obligations, but in this case, I thought it my duty to inform you.”

  “Was she rude?”

  “She was certainly not polite.”

  “I didn’t cuss,” Jenny put in, “And I was tempted to. And Mr. Tobin said something about danger, so I got mad. It’s not my fault.”

  “So you can see,” Mr. Tobin bulldozed right over Jenny’s defense, “It would be best for you to deal with this situation personally and immediately.”

  Jenny wondered fleetingly if she imagined the significant look that passed between the two men, but when Jeep took her arm and escorted her out of the building, all thoughts of exaggerated peril flew straight out of her mind. The peril to her backside was as real as Jenny needed at that moment.

  They got to her apartment much quicker than she wished. She wondered briefly why it was that the distance changed so dramatically with the time of day. Mornings, when she was running late, and evenings, when she was in a hurry to get home and take her shoes off to relax, there seemed to be about eighty miles to travel, but when she knew she was in for a hard time, they got there in no time. Ugh!

  “Raise that skirt up,” Jeep began. “We don’t have much time for a warm-up.”

  “But Jeep, you have to admit—”

  “I don’t have to admit anything. You’re stalling and I’m not having any. Up with the skirt and over with the girlie. Now!” He gestured to his favorite couch and she wondered if she could get Salk and Pepper to take it to the dump for her. Soon. Really soon.

  “I didn’t do anything dangerous. And I was thinking. I was thinking too much, in fact. You said you would spank when I wasn’t thinking, so really…ouch!”

  “I’m adding to my list of spanking flags, then. I’ll still spank you when you’re not thinking, but I’ll also spank you when you’re not listening. Get over that couch!”

  “But Jeep—”

  “That just earned you ‘extras,’ I think they call them. Gotta love that newsletter. Just last month they…”

  “Oh, please!”

  “No problem! Over you go.” He gave her a helping hand.

  “That’s not what I—oh! Ouch! Ow!”

  “And I had to raise your skirt for you, too. I asked you to do that and you didn’t. That’ll cost you as well. Let’s get this over with.” He smacked her backside hard and long, or at least, it felt that way. Somehow they made it back to work in time for her to sit on a very hot and sore backside the rest of the day.

  Extras! she thought to herself. Where did he get that
wooden spoon? Not from my kitchen. It must have been from the Red Dragon and had some of their Szechwan Chicken Sauce on it still. It made my rump twice as hot as a normal spoon would. Twenty extras! I’ll have to remember to get in position and get my skirt up myself next time. Easier said than done, but I’ll have to try. Those extras are the worst!

  The next day, Jenny continued to wander around the office, doing any duty that involved staying off her still-tender rear end, so she was at the back door watering the potted tree when a courier brought in a manila envelope. Seeing it in the courier’s hand gave her a jolt. The packet with the pictures that had started all this mess came suddenly to her mind. Hadn’t Jeep told her it had been delivered by hand? She stopped the young man and realized he wasn’t actually that young. A bit old to be a courier, wasn’t he?

  “Excuse me. You’re new, aren’t you? You wouldn’t remember delivering a package like this before, would you?”

  “You mean the one last week? No, ma’am. Wasn’t me. Must have been some other courier. I’m only doing this part-time. I’ve never been here before.”

  “Last week?” Jenny’s heart skipped a beat. “I see.” The final pieces of the puzzle fell into place and she understood why Tobin had hustled her out of his office, practically ordering Jeep to take her home and spank her.

  She took the delivery from him and was surprised that she didn’t have to sign for it. In fact, the man was out the back door before she realized he was leaving. She couldn’t help herself. She had to look. What she found there made her wish she had more self-control.

  She walked back to Jeep’s office like a zombie. Shutting the door behind her, she crossed to his desk, the envelope behind her back. Her voice soft and eerily calm. Her heart thudding in her throat. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Tell you what, little one?” Jeep glanced up quickly, then got up when he noted the look on her face.

  She brought the packet forward to show him. He dove at it, snatching it from her.

  Picking up the phone, he punched in Tobin’s extension. “Urgent, boss,” was all he had to say.