“How about I call you tomorrow?” he asked Leeza.
When Leeza nodded, he bent down and gave her a lingering kiss on the lips before he turned and jogged over to the team.
She thinks your brother is going to call her tomorrow.
He sighed. He’d heard the murmuring of his conscience before, of course, but never in a voice so loud and clear.
How, he wondered, did a man go about getting rid of the voice of reason?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
He should have listened to the voice of reason instead of letting his brother rope him into this impossible scheme, Mitch thought as he watched the little man dance in front of him with his fists raised.
If he remembered correctly, the voice — his very own deep, sensible voice — had originally said no.
“Come on, put ’em up,” Stu Funderburk cried. He was a diminutive man who could juke and jive, a Muhammad Ali wanna-be in the body of a jockey. “I can take you.”
Mitch glanced around the shabby trailer park, which looked depressing in the gathering gloom of twilight. A light rain had begun to fall, keeping whoever else was home inside. He had no way of knowing if anyone was watching from their windows.
Or if the man in the green sedan, who had followed him on the drive from Charleston to this community on the outskirts of Summerville, was somewhere in the shadows spying on him.
Mitch had changed his mind about confronting his tail earlier that day when he’d gotten a look at the sedan’s license plate. A cop friend in Atlanta was going to run the plate when he had the time. Then, when Mitch knew who he was dealing with, he’d decide on a course of action.
“You afraid of me?” the jockey-sized Ali asked, bouncing on the soles of his miniature feet. “You afraid I’m gonna get a piece of you?”
Ah, geez. One punch from Mitch would probably break Stu Funderburk into pieces. Which was pretty much what Gaston Gibbs wanted him to do.
“I’m not gonna hit you,” Mitch said in a soft voice, hoping nobody — especially the guy tailing him — overheard.
Funderburk stopped dancing but didn’t drop his fists. “What do you mean you’re not gonna hit me? You’re a debt collector, aren’t you?”
“I’m a different kind of debt collector.” Mitch nodded toward Funderburk’s trailer, in front of which he’d surprised the small man five minutes ago. “Let’s go inside and talk about this like gentlemen.”
“You expect me to invite the enemy in? Unh unh, no way. You think I don’t know what’ll happen in there? I might not come out alive.”
Mitch let out a breath. This guy was really starting to get on his nerves. “Use your head. If I kill you, Flash doesn’t get his money.”
“Flash isn’t getting his money anyway because I don’t have it.”
That came as no surprise. Mitch ran into cases like this all the time. Down-on-their-luck guys like Stu Funderburk who thought they could get something for nothing through theft or gambling.
“We’ll work something out,” Mitch said. “I’m authorized to accept a down payment.”
Funderburk’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not supposed to tell me that until you’ve thrashed me.”
“I told you I wouldn’t thrash you.” Mitch took a few angry steps toward the other man. He had to make it look good if his tail was watching. “Now let me in.”
Five minutes later, he was sitting on a worn sofa in a cramped, dark living room counting out the money Funderburk had given him. It was barely a third of what he owed.
Mitch rubbed his jaw. “Flash won’t be happy about this.”
“I knew it,” Funderburk shrieked, leaping to his feet and into the Ali stance. “I knew you were going to beat me up.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Mitch detected a movement outside Funderburk’s window. It was probably Gibbs’s flunky, making sure he did the job on Funderburk. Good thing the thick coat of grime on the windows would prevent him from getting a good view of what was going on inside.
“How’s your scream?” he asked Funderburk.
“You can’t make me scream,” Funderburk said. “I’m little, but I’m tough.”
Mitch stood up, nearly banging the top of his head on the ceiling of the trailer. He loomed over the smaller man, making his eyes mean and his voice rough. “If you don’t scream in the next three seconds, I’m gonna come over there and make you.”
Funderburk screamed, long, loud and so shrilly Mitch had to cover his ears. When Funderburk was through, he waited, looking as though he expected Mitch to punish him for eardrum damage.
“What you gonna do now?” Funderburk asked.
“What I’m gonna do isn’t the issue,” Mitch said. “Do you have a pair of crutches and some plaster you can put on one of your legs?”
AT ABOUT THE TIME MITCH determined the green sedan wasn’t following him back to Charleston after his meeting with Funderburk, his cell phone rang. He picked it up from the seat beside him and checked the display.
It was Peyton, who now had Mitch’s cell number. Of course, she thought it was Cary’s new number. Mitch got angry at his brother all over again. Except he was uncomfortably aware that Cary now had ample reason to be livid with him.
Keeping his eyes on the road, Mitch clicked on the phone. “Hey, Peyton.”
“Oh, good, I got you the first time.” Peyton’s voice reminded him of all the intimate things they’d done to each other when they made love in the waves. His body temperature shot up ten degrees. Yep, he was a goner over her, all right. Even if she wasn’t rightfully his. “I hope this isn’t a bad time.”
The top was up now, the rain drizzling on the vinyl.
“Not at all,” Mitch said. It had been a bad time thirty minutes ago. Stu Funderburk had crutches but they’d called a half-dozen medical supply stores, on Mitch’s cell phone no less, before they located something that would approximate a cast. “What’s up?”
“I have a carriage tour in a few minutes so I don’t have a lot of time, but I need to tell you I can’t meet you for dinner tonight.”
Relief hit him as hard as the disappointment. He hadn’t been able to get the words out the night before, but he’d promised himself he was going to tell her tonight that he wasn’t Cary.
The reprieve was only temporary, but it gave him a few more hours to pretend she’d forgive him.
“I want to meet you,” she continued in a silky, sexy voice. “So much. But I can’t. Can you come over later?”
“I better not,” Mitch said reluctantly. “I have to bartend tonight. I won’t get off until after two a.m. and neither of us got much sleep last night.”
“You’re probably right.” Her voice was thick with disappointment. “I’m spending tomorrow afternoon with my parents but I should be able to get away by five or six. Maybe we can do something after that.”
“I’ll call you,” he said.
“Great,” she said and he heard somebody calling her from a distance. “Listen, I’ve got to go. I’m sorry about canceling but it’s important I meet Gaston tonight to talk about his plans for renovating those buildings.”
Alarm skittered through him at the mention of Flash Gordon’s more common name. “But—”
He didn’t get to finish the sentence. “Hold the horses. I’m coming,” she yelled. “Sorry, Mitch, but I really do have to go.”
The line went dead. Dread reached out its cold fingers and touched every inch of him.
He was probably being unreasonable. Gibbs was so protective of his public face that Peyton wasn’t in any danger from him.
On the other hand, Peyton didn’t know who Gibbs was or what he was capable of doing. She thought of him as a heroic family friend who out of the goodness of his heart rescued her beloved historic properties from demolition.
Renovating those buildings had nothing to do with goodness because Gibbs didn’t possess any. If he were involved in a project, something was in it for him. A substantial profit, most likely.
Mitch squelched the ur
ge to call the carriage company and leave a message that Peyton should not meet G. Gaston Gibbs III tonight or any night.
He’d sound like a jealous lover and he couldn’t risk that. He couldn’t do anything to make Gibbs seem like the more reasonable man.
Because the last place he wanted Peyton to head for comfort after he confessed his deception was Gibbs’s arms.
“THE BOXX WANTS TO SEE YOU in the back,” Millie Bellini of the towering hair and the Kilamanjaro breasts told Mitch later that night. She smiled lasciviously at him over the bar with her orange lips, smacking them together.
“I want to see you, too,” she added. “Much more of you.”
Oh, brother, Mitch thought as he finished washing a glass. Here she goes again. Millie rested her elbows on the counter and leaned forward. Mitch bent backward.
“I’ve got a proposition for you,” Millie said.
So what else was new? She’d propositioned him in one way or another every night since he’d started working at Epidermis. Because he suspected his brother enjoyed being a sex object, he made himself keep smiling.
“I’m thinking ’bout having a ladies night at Epidermis one night a month with guys up on stage. You interested?”
“In stripping?” Mitch asked.
“You’re cute, honey buns, but nobody’s gonna pay to see you unless you take off your clothes.”
Mitch’s immediate impulse was to refuse but then he had a thought. “When would this be?”
“Not for another three or four weeks,” Millie said. “I can’t get the acts lined up till then.”
By necessity, this masquerade would be long over by them. Mitch had only taken two weeks off from work and one of them was already gone. Three or four weeks from now, he’d be back in Atlanta patrolling the streets. Cary, hopefully, would have resumed his life in Charleston.
“Pencil me in,” Mitch said. “I’d love to strip for the ladies.”
“Really?” Millie’s mascara-encrusted eyes widened.
“Really. But I want you to promise me one thing. If I’m not working here anymore, hunt me down and remind me I said I’d strip.”
“I will.” Millie rubbed her hands together. Mitch thought she might be salivating. “I can help you pick out your music. I bet you can do a stand-up number to You Sexy Thing.”
“Talk to me about it in a couple of weeks.” Mitch moved around the counter and away from the bar. “I won’t be able to focus on it until then.”
“You mean it?” Millie’s voice followed him through the music and the smoke.
“Sure do,” he called back absently. He only wished he could be there to see the look on Cary’s face when Millie told him he’d agreed to a striptease.
Cary was so unpredictable, though, that he might take off all his clothes and boogie. After what Mitch had discovered about his brother in the past week, he wouldn’t put anything past him. None of the things he’d learned, however, had made him any less determined to extract Cary from his latest jam.
He frowned as he approached G. Gaston Gibbs’s office at the back of the strip club. Unfortunately, Mitch hadn’t made much more progress toward rescuing his brother than he had the first time he’d been summoned to Gibbs’s office.
He’d been so busy working the two jobs and dealing with Peyton that he hadn’t spent as much time delving into Gibbs’s personal affairs as he would have liked. Sure, he’d staked out his real-estate office and his home, but he hadn’t noticed anything criminal going on.
In fact, Gibbs probably knew more about Mitch’s actions than vice versa. That was something the two of them were going to talk about.
Gibbs, however, started talking first.
“Do you have my money?” he asked in his smooth, refined voice when Mitch was barely more than a few steps inside his red-velvet sanctuary.
Gibbs was leaning over a pool table that hadn’t been there days before, lining up a shot.
“Sure do.” Mitch took the envelope Stu Funderburk had given him out of his pocket. He waited for the thwack of balls smacking into each other, but the cue ball rolled soundlessly to the other side of the table.
Gibbs didn’t seem to notice the ball had hit nothing but air. He walked around the table and made a show of lining up another shot. This time the cue ball grazed one ball, hit another and sent two more bumping off the cushioned sides of the table. The pockets didn’t see any action.
“Only the second shot I’ve missed all day,” Gibbs said before leaning the cue stick against the table.
“I hear they’re thinking about remaking The Hustler,” Mitch said lazily. “Maybe you could play the part of Minnesota Fats.”
Gibbs walked over to Mitch, dislike evident in his small eyes. “If I were you, Mitchell, I’d be careful what I said.”
Mitch bristled. It galled him that this man had snowed Peyton into believing he was a respectable citizen. “And if I were you, I’d be careful what I did and who I did it with.”
Gibbs laughed, which thrust his pointed features into prominence. “Jealousy doesn’t become you, Mitchell. Especially because you’re fighting a battle you can’t win.”
“I am winning,” Mitch said through clenched teeth.
“Oh, really?” He raised his too-thin eyebrows. “So I suppose the McDowells asked you to the get-together they’re having tomorrow on their luxury sailboat? No? Oh, that’s right. Counting Peyton and me, there are already four of us. Wouldn’t want to have an odd number.”
Was he speaking the truth?, Mitch wondered as the smaller man took the envelope from him and started counting his money. Had Gibbs finagled it so Peyton would spend two days straight with him? Mitch wouldn’t put it past either Gibbs or the McDowells.
It wouldn’t matter for long, because Peyton would soon know what kind of a man Gibbs was underneath the smooth exterior. Once Mitch told her he wasn’t Cary, he’d explain why the masquerade was necessary. If she gave him the chance.
“Where’s the rest of the money?” Gibbs raised hard, mean eyes to Mitch. Once again, he was all business. “I told you to collect at least half of what Funderburk owed.”
Mitch shrugged. “I couldn’t collect what he didn’t have. He said he’d try to get the rest by next Saturday.”
“Try?” Gibbs’s eyes bore into his. “I don’t like the sound of that. If you’d done your job right, he wouldn’t have said he’d try to get the money. He’d have said he would get the money.”
“You know I did my job right.”
Gibbs walked back to the pool table and leaned against it. He crossed his arms over his chest. “And how do I know that?”
“Vincent Carmichael.”
Mitch let the name hang between them while he watched Gibbs for a reaction. The only expression that crossed the other man’s face was one of confusion.
“Is that name supposed to mean something to me?”
“He’s the P.I. you hired to have me followed. Has an office west of the Ashley in a strip shopping center. But you know that already.”
Gibbs’s short laugh sounded like a bark. “You think I hired a private dick to follow you? Why on earth would I do that?”
“To see whether I’m carrying out your orders.”
“If you bring me back my money, I can tell whether you’re carrying out my orders.”
“Maybe you wanted to make sure I made Stu Funderburk sorry he couldn’t repay all he owed.”
Gibbs’s arms uncrossed. He straightened. He did not look happy. “Are you saying this Vincent Carmichael, this private investigator, followed you to Funderburk’s place?”
Mitch nodded, and Gibbs muttered an oath. He rubbed his brow with a thumb and two fingers, crossed the room to his desk and sat down.
“What kind of a car does Carmichael drive?”
Mitch told him, and Gibbs fell into a deeper silence. “I haven’t noticed a green car but then I wasn’t looking for one,” Gibbs finally said.
“You think this man is investigating you instead of me? Is tha
t it?”
“Of course he’s investigating me. If you weren’t working for me, you wouldn’t be important enough to follow.” Gibbs pointed at Mitch. “I need you to find out if he has anything on me.”
“How do you expect me to do that?”
“Break into his office and go through his files.”
Mitch put both hands up palms out. “I’m not breaking into anyone’s office. That’s against the law.”
“So is stealing money from the cash register.” Gibbs paused to let his words sink in. Mitch schooled his expression to remain neutral but inside he was damning his brother.
“Yeah, I know you’ve been stealing from me, Mitchell,” Gibbs continued. “The only reason I haven’t had Millie call the cops is because I’ve found it handy to have you around. If you cease to be handy, I could change my mind.”
“You can’t prove I stole from you.”
“Do you really think I couldn’t get an employee to say she saw you stealing? Do you really want to bet a jail sentence on that?” Gibbs stroked his jaw. “Because if you don’t break into that office and get those records, that’s exactly what you’ll be doing.”
When Mitch didn’t answer, Gibbs opened his desk calendar and flipped through it. “Let’s see, it’s Saturday night so that gives you all day tomorrow to figure something out. That way, you can have the information to me by Monday.”
“I don’t work on Monday,” Mitch said.
“You do now.”
The notion of breaking and entering was so distasteful that Mitch couldn’t trust himself to say anything else. He simply turned and started to leave.
“Oh, and Mitchell,” Gibbs’s voice trailed after him, making Mitch stop in his tracks. “If you have any notion of telling Peyton what I do when I’m not buying and selling real estate, I’d get rid of it right now.”
Mitch turned and felt as though he were staring into the face of evil.
“If anyone in Charleston society, especially anyone so prominently associated with the preservation league, got wind of my, uh, extracurricular activities, I’d have to make sure they didn’t spread ugly gossip.”
Bait & Switch Page 17
