“Does the other cab company have a contract?” I asked. “Luther’s or Lars’ or Lola’s or whatever? Because, if they do, I want to see it. I mean, just how much is this worth to you? What are you giving them? I think Cool Rides should at least be at the same rate. Don’t you, Mona? Willie?”
I was stalling for time, and Susan knew it. But her ego, or her insanity, was in charge. “I’m a lawyer, for Christ’s sake. You think I don’t know how to write a contract?”
“Yeah, but do the drivers get danger wages?” I was keeping her going as long as I could which wasn’t all that hard since she seemed to want to be the center of attention.
“The biggest danger right now is I might blow some vital piece of your body off. Willie, sign on the line.” She extended a well-chewed fingernail toward the piece of paper.
Just then the phone rang. “Pick it up. And put it on speaker. You’re not taking any fares right now.”
Mona punched the speaker button and lifted the receiver. “Cool Rides.”
“Yo, Cool Rides yourself. You tell Miss Lawyer woman she is not long for this world. I don’t take kindly to threats against my wonderful fingers. I got a full-scale mani/pedi two days ago.”
Susan turned a shade of red. “What the fuck? Let me talk to Benji.”
“Your goons? Oh, they are so tied up right now. And their ability to converse with you is limited. They got some gray sticky stuff all over their faces…and other parts of their bodies.”
“Belle, I have a gun here. And I have Honey and Mona and Willie. So don’t be fucking stupid. I will reconfigure someone’s body here.”
I caught a movement in my peripheral vision. Jon’s face emerged from the shadow of the bathroom door. I could see his gun in his hand.
I started to cough, grabbed my chest and staggered closer to Susan. She moved between me and the door.
“Don’t think I won’t shoot, Honey. I’d love to see you with one less appendage.” Her back was to the bathroom now. Jon cracked the door open another few inches. He slipped out behind Susan. Mona and Willie didn’t react and I understood why the office was so quiet. I had never closed down my cell phone. Jon had heard all of Susan’s rant. We carefully kept our eyes focused on Susan.
Belle’s voice echoed back into the office. It seemed too loud in the silence. “I don’t give a crap what you do there. I’ll find you and your life will be hell. No one messes with my new nails.”
Jon was behind Susan. He raised his gun and pressed it against Susan’s neck. Willie and Mona fell to the floor. My hand reached out, all by itself, in slow motion, and slapped Susan’s gun. It flew in a graceful arc out the office door, landed with a thud and shot out the front window. Pebbles of glass flew in every direction, catching the sunlight and making a beautiful waterfall. My autopilot went out and I slumped down next to Mona. By the time I peeked over the desk, Jon was snapping handcuffs on a screeching Susan.
“You fucking asshole. I’m Susan Scarpelli. No one messes with a Scarpelli. My father will cut you up into little pieces. The Connecticut River will be polluted with your body parts for years. I’ll carve your dick off and cook it for dinner.” She struggled in Jon’s grip.
He calmly pulled her arms higher behind her back.
“I will get you. Sometime, somewhere, when you aren’t looking for it, I will shove a stick of dynamite so far up your ass your testicles will come out your nose.” I had to give Miss Scarpelli credit for creative threats.
Seconds later, four uniformed officers were dragging a kicking, screaming Susan to a squad car. I stood up, grabbed Jon by the ears and kissed him on the mouth as hard as I could. He slid an arm behind my back and the kiss got a lot more interesting. When he stopped, I did a little dance and raised my fists above my head. I wasn’t sure if the dance was about Susan being hauled away or about the kiss. Either way, my body needed to dance.
Mr. Scarpelli might be very relieved Susan was not in circulation anymore. What Susan might be able to do from a jail cell was questionable, especially if Daddy wasn’t inclined to help.
Jon, Willie, Mona and I were sitting in the waiting room letting our adrenaline fade when Belle leaped out of an Uber car and stormed inside. “What the hell happened here? I need input. I need data. I need all the stuff. What did you do with the bitch? I’m gonna rip her fingers off.”
“Hi, Belle. Good to see you again.” Jon smiled his thousand-watt smile.
“Good to see me, my ass. I thought driving a taxi would be safe. After life in the business. Being a ho is easy compared to this shit.”
“Yeah, but this is more fun,” I said. “How is the North Prince?”
“The North Prince still has most of their fingers and toes. Barely. They may never get a manicure again, though.”
Jon smiled. “Plenty of uniforms out there?”
“Oh, yeah, like they were lots of help. Excitement was all over by the time they got there. Next time send them a little earlier.” She plopped herself down next to Willie. “What kind of pizza we havin’?”
Susan had, apparently, neglected to figure in size and street smarts when she hired the North Prince staff to subdue Belle who had read the situation when she walked in the door. She had Benji on his back with a gun in his face before he could even point the gun Susan had given him in the right direction. To his credit, Susan had shown him a fake police ID and told him he would be aiding the cause of peace and love if he locked Belle in the back room. I doubt her fingers were in any danger, certainly not from Benji. But when he mentioned Susan’s plan, Belle immediately duct-taped him to the reception desk. He didn’t understand that torture isn’t standard police procedure in this country. He was confessing to crimes that hadn’t been committed or possibly even thought about yet. Belle had been trying to shut him up when the police cars arrived.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Three long days later, I was sitting at my tiny kitchen table, watching football on my tiny TV set, eating a large bowl of popcorn. I was admiring butts and tats and maybe some of the strategy of the complex NFL playbooks. All three days had been spent filling out paperwork, sitting in interviews with the feds, and flopping exhausted into bed at night. My bed. I had officially moved back into my apartment, but Jon had a better (by a lot) TV. And he had pizza and beer. And he had himself. Belle had met a friend from the days of her previous profession and decided to go over for some reminiscing. I didn’t think Jon would tolerate a night of girlie talk about Belle’s good old days. She smirked when she told me she would spend the night there. But I was ready for some down time. Being in my own space felt good.
Susan’s lawyer convinced a judge to declare her unfit for trial. The feds had busted her on charges beyond my understanding. Threatening a police officer was at the bottom of the long list of charges. Somewhere below that was her intimidation of Cool Rides and its drivers. No surprise there. Her father hadn’t objected to the declaration of unfitness. It would make it almost impossible to trace any of the intimidation stuff back to him. He had probably paid off the judge to agree that she was nuts but, realistically, he probably didn’t have to. She tried to be her own lawyer, but the same judge declared her unfit for that too. She hadn’t actually done any hard-core violence to anyone except shooting her husband’s butt. Since he was beyond pressing charges and Susan was officially crazy, she would spend a long time in the state mental hospital. Everyone agreed Lester Cardozzo had accidentally killed Horace. The real pisser in all this was that I never found out about the red shoes. Susan will probably go to her grave without revealing that source. And it’s depressing but unlikely there was any change in the flow of drugs up the interstate corridor. Cool Rides Cabs wouldn’t contribute to the distribution effort, but that probably wouldn’t slow it down much. The other cab companies might find themselves getting pulled over more often. Where there was market, there would be a supply, but our company wouldn’t be part of the system. And I felt like I was one step closer to knowing what the problems
of running a small business were and how to deal with them. That meant I was closer to making Willie an offer for a bigger share of the responsibility and the ownership. I may become a normal, more or less successful business person someday. I may even live up to my potential.
Of course, there was no evidence anywhere about who might have killed Lester Cardozzo. The police pretty much bought the idea that Lester had provided them with the other bodies and his wasn’t in Jon’s jurisdiction, so who cared? Belle had declined to testify about her kidnapping. She still couldn’t tolerate being in a room with uniformed police, and a courtroom was beyond her without some heavy motivation. She put up with Jon only because he had a great kitchen, a big-screen TV and a free bedroom. Jon’s biggest frustration was the police still hadn’t figured out if Scarpelli was participating in the movement of heroin. The boys in blue had glued themselves to every one of Scarpelli’s trucks and to most of the taxi companies but had no evidence of product coming north other than the wheelchair gang, and they hadn’t mentioned Scarpelli. But that was a problem for another day. Susan was safely under the care of some unfortunate psychiatrist and probably half-a-dozen social workers. I sure hoped she didn’t decide to play sane for long enough to get out of the locked facility. I had seen her in action, and she could be very convincing. After all, she played the legal system for a fool for a long time.
I spent the night in my private space doing my private things, thinking private thoughts, just being alone for a change, and in charge. The next morning was filled with sunshine. I reported for work and had a blessedly normal day helping the Cool Rides Company – my company, well a little bit anyway – recover from the Susan trauma.
By evening Jon and I were sitting on his couch watching a baseball game. We had been talking about the smugglers, but Jon wasn’t too forthcoming about an on-going case and I was more preoccupied with whether Belle was going to accept an invitation to coffee from Judge Witherspoon. We had fallen into a blissful silence when Jon’s cell phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and grunted. I think it was an unknown number. He punched it onto speakerphone so he could concentrate on the game while whatever solicitation droned on.
“Lieutenant Stevens?”
“Who is this?”
“This is Antoni Scarpelli. I’d like to arrange a meeting with you if you could be so kind.”
“When, where, and why?” Jon stood up and walked away. I could still sort of hear what Scarpelli was saying. That was because I got up and followed Jon. If my taxi company was involved, I thought I had a right to know.
“Anytime, at your house. I would like to discuss Miss Lucille.”
“What the fuck? What have you done to her?” Jon signaled me to call Lucille.
She picked up on the second ring.
“Well, of course I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be? I hope you aren’t thinking that idiot Arnie upset me. Thank you for inquiring but I’m in excellent health, both mental and physical.” I rung off with Lucille, shrugged my shoulders to Jon indicating Lucille was okay.
“Where are you right now?” Jon asked Scarpelli.
“Outside your house.”
Jon grabbed me and shoved me toward the bedroom. I jerked my arm free and went behind the kitchen breakfast counter. I wasn’t about to miss this conversation. Jon scowled at me but I crossed my arms over my chest and stayed put. He pulled his gun out of the closet lock box and tucked it in the back of his jeans.
“What the hell, come right in, but leave the weapons and the bodyguard outside,” Jon muttered into the phone and moved to the window to watch the old man get out of the car. His driver helped him to the door. “Well, fuck, it can’t get any stranger,” said Jon as he opened the door.
“You—” he pointed a finger at the bodyguard “—stay outside. It’s okay, Harry. He’s a cop but I think he might be one of the honest ones.”
And one of the well-armed ones, too, I thought but I didn’t say out loud.
Mr. Scarpelli came in and Jon shut the door. He flipped the locks even though I was pretty sure Harry could have broken down that door or just about any door short of a jail cell given enough motivation.
Scarpelli shuffled to the kitchen table, pulled out a chair and sat down.
“By all means, have a seat,” Jon said and sat opposite him. I decided to stay behind the counter where I could duck out of the line of fire.
“So, now you’ve found out I’m not in the transportation business. If you’d asked, I might have steered you in the right direction. But that’s all done and over and I’m enjoying my retirement.”
“So, who killed Horace and your son-in-law and Lester Cardozzo? You have a lot of bodies floating around for not being involved.” Jon looked grim. I was pretty sure he didn’t believe Scarpelli’s profession of innocence.
“Ah, Horace. Poor man, he was an accident. Lester was always a little trigger happy. And my dear daughter, who, by the way, isn’t actually my daughter as I was incarcerated at the time of her conception. Her husband? Well, Lester had developed a bit of a crush on Susan and he was eliminating the competition as well as grabbing a substantial amount of my money while doing so. And Lester, he was a message to Susan from the competition. You might question them, since you have them all in custody, about murder as well as transport of illegal substances.” Scarpelli smiled softly. “But that’s not why I’m here. I don’t need to tell you any of this. I’m just trying to explain to you that I am an honest businessman.”
That sounded like Jon knew more than I did about Scarpelli’s business involvements. I hate when someone knows more than me about what I want to know about. And, given my interactions with the Scarpelli family, I should be at the top of the knowledge pyramid.
“Just the Port-a-Potties? That’s your sole source of income?” Jon looked skeptical.
“Well, I do have some investments. The stock market is up at the moment and I have some very profitable pizza restaurants. They are completely legal. You should try some of my pizza sometime. I’ll be happy to host you and your lovely lady.” Scarpelli winked at me.
“And what do you want from me?” Jon said impatiently.
“Your blessing.”
“My what!?”
“To see Miss Lucille. I’ve been alone for a long time. She is quite a woman and I would like to see her. Given our last interaction, I deemed it wise to assure you my intentions are honorable in all ways.”
“You want to date Lucille?” Jon almost choked on the words.
“Yes, I find her very attractive.”
“You do know she’s former FBI?”
“Of course, I vetted her very carefully before I came to you. I know a great deal about her. I feel we may be compatible in many more ways than you might expect, on many levels.”
I hoped his vetting included gun permit applications because Lucille was probably better armed than any of his bodyguards and most small nations.
“I’m not giving anyone my blessing. I, however, won’t shoot you. I’ll leave that up to Lucille. What she does with you is her business. I would ask you not to come to my house again. You can meet her anywhere she agrees to.”
“I’m just a lonely old man, Lieutenant. I hope in the future we can come to a better understanding. In the meantime, thank you for agreeing not to shoot me.”
“You have a lot to answer for in my book, Mr. Scarpelli. I’ll need to think a long time and do some of my own vetting before I let you come here again.”
“Ah, yes, I suppose the police consider me a ‘made man.’ I never was very good at pulling the trigger. I found it much more satisfying to live by my wits.”
“You’ll need them if you start seeing Lucille.” Jon stood up and it was clear the conversation was over.
“Thank you and nice to see you again, Miss Walker.”
Yeah, I thought. Maybe we can double date for pizza sometime.
Jon held the door and the bodyguard helped Mr. Scarpelli down the walkway and into the car.
Scarpelli mentioned he would send Miss Lucille flowers and call her later in the week.
“Are you going to tell her?” I stood next to Jon as we watched the old man being helped into the car by his bodyguard.
“Nope.”
“I’m picking her up in the morning.”
“Honey, leave it alone. Lucille can handle herself.”
“Jon, he’s a lonely old man. Lucille is an interesting woman. They might get along.”
“Not for us to decide. If it happens, it happens. Don’t push it.” Jon was on edge, but so was I. He had treated an old man rather harshly, in my opinion. And he was in the dog house because he knew more about Scarpelli’s business than I did.
“Romance isn’t one of your strong suits, is it?”
“Nope.”
I glared at him, “There are things a woman should know. Lucille should have some warning.”
Jon shook his head. “She’ll find out when she finds out.”
I narrowed my eyes. This was one point on which we might never agree, but I didn’t have to accept his attitude this time. I stalked around the counter, snatched my oversized purse and headed to the door.
“Honey, don’t…shit!” I heard Jon curse as I slammed the door. Then I remembered I hadn’t brought the cab to Jon’s house with me.
I fished in my bag and pulled out my smart phone. I punched in Belle’s speed number. Cool Rides was number one, Jon was two, Belle was three. I might need to reverse those two.
“Yo, sup?” Her voice soothed my ruffled psyche.
“Men are assholes!”
“Un hunh. What are you gonna do?”
“Bitch session, and I need a ride home!”
“On my way.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Belle hung out at my apartment late into the night and we decided men were one of those commodities we couldn’t live without but we couldn’t shoot so we just would continue to manipulate them into doing what we thought they should do. I would tell Lucille about Anthony Scarpelli’s intentions when I picked her up in the morning.
Small Town Taxi (Honey Walker Adventures Book 1) Page 23
