He nodded at Tilda and continued his phone call. “Sure, we can handle that. How many people are traveling with Mr. Bloom? . . . Uh huh. . . . Does he want to arrange his own cars, or are we providing limos? . . . Good enough. Which hotel will your party be staying at? . . . Yeah, we’ve worked with them before. They know the drill. Are there any other activities you want me to cover? . . . No, I don’t need specifics yet. Just give me a heads-up before you leave LA, and we’ll take it from there. You’ve got all our contact numbers, right? . . . Great. Send me your flight numbers, and we’ll meet you at Logan.” He hung up the phone, pulled off the headset, then stood to offer Tilda his hand. “Ms. Harper? I’m Dom Tolomeo.”
“How’d you know it was me?” Tilda asked, wondering if maybe there were video cameras or retina scanners hidden behind the wood paneling.
“Just a hunch,” Tolomeo said. “Most of our clients don’t carry their own suitcases.”
“Sorry,” Tilda said. Since she’d come straight from the station, she was still towing her rolling bag. “I just got in from New York.”
“No problem. Even without the luggage, I’d have guessed it was you. We don’t get much walk-in traffic. The big shots are too busy to actually come here—that’s what phones, fax machines, and e-mail are for. Which is fine with me. I don’t have to waste money fixing the place up.”
“I guess Steve Tyler wouldn’t just drop in.”
“Actually, Steve might. He’s pretty down-to-earth. But others I could name, you’d think they were God’s gift to the world.” He waved one hand. “You didn’t come to hear me complain. Or maybe you did, but if you did, you’ve wasted a trip. We practice discretion at Tolomeo Personal Protection, so don’t expect me to help you dig up dirt for your magazine stories.”
“I don’t want dirt,” Tilda said firmly. “I am working on an article, but I’m not interested in your current clients. What I’m trying to do is track down an actress you escorted to an event in 1979.”
“That’s a long time for me to remember anything.”
“I realize that, but frankly, I’m running out of leads. I’m trying to find Mercy Ashford, who used to be on—”
“Kissing Cousins?”
“Color me impressed. I wouldn’t have thought you’d remember her that quickly.”
“I can’t take any special credit this time. I was just talking about that show with my son this morning. I guess you already know that another actress from Kissing Cousins died recently.”
Naturally Tolomeo would follow entertainment news. “That’s the hook for my story,” she admitted. “I’ve talked to the other surviving cast members, but not Mercy. Nobody seems to know where she is. As far as I can tell, she disappeared off the face of the earth back in 1980.”
“Is that when the show was canceled?”
“A few months afterward, actually. She got a movie deal, but never finished the picture, and then she fell off the radar.”
“Maybe that’s the way she likes it.”
“Maybe so, but it’s my job to find her.”
“Uh huh,” he said, clearly not swayed.
“Besides, there’s more to it than that. First, I’m a big fan of hers, and I’ve always wanted to meet her.” Before he could point out the fact that most fans want to meet their idols, she added, “Second, she may be in danger. Three of the show’s cast members have already died.”
“Jeez, the curse business. I read that article. Was that you?”
“Yeah, kind of. My editor dreamed up the curse stuff. Which I don’t believe in, but still . . .” She sighed. “I know it sounds crazy, and I guess you get a lot of people coming up with lame stories to try to get to the stars through you.”
“A few, but this is a new one.”
“Mr. Tolomeo, you don’t know me, but I swear that if I were going to make up a story, I’d make up a better one than this.”
Tolomeo tilted his head and looked at her for a stretch of seconds. Then he nodded. “People think being in security means you’ve got to be some kind of super fighter, or carry an attaché case full of James Bond gadgets. But that’s not it—I’ve known black belts who weren’t worth a dime as a bodyguard, and gadgets don’t mean squat if you don’t know when to use them. The important part of this job—the part you can’t teach—is judging people. I think you’re good people.”
Tilda felt the oddest sense of satisfaction from having passed Tolomeo’s test.
“You really think she’s in danger?” he asked.
“I don’t know, but I do know how I’ll feel if she gets hurt because nobody warned her.”
“Probably about how I’d feel if somebody I was supposed to be protecting got hurt. So you go ahead and ask your questions, but honestly, I just don’t know how much I can help. Miss Ashford didn’t make arrangements with me personally. It was handled by the studio. I never had her address or phone number, and even if I did, they’d be no good now. And I never had any contact with her other than that one day at the parade.”
Though Tilda hadn’t really expected that the security man and Mercy had been exchanging Christmas cards all these years, she had hoped he’d have something she could use. “Could you tell me about that day? What she was like, who was with her, anything at all.”
“Tell you what. I had an associate with me that day, and I bet he’s got every detail memorized.” He picked up the phone, pushed a speed-dial number, and said, “Nicky? You got a minute to come up front? There’s a pretty lady standing here who’d like to talk to you.”
He hung up and said to Tilda, “That’ll get him moving. Nicky’s got an eye for the ladies. No offense.”
“None taken. Sounded like a compliment to me.”
A moment later, Tilda was startled to see the young man from the pictures on the wall walk into the room. At least, it could have been him: same dark hair and eyes, same aristocratic nose, same lean build, and just as much a stud as the man in the pictures. He was a little shorter than the men Tilda usually favored, and she couldn’t help but remember what Sophia had said about Davy Jones.
Tolomeo grinned when he saw Tilda comparing the pictures to the real man. “Tilda Harper, this is my boy, Nicky.”
The younger man offered his hand. “Nick Tolomeo.”
They shook hands and exchanged “pleased to meet you,” and at least in Tilda’s case it was perfectly sincere. If the man had halfway decent taste in music and movies, she’d gladly take him home.
“Nicky, Tilda wants to know about that lady you met at the Macy’s Parade back when you were a kid.”
“Mercy Ashford from Kissing Cousins?” Nick asked. “What a great show. At least she was great in it. I thought she was the best part.”
Tilda suddenly felt less enthusiastic. No straight guy could be that gorgeous and like Mercy too—Nick had to be gay. Still, he might be a good source. “I’m a big fan myself,” she admitted.
“Nicky, you remember that day, don’t you?” Tolomeo said.
“Are you kidding? Meeting Mercy was the biggest thing that had ever happened to me. When the kids at school found out, I was the big man on campus for weeks afterward—not an easy thing for somebody my size.”
“Good,” his father said. “Then you can tell it all to Tilda.” He looked at his watch. “Look, it’s lunchtime. What do you say we go grab a bite—we can talk and eat at the same time. It’s on me.”
Though that muffin had been hours earlier, unlike some of the staff members at Entertain Me!, Tilda wasn’t accustomed to freebies. “That’s very nice of you, but—”
“But what? It’s a business lunch. You meet people in the entertainment industry, right? So I hand you a stack of our business cards, and when you get a chance, you give them out. If you send the right client my way, I can make enough to buy you a dozen lunches. You can even leave your suitcase here.”
“In that case, thank you,” Tilda said. “That sounds great.”
“Great! You good to go, Nicky?”
“Sure,”
Nick said.
Tolomeo started ushering them toward the door, but then slapped himself on the forehead and said, “What am I thinking? My receptionist has the day off for her daughter’s orthodontia—I can’t leave the office alone.”
“Turn on the machine—you can get the messages when we get back,” Nick said.
“Machines! That’s no way to do business. You two go on, and bring me back something to eat. Nicky, use the company card.” He practically shoved them out the door, and Tilda found herself alone in the hallway with a handsome man. The day was looking up.
Nick rolled his eyes, but said, “So, what kind of food do you like?”
“Surprise me.”
With his last name she’d expected him to head for an Italian place, but a few minutes later they were at Jacob Wirth’s, with pints of dark German beer in front of them while they debated the relative virtues of the bratwurst or the fish cakes special. Tilda eventually decided on a pastrami sandwich with a side of German potato salad.
Once they’d ordered, Nick said, “I should apologize for Pop. He’s not exactly subtle, is he?”
“Not terribly. Which one of us was he trying to get rid of?”
He laughed. “Neither. He was setting the two of us up.”
Maybe Nick wasn’t gay after all. Then again, why would a hunk like that need to be set up by his father, unless his looks were just an appealing facade for a pathetic loser?
“I just broke up with my girlfriend,” Nick explained, as if guessing her thoughts, “and Pop is trying to get me involved with somebody else right away so we don’t reconcile.”
“Is reconciliation likely?”
“Not in a million years,” he said, which Tilda didn’t necessarily believe, having heard too many similar protestations, including a few she’d made herself. “But Pop isn’t taking any chances,” Nick went on. “He hates my ex.”
“Why is that?” Tilda asked. It was nosy, but he’d brought it up.
“Hard to say. He disliked her the minute he met her. He’s got this radar about people. He usually makes his mind up about them the first time he meets them, and he never changes it.”
“Is he usually right?”
“Always. I should have known better.”
Tilda waited for Nick to explain what terrible things his ex had done to make him agree with his father, and her estimation of him rose considerably when he skipped over the past and said, “Not to be pushy, but what about you? Are you seeing anybody?”
According to a conversation she’d once had with Heather, this was her chance to coyly hint that she had a posse of eligible men impatiently waiting for their turn to escort her to the best clubs in Boston. Tilda sent a mental raspberry toward her roommate and said, “Not a soul. Does your father like me?”
“He wouldn’t be paying for lunch if he didn’t.”
“Do you like me?”
He blinked, but recovered enough to grin. “It takes me a little longer to make up my mind, but I’m thinking he’s right again.” The waitress brought their order, and Nick turned his attention to his meal. Tilda did the same. The witty badinage could wait.
When her sandwich was well on its way to becoming a fond memory, Tilda said, “Tell me about meeting Mercy.”
Nick smiled like a Red Sox fan remembering the final game of the 2004 World Series. “I couldn’t believe my luck when Pop said he was going to be Mercy’s escort that year for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York. I promised I’d clean my room, wash the car, finish my homework on time, and make straight As for the rest of my life if he’d take me with him. Of course he’d planned all along to let me go, but he enjoyed torturing me for a while.”
“Did you keep your promises?”
“I got the grades, did so-so on the homework, and washed the car twice, but my room still looked like the parade had gone through there instead of down Thirty-fourth Street. Pop should have got it in writing.” He ate a french fry before going on. “Come Thanksgiving morning, we were at Mercy’s hotel bright and early. It was the Plaza, right off Central Park.”
“Eloise’s stomping ground,” Tilda put in.
He fixed her with a stern look. “In my day, young Italian guys did not read Eloise books.”
“Then how did you know who she is?”
“Because these days, Italian men do read bedtime stories to their nieces. So do you want to talk about children’s literature or the greatest moment of my life?”
“Sorry.”
“We were at the Plaza early enough to grab breakfast, though I was too nervous to eat much. Which at that point meant I only ate three eggs, bacon, and toast. At eight on the dot we were outside her room, and I was so nervous that I was sure I was going to throw up every bit of that breakfast on her feet. But then she opened her door and smiled at me. That was it. I was in love.” He looked at Tilda, and warned, “Don’t say it was sweet.”
“Wasn’t even thinking it,” she said, more or less truthfully. “I was just wishing she’d have made it onto the big screen—with that kind of charisma, she’d have been big.”
“Real big,” Nick said. “So Pop told her who we were, and he made it sound like I was working too, not just tagging along. Mercy shook our hands and treated me the same as Pop had, like I was a bodyguard too. I think that was when I decided I was going to go into the business with Pop—up until then I’d been thinking fireman or rock star, but the idea that I was responsible for keeping somebody safe really got to me. And not just anybody, but somebody famous who I’d just fallen in love with. Man, what a rush!”
As the waitress returned to take their empty plates and get their coffee orders, Tilda filed away a story idea for later consideration. She’d always wondered why somebody would risk life and limb to prevent inconvenience to some spoiled star, and now Nick had given her part of the answer. She knew a market or two that might go for a feature about Dom and Nick, or celebrity security in general.
“So?” she prompted once they were alone again. “What happened next? I want details.”
“You want details? Details I got. She was wearing black of course. A black lacy dress—just like she wore in the show—and a long black wool coat, but she’d added a red beret and gloves for Christmas. She looked sharp too. We had a car to take us to the beginning of the parade route, and once we got there we reported in and got her settled onto a float. Pillsbury was sponsoring Kissing Cousins and she was riding their float. It was all cookies and gingerbread men, with people dressed from nursery rhymes. The gingerbread castle had a balcony in front, and that’s where Mercy rode. I told Pop I wasn’t sure it was sturdy enough, so he let me go up and jump around just to be sure. I must have looked like an idiot, but Mercy thanked me for watching out for her.”
Tilda wondered if he even knew he was grinning at the memory. “Did you ride on the float with her?”
“She invited me to,” he said, “but I thought I better walk alongside with Pop, to keep an eye on the crowd. I tell you, I was taking it seriously.” He looked at her as if again daring her to accuse him of being sweet, so she just nodded. “Jim Bonnier—the guy who played one of her Cousins on the show—was supposed to be riding with her, but he didn’t show until about two minutes before start time. The woman in charge of the float was about to have a heart attack too, worrying that something had happened. When he finally got there, it was easy to tell what had happened.” He shook his head in disgust. “Even then, I knew a hangover when I saw it. The dude had been out partying the night before, and he looked it. If he hadn’t been such a jerk, I’d have felt sorry for him having to ride behind the Marching Trojans from Charlotte, North Carolina.”
“Was he that bad? I talked to him a few times, years later, and he seemed okay.”
“That was when he was craving his fame fix, and you were how he was going to get it,” Nick pointed out. “When I met him, he was at the top of his game and he knew it. He blew off the woman in charge and sent his escort to get him coffee while he went o
ver to Miss Muffet and Gretel and tried to cop feels.”
“Charming.”
“Tell me about it. About halfway through the parade, Pop sent me up to stand with Mercy after all, to make sure Bonnier kept his hands off of her. Anybody could see she wasn’t interested, but he wasn’t picking up on it. Pop figured having a kid standing there would calm him down.”
Curse of the Kissing Cousins Page 13
