He patted the seat on the sofa next to him. “Sit down, Ms. Sands. I won’t bite. Let’s talk. Maybe I can give you some answers. Maybe not, and maybe I could represent you, if the story winds up being any good.”
She pegged him—total slimeball. “I think I’ll stand. Thanks. I think better that way.”
Blondie called out from another room. The place was spacious. “Baby, are we gonna do this thing, or what?”
“Not now, Marsha. Go relax.”
He held a finger up to Nikki. “I’ve got to make a call.” He walked out of the front reception area and back into another room. Nikki could make out only a few words and they were muffled at that. “Believe. No. Not now. Later. Meet me, five thirty.” Nikki didn’t catch who he was calling or where they would meet, but she thought that it had something to do with Georges’ murder and she had the growing feeling that she should get the hell out of there, because until she looked a little further into Henry Bloomenfeld’s past, she didn’t know whether or not she was waiting inside the office of a killer. When she heard him yell for Marsha to make him another drink, she slipped out. She’d started walking quickly down the hall when he opened his door and yelled, “Wait, Ms. Sands. We need to talk. Wait.” Nikki turned back to see him stepping into the hallway. She’d started to pick up speed when she ran into a full-figured redhead.
Henry yelled at Red to stop her. The woman reached out to grab her, but being agile, Nikki spun away from her and raced off. She didn’t slow down until she was a block away. The man was creepy, shady, and possibly a murderer. She didn’t entirely buy his grief act.
Dammit, and she’d given him her actual last name and the fact that she worked at Malveaux. Boy, had she chosen the wrong place, time, and person to tell the truth to. What if he was the killer, and tracked her down? She spotted a smoothie place and ducked inside, just in case, but she doubted the waifish man could have kept up with her. Not that he needed to, because he did know where to find her.
She looked at her watch. Three forty-five. There was only one thing to do—kill some time, because she was going to follow Slimeball Bloomenfeld and see who it was he planned to meet. Maybe she would find some answers there. Good thing she’d just paid off her Visa, ’cause she was going shopping. Bloomenfeld knew what she looked like and she’d need some sort of disguise. Ah! Finally a logical reason to head on over to Nordstrom. For all she knew it was the one time when new clothes and accessories could mean life or death.
Chapter 13
Forty minutes later, Nikki was dressed in a black skirt tighter and shorter than she would normally wear, along with a red scoop neck sweater—very, um . . . call girl chic. With her other clothes in the bag, she found a wig shop and made herself over with a wavy blonde one. She looked in the mirror. Maybe she should go back to blonde. It did make her look younger, and although being taken seriously in her career was a good thing, the idea of having more fun, especially at that moment, was quite appealing. She bought the wig and got into her car where she put on a dark red lipstick from her bag—not her usual color, but this was an unusual circumstance. She applied eye makeup and blush—all in new colors, as she didn’t normally carry much makeup with her—with a heavier hand than usual, and then took out the pair of sunglasses that she’d purchased and grabbed the eyeglasses she’d also bought just in case she had to follow Bloomenfeld and the mystery guest into a restaurant or something. She hoped she’d get that lucky, rather than their going into some apartment building. She did look “the part” for the neighborhood, which was what she was shooting for—wanting to blend in.
She drove back to Bloomenfeld’s office and parked across the street and down a half block, grateful to finally find parking after being flipped off by an old man that she’d cut off in her pursuit of the perfect spot. She could see the front door and anyone coming in or out. She saw on the dashboard clock that it was almost fifteen minutes before meet time. She crossed her fingers that he hadn’t already left. What if he’d gone straight out and ignored the redhead she’d passed and nearly fallen over in the hallway? What if she’d put him on alert because he was the killer and he had to do something to cover his tracks? Had Detective Jonah Robinson questioned him yet? She still had no read on Henry Bloomenfeld.
Twenty minutes later, feeling groggy from sitting and waiting, her patience wore out. She must’ve missed him. She could never do the real cop thing. How they ever did stakeouts—who knew? Nope, her first stakeout would have been a bust if she’d had to wait much longer. Patience was not one of her better virtues.
Luckily for her, the stakeout was up, because out walked a disheveled and almost frantic looking Bloomenfeld. Behind him were Blondie and the redhead, who went off in the opposite direction. They looked to be giggling and counting a wad of cash. Nikki could hear, from her open car window, Blondie yell out, “Bye, lover. Thank you.”
The redhead said, “Mucho gusto.”
Bloomenfeld didn’t look back or say anything—a man with a mission. Guess Nikki hadn’t shaken him too badly. He’d still had his, ah, priorities straight.
She laughed at this thought and turned the key. Her trustworthy Camry started up. She waited to see if he was going to get into a car. He didn’t. Not part of the plan, but okay. She rolled up the window, turned off the engine, and got out. Hopefully no one would break into her car.
She footed it behind him, keeping him in sight. He walked three blocks up and two blocks over. Nikki stopped. No, no, no. She shook her head, looking down in defeat. Now what to do? Bloomenfeld had just walked into a strip joint. Sure, she was hoping for a public venue to get a good look at his partner, but a strip bar? Not exactly her choice. Her stomach turned over. Think this one through. She really wanted to know who Bloomenfeld was meeting with inside the seedy place. God. Couldn’t this guy take a reprieve? Was he some type of sex addict? Duh! Maybe that’s where he spent his wad. Why couldn’t he have just opted for a cup of java at Starbucks?
There was one thing going for her in this situation: she realized that when she was at his office, he’d had a drink going and then followed up with another. She’d place a bet on it that he hadn’t stopped the boozing with her exit, and now inside the bar, he’d surely have another. A man who didn’t weigh much more than she did would probably be halfway to blursville by now. She decided to give it half an hour and see if Bloomenfeld and his mystery guest came out, and if not then hopefully he’d be plenty sedated and it would be plenty dim inside so that he wouldn’t take notice of her.
After some time she made her way across the street and toward the bar. That sinking feeling in her stomach came back; well, it wasn’t like it had ever left, it just grew worse.
A big dude—and that was the only way to refer to him, dude—stood at the aluminum front door. The guy had to be six foot five and two fifty. Linebacker material. He wore a chest-tight T-shirt, jeans just as tight, and a cowboy hat, which he tipped at her when she walked up to the door. “Howdy, little filly. They’ve been looking for you. You better get on in there.”
“Oh no, I don’t work here.”
“Sure.” He winked and opened the door.
Oh, no. She walked in. The John Wayne-type pervert smacked her on the ass. She grimaced but entered anyway. She found herself in the darkened bar, her eyes slowly adjusting. As they did, she realized that almost facing her from one of the booths was Bloomenfeld. His pal had his back to her and was wearing a baseball cap. The stage was to the left and she made it a point not to look at whoever was dancing to Prince’s “Darling Nikki.” Great. Just super.
Another man approached her and took her by the shoulder. When she tried to pull away from him, he squeezed even tighter. He wasn’t as big as the cowboy, but almost.
He took her to a side door. Why hadn’t she thought to take out her Mace? Who was this bozo, and why was he dragging her to the side, and now to a door? Uh-oh. She was in big trouble. He opened the door, and inside were a half dozen barely clad women sitting on locker room-type benches, putting their ma
keup on by looking at compact mirrors. One of them—a pretty, dark-haired girl, maybe twenty-two, tops—glanced up at her. The rest didn’t even notice.
“Here’s the new girl. Make sure she’s got something decent to wear.”
“Or not,” a leggy blonde remarked and they all laughed. “I thought you said that she was a redhead.”
“Redhead, blonde. I don’t know. Gary hired her. Go on. You go on in three songs, baby.”
John Wayne number two also smacked her on the butt and walked out. What was it with these idiots and their ass smacking? Jerks! With wide eyes she looked around. Jeesh, twice now she’d been mistaken for an adult entertainer. Not a good day. She couldn’t wait to get back into one of her sweater sets and a pair of jeans. She moved toward the back of the room, hoping to find an exit. At this point, she didn’t give a rat’s ass who the mystery guest was. All she wanted to do was return to the safe haven of her car and get on the freeway headed back to the pastorally calm vineyard where no one brutishly smacked your rear. What in hell was she doing? She should’ve listened to Detective Robinson and every other Joe Schmoe telling her to let the cops do their job. She was no cop, by any means, and now she got the feeling she was in a heap of trouble because there was no exit door in the small dressing room. She made her way to the back.
The attractive dark-haired girl came up to her and said, “I’m Alyssa. You’re not a dancer, are you?”
Nikki shook her head.
“Are you vice?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Who are you?”
The redhead looked over at them. “Shut up, Alyssa. Always trying to make buddies here. If you want a pal go to Girl Scout camp. Leave the new chick alone.”
“You shut up. I can talk to whoever I want.”
The redhead shot her a dirty look, got up, and walked out.
“So, what’s your deal?” Alyssa asked, her brown eyes shining. Either she was on something or totally fascinated by the newcomer.
“There’s a man out there.”
“Uh, yeah. A few.”
“Right. Well, I don’t think this guy is on the up-and-up.”
“Okay,” she said sarcastically. “There’s a surprise.”
Cut to the chase. “I think he could be involved in a murder of someone I know—I mean knew—and I’m trying to get some information so I followed him here.”
Alyssa put a hand on her hip. “Really? No bull? Yeah, there’s a lot of crap that goes down here, but murder?”
“No bull.”
“You want some help?” Alyssa asked.
Nikki nodded.
“It’ll come with a price.”
Nikki took out her wallet and handed Alyssa a hundred dollar bill.
“You’re on, sister. What do you need to know and where can I find you?”
“I need the name of the man he’s with, and see if you can find out the gist of what they’re talking about.” Nikki described Henry to Alyssa.
“I know that geek. I can’t stand him. I’ll help you, for sure.” She shook a finger at her. “You know what, I gotta tell ya, he is a bozo I could see hiring someone to do a dirty job like murder for him. He hires some of these chicks to do movies that he puts out on the Internet.”
“I thought he was a literary agent.”
“I don’t know about that. He approached me once to have some pictures taken, but I’m not into that. I’m not even into this. I’m putting myself through school. It’s a shitty job, but the pay is good. Hey, you better get out of here. Tell you what, let me do the talking to get you back out the door. My shift actually ends in an hour. I work the day shift and go to school at night. There’s a coffee shop about a mile up on Market in the 1800 block called It’s Tops. Meet me there.”
Nikki nodded. Alyssa took her hand. They looked around and didn’t see either one of the cowboys. Alyssa got her to the front door, where the cowboy still waited to hold the door for the elite patrons.
“Where’s she going?” he asked.
“She’s sick. She puked all over me. I just cleaned it up. She’s high on something. Get her out of here.” Alyssa shoved her.
“Gary ain’t gonna like this.”
“Yeah well, Gary don’t like his girls on coke either. Get out of here, honey. Sober up.” Alyssa shook her head and muttered, “White trash.”
Ouch. That really hurt. Not the first time she’d heard those words. She thought about growing up trailer-park poor back in Tennessee, speechless over Alyssa’s ploy of getting her out the door. Alyssa winked at her, turned, and went back into the bar. Nikki hiked back to her car, not sure if her ego was more wounded at the idea that Alyssa had reminded her of the roots she’d long forgotten—purposely—or if it was because the girl had just pulled off a star performance. Damn if Alyssa didn’t make a better actress than she had.
She licked her wounds and got into her car. A thought struck her. Bloomenfeld was at the bar and not in his office. Maybe she should do some snooping while he wasn’t there. No. Bad idea. Well, when did she ever listen to logic?
It wasn’t too difficult breaking into Bloomenfeld’s office. She had her handy-dandy Swiss Army knife and had used it in other similar situations—a trick her ex-detective Aunt Cara had taught her many moons ago.
She wanted to make a brief sweep and get the hell out. She started with his desk and found some files. Nothing important. She went back into the other room and found an unmade bed and some more file cabinets. She started going through them. There was a file on Georges. She pulled it out and read over it. There was the initial contract that Georges had signed. An agency agreement. Then, there was a letter of termination written by Georges, dated about six months earlier, stating that Bloomenfeld was unethical, had stolen money from him, and that Georges intended to pursue legal action if he didn’t cease and desist in his actions. Holy cow.
Now, Nikki knew why Henry had looked at her the way he had when she’d come into his office claiming that Georges always talked about him. He knew she was lying because Georges had fired him six months earlier and had threatened to sue him.
Nikki put the file back and left quickly. More and more, Henry Bloomenfeld looked to have a motive to want to see Georges six feet under. She would have to find out. But first she’d have to meet Alyssa at the coffeehouse.
She waited at the old diner-style coffee shop almost half an hour past the time Alyssa was supposed to show, and started to figure the Benjamin she’d given Alyssa had been in vain, when the girl came in dressed like a college student in a navy turtleneck and blue jeans. Nikki’s heart went out to her. Why was she dancing at The Busy Beaver?
“Sorry I’m late. The boss got pissed after you left and made me stay and do two more dances—on the house.”
“Isn’t there anything else you can do? Someplace else that you can work?”
“Like what? I’ve got a two-year-old with a heart problem, no insurance, and I got to get through school so I can get a decent job and take care of him.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. It’ll pass, right?”
Nikki reached into her purse and thought, what the hell. She handed Alyssa the other hundred dollar bill she had in her wallet. “Take it.”
Alyssa hesitated, then reached across and timidly took the cash. Nikki could see a look of vulnerability and shame. She knew it well. “Thanks. Maybe I will try to find a different job.”
Nikki smiled at her, hoping to give her some encouragement.
The waitress came over and Alyssa ordered a sandwich and a soda. The waitress gone, she looked back at Nikki. “I got a name for you.”
“You do? Who? Who was the man with Henry?”
“His name is Rick Moran.”
Chapter 14
“You know him?” Alyssa asked. The waitress set down her soda and Alyssa stuck a straw in it, swirling the crushed ice.
Nikki nodded. “I’ve met him.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.
” She tried to wrap her mind around the idea that Moran and Bloomenfeld were hanging at a strip bar right after she’d told Bloomenfeld about Georges’ murder. What were those two up to? With Bloomenfeld’s reaction to hearing about Georges’ murder, she had to wonder again if Moran had even heard the news about Georges. He’d left the restaurant right after Nikki had sat down with Janie yesterday to go over the wines. Hadn’t he? Could Bloomenfeld and Moran simply be associates or friends who met through Georges? Just because Georges broke off his relationship with Bloomenfeld didn’t mean that if Moran had cultivated one with the, uh, literary agent that he would necessarily sever ties. But none of it boded well for either man, and more and more Nikki was becoming convinced that the two of them had something to do with the murder.
“Who are you? You’re not a cop or you would’ve questioned those guys on your own. Are you a private detective?” Alyssa asked, breaking Nikki’s thoughts.
She shook her head. Funny as it was, she decided to tell Alyssa the truth. The woman deserved it. She’d gone out on a limb for her. Granted, she’d tossed her some cash, but Alyssa did seem to want to help, and Nikki didn’t exactly enjoy the white lies she’d told. From beginning to end, she told her how she knew Georges, where she worked, and how she’d found him murdered, plus who Henry Broomenfeld was in relation to Georges, as well as Rick Moran. She also told her about Janie and then being questioned herself by the police.
Alyssa studied her. “You’re doing this because that cop Jonah Robinson challenged you?”
Nikki laughed. “No. Not really.” Then she came close to pinching her thumb and index finger together. “Maybe a little.”
Alyssa smiled. “I like you. You’re cool. I can’t stand those chicks I work with. But you are very cool.”
“Thanks.” Nikki took a sip of her water. It was late and she knew she should be getting back home. She knew—as much as she didn’t want to—that she and Andrés needed to talk about things. “Plus, I think it’s even more than that for me. It’s . . . I don’t know. I liked the man. Georges, I mean. He was a character and he didn’t deserve what he got. I’m nosy, too, and this thing stinks real bad. Now with Janie coming to me . . .” Oops. Nikki had not told Alyssa about Janie’s DNA. Even though she didn’t think Alyssa would pass that info on, she’d kept it to herself. It was a promise she made to Janie. And who knew, now that Georges had started becoming a household name in the vein of Emeril, Alyssa here, desperate for money, just might find herself on the phone with a journalist from the National Enquirer.
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