Sweet Cream Ladies, Ltd.

by Flo Fitzpatrick

  Babs growled, “I don’t care. Really. I’m sick and tired of telling some stooge where I am and what I’ve been doing every damned day like I’m a demented preschooler merely so a man who has no business interfering in my life or the life of his grown son can satisfy his own control issues. So there.”

  “Brave words, Ms. Harrison.”

  “Ya think?” She chuckled. “For two cents I’d head out to Staten Island to see Mr. C’s reaction when Lionel tells him he’s clueless as to the whereabouts of Harrison and Kittredge.”

  I plunked back down on the sofa. “Don’t even need those two cents since the ferry is free.” I picked up my glass, which was half-filled with red wine. “A toast then.”

  “To?”

  “Removing the anklet of Lionel from our legs. It’s not like there’s been anything exciting for him to tell Carmosina anyway.”

  “Sadly. It’s really stupid when you consider that Joey is out on tour with that children’s theatre company and I’m here going to auditions and waiting for the mail each day so I can collect any wonderful residuals for the Hollywood FX commercial and those dreadful toilet tissue ads I did early last fall.”

  We clinked our glasses anyway. “To the end of Lionel. And the beginning of freedom.”

  I took a sip. “Or the beginning of a major chase sequence with a ton of organized crime bosses getting organized enough to go after us.”

  Babs grinned. “We can take ‘em. We simply need to get our hit-women mojo back.”

  “Are you saying we’ve been wimpy lately? That we need to try to contact Minerva in the great beyond and see if she can channel Lucky Lou and Bugsy Siegel to help us instead of letting Giuseppe Carmosina try to outdo them in infamy?”

  “Long-winded way of putting it, but well, yeah, pretty much.”

  “Hmm. So who was up next on the Sweet Cream Ladies, Ltd. hit list?”

  “I believe that would be your ex-spouse. Todd Kittredge.”

  “That could get tricky,” I stated.

  “Why?”

  “Because he spends most of his time now in the Tenth Precinct interrogation room.’

  Babs started laughing. “Think of the challenge. Take him out under the noses of fifty cops and get away with it. I love it.”

  “You are one sick puppy, ya know that?”

  “Well, I do have to admit it’s probably a bit too much of a challenge right now. Besides, we really do need to simply shoot him which, while I agree with an earlier statement you made about it being satisfying, is a bit overused and harder to accomplish without witnesses, not to mention the whole ‘we’ve never shot anyone' thing so we’d probably miss and hit one of New York’s finest.”

  I finished my wine. “Want to join me at the murder museum during a tour? I’m sure you can come up with a variation on one of the crimes I'm dramatizing. I can see it now. ‘And here, ladies and gents, lies all that was left of Mr. Todd Kittredge who met his demise on a beautiful winter day—done in by two women who truly believed the world would be a better place without his toxic presence.’ The tourists would love it too.”

  “Do you ever get creeped out? All those murders?” Babs inquired.

  “Nah. We don’t have any of what I call the sad murders. Son of Sam or Kitty Genovese—that was that awful murder back in the Nineteen-sixties where New Yorkers saw it happening and didn’t do anything. Horrible. That kind of stuff would creep anyone out. We only hit the fun stuff. Unsolved crimes from two hundred years ago. The Burr-Hamilton duel which is way too cool for the guys doing it as well as our customers. They overact beyond belief. It’s hysterical. Oh. Ghosts. People love ghost stories. I must admit the ghosts are my favorites.”

  “So, if we bump off Toddy, would that fall under a sad murder or cool stuff?”

  “Neither. And you know, he doesn’t have to actually become an exhibit in a Scene of the Crime tour. Just as long as he joins the ranks of the ghostly departed.”

  Chapter 2 7

  Babs and I didn’t have long to wait before the reprisal for Lionel’s lack of new reporting to come back to torment us. I expected something on the order of Lionel tracking us down and sobbing that Mr. C was going to send him to the Arctic circle or someplace similar that has way more snow than Manhattan. I did not expect Vertigo Valentine, Esq. to join Babs and me for lunch at our favorite diner on West 43rd Street.

  “Ladies.”

  “Mr. Valentine.” Neither Babs nor I asked how he’d found us. Giuseppe Carmosina doubtless had numerous friends who were half bloodhound and half ex-private investigators who believed working for Mr. C provided more money and less hours that would otherwise be spent snapping photos of estranged spouses in motel rooms with hustlers of both sexes. “And what brings you to Manhattan this lovely day? A court case perhaps? Bail hearings?”

  He smiled. I was not reassured. He plopped himself down in the booth Babs and I had snagged thirty minutes ago, and squeezed next to Babs who was not pleased since she was pretty sure he’d been at Mr. C’s side when the dogs were originally called to hunt their prey—i.e.—her.

  Babs had no questions for the man but did have a decided preference for where Vertigo Valentine was sitting. “Slide your ass away from my hip right now, Valentine. If you have a pressing need to speak to us, then drag a chair over here but quit invading my personal space.”

  Astonishingly, he complied. Once he resettled his bottom, he got down to business.

  “Mr. Carmosina has a proposition to present.”

  “No.” Babs stated firmly.

  “Excuse me, Ms. Harrison, but you haven’t heard it yet.”

  Babs scowled. “I don’t care. I don’t want to hear it. I simply want Mr. C to leave me alone. And leave Bootsie alone. That's Bootsie Kittredge here, who is not dating his son and will not be dating his son and shouldn’t have to be bothered by any of Carmosina’s—disciples—who, for some unknown reason are concerned about the woman who actually is dating his son.”

  Valentine sat back in his chair, appearing stunned. I felt certain it was the only time in his chequered career as Carmosina’s attorney that anyone had either refused an offer or rendered him momentarily speechless. When Babs gets assertive, Babs is amazing and forceful and generally quite logical. I keep hoping one day I’ll have her moxie.

  After approximately thirty seconds of a stare-down, Valentine spoke. “You girls do recall that I was retained to bail you out of jail? I am your lawyer. You may speak freely and you also need to listen to the proposal.”

  Babs shook her head. “We did not retain your services. We did not ask you to be our lawyer. As far as we’re concerned, we don’t need legal representation at this time and if we do, we shall find it elsewhere. No offense, Mr. Valentine, but both Bootsie and I see a huge conflict of interest on your part. You work for Giuseppe Carmosina. You deliver messages from the man proposing things. Consequently we wouldn’t speak freely if even there were something to speak about, which there isn’t.”

  He glared at her, then at me with equal amounts of sheer annoyance. “But there is. Mr. Carmosina is convinced that you know much more than you’ve said about the death of Minerva Krempowsky.”

  “Not to mention Monica Travers and Clayton Harrison the Third,” I muttered, not quite under my breath.

  Valentine nodded. “Those victims as well, although Mr. C is not concerned with their deaths. Only Ms. Krempowsky’s.”

  Babs interjected, “Because Joey might be involved in that one since he was at the big party where it all went down.”

  “Precisely. Joey has been brought in for questioning three times since the incident.”

  Babs sat up straight. “Shit! He didn’t tell me that! What the hell?”

  I stated serenely. “Told you Laramie couldn’t be trusted.”

  Valentine latched on to that. “Of course not. He’s a cop. He wants to see someone arrested for the murder. Our interests coincide with each other. You don’t want to be arrested. Mr. C doesn’t want Joey to be arrested. That’
s why I’m here.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said.

  “It’s simple. The proposition is this. The two of you turn yourselves in to Detective Laramie and I represent you for free and believe me, I will see that you’re not convicted.”

  Babs nearly spat out her iced tea. “That’s the proposition? What world do you people live in?”

  “The real one, Ms. Harrison. The one where police do eventually lock up citizens for crimes and then do their damndest to see to it that those citizens spend their lives behind bars.”

  “Mr. Valentine?”

  He turned to me and nodded with a regal ‘we give you leave to speak’ expression. “Yes, Ms. Kittredge?”

  “Make it Bootsie. And just what makes you think that Babs and I are guilty of this offense?”

  “I know all about the Sweet Cream Ladies. I know who’s on the list. I know that acting either separately or in concert, the two of you managed to arrange the rather brilliant murders of Monica Travers and Clay Harrison.”

  I raised my hand in protest. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on there a New York minute, Counselor. How do you supposedly know these things? Don’t we get a little ‘innocent until proven guilty’ here?”

  Valentine waved me off. “Everyone knows about the Sweet Cream Ladies.”

  “Limited,” I said absently.

  “Fine. If you wish. Limited. Neither of you have been exactly circumspect when it comes to keeping your—organization—a secret.”

  I had to smile. “Especially when Babs gets drunk and announces it to an entire restaurant.”

  “Where it so happens that an associate of mine was dining that evening,” Vertigo muttered. “Which ultimately created Giuseppe Carmosina's concern about the company his son was keeping.”

  Babs snorted. “Well, everyone in Maria’s was vastly entertained by my announcement. I could have gotten us business that very night that would last us 'til the next century. People were waving at us and calling names of potential victims as we were exiting the joint.”

  Valentine was back to glaring. He raised his volume slightly. “I also know that your plans to murder Monica and Clay and Minerva were very clear and that you both had motive, means and opportunity in each death.”

  Babs snorted. “Doesn’t mean a thing. We aren’t the only ones with the two big ‘Ms’ and the ‘O’ and there’s no proof that we did anything other than muse about the possibility of bumping some folks off. Not illegal. We didn’t even threaten them. Shoot. Several folks out of the group of actors who were at Maria’s when we were do that musing? Wait. Forget several. Make that all of them also had means, motive and opportunity.”

  “They did?” I asked.

  Babs grinned. “Oh yeah. Shall I recount the motives to start?”

  Valentine and I both nodded in somewhat the same amount of fascination and interest.

  “Fine. First of all, the reason I know this is because people in the theatre talk. So don’t ask if I’m making stuff up. There was much pissed-off-ness among our crowd over several of the folks who were on the Ladies’ list. Which was why they were on the list. Where was I? Oh. Okay. Roger was beyond angry at Monica Travers because she was hooking up last year with a very homophobic producer who ‘un-cast’ him in a commercial for those little blue pills used by men who want to take advantage of the moment, so to speak, and Monica convinced Mr. Gay-basher bigot that Roger couldn’t be convincing with a woman. He lost a ton of residual money since that would have been a national ad campaign. Not to mention he was rooked out of money by Minerva about two years ago. Uh. Pilar was shafted out of a really wonderful role in a TV movie about two months before Monica met the wasp and the only reason for it was that Monica slept with at least two of the backers and Pilar wouldn’t. Kam adores Pilar and was furious with Monica. Chuck had seen Monica screw way too many actresses out of roles they should have had, which in turn screwed him out of his agent’s commission. Joey could have just been sticking up for Bootsie and me on the side of talent. Todd —yes, let’s throw Todd in here.”

  “Or in the street. Preferably in front of a bus,” I added sotte voce while fluttering my lashes.

  “That too.” Babs winked at me. “Anyway, I heard that Monica had personally used one of her lovers to blackball Todd from a big lead with the Met. She was quite influential, our Ms. Travers. You already have the motive for Bootsie and me and really, it’s the weakest of the lot—I mean, come on —we killed her because she was talentless and had a part in a play Bootsie and two hundred other actresses wanted?”

  Valentine stated, “Or because she the means to an end, that end being the start up of the Sweet Cream Ladies.”

  “Limited,” Babs and I stated in unison.

  “Limited.” For just a second a glint of humor crossed Vertigo’s features. “Couldn’t you have come up with something shorter?”

  “We did consider Hits-R-Us but we were afraid people would think we were either drug dealers or relief pitchers for the Yankees.” Babs told him with a straight face.

  Valentine sighed. “What about Minerva?”

  “Oh. My. God. Way more motive there for not only our acting buddies but also dozens of Minerva’s clients. She rooked folks out of savings. She told lies that caused others to suffer. She was basically a bitch who perhaps was only liked by her brother and I’m not even sure about that. He could have killed her simply to confuse everyone or out of revenge because she lost one of his rabbits or something.”

  “And Clay Harrison?”

  “Well, that web gets tangled. But Roger had hired Clay as his attorney when he wanted to get financing for some Indie theatre project he’s determined to do. Clay charged exorbitant fees. Roger could have said, ‘that’s it’ and fed Clay to the shark. Kameron and Pilar? I have no idea. But I’m sure if I dig I can find something that ties them to Clay’s death. Shoot. Maybe he knew they’d killed Monica and was blackmailing them?”

  “That’s a reach,” I had to admit.

  “It’s all a reach.” Babs conceded. “But so is saddling you and me for crimes that half the city could have committed. I personally think Mr. Valentine here should inform Mr. Carmosina that Todd Kittredge was the perpetrator of all murders and make sure his butt is sent up the river for the enjoyment of cell block C of Sing-Sing.”

  A second flash that might have been a smile flickered across Valentine’s face. “You ladies truly despise Todd Kittredge, don't you?”

  Babs responded with, “He’s next on the list.”

  I rolled my eyes to the heavens. “Babs! Shit. Quit saying stuff like that!”

  “Hey, Valentine just reiterated that he’s our attorney. And I didn’t mention what list. Could be Christmas cards for next year.”

  Valentine nodded. “I hate to agree, but she’s right. Now, back to Clay Harrison’s death. Which happens to be the death Mr. Carmosina is most concerned about after Minerva’s because that murder most closely is tied to Babs Harrison and possibly to Joey.”

  Babs growled, “Joey was stage managing that horrible show no one remembers the name of because it was so incredibly stinko it closed the night Clay and the shark merged. And maybe I can’t tie Roger or Pilar or Kam or Chuck but Clay also pissed off a lot of folks during his career. Hell, maybe his last paramour, Miss Tammy, became enraged when she realized he would trade her in for a younger model soon before she could marry him for his money and she got the mechanical chomping thing to chomp.”

  “That’s crazy,” Valentine interjected.

  I gulped. “Uh, I was going to say you don’t know Tammy and how nuts she is but then I remembered, you do know her.” I didn’t say, ‘Howard told me you’re schtupping her.’ Instead I casually mentioned that I remembered seeing them talking at the Carmosina party. “No offense if she's a—friend— but I swear Tammy’s certifiable. Anyone who’d get into a fight with a squirrel at a funeral doesn’t have all her own acorns stashed.”

  Valentine stared at me. “She fought with a squirrel?”

&n
bsp; “Oh yeah.”

  “Who won?”

  “The squirrel.”

  Chapter 2 8

  Vertigo Valentine signaled to our waitress to bring more coffee.

  “This sounds far too entertaining. Please, tell me what happened,” he stated.

  So the waitress poured and we doctored our cups and I regaled the mob attorney with the story of Tammy and the Squirrel, including the last sight anyone had had of the furry little rodent chortling in sheer glee as he hopped from headstone to headstone-wearing Tammy’s outrageous black lace hat.

  Valentine howled. “I must admit I’m sorry to have missed that sight. I always believe funerals are too—somber. If someone’s stomach growls it’s surprising people don’t bury that person in the coffin.”

  Babs’ eyes opened wide. “My God. You’re human. Whodathunk it?”

  Before Valentine had a chance to respond, my own eyes had widened, my jaw had dropped and I’d become speechless at a sight I’d never imagined. Sebastian Laramie was casually holding the door to the diner open for a woman I swore I’d seen someplace but couldn’t grasp the where. It wasn’t the memory twitch that made me speechless though. It was what she was wearing, which had drawn stares from New Yorkers normally immune to bizarre get-ups and attire in Manhattan coffee shops.

  The bleached blonde had poured an admittedly spectacular hourglass figure into a 1950s style white and black polka dot dress that boasted a nine-inch slit up the side and accentuated a tiny waist by means of a wide red belt. She was wearing red six-inched spike heels, fishnet hose and a red hat that rivaled Tammy’s. Huge red loop earrings dangled below her chin and clanked in rhythm with the cluster of bracelets lining one bare arm. Thirty-six degrees out today and the only outer wrap was a black faux fur bolero jacket. For no good reason, this made me like her. Anyone that bold in appearance while also being an obvious animal rights advocate had to be a good person at heart.

  Detective Laramie didn’t seem to notice that the woman he was now escorting our way looked like Marilyn Monroe getting ready to audition to play Sugar in Some Like it Hot. A definite babe but Sebastian didn’t seem to notice. He was busy scowling and weaving through chairs diners had scooched away from tables in order to relax.