Lady Be Good

by Nancy Martin

  “Let’s leave Kip out of it, okay?”

  “Good. You haven’t talked to your mother about this development?”

  “No way.”

  Nora laughed. “Smart girl. You’ll tell me all the details later, right?”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “I can answer your questions about Jake then.”

  Grace came down to earth. “I’m sorry I asked about Jake, Nora. I was butting my nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  “Nonsense. We have no secrets from you, darling. Jake was gambling at the time of his death, but beyond that, I really don’t know much.”

  “You don’t know where he was placing his bets?”

  “No idea. Why do you want to know?”

  “It doesn’t matter now. Really, I shouldn’t have asked in the first place. Forget I brought it up.”

  “Okay,” Nora said, but she sounded curious. “I’ll see you at the television station. Before one. Call me if you’re held up.”

  “Nora, you don’t have to escort me all over Philadelphia. Find Emma.”

  “But I want to see you. Rats. My phone is beeping. Must run. Talk soon.”

  Grace ended the call and tucked her phone back into her bag.

  Luke drove in silence for another half mile. Finally, he asked, “Who’s Kip? Your dog?”

  Grace felt her face flush. “You weren’t supposed to be listening.”

  Luke had a grin on his face. “You didn’t have to play twenty questions with your friend. You could have told her my name. Or are you going to be embarrassed to be seen with me?”

  “If I show up on Nora’s doorstep with you, her opinion of me is going to skyrocket.”

  He laughed as if not quite believing her. “You asked about Jake Kendall’s gambling.”

  Grace sighed. “Let’s not argue, okay? Nora is worried about her sister, and I can’t help being worried, too.”

  “I get the idea.”

  Grace stole a glance at Luke. “And you’ve got me wondering about how Jake died.”

  “Car accident,” Luke said promptly.

  “That’s not what you suggested last night. Now I’m curious if his accident wasn’t an accident at all. Don’t you want to know the truth, too?”

  Luke blew a sigh, exasperation showing. “Oh, hell, hand me my phone.”

  “Why?”

  “Because when I couldn’t sleep last night, I thought of somebody I could ask about Jake.”

  Grace passed the cell phone to Luke, holding back a smile. “I’m sorry you didn’t sleep well.”

  “It’s your fault,” he growled. “I went downstairs for some milk, and I could hear the water running. My imagination was in the bathtub with you.”

  The idea that he had spent the night tossing and turning gave her a glow inside.

  “Who are you going to call?”

  “A guy I know. A sports agent. Maybe not the best in the business, but one who’ll talk off the record. Pretend not to listen, okay? Like I did.”

  She smiled. “Okay.”

  He pressed a couple of buttons on his phone and put it to his ear. Driving one handed, he spoke with a receptionist, and then somebody’s assistant. Within a minute, he was exchanging wisecracks with somebody he called Ace.

  “No, I like retirement,” he said to Ace. “Pretty soon I’m going to learn to knit.”

  Ace made some jokes on his end and asked a few questions.

  “Yeah, I see most of the guys. Tommy runs a poker night. Harrison practically runs his own golf tournament every weekend. He must enjoy losing, though, ‘cause he’s a piss poor golfer. No, he’s down in South Carolina now. What’s going on with Carmichael?” Luke listened for a while, saying, “Uhuh, uhuh.”

  Grace thought about her own friends—mostly co-workers from the magazine—that she still kept in touch with. At first, she had regularly telephoned with her closest workplace pals and gone on lunch dates, to the ballet, even a vacation to London with three girlfriends. But gradually contact was fading as everybody moved on. It must be the same for Luke.

  Eventually, he said, “Ace, I called to ask you some unofficial questions.”

  Ace made a crack, but Luke didn’t take the bait.

  Instead, he said, “About Jake Kendall.”

  He waited while Ace made what sounded to Grace like sympathetic remarks.

  Luke said, “Yeah, I heard he was in some trouble with that. What do you know?”

  Ace didn’t answer at first. Luke waited him out. Eventually, Ace said a few things.

  “Uhuh,” Luke said. “You ever hear who it was?”

  Ace talked for a while after that, and Luke listened.

  Grace thought about Emma Blackbird—how she was so different from Nora. Emma was a party girl, while Nora was more of an intellectual. Sisters were rarely the same, but the Blackbird sisters were more individuals than most. Grace didn’t know their oldest sister, Libby, except that like Nora and Emma, she didn’t have great taste in men.

  Todd had been a bad choice for Nora—Grace knew that now. He had abused his workplace, stolen drugs and gotten addicted fast, and perhaps Nora had enabled him a little. She hadn’t done anything drastic to force him to kick his habit, Grace knew that much. Had Emma similarly abetted her husband’s gambling?

  Because surely it had been a dangerous addiction for a professional football player to risk his multi-million dollar career by betting on sports.

  Grace couldn’t imagine how she might have coped, if she’d been in Emma’s place. She certainly hadn’t been any help with Todd’s addiction, so why should she imagine Emma could have prevented her husband’s problems?

  Luke asked more questions. Gradually, Ace’s responses dwindled to nothing.

  Luke got off the phone looking grave. He tossed his phone down onto the console with finality.

  “Well?” Grace asked.

  Luke shook his head. “This is dangerous stuff, Princess.”

  “What did you learn?”

  “That Ace is scared.”

  “Does he know who Jake was gambling with?”

  “He didn’t want to tell me, but eventually he let it slip.” Luke hesitated. Finally, he said, “Jake was gambling with a mobbed-up crew in New Jersey. The Abruzzo family.”

  “Should I know who that is?”

  “I hope you don’t,” Luke said. “I’ve heard of them. It’s an old school crime family run by a guy named Big Frankie Abruzzo, who’s been in and out of prison a few times. He has some sons, too, but word is Abruzzo is a ruthless son of a bitch who’s been known to make his enemies disappear.”

  Grace felt skeptical. “That’s hardly likely, is it? Not in this era? There are no crime families anymore.”

  “Of course there are. Not as big or as stupid as they used to be, but there’s definitely at least one underground gambling syndicate that still runs illegal sports betting.”

  “And Jake was placing bets with them?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Why would that get him killed? It doesn’t make sense. Why kill a good customer?”

  Luke shook his head and tried to explain. “Jake places bets, right? He gets in too deep and can’t pay. So the Abruzzos start asking him to pay up in something besides cash.”

  “Like what?”

  Luke didn’t want to answer—that was clear.

  Grace frowned. “Wait—the Abruzzos wanted him to change the way games turned out? Is that it?”

  Luke sighed. “The Abruzzos would make a hell of a lot more money if they knew how games were going to end.”

  “So Jake was—what? Losing games on purpose?”

  “God, I hope not,” Luke said.

  Grace felt her pulse start to race. “Let me try to get it straight. If Jake was desperate and he couldn’t pay his debts, he might have thrown games?”

  “I can’t imagine how bad things must have been for him to do something like that,” Luke said. “He’d have to be more than desperate. Or he’d have to be crazy.”<
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  “Why would they kill him if he was making them money?”

  “He could have incriminated them.”

  “Maybe he wouldn’t do what they asked him to do? Maybe he refused to cooperate? And that’s why they killed him?”

  Luke was silent. But his hands were tight on the steering wheel.

  Grace reached over and squeezed his arm. It felt like iron beneath her hand.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “He was your friend.”

  “He was a good guy. One of the best athletes I ever knew. For him to go down like that—it’s bad enough. But to corrupt the game—that really bothers me.”

  “I’m sure it’s upsetting,” Grace agreed. She took out her phone again. Flipping through it, she found a photo and showed it to Luke. “This is a picture of Emma Blackbird and Jake. I found it online.”

  The photo showed Jake looking handsome, but he was outshone by Emma, a tall, sleek redhead in a dress that clung to her rangy curves. They had their arms around each other, and Emma’s hip fit against Jake’s body.

  Luke took his eyes off the road long enough to glance at the photo. “She’s a good-looking woman.”

  “Yes. Emma is a champion show jumper. You know—horses. She trained with the Olympic team before she got hurt in the car accident.” Grace looked at the photo a little longer, but finally shut it off and dropped it into her handbag. “Doesn’t that picture make you feel we should do something?”

  “Do something?” Luke said, sounding amazed. “We’re not going to do anything. We’re going to forget we ever heard any of this.”

  “But--”

  Luke snapped, “Forget it, Grace. The Abruzzo family—they’re dangerous people.”

  “We should tell the police.”

  “Tell them what?” he demanded. “That we heard Jake was mixed up with the Abruzzos? That maybe they asked him to throw games? What self-respecting cop is going to do anything but laugh in our faces? And think what the media could do with this. The game would be—it’s just not worth it. And mainly? We don’t have any evidence.”

  Grace sank back into her seat again. “I see what you mean.”

  “I’m sorry,” Luke said, not sounding sorry in the least. “Your friend’s sister might feel blown away by her husband’s death, but we’re not going to change anything for her by poking around in Jake’s gambling problems.”

  Grace rubbed her forehead. Her phone rang in her bag. Reluctantly, she checked her watch. “It’s nine o’clock. That means my publicist is at her desk and so are half a dozen other people who will need to talk to me this morning. I’m going to have to take some calls. I’m sorry. A book tour is very complicated.”

  “It’s okay,” Luke said, making an effort to calm down. “Take care of your business, Princess. I’ll just do the driving. And try to forget about this.”

  Grace doubted he could forget any of it. She could see Luke was just as bothered by what they had learned as she was.

  7.

  The details that came flying at Grace during the next couple of hours made her dizzy. She took phone calls, made notes in her day planner, checked her Twitter feed, organized her upcoming travel arrangements, and eased the minds of the many people who had counted on her leaving Pittsburgh by plane and getting to her next stop on time.

  “Do you have the TV station address handy?” Luke asked hours later, interrupting her texting as he pulled the Jaguar down an exit ramp of the expressway. “We’re almost into Philly.”

  Grace found the address in her notes and read it to him. “Can you find it? There’s a GPS app on my phone if--”

  “I can find it,” he said. “I know my way around pretty well. Philly is a party city.”

  “You like to party, I gather,” Grace said.

  “Hell, yes. Not as much now as I used to, but, yeah.”

  “You also drink milk and talk to your dad on the phone.”

  He grinned. “And I like dancing to a loud band, too. I know a couple of great clubs in this city. We could hit them tonight. What do you say?”

  Grace’s idea of a club was more along the lines of quiet, paneled rooms where elderly men gathered to read the newspaper and share stock recommendations. She had a feeling Luke meant something totally different. “I’m game, but--I thought you might go home to Pittsburgh tonight.”

  On a laugh, he said, “Not when we’re this close.”

  Close to what?

  He had a way of making her think about the possibilities, she noted. It was a clever technique—turning the switch in Grace’s mind that started her fantasizing without applying any uncomfortable pressure. His kiss had been like that, too—sensual without pushing too hard. He let her imagination do some of the work of seduction.

  She had one more call to make and did it quickly—to the bookstore where she had to make her last stop of the day. The store manager sounded cool on the phone. The woman’s tone gave Grace a bad feeling about the event later. By the time she finished the call, Luke had whipped his car through downtown traffic and was pulling to the curb in front of a tall building decorated with a television network’s familiar logo. Just in time.

  Luke set the parking brake and shut off the engine. He popped open his door and came around to her side of the car. By the time he opened her door, Grace had checked her face in the mirror of her compact and gathered up her handbag. He helped her out onto the sidewalk. The snow had been cleared after the previous day’s storm. The pavement was only wet underfoot, but Luke held on as if she might slip and fall.

  “Wish me luck,” she said, looking shakily up at him. A few hours in the car with him, and she felt as if she knew him a whole lot better.

  He smiled down at her. “You’ll knock ‘em dead.”

  It felt natural to give him a kiss. She stretched up on tiptoe and pressed a light one on his mouth. But Luke took her more firmly in his arms.

  “I don’t want to muss you up before your show, Princess, but….”

  He turned her peck on the mouth into something much steamier, right there on the street.

  Dear Miss Vanderbine in a public display! That thought flashed through her mind like a neon sign … for about two seconds before she stopped thinking about anything at all and just turned herself over to his warm, savory kiss.

  “Grace?” An amazed voice from several yards away.

  Grace pressed Luke’s chest and stepped away, sure she was pink in the face. “Nora!”

  Nora Blackbird stepped out of the shelter of the building and came over, clearly trying to prevent a big smile from breaking out on her face. Her eyes were alight, though.

  The Blackbirds were one of the oldest, most prominent families in the city. Old Money, Old Philadelphia---their history stretching back to William Penn when he first came to America and laid claim to a whole state. The Blackbirds tagged along with him and made their fortune in railroads and safety pins. Today Nora looked every inch the blue-blooded aristocrat she was—tall, slim, elegant, ladylike, always perfectly composed in public, always gracious. In private, she had a wicked sense of humor, but the kindest of hearts. She had the Blackbird dark auburn hair, worn not quite shoulder-length, and wavy. She often dressed in vintage couture.

  Today she wore a flatteringly snug pencil skirt, high suede boots and a graceful swing coat, open to show a scarf the color of merlot knotted around her neck. That chic scarf might have come from the Paris flea market where Nora often uncovered enviable fashion finds.

  “Nora, it’s wonderful to see you.”

  Not one for air kisses, Nora gave Grace a hearty hug and said in her ear, “Darling, I’m so glad you made it.”

  When Nora loosened her, Grace kept one arm around Nora and said, “This is Luke Lazurnovich, who came to my rescue last night. Luke, I’d like you to meet Nora Blackbird, my sister-in-law and one of my dearest friends.”

  Nora returned his friendly smile as she shook Luke’s hand. “How nice to meet you, Luke. You’re a knight in shining armor.”

  �
��My armor might be a little rusty. How’s your sister?”

  Nora’s smile didn’t waver. “Grace told you? Emma’s still on the loose. But I know her well enough to believe she’s sleeping it off this afternoon. There’s no sense making myself crazy looking for her if she’s snoring. I’ll start again this evening.”

  “Anything we can do to help?”

  “Thank you. I’ll let you know. And thank you for bringing Grace all this way. Her television appearance is important today.”

  “She’ll be great.”

  “We’re having a light lunch afterwards. Just appetizers and champagne with a few friends of mine. Would you like to join us?”

  Luke shook his head. “I’m too hungry to wait that long.” He looked at Grace and hooked his thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll go get a burger while you do your thing. Meet you later?”

  “All right,” Grace said. She had already given Luke her afternoon schedule, which he had memorized as if it were something from a team playbook.

  “Good luck,” he said, meeting her eyes directly. The spark in his gaze caused an electric reaction in her chest and quickly traveled south. He must have guessed her physical response, because he grinned and walked away.

  Nora linked her arm through Grace’s and pulled her into the building. As soon as they were alone, Nora started laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” Grace demanded in the elevator.

  “Grace, he’s gorgeous! Hardly the kind of man I thought you’d be attracted to, but how can you help yourself?”

  “He’s very sweet,” Grace said, knowing she sounded defensive.

  “Sweet is not the first thing I noticed about him. And you were kissing the stuffing out of the man.”

  “I was not!”

  “You were, too. And three cheers for it.”

  “Just don’t tell my mother, okay?”

  Nora laughed again. “And risk the wrath of Dear Miss Vanderbine? Do you think I’m crazy?”

  Nora accompanied Grace upstairs, through the receptionist and into the green room. She helped Grace finish her makeup and smooth her hair. In no time, Grace was on camera. And very glad she had worn slacks, not another short skirt.

  Even with half her mind still on the sidewalk with Luke, she managed to summon some Vanderbine poise to do her television interview. She fielded questions first, then led the host’s three college-age children through a mock business lunch. Today, she was very glad not to be doing the tea party segment her mother had rehearsed with her. Her confidence had been thoroughly shaken. As Nora pointed out, a business lunch was more Grace’s area of expertise: How to make conversation that didn’t spoil your chances for getting a deal or a job, what to do if you spilled something or a cell phone rang or someone from your past lurched up to the table and made an embarrassing scene. The students started out stiff and uncomfortable, but Grace thought of Luke’s handling of the woman at the airport bar, and she put his technique to work. She teased the students into loosening up, and the segment went beautifully. At the end, the host did a nice pitch for the book, and Grace told the camera where she would be appearing later in the day.