by Chris Rogers
Chapter Thirty-three
As he watched Dietz exit the coffee shop, Ted Tally slipped a ten out of his wallet. He’d forgotten to mention the pin he saw yesterday on a kid’s jacket. Certainly not a local gang symbol, and the kid struck Ted as too clean to be gang-connected. Pulled him over for no brake lights. Wrote out a warning.
The driver had been cool. Too cool. Uptight cool. And way too polite. For grins Ted asked what the pin represented.
“Perseverance.” The boy smiled, big freckles covering his face.
The Cherokee’s plates turned up clean. No reason to rag the driver. No hint of drugs. Nothing visible inside the car—spotless, in fact. Yet, he was definitely uptight.
And Ted had seen that triangular design somewhere before. It would eat at him until he remembered. He’d sketched it, thinking Dietz might recognize it, having been on gang detail up north. They could’ve fed the design into the computer—if Ted hadn’t left the damn sketch at home this morning.
He checked the lunch tab against his ten and shot a glance at Sarah, the green-eyed goddess behind the counter. For three weeks he’d been hinting for a date with her. He dropped the money beside the cash register.
“How about tomorrow night, Sarah?”
Her eyes sparkled, flirting, but she shook her head, ringing up the total.
“Come on, nobody works all the time. Even cops take a day off now and then.”
“If I were a cop, maybe I’d get a day off, too. Maybe we’d get the same day off and spend it together. But I work every Saturday night. Sorry.”
Was that a nibble?
“Saturday’s only a suggestion. I’m on day shift, so my time’s yours after three o’clock. How about let’s take out my wave runner, catch some sun before sundown?”
“My shift isn’t over until six.”
Tally felt his grin broaden. More than a nibble, a big-mouthed bite.
“Where do I pick you up?” He handed her a pen and slid a napkin over to write on.
She hesitated. “Maybe we should meet somewhere.”
Then they’d have two cars. Couldn’t take her home. “Hey, if you can’t trust a cop, who can you trust?”
She smiled, shrugged, then wrote down her address.
“Six o’clock?”
“Seven. I have to change clothes.”
“Seven it is.” Outside, he whistled as he strolled to his squad car. Three weeks, about ten days longer than he’d ever dangled a hook. Was he dreaming, or was she worth the extra wait?
Better than nine days with Dietz in the woods, for sure—
Then it hit him, where he’d seen that red-blue-and-gold symbol. The day Chief Wanamaker took office, Ted had been fishing and almost missed the big deal at Wortham Center, an auditorium full of cops, plus City Council, Mayor Banning—and a couple of kids wearing that same pin. Hell, maybe it did stand for “perseverance.” Took plenty to become Chief.
Ted reached for the door handle—
The force of the bullet slammed him against the car, lifting his feet off the asphalt, and sprayed bits of bone and tissue over blue-and-white paint. For the space of a millisecond, Ted saw his world explode in brilliant color.
Chapter Thirty-four
Sunset played a color symphony in the western sky as Dixie raised a sleeve of her new tunic to glance at her watch. Diaphanous bronze silk, virtually weightless, the fabric sparkled in the light and moved against her skin like a feather.
“That pantsuit is you,” Jessica Love had assured her. “You look fabulous.” And there, in the cozy boutique, just the two of them, Dixie believed her. The sheer silk had felt sexy and exotic and fun. Now it felt brazen. She’d never worn a thing that so clearly shouted “Look at me!” Three months of Parker’s “Let’s just be pals” had turned her into a hormone harlot.
FIESTA NIGHT
$10
HAPPY-HOUR PRICES
Punctual Parker would be inside the club already.
Dixie fluffed her hair and commanded her galloping pulse to slow down. The party atmosphere—certainly more intimate than their usual Friday-night restaurant—along with her new duds, new face, new hair … did she expect these to jolt Parker out of his stubborn hands-off attitude? Well, yes, dammit.
But she also had a job to do here. According to Terrence Jackson, members of Fortyniners formed relationships. What better place for Edna to’ve hooked up with Ms. Mysterious Moneybags, who, so far, remained the only successful Granny Bandit?
“One happy hour a week,” Jackson’d said. And this was it. Dixie had three, maybe four hours to gather all the information to be gained from this bunch, or wait for their next event.
She swept past the sign and entered.
City Streets, a property manager, had taken over a number of small defunct retail stores in a shopping mall. Wide doorways connected the spaces, encouraged mingling, yet divided the huge area into cozy sections. Fortyniners occupied one section; similar organizations met in the other rooms. And farther back, the on-site nightclub beckoned loners to drop in.
What had brought Aunt Edna here? Lucy Ames? Another friend? Or had she stopped for a drink after shopping in a still vital part of the retail mall? At the fringe of the Galleria area, City Streets sat twenty-seven miles from Edna’s home in Richmond, but only blocks from Terrence Jackson’s office, Artistry Spa, Fit After Fifty, and Unique Boutique.
At the registration table, a man who must’ve turned forty-nine three decades ago took Dixie’s ten bucks in exchange for a cheerful, leering grin, a drink ticket, and a name tag. His orange jacket would’ve been loud even without the melon-pink tie. He plastered the name tag to her right shoulder.
“Save me a dance later,” he urged, handing her a business card from his jacket pocket. “I’m Crawford Garston. Club treasurer.”
Dixie read the card. “Esquire” appeared beneath his name. “I’d be happy to save a dance for you, Judge Garston.”
His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Do I know you?”
“You threw out one of my cases, eleven years, two months, and twenty-six days ago.” Approximately. “Told me to march right back to law school.”
Garston chuckled, studying her as if trying to recall the case. “Hope your dancing’s as good as your memory.”
“I hope retirement has mellowed your disposition.” It certainly hadn’t improved his color sense.
Inside the meeting room, a five-piece band played a popular tune in a style reminiscent of the forties. Three couples swayed on the dance floor. Dixie spied Parker, rakishly handsome, as always, chatting with a blue-haired woman in a green polka-dot party dress. The woman waved Dixie over.
“My, how nice to see new people here.” Nora, according to her name tag, looked to be a good age match for Judge Garston. Apparently, forty-nine lasted a very long time with this group.
“Terrence Jackson invited me,” Dixie said.
Parker’s gaze had lodged in her cleavage. Dixie felt a rush of heat in precisely the same spot.
“That devil Terrence hasn’t arrived yet!” Nora’s smile suggested Jackson was the best tonic since Geritol. “He’ll show up later. Always does. I’m Nora Raye, tonight’s hostess. You see, Parker, we do have a few young folks who attend. Now, let me show you both to the free buffet.”
Nora seemed the type to know everybody who’d ever attended, but the word “buffet” turned Dixie’s stomach into a growling beast. Her skimpy fruit salad had disappeared hours ago. While she fed the beast she could catch up on what Parker had learned, then question Nora later.
Past mounds of cheese, crackers, and raw vegetables, she spotted a platter of finger-roll sandwiches. Parker beat her to the tongs and placed three on her plate. His blue blazer and the lighter streaks in his dark hair gave him the appearance of having stepped right off a yacht—which he probably had. He carried the clean, fresh scent of sun and sea.
“How long have you been here?” Dixie licked a drop of red sauce off her finger.
“Long enoug
h to figure out why you asked about sales techniques this morning.”
Actually, she’d inquired about singles clubs, and their conversation had taken a turn. “What gave it away?”
“At least a third of this bunch use the club as a sales network.”
Dixie scanned the crowd milling around the buffet and seated at tables. “Are they wearing signs? Or is this a case of ‘it takes one to know one’?”
“Fortyniners is an evolved networking club,” Parker insisted as they made their way to a tall table with two stools.
Dixie sat across from him—not as close as she’d like to be. A waitress took their drink orders.
“I know about networks—with six phone calls you can reach anyone in the world.” Dixie’d developed her own eccentric but highly effective network for locating skips in most of the fifty states and Mexico. “But why bother with regular meetings?”
“Sales, Dixie. Walk up to anybody here. Say ‘hello,’ and if you get a business card shoved at you, you’ve just met a seller.”
“Like Judge Garston?”
“The colorful old guy at the door? Didn’t make him for a judge, but it figures. Read the back of his business card.”
Dixie slipped it from her new bronze handbag and read the reverse side. “Aromatherapy Products.”
“Network marketing. An entire industry developed from groups like this. Retired professionals selling products to avoid turning into couch potatoes.”
Terrence Jackson was not retired.
“Okay, so …?” She was too hungry to ask intelligent questions, but she wanted Parker to keep talking.
“Back in the eighties—country deep in recession, people out of work—groups like this cropped up all over. Buffet breakfasts. Luncheon meetings. Cocktail happy hours. All for cramming salespeople together with marks.”
“You’re telling me these salespeople are con artists?” Dixie shot another glance around the room.
“Only difference between a scam and a sale is the value of the product.”
“Good point.” She’d prosecuted a few cons in her day, but the best managed to bilk the public and skate free.
“The eighties economy destroyed marriages. Networking groups became singles social clubs—until AIDS. The clubs that hung in developed stringent rules.”
Dixie’d been in her twenties, dating cautiously. She hadn’t attended any singles clubs, but she remembered them. “A test slip verifying your ‘AIDS free’ status was your ticket to join. Dorks with documents finally got laid.”
Parker chuckled. “Guess that’s why those clubs didn’t last long.”
Appetite appeased, Dixie pushed her plate away and caught him stealing a glance at her.
“What?” she demanded.
“You look different.”
“Different good or different bad?” Dixie resisted tugging the bronze silk higher over her breasts.
“Before the night’s over, you’ll have every male in the room drooling like a lovesick hound.”
Dixie looked away from him. She knew he meant the remark as a compliment, but as a child, watching her birth mother spend forever “doing her face,” then seeing the lecherous men her face brought home, Dixie’d decided her own mug could do without. She didn’t want men drooling over her—not even the one sitting on the opposite stool.
“What’d I say wrong?” Parker asked.
“Nothing. Only, let’s not talk about me. Tell me what Edna would’ve found interesting about a networking club.”
“Evolved networking club. Serves a variety of needs. Singles meet, match up. Others enjoy the social events with no personal entanglement. A couple of ace salespeople here are making real money. Others would like to be—”
“Terrence Jackson appeared to be plenty successful already. Why would he need to shop for clients?”
Parker shrugged. “A smart salesman never stops selling.”
Dixie considered the number of senior women in the room, probably widowed or divorced, which could mean healthy bank accounts after insurance or property settlements.
“The flock of prospects changes continuously,” Parker explained. “Let a new mark arrive and the swarm strikes, each drawing a little blood. But not too much—parasites never kill their host. Best prospects are passed around. ‘Need a widget? Good ol’ Charlie can get it for you.’”
“Kickbacks?”
“For some. One or two percent of the sale. More important, when good ol’ Charlie runs across a hot prospect, he returns the favor. In a good business network, everybody wins. Including the customer.”
Which could be said of any such system, Dixie figured. She’d built her own by doing favors, exchanging information, chalking up credits.
“Recently widowed and comfortably fixed, I suppose Edna would’ve been the center of attention until all the salespeople had a chance to bite,” Dixie mused.
Parker’s gaze drifted back to Dixie’s cleavage. “Like you’ll be when you circulate in that dress.”
“What about you?” she snapped. “Or do they only hit on females?”
“Oh, no.” He drew a handful of business cards from his pocket. “I’ve already committed to buying …” He sorted through the cards. “Magnetic shoe inserts. A full-body massage. An electronic pocket calendar—”
“What happened to your own sales resistance trick?”
He shrugged. “Buying a few things breaks the ice, makes people easier about talking.”
“Okay. What did you learn?”
“Besides the fact that our friend Nora”—he dropped one of the business cards on the table—“has been in the club since it was founded sixteen years ago? And that Edna bought therapeutic magnets for a pain in her shoulder?” He dropped another card. “And my Taurus-Cancer nature causes me to be overly nurturing—”
“What?” Dixie snatched the card from his hand.
Vernice Uriah, Ph.D., M.S.W., A.C.P.
Another name from Edna’s appointment calendar.
“Vernice”—Parker nodded at a woman standing alone near the buffet table and gazing intently toward the entrance—“is a psychotherapist.”
Dixie recognized the woman, the well-dressed prune at Lucy Ames’ funeral, standing at the edge of the crowd. Tonight, a peach-colored tube dress enhanced her willowy shape. In the nightclub’s soft lighting, she looked years younger than the man in an orange jacket and melon-pink tie approaching behind her.
Judge Garston and Vernice Urich. Interesting match.
The judge slipped both hands over her shoulders and seemed to be massaging them, but the woman’s attention remained riveted in the distance.
Dixie followed her gaze to a group of females greeting the silver-haired “devil” who’d just arrived.
“Parker, is that the man you saw at Edna’s?”
“Bingo!”
“Great. Then we should split up. Ask more questions. We didn’t come here to hang out together.”
“Is he your super-salesman?”
She nodded. “Terrence Jackson.”
“Just keep picturing him in a purple tutu.” Parker dutifully zeroed in on a woman who looked eager to dance.
Watching Jackson, Dixie’s thoughts flashed on an old Disney film: A friendly animated bear enters a forest and instantly attracts a following of butterflies and big-eyed singing squirrels. With one unfriendly swipe, the bear could knock them all senseless, but danger never enters their adoring minds.
Like the bear, Jackson smiled and chatted his way to a corner table, shaking hands, pressing an arm, a shoulder. By the time he sat down, he’d touched each of his admirers—not all of them women. A waitress removed a RESERVED sign from the table and set a drink in its place. A plate, already filled from the buffet, landed in front of him. In this pocket of the city, Jackson was Prince.
Dixie sidled close enough to hear snatches of conversations.
“… you look stunning in green, Nora.”
“… Judge, that investment is already on the up-curv
e …”
“… come to my office tomorrow …”
One by one, the Fortyniners warmed themselves by Jackson’s flame, then moved on.
“Thank you for inviting me,” Dixie said when she finally occupied a chair at his table.
Unlike every other man in the room, Jackson kept his eyes above her neckline. That gained him points.
“I’m glad you came tonight, Ms. Flannigan. The club also visits art galleries, theater, sports events, ballet—yet these weekly mixers are where we get acquainted.”
“Wouldn’t you have more fun in a younger crowd?”
“Depends on what you consider fun.”
“What do you consider fun?”
“Dancing with a beautiful woman in an absolutely striking ensemble.” Standing, he reached for her hand.
“I haven’t danced much since high school.”
He smiled, and his handsome face arranged itself into those phenomenal planes that could’ve been chiseled by an Italian sculptor.
“Then relax and follow my lead.”
Not easy. She hated relinquishing control to anyone. But she allowed herself to be guided and dipped and twirled.
“Was Edna a good dancer?” she asked him.
“Not bad. She was a fast learner.”
“How about Lucy Ames?”
“Why would you ask that? I told you I didn’t know the woman.”
“You said she wasn’t a client. But she might’ve attended a happy-hour function. You might even have danced with her.”
“I looked you up, Ms. D. A. Flannigan, attorney at law. You no longer practice law. In fact, you don’t do much of anything, except get your name in headlines occasionally. Now you’re trying to outguess the authorities on these Granny Bandit robberies. What are you really seeking?”
“I need to find out what Edna was seeking. What drove her into that bank with a gun?”
“Maybe you should talk with Vernice. All these women tell her their secrets.”
Dixie absolutely intended to question Vernice Urich. Although the psychotherapist hadn’t rushed to greet Terrence Jackson, she’d never taken her eyes off him. Even now she watched as he and Dixie danced.