Girlie said her good-byes and headed for her car, mulling over her next steps.
When she had advised Big Buy to pay off its female employees, she had carefully researched the law and believed her legal analysis was solid. She was actually surprised at the course that the hearing had taken. Based on his comments from the bench, Judge Goldberg might actually rule that Big Buy had violated the attorney-client privilege and issue a permanent injunction, preventing the company from paying off the women. Girlie couldn’t let that happen.
Too bad Goldberg was such a straight arrow. Trying to screw him would be a waste of time. So Girlie had no choice but to resort to Plan B. There was no guarantee that her backup plan would produce the desired result, but it was worth a shot.
Girlie felt a warm tingle course through her body. Her Plan B was so creatively scandalous that every time she thought about it, she almost wet her pink lace panties.
CHAPTER 55
“So tell me again?” Mankowski said, talking and chewing at the same time. “What’s this called?”
Girlie reached across the table and wiped the corner of Mankowski’s mouth with her napkin.
“Lumpia. It’s basically a Filipino egg roll. I guess you like it, huh?”
Mankowski wasn’t big on Asian cuisine, but the food she’d been stuffing him with wasn’t bad.
“Pretty tasty,” he said, reaching for another one.
Girlie had called him up and insisted on taking him to her favorite Filipino restaurant not far from her home in Cerritos.
It hadn’t been easy for Mankowski to pretend as if everything between them was hunky-dory. After seeing Girlie walk out of the Four Seasons seconds behind Phillip Peterman, he realized just how dangerous the woman was. Mankowski was also pissed that she was playing him. He was now more determined than ever to bring down Phillip Peterman and Girlie Cortez right along with him.
He pointed to a chicken dish in the middle of the table. “How do you pronounce that again?”
“Adobo,” she said, puckering her lips. “Ah-doo-bo. It’s the Spanish word for seasoning or marinade. The chicken is slow cooked in soy sauce, vinegar, and garlic, then pan-fried.”
“Uh, why do you guys use a Spanish word to describe a Filipino dish?”
“I guess you don’t know your history. The Philippines was colonized by Spain. Most Filipinos have Spanish surnames. Ferdinand and Emelda Marcos. Manny Pacquiao. Girlie Cortez.”
Mankowski nodded thoughtfully. “Actually, I’d never thought about it.”
They enjoyed their food in silence for the next few minutes.
“So why is this place called Goldilocks?” he asked.
Girlie laughed. “The two women who opened the restaurant thought naming it after Goldilocks would bring them luck. And I guess it did. It’s now a chain of restaurants in the Philippines, the U.S. and Canada.”
“This is quite a history lesson I’m getting.”
They munched in silence for a minute or so.
“So how’s the Irving murder investigation going?” Girlie asked, trying to appear casual.
Mankowski had been waiting for her to get around to asking about the case.
“I think we may be close to cracking it,” he lied. “Her boyfriend’s about to go down.”
“You really think he killed her?”
Mankowski took a sip of Coke. “Actually, I do.”
He waited for another question, but Girlie didn’t ask one.
“Have you ever met the guy?” he asked, carefully studying her face, looking for a tell.
“Nope.”
Mankowski felt his gut clench.
“I heard he was a pretty handsome guy who made the rounds.”
Girlie’s narrow shoulders rose and fell. “Not my type.”
“How would you know he’s not your type if you never met him before?”
“Sounds like I might be a suspect,” Girlie said, playfully. “After Judi’s death, I read about her murder on the Internet. One of the articles had a photograph of Peterman. He’s a starving actor, right?”
Nice. A slipup and a fast recovery. The girl was good.
“So exactly what is your type?”
Girlie smiled. “I like big, strong manly men like you.”
He grinned. “You’re really good for my ego.”
“I didn’t think a guy like you needed your ego stroked. And speaking of stroking…”
She seductively sucked on her lumpia. The same way she had sucked on him.
Although he was trying hard to play it by the book, the lower half of his body refused to cooperate. He shifted in his seat and tried to erase the image of a naked Girlie sitting at the foot of his bed playing with herself.
Mankowski decided to ask about her background again, no longer caring if it made her uncomfortable.
“Tell me about yourself,” he said. “You told me you grew up not far from here, but that’s all I know about you.”
She cocked her head. “Not much else to tell.”
Just like the last time he asked about her personal life, Girlie’s demeanor instantly grew dark.
“I was raised by my mother. She died several years ago.”
That explained a lot. No father in the picture. That had to be why she thrived on manipulating men. Daddy issues.
“My mother put me through school working as a nursing assistant at Long Beach Memorial.”
“And your father?”
“Wasn’t around.”
“A serviceman?”
Girlie laughed. “That’s pretty stereotypical of you. What? You think my mother was snatched from the Philippine rice fields by a U.S. soldier who got her pregnant and dumped her once he got back to the states?”
Boy, she was touchy. “No, I just—”
“Well, that’s not my story,” she said, her tone now snippy. “It was just me, my mom and her unending series of boyfriends who never hung around long enough to marry her or become a father figure to me.”
“So you never had any contact with your father at all?”
“He never claimed me, okay? Can we just leave it at that?”
“Well, your father was an asshole,” Mankowski said. “Because you’re an amazing woman. It’s definitely his loss.”
Girlie shrugged.
A heavy silence hovered over the table. “Maybe we should change the subject,” Mankowski said.
“Good idea.” Her smile returned as she took another bite of her lumpia. “Now, tell me again why you can’t come home with me tonight,” she said coyly. “And this time, make me believe it.”
CHAPTER 56
I’d been an irritable ball of nerves since the court hearing. I couldn’t wait for the end of the week to arrive to hear Judge Goldberg’s ruling. Meantime, I was still acting as if I had a class action to litigate.
My telephone rang and I recognized the number as Olivia’s cell phone. It had been a tough week for both of us. Olivia’s co-workers all blamed her for delaying payment of their three grand. I prayed nothing else had gone wrong.
“Hey, Olivia,” I said, trying to sound cheerful. “How’s it going?”
“Not too good.”
“What’s wrong? Did something happen at work?”
I heard her take a deep breath, then slowly exhale.
“I wanna thank you for everything you’ve been doing for me, but I had a talk with my husband last night. He thinks I should drop the lawsuit. I’d like to see if you can go back to the company and get them to give me the three months’ pay they originally offered. I’ll just resign.”
I didn’t respond.
“Are you there?” Olivia asked.
“Yes, I’m here. I know this is tough on you, but what Big Buy’s doing is wrong.”
“I know that and you know that, but we can’t fight big business.”
“Yes, we can.”
“But we aren’t fighting,” Olivia reminded me. “You’re not the one who has to work with these heathens every day. Last week somebody
let the air out of my tires, and a few days after that, somebody keyed my car. I don’t know how much longer I can deal with this.”
I wished I could give her some kind of guarantee of our future success, but the law was simply too unpredictable. Based on the judge’s questions at the hearing, I was reasonably confident that we were going to get a permanent injunction preventing Big Buy from paying off the other women. But then things would be even tougher for her at work.
Jefferson was still bugging me about dropping the case, convinced that I was in danger. He called me several times a day just to check on me. If I was five minutes late getting home, he assumed the worst.
“Just do me a favor,” I said to Olivia. “Don’t make a final decision until after the judge rules on our motion later this week. Then we can sit down and talk about it. Even if the class action is thrown out, we can still pursue your case on an individual basis.”
Olivia’s silence conveyed that she didn’t even want to do that.
“I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem worth it anymore. Maybe this is God’s will.”
I knew my next statement was a cheap shot, but it was the only way I knew to reach her.
“You’ve always had a strong faith,” I said. “God never puts more on us than we can bear. Why don’t you pray on it?”
“I already have,” she said weakly. “And to tell you the truth, I still want to fight. But my husband thinks I should—”
“Ask him just to wait until we get the judge’s ruling,” I pleaded. “That’s only a couple of days from now.”
“Okay,” she said uneasily, bowing to my pressure. “But I doubt that I’m going to change my mind.”
CHAPTER 57
The best police work, Mankowski knew from experience, often resulted from a slow, careful analysis of the evidence. Cold cases were solved all the time by different officers reviewing the same case file years later and finding something significant that was missed the first time around.
So Mankowski figured that if he thought about it long and hard enough, he could solve the puzzle of Judi Irving’s death and the mysterious Big Buy documents.
Mankowski and Thomas drove out of their way to pick up hotdogs at Pink’s on LaBrea and Melrose. They spent the lunch hour chowing down in their sedan.
“We just gotta think everything through.” Mankowski took a big bite of his Bacon Chili Cheese Dog and chased it down with a swig of Strawberry Crush. “We’re probably missing something. Something simple.”
Thomas grunted. “You really think so? That’s actually quite insightful.”
Mankowski ignored the sarcasm.
“Let’s look at what we’ve got,” he continued. “Judi Irving is attacked in her home. There are these documents that Judi told everybody she had but nobody’s seen. And we have Actor Boy driving off in a Benz when he doesn’t even have a job or two dimes to rub together.”
“And let’s not forget about Robby Irving,” Thomas reminded him. “He hasn’t shown up to provide his DNA. I think we need to light a fire under his rear end.”
“I agree,” Mankowski replied, but his money was still on Phillip Peterman.
“I’d love to get Girlie Cortez in an interrogation room,” Thomas said, talking with his mouth full. He’d ordered a Brooklyn Pastrami Swiss Cheese Dog and was almost done. “I’d bet anything that when she walked out of that hotel behind Peterman, she was carrying those Big Buy documents in her briefcase.”
“Maybe she isn’t screwing him,” Mankowski said. “Maybe she’s the front man Big Buy used to negotiate the deal with Peterman for the documents.”
His partner shot him a skeptical look.
“I guess that’s a possibility,” Thomas said. “She’s a classy lady. It’s hard to see her lowering herself for a weasel like Peterman.”
“Except she claims she never met the guy.”
Thomas paused mid-bite. “Exactly when did she tell you that?”
Mankowski winced. He hadn’t meant to let that slip. “Couple days ago,” he admitted.
“Man, please tell me you’re not still sleeping with that chick. She’s a person of interest or at least a potential witness.”
“Who said I was sleeping with her?”
“I did,” Thomas said. “I didn’t buy it for a minute the way you were ignoring her blatant flirting when we were in her office. You didn’t want me to know you planned to screw her because you know I would’ve told you that you’d be stupid to risk your career for a lay.”
Mankowski squeezed his Strawberry Crush bottle. He hated having a bright partner.
“Okay, so I screwed her. But now I’m playing her, just like she thinks she’s playing me.”
Thomas brushed his palm down his face. “I know you don’t want to believe it, but that woman is trouble. I felt it from the day we first met her.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
The ringing of Thomas’ iPhone filled the car. He retrieved it from the pocket of his jacket.
“If that’s another call from your stockbroker, I’m turning you in,” Mankowski said.
Thomas placed the phone to his ear. His brows fused into one as he listened. After a minute or so, he lowered the phone and turned to face his partner. “You won’t believe this. Phillip Peterman just crashed his brand new Benz.”
Mankowski almost spit up his Strawberry Crush. “What?”
“Wrecked it off Sunset. Sounds like he’s pretty banged up.”
Mankowski stuffed his hotdog in the cup holder, turned on the engine and screeched off from the curb.
CHAPTER 58
I’d been telling myself all week to think positive thoughts. Judge Goldberg was going to side with me and prevent Big Buy from gutting my class action. And in less than an hour, I’d have a permanent injunction order in my hand.
I exited the Harbor Freeway at 4th Street and made my way to Grand. I was just pulling into the underground parking garage when my iPhone rang. I let it go to voicemail as I searched for a parking space. Once I parked, I pulled the phone from my purse and saw that the call was from my mother.
I listened to her message.
“This is your mama.” Her tone was uncharacteristically curt. “You need to call me as soon as you get this message.”
What was that about? I racked my brain, trying to figure out if I’d missed a birthday or family event, but I couldn’t think of anything my mother might be upset about. I didn’t need to be rattled before going into court. I would return her call after the hearing.
I joined a long line of courthouse visitors waiting to go through the metal detectors. I had just made it to the elevators, when one of my law school classmates rushed past me.
“Hey, girl,” Angela Evans called out to me. “That was an interesting article in the L.A. Times today. I’m running late, but we’ll definitely have to talk.”
Before I could ask what article she was talking about, Angela disappeared down the corridor. When I reached Judge Goldberg’s courtroom, the clerk was busy checking in the attorneys who had matters on the judge’s docket.
“Hey, Candy, how’s it going?” I handed the clerk my business card.
I always made a habit of getting to know the judges’ clerks. Some attorneys failed to realize that the clerks ran the courtroom. Candy had been with Judge Goldberg for more than ten years.
Candy did not return my greeting. Instead, she snatched the business card from my hand.
Dang. She was obviously having a bad day.
“Did the judge issue a tentative?” I asked.
She looked me up and down. “Not in your case.”
Who pissed you off this morning?
The fact the judge had not issued a tentative ruling concerned me. I took a seat in the gallery just as Girlie walked in. As usual, she drew more than her share of admiring stares, probably because her skirt was halfway up her ass.
Girlie sat in the first row, directly in front of me. After a minute or so, she turned around and smiled. “That was a nice ar
ticle in the L.A. Times today.”
“You’re the second person to mention the Times to me,” I said. “What article are you talking about?”
“The article about you.” The deviousness in her smile radiated pure evil. “On the front page. You haven’t seen it?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“You should definitely check it out.” She waved at an older man in a tailored suit standing near the clerk’s desk, then went over to talk to him.
I glanced at my watch. We still had thirteen minutes before the judge took the bench. I walked out into the corridor and tried to pull up the Times website on my iPhone, but couldn’t get a signal inside the courthouse. I glanced down the corridor looking for someone reading the newspaper.
I spotted a discarded copy of the newspaper left on a bench two courtrooms down. I picked it up and stared at the front page in disbelief. Right there in living color was a photograph of Jefferson and me standing in front of the mosque chatting with Special and Clayton. All four of us were wearing broad smiles. When I read the headline, I was glad I had skipped breakfast.
The Community of Islam Attracts
New Breed of Black Professionals.
The story discussed the growing number of young, African-American professionals joining the Community of Islam. The article included quotes from an Inglewood dentist, a McDonald’s franchise owner and a UCLA sociology professor. My name wasn’t mentioned in the story, but the caption beneath the photo identified me as Attorney Vernetta Henderson.
I was at a complete loss. Was this Girlie’s doing?
I slumped down on the bench and tried to gather myself. Now I understood the gruff tone of my mother’s voicemail message.
“Miss, are you okay?” an elderly Latina wearing a juror’s badge touched me on the shoulder.
I could only imagine how distraught I must have looked.
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