by Elaine Viets
“That’s terrible,” Ethel said. She was wearing an ASK ME ABOUT MY GRANDBABY T-shirt. Helen would cut out her tongue before she did.
“They get anything?” Fred said.
“Just messed the place up,” Helen said. She wasn’t going to tell them she’d lost over two grand.
“Kids,” Ethel said. Her chins wobbled judicially. “They should be in school, but they’re roaming about, not working, everything handed to them. When I was their age—”
“Canada would never—” Cal interrupted.
“Did anyone see anything?” Margery interrupted. “Any strangers on the property or the parking lot? I left about six tonight.”
“I didn’t get home until a-boot half an hour ago,” Cal said. A year ago, Helen would have found that “a-boot” sexy, along with the rest of Cal. Now it was as thrilling as his boiled-broccoli dinners.
“What about you and Fred?” Margery asked Ethel.
“We were otherwise occupied,” she said primly.
“What’s that mean?” Margery’s purple leopard spots quivered impatiently.
“We were getting a little afternoon delight.” Fred grinned and stuck out his gourdlike gut proudly. Helen wondered if another body part stuck out further.
Ethel simpered.
Margery looked disgusted. “Thanks for that information. I better take Helen back to my place and feed her some dinner.”
When they were safely in Margery’s kitchen, she said, “I was afraid lover boy would start pounding his chest like a gorilla. Let me fix you a drink. I don’t know which is worse—Fred and Ethel in the throes of connubial bliss, or your place tossed and robbed.”
“How about having my underwear pawed by thieving pervs?”
Margery filled a water glass with about six ounces of gin, then added a shot of orange juice. “Drink that.”
She did. Helen felt a pleasant buzz. Three gulps and the Fred and Ethel X-rated movie vanished. The Debbie horror show still played in her head, but it was safely in the background.
Margery handed her a big glass of water next. “Now, drink this. It’s a chaser to clear the palate.” She pulled a brown box from the freezer.
“Dove Bars,” Helen said. “Dark chocolate. Yum.”
The bar was richly rotund. Helen ate it in greedy bites, cracking the thick chocolate coat.
“Have you had dinner?” Margery said.
“No.” Helen deftly caught a chunk of cracked-off chocolate with her tongue.
“I’ll get you a sandwich,” Margery said.
This struck Helen as funny. After six ounces of gin, lots of things were funny. “You gave me dessert first.”
“Of course. Life is short. Turkey OK?”
“For life?” Helen was confused.
“For dinner. I can fix you turkey on whole wheat and salt-and-vinegar chips.”
“Hold the chips,” Helen said virtuously, then hiccupped. She’d already held four bags that week—and eaten them all.
About halfway through her sandwich, Helen’s eyelids began to droop. “Let’s get you home. You’ve had a bad day,” Margery said.
“You have no idea.” But Helen wasn’t drunk enough to tell Margery exactly how bad.
Her landlady disappeared down the hall. While she was gone, Helen pawed through her purse until she found her pay envelope. Finally, something good happened today. She hadn’t had time to put it with her stash, thank goodness. She quickly counted her money. Four hundred fifty dollars. Vito had stiffed her an extra fifty. She was too tired to care.
Margery came back with an armload of lavender sheets, a purple blanket and two white pillows. “Ready? Let’s fix up your place,” she said.
As they passed Phil’s apartment, Helen breathed in the sticky perfume of burning weed. “Do you think Phil saw anything?”
“Phil probably saw lots of things, but nothing that can help you,” Margery said.
“I don’t believe he exists,” Helen said.
“Of course he does. I see him when he pays his rent every month, and he’s never been late.” This was Margery’s highest character reference.
“Is he married or single?”
“Don’t you have enough problems?” Margery snapped. She examined Helen’s jimmied door. “I’ll get you a new door and lock tomorrow.”
It took almost an hour to put the place in order. They righted the coffee table. Helen swept up the broken lamp and carried the pieces out to the Dumpster. She put her things back in the dresser drawers while Margery vacuumed up the feathers and Thumbs chased them around the room.
Then they made the bed while Thumbs tunneled under the covers.
“He’s having a good time,” Helen said.
Margery patted the new pillows into place and shooed Thumbs off the bed. She was not a cat lover. “I’ll get you a couple of couch pillows. Sorry I can’t replace your stuffing.”
Helen examined the reconstructed room. “Something’s missing.”
“That broken lamp leaves a big hole,” Margery said.
“No, it’s in here.” Helen stared hard at the bed. “It’s Chocolate.”
“I can get you more chocolate. I have some Godiva.”
“Chocolate, my bear. My stuffed bear is gone.”
Helen checked under the bed, but she knew he wasn’t there. “He had almost a thousand dollars in him. They could have just taken the money, but they didn’t.
“They got my teddy bear,” Helen said. “Now it’s personal.”
Chapter 13
They stole her money. They pawed her panties. They took her teddy bear.
A vengeful rage flamed up in Helen. She’d lost almost thirty-two hundred dollars, hidden in her couch pillows and her bear. She thought of all the things she could have done with that money. A few more bucks and she could have bought a decent used car. No more buses and begged rides. A good car was an impossible luxury for someone who worked dead-end jobs. She’d been so close.
It was gone now.
So was her button-eyed bear with the jaunty purple bow. For some reason, that made her angrier than the money. No, she knew why. The bear was one of the few good things salvaged from her old life.
Then she saw Debbie’s long hair, the silken weapon she’d used to ensnare men, twisted into a murderous rope. Helen’s mind scrabbled away from that and crept back to something safer—her lost money.
Helen thought about what she’d endured to get that thirty-two hundred dollars. She relived every insult, every indignity, every leering pep talk from Vito. She wanted to weep. No, she would not give in to tears. Her anger had burned away soft feelings.
Revenge. She wanted hot, hateful revenge on the man who ruined her peaceful life. She wanted to strip him naked. Take away his money, his honor, his dignity.
She knew who did this: Hank Asporth—or his hired help. She would get him if was the last thing she did.
But it wouldn’t be easy. Hank was powerful and protected. He ordered around high-priced lawyers like pin-striped lackeys. There was no way she could get near him. She was a minimum-wage slave. She was invisible. No, worse than invisible. She’d been branded a crazy woman. She’d called the police about a nonexistent murder. She’d wasted the cops’ valuable time. She had no credibility.
Helen had to find the mysterious Kristi, the woman who knew about the Six Feet Unders. What was their deadly secret: Murder? Necrophilia? Snuff movies? In South Florida, anything was possible. Kristi worked in that back room with the Six Feet Unders. At least, that’s what Debbie had said, but she was now six feet under herself. The only way to find Kristi was to work topless at Steve’s next party.
Going undercover was one thing. Going naked was another.
Helen would rather work smart than topless. She knew how to get what she wanted and keep her clothes on. She called Steve, the bullying boss of the bartenders.
“Helen! I’ve been trying to reach you, but I don’t have a number for you.” Steve sounded puppy-dog friendly. Did he need topless barten
ders that bad?
“You got noticed last time. A guy who saw you wanted your phone number. He’s loaded. If you’re smart, you’ll be nice to him.” Helen could hear the wink in his voice.
“It wasn’t the old guy with the shamrock—” She almost said shorts, then remembered she wasn’t supposed to have seen the second party. “Shamrock cummerbund,” she finished.
“You mean ol’ Parrish Davenport? Nah, it wasn’t him, although I’m sure he’d like you. He never met a girl he didn’t like. Joey’s nothing like old man Davenport. He’s about thirty-five and good-looking. A little rough around the edges, but connected, you know what I mean?”
“He knows all the movers and shakers?” Helen said.
“Uh, something like that. Gimme your phone number for Joey.”
“How about if I call him?”
“Here’s his cell phone. Call right away, will you? He wants to go to a party Friday night. You promise me you’ll call him?” Steve sounded oddly anxious.
“I promise,” Helen said.
“Now, about Saturday night at the Mowbrys’ house. You wanna work the second party, too? We pay nice money to ladies who are your free spirits—broad-minded, you know what I mean?”
Helen knew exactly what he meant.
“It’s a real tasteful atmosphere in your fine private home, not a strip joint or anything. You’ll stand behind the bar, no dancing. We pay two hundred for the first party, five hundred for the second. Cash. But I don’t want you if you’re not willing to work the second party.”
“I’ll do it.”
“You don’t mind showing your tits?”
“No problem.”
Because it’s not going to happen, Helen thought. She would not be taking off her clothes no matter how much Steve paid her. She would find Kristi on the first shift, slip out the service entrance and never work for Steve again. He didn’t have her number, and he didn’t know where she lived.
Helen dialed Joey’s cell phone next.
“Joey here,” a man said. Then she heard a screech of brakes and a blaring horn. Joey screamed, “Why the fuck don’t you watch where you’re going?”
He was back on the phone. “Asshole cut me off. Who are you?”
“I’m Helen Hawthorne. Steve gave me your name. I was tending bar at the Mowbrys’ party and—-”
“Oh, yeah. I remember you. You’re a little older than some of Steve’s girls. But you got something them dumb twenty-year-olds don’t.”
“Wrinkles?” Helen said.
“Class. Them other girls act like whores when they think a guy’s got money. I need someone classy to go to my friend’s house. I don’t want my date sitting around picking her nose and scratching her ass, or vicey-versey.”
“So far, I’ve never been caught doing either one in public.” Helen wondered if this creature left a slime trail.
“Yeah. I knew you’d be OK to take to Hank’s.”
“Hank?”
“Hank Asporth. You know Hank. All the girls do. Has that big house in Brideport. It’s real nice. Nothing like the Mowbrys’. That’s a mondo-mansion. Hank just has a big house. Tomorrow night, some of the guys are hanging out at Hank’s, drinking some brewskis, talking business. The gals will sit around the pool. Bring your suit. Better yet, don’t.” Helen could hear the leer.
“That’s not classy on a first date,” Helen said. Or a last one.
“See? You’re a natural when it comes to class. I’ll pick you up at your place.”
Helen didn’t want him anywhere near the Coronado.
“It’s a little inconvenient to get to because of construction,” she said. “Suppose I wait for you in front of the Riverside Hotel?”
“More class,” Joey said. “I’ll pick you up at seven o’clock. I . . .” The rest of his sentence was drowned out by angry horns. Joey yelled, “Hey, watch it you dumb—”
Helen hung up before she heard the rest. She had the horrible feeling that going out with Joey would be far more embarrassing than going naked.
She sighed. Friday night with Joey the jerk. Saturday night at the Mowbrys’ orgy. Her social life couldn’t get any worse. Except the next morning, it did. She had to turn down the one date she really wanted.
Jack Lace was waiting for her outside Girdner Sales at seven fifty, digging a shoe toe in the dusty asphalt like a little boy. Only good little boys wore such polished shoes and clean shirts and had their hair combed so neatly.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said. “Would you like to go out Friday night?”
“Wish I could, Jack. I have a previous engagement.”
“Is there someone else?” Suddenly the little boy was gone. This was a man who wanted her.
“Not really.”
“It’s not a night out with the girls, is it? I can take you to better places than they can. How about dinner at the Delano on South Beach?”
The Delano. Possibly the most beautiful of the old Art Deco hotels. And she would be knocking back brewskis with Joey the jerk.
“I’d love to, Jack, but I can’t. How about next Saturday?”
“That’s too long to wait. Let’s do lunch Monday. Wear something nice to work and we’ll drive down to South Beach when we get off at one. We should make it back by five.”
“It sounds lovely,” Helen said.
It was only after she clocked in and sat down at her desk that Helen wondered how Jack could afford the Delano. The valet parking alone cost more than they both made in a day.
She turned to ask him, but her computer had begun making calls in Massachusetts. Helen had to start her spiel.
“How dare you wake me up, you dumb slut?” were the first words she heard. All thoughts of the Delano, and anything else pleasant, disappeared.
A red Viper with white racing stripes pulled up in front of the Riverside Hotel at seven o’clock Friday night. It looked like a Corvette on testosterone. Some cars seemed to announce, “I have major masculinity problems.” This was one of them. Helen knew it belonged to Joey before he got out of the car.
Steve had called him good-looking. That didn’t begin to describe the man.
Joey looked like Michelangelo’s David, if David wore Armani—and Helen figured he would. His muscles were sculpted. His face was chiseled perfection. The man was marble come to life. Too bad Joey was solid rock between his ears and crude as a prison tattoo.
“Hiya, babe,” he said. “Ready to boogie?”
The doorman stared at her date. First, he’d seen her get into Savannah’s belching Tank. Now this. Helen blushed as red as the car.
The car had black leather seats and a small, flat TV screen on the dash. Joey watched a boxing match as he weaved in and out of traffic. A muscular black man in baggy gold Everlasts was pounding the bloody spit out of a sweating Latino.
Helen had to shout over the announcer. “So, what do you do to earn this amazing car?”
Joey turned the volume down a notch. “I run the Yellow Pelican resort and marina.”
“Very nice,” Helen said, as the Latino man spit more blood.
“It used to be. Now I got the Feds crawling up my ass, saying I don’t hire enough melanzanos. I have plenty of them in jobs they can handle—kitchen work, car parking, janitorial—although the Spics are taking over the cleaning jobs. Spics work cheaper and harder. All you have to say is ‘green card’ and they almost look like white men.”
Joey laughed. A car honked as the Viper cut it off. Joey rolled down the window and flipped off the driver.
Helen wanted to jump out at the first red light. She wanted to tell this racist creep exactly what she thought of him. But she wanted inside Hank Asporth’s house even more. So she kept quiet, hating herself and hating him. How could someone so handsome talk so ugly?
Mercifully, they were soon in Brideport. Helen saw the Latino man being pounded into the mat as the Viper roared into the driveway. It was already bumper-to-bumper Range Rovers, Jaguars and Cadillacs. They parked in front of a long, l
ow white house built in the seventies. Joey opened Spanish-style double doors with fake stained-glass insets.
“Go on in,” he said. “The guys are in the kitchen.”
Helen stopped dead in the hall. Hank’s decorator must have been Hugh Hefner. The walls were done in black patent leather, accented with smoked mirrors. There were black leather couches, chrome coffee tables and a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall, tuned to the boxing match. Now a Latino man was beating up a black one.
“Hank’s got a lot of money riding on that match,” Joey said.
In the patent-leather gloom, Helen saw a mahogany pool table and six colossal LeRoy Neiman paintings. The sports subjects were brightly colored as crayons.
“Look at that,” Joey said. “Real art on the walls. Hank’s got class, huh?”
“The pink flamingos are a nice touch,” Helen said. There must have been twenty of them in the room.
Joey tapped one on the head. “No plastic for Hank. These are genuine hand-painted plaster.”
Five men were in the vast kitchen, standing around a stove. An enormous pot of red sauce was simmering on a burner. Helen smelled five brutally strong colognes, overlaid with garlicky tomato. A black-haired man was alternately tasting and stirring the sauce with a wooden spoon.
“You’re wrong, Gino,” he said. “It’s perfect. It’s my mother’s recipe.”
“I don’t mean to insult your mother, Hank, but it needs more oregano,” said a paunchy man with long, rubbery ears. “Maybe you read her recipe wrong or something.”
“I said it’s fine,” Hank said. He put down the spoon and stepped away from the steamy stove. For the first time, Helen saw his face clearly.
She studied the killer. His thick black hair was coated with something shiny. Did they still make Brylcreem? His skin was pitted by ancient acne scars, like dead volcanic craters. His single black eyebrow crawled across the top of his nose.
He wore what Helen thought of as a mobster knit shirt. It had a collar, a zip front, and black and white panels. His black pants were well cut but shiny. Sharkskin would be the right fabric for this man.
Helen thought his hands were made for strangling. They were blunt, muscular and studded with gold rings like tumors. The wooden spoon, dripping tomato sauce, looked like a bloody weapon.