Her lips flattened. "All right, I'll cancel, but only if the closure is temporary. Otherwise, I'll advertise the Mystery Spa Day."
Gia was an endless source of frustration. But she, and her commando clothes, reminded me to do what was right. Stand my ground and fight—especially against her latest scheme. "Okay. Let's just hope the police catch whoever is after us soon."
Footsteps pummeled the stairs.
My gut flutter returned.
Big Ron entered with an axe over his shoulder.
I held up the curling iron for real. "Is the trench coat outside?"
"Uh, no." He shifted his weight. "We've got a renovation issue."
I could have grabbed the axe and chopped him with it.
"Since Alex is running late, I pulled out one of the bedroom sinks and found a big rat's nest in the wall."
Gia put a fist on her hip. "How did you recognize it? Was Harriet's bowler hat in the nest?"
"Basta." I used the Italian word "enough" on the off chance it would have more effect. "Please tell me it was an old nest, Ron."
"Nah, I went into the attic and found fresh droppings. It kinda looks like someone scattered a bag of wild rice in there."
With the dark figure lurking, I was already uneasy in the house. The thought of a rat infestation and a pound of poop was enough to make me retreat to Texas. "I'll call an exterminator."
Gia pointed a pink fingernail. "What we should do is call another Operation Goldfinger meeting to clear out both of the rat infestations."
I picked up the curling iron and switched on the heat.
"I'll go cancel that appointment." She scurried toward the stairs.
Big Ron lowered his axe. "I know a guy who catches critters and relocates 'em."
He had to be the self-proclaimed critter ridder Amy had mentioned. "Tommy Two Fingers?"
"You know him?"
"Only by name."
"It's memorable, ain't it?" He gave a shake of his head. "He lost his fingers trying to save a cat stuck in a basement. Reached through an old window, and whap!"
I jumped. Big Ron could use some pointers on appropriate topics of conversation in a crisis.
"The glass fell out in shards and sliced off his other three fingers. That's what he named the cat."
"Glass?"
"Three Fingers."
"How do I get in touch with him?" As soon as I'd said it, I thought about his missing digits. "I mean, call him?"
"I can have him come out and give you an estimate. Can I use your phone?"
"Of course. It's on the reception desk."
Ron headed to the front of the salon, and I went to the break room for a chamomile tea. Between the stalker, the rats, and the poop, I needed to be soothed.
I put a kettle on the stove, and my phone vibrated on the table. Aunt Carla. "So much for being soothed."
I answered on speaker and heard an Asian language.
"Cassidi, are you theuh?"
"I'm here, Aunt Carla. Where are you?"
"Near the Boardwalk at Long Nail."
Vietnamese. They had the market on nail salons cornered, and a marked tendency to overlook the plural.
"Mani-pedi only twenty-nine dollah." The manicurist spoke into the phone.
"That's Trang, but she goes by Jenny. You should have her do your nails, C. It's the best price in Atlantic City, and she has an extra pinky, so her hand is really steady."
The extra pinky prompted me to add a second teabag to the kettle. This was going to be a long conversation. "Thanks, Jenny. But I don't live there, and I do my own nails."
"Ahhh." Jenny's tone was wary. "Your niece cheap."
And I thought Italian women were direct.
"She hab husban?"
My aunt gave a forlorn sigh. "She tells me one is coming, but I haven't seen the evidence."
"She do her own nail. Dat why."
I glanced at the kettle. That chamomile couldn't brew fast enough.
"Honey, you come to Long Nail. I do gel. Pretty color. You find husban fast."
"You're wasting your time, Jenny." My aunt warned her in a singsong. "I offered her my ragù recipe, and she didn't take it. These girls today? They don't want to cook or clean. They're into their careers and personal development."
"Honey, dat bad. You get old. Die alone."
The "die" did it. "Did you want to talk to me about something, Aunt Carla?"
"Oh, Lorenzo Marino's funeral. They buried him in a casket special made to look like a jar of his ragù. Can you imagine?"
I could, but I didn't want to.
"And you'll never guess who made an appearance."
My first thought was Dean Martin. "Who?"
"Carmine's cousin Sal, Gloria's brothuh? I told him what Flavia said about the silent partnuh being a woman in the mob. And he said no self-respecting Italian family would let a dame run the clan."
"Everyone knows the Italian Mafia isn't a feminist organization."
"Yeah, but then he told me Vinnie knew a British mobstuh."
The kettle hummed, but I ignored it. If the silent partner was a woman in the British firms, she could be the person trying to shoot me. "Did Sal give you a name?"
"Vinnie nevuh told him."
"Vietnamese Mafia awful," Jenny said. "One time dey take man's finger. He hab only nine."
"That's three fewuh finguhs than you have," Carla observed.
And two more than Tommy Two Fingers, but why was that relevant?
"Anyway, I feel a tiny bit bettuh knowing the British Mafia has the hit on you girls."
Funny, but I wasn't comforted. "Why would you say that?"
"You know how polite those British people are, especially compared to the New York Italians. Ooof, don't get me started."
I got up and poured some chamomile—and considered adding a shot of Gia's tea-flavored vodka. "Did Sal say anything else about the British Mafia?"
"No, but do you have a fishmonguh in the neighborhood?"
"Filly Filipuzzi next door. Why?"
"That's the one. Sal said he and Vinnie were tight. He thinks you should ask him about the casino business."
That was a great idea, and one I should've thought of myself. I'd talked to Filly once before about my uncle, and he knew a surprising amount about his financial dealings.
My aunt emitted a string of nasal tones, as though she'd bumped her funny bone.
"What's wrong?"
"That was Vietnamese, and you don't want me to translate. Jenny got red polish on my sleeve, and it's silk cheetah in baby blue. I'll cawl you latuh."
She hung up, and I stared at the phone. I knew my aunt spent a lot of time in nail salons, but learning Vietnamese was a sign that it was time to reduce the mani-pedi budget.
A knock rattled the back door, and I leapt a foot.
Alex peered through the glass. She was pale, and dark circles lined her eyes.
I motioned for her to come in.
"Sorry I startled you, and for being late." She placed her backpack on the floor. "I went by Some Enchanted Forest to talk to George. He wasn't home when I stopped by last night to ask about the book. I assumed he was out somewhere, but…"
"What?"
"He's not at the shop, and Ruby said he hasn't come in or called."
I pulled out a chair. "Why don't you sit while I get you some tea?"
She sat and rubbed her eyes.
I filled a teacup with the steaming liquid. "Did you ask Ruby if the shop was locked when she got there this morning?"
"It was her day to open, so George wouldn't have been there at seven. Still, I'm worried." Tears welled on her lashes. "What if the gunman left Dangerous Reads and went after him?"
"Don't even think that." I placed the chamomile before her. "Whoever it was probably left the state at the sight of Big Ron chasing them."
She tried to smile, but she didn't believe me any more than I did. Gia and I weren't the only mob targets. By George's own admission, the British firms wanted restitution for the paintings he'd
returned to the galleries. And they could've sent someone to get the painting at the Rothmans' and, while they were at it, done away with George if he hadn't paid up.
But there were a couple of other possibilities I had to entertain, as much as I hated to. One, George had heard I was being followed, and he'd fled town to save himself. Two, the most distressing of the options, he was the gun-toting figure in the trench coat—and he was out there somewhere waiting for another shot at Gia and me.
* * *
Filly Filipuzzi's white pickup pulled into the parking lot of Filly's Fresh Fish at six p.m. sharp. He didn't work in the shop, but he showed up at closing time to collect the earnings.
I slipped on my pea coat and peered through the salon door, glad to see Officer Faria back behind the wheel of the squad car. Donatello had relieved him for a dinner break, and if he'd been on duty, I would've stayed inside.
With my lungs in my throat, I stepped onto the porch.
Officer Faria bolted from the front seat. "Going somewhere, Miss Conti?"
"Next door. We don't have any food in the house."
He offered me his bicep. "Per procedure, I'll have to accompany you."
I opted for his forearm.
Richie led me down the steps. And as we took a shortcut across the lawn, he leaned in. "It's all right to ask me about it."
His tone bordered on conspiratorial, so I assumed he was referring to the Rothman investigation. As a suspect in the case, I was leery of a trap. "Anything big going on at the station today?"
"Oh, I can't discuss police business. I was talking about my bicep." He flexed his escort arm. "Pretty huge, isn't it?"
My sigh was mental, but it was no less heavy.
"I work out six days a week at the police gym, but that's not how I built up this level of mass."
I picked up the pace. Richie was as dense as his muscles and just as inflated.
"I used to do mixed martial arts at Hard Bodies. It's a full-contact combat sport that allows striking and grappling, so it's the hardest workout around. Better than training for Mr. Universe or American Ninja Warriors."
I couldn't resist throwing a punch of my own. "Why'd you quit? Too tough for you?"
"Uh, hardly. It was the teacher—" He stopped. "She…got another job."
I knew who she was. "Katrina Schwarz?"
We reached the entrance to Filly's.
Richie opened the door. "I'll wait for you outside."
I gave him a sideways look and entered the shop.
"Cassidi." Filly stood behind the register counting cash in a blue tracksuit. His balding head glistened beneath the overhead light, as did the saliva pooling around his unlit Cuban. "How's my girl?"
I tried not to frown. It wasn't the "my girl" that got me, but the smell. Despite the name of the shop, Filly's fish weren't so fresh. "Um, did you happen to see the squad car when you pulled up?"
"Sure. That boyfriend of Gia's, Rocky Stallone?"
"Donatello. And it's actually a security detail." I cleared my throat to make way for the bomb I was about to drop. "Someone associated with Jesse Rothman is stalking Gia and me, and they're armed."
His head jerked up. "Ca'maan."
"No, really."
He shuffled to the door and turned the bolt. "We gotta get out of the line of fire." He pulled me by the wrist into an office lined with Styrofoam coolers, newspaper stacks, and some questionable magazine choices. "We'll be safe in here. Have a seat."
I sat in a folding chair.
He settled into a La-Z-Boy behind a card table. "If you and your cousin need to get out of town, I've got a cabin in the woods outside of Seattle. No one'll ever find ya again."
That didn't sound promising. "Thanks, but what I need is information about my uncle's casino deal with Jesse Rothman and Sonny Torlone."
"I can't help ya there, kid. I didn't know about that until I read it in the paper."
Disappointment drained me. "In that case, I'm sorry I involved you in our current predicament."
"No worries. I'm always happy to help out a niece of Vinnie's. But next time a shooter's in the equation, call the cops." He flashed tobacco-stained teeth. "By the way, I see you're renovating his old bedroom."
I stared at him. The only room Filly could see from outside of the house was the tower. And with the trench-coat drama, I'd forgotten that the killer had switched my uncle's bedroom and his office.
"He thought he was on top of the world in that tower." Filly pulled the handle of his La-Z-Boy and reclined. "Sometimes I'd come to the shop before sunrise for a delivery, and he'd be at the window, king of his castle, surveying his kingdom." He winked. "Him and whatever woman had spent the night."
Women. Filly would've seen at least some of my uncle's girlfriends. "Did you ever see Katrina Schwarz up there?"
He rubbed his chin. "Sure. They were together on and off the whole time he lived here."
"Do you know if he moved here to be with her?"
"He didn't tell me that, but she was with him till the end."
Something told me "the end" was literal. "Do you mean—"
"December thirty-first."
My hand flew to my chest. "You saw her at his house the day he died? Did you tell the police?"
He contemplated me while chewing his cigar. "I guess there's no harm in telling you now that Walt's dead."
"Who's that?"
"He was on the Danger Cove PD, died a couple months ago. He was Lester Marshall's first partner. Taught him everything he knows about being a cop."
That couldn't have taken more than a week or two. "What does this man have to do with my uncle?"
"Not your uncle, kid. Katrina. Walt was her dad."
I shot from my seat. "Are you saying Detective Marshall ordered a cover-up?"
"Aaay! Oooh!" He held up his hands, shielding himself from my dangerous extrapolation. "I'm sayin' that out of respect for Walt, certain things were kept quiet."
I returned to my chair, hoping the Styrofoam and newspaper had muffled the sound from Richie Faria. "But she could've killed my uncle. Didn't the police care about that?"
He pulled the cigar from his mouth. "Trust me—if she'd done it, they would've arrested her."
With her cop connection, maybe not. But if she had strangled my uncle with the fishnet stocking, I would prove it and see her to prison myself. "What was Katrina doing at the house that day?"
"Yelling at Vinnie, per usual. I took a load of trash to the dumpster when we closed at six, and I heard them fighting all the way from the tower. Katrina was giving him holy hell for cheating on her with 'her'—she kept stressing it like that. Then I went back into the shop."
"Do you know who this 'her' was?"
"Could be half of the women in town." He pointed his cigar at me. "But she's got a temper, that Katrina. And strong? I saw her lift a desk like it was one of these empty coolers."
The mixed martial arts training, no doubt. "You mean, at Hard Bodies?"
He patted his Santa-sized belly. "I appreciate the vote of confidence, sweetheart, but do I look like I work out?" He stuck his cigar into his mouth. "This was at Vinnie's, and she was wearing a little black and red number. I figured she'd carried it up there to throw it at him."
My stomach felt like shrimp were swimming in it. "Was that the same day? December thirty-first?"
"Yeah, since we were going to be closed for the holiday, I stayed late putting fish in the freezer. I saw her with the desk when I was going home, around eight."
I crossed my arms against my abdomen and leaned over, thinking that whatever was in my belly might come out.
Because Filly had seen Katrina moving my uncle's office furniture to his bedroom—in lingerie that matched colors of the stocking used to strangle him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Amped up on anger and espresso, Gia stood on her I Dream of Jeannie bed in full combat mode—after swapping her genie jammies for purple camouflage pj's. "We'll storm the mansion and drag Killer Katrina ou
t by her hair."
I eyed her from a nest of Moroccan cushions on the floor. It was seven a.m., and I was drained from the enormity of Filly's revelation—and hours of listening to my cousin's plans for a vendetta. "Clearly, we can't do that."
"You've got a point. Her hair is too short because of that horrible pixie and too brittle from the peroxide damage."
"That's not what I meant."
"Well, if you're worried about her Goliath size, I can ask Aesthetic God and Quadzilla to do the dragging."
I was too tired to sigh. "Then we'll all get arrested for assault and kidnapping. For the last time, we have to work within the law."
"But Katrina's got the law on her side, if that's what you can call Lester Marshall."
"And the British Mafia, which is why we need the law on our side too."
She flopped into a cross-legged position. "Do you think the British firms…took care of George?"
Fear and pressure had led me to suspect him of being in the mob himself, and mere hours later I was praying they hadn't killed him. "I choose to believe he's in hiding."
Gia reclined and stared at the fabric-draped ceiling. "But if you've chosen wrong, are we next?"
Her voice was small, vulnerable. Despite her militaristic pajamas and plans, she was terrified. It was my turn to lead us into combat—for her, for me, and for Uncle Vinnie. I leapt from the pillows and into action. "With everyone we've got in our camp? Not a chance."
She rose onto her elbows. "We do have a squad car outside. And Donatello, Zac, Alex, and Big Ron."
"Don't forget Aunt Carla and the network."
"That's right." She sprung to her feet on the bed. "We're Italian. Our Mafia is way more notorious than Britain's because we're cunning and crafty."
I smiled in spite of the stereotypes. My cousin was back in battle mode. "Which is why we've beaten Detective Marshall at his blame game before, and we'll do it again."
"We're legit better investigators than he is, and we're stylish, which is so important."
I couldn't argue with that. Style was our business.
Gia pulled down her pajama top to reveal more cleavage. "But how is Katrina in the British firms, anyway? She's obviously German. And related to Arnold Schwarzenegger."
Killer Eyeshadow and a Cold Espresso (A Danger Cove Hair Salon Mystery) Page 13
