Bootscootin' and Cozy Cash Mysteries Boxed Set (Books 1-6)

by Scott, D. D.

  “That will be all, Lucy,” I said, wanting her to get the hell outta Dodge and fast, just as I’d instructed her to do once she’d handed-off the jackets.

  While Larry admired the fine silk, hand-cut jacket Roxy and I had arranged from Victory’s managers, and Lowell now wore his too along with a look suggesting “whatever…just get the hell away from me so I can get on with devising a way to crush you like a bug”, I bid them both farewell and returned to my seat next to Roman.

  “Do I even want to know what just happened? Or why Grams suddenly appeared with those coats?” Roman hollered into my ears just as the lights dimmed and the music started.

  “Oh, you’ll now very soon now. Just keep a careful eye on ‘em. They won’t be bothering us much longer today,” I said, finally able to relax a tad and settle-in for the show.

  When the lights went back up, Victoria Beckham wouldn’t be the only one celebrating sweet Victory.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Forty minutes later, I was safely tucked into the rear of R’s limo, waiting on Roman to join me. I was beginning to wonder what took him so long.

  But while I was waiting, I was giggling inside, feeling quite spunky-spy, P.I.-proud to replay the crazy commotion Larry and Lowell provided following the final model’s trip down the runway.

  They looked like a bad, Russian mobster match-up of Mutt and Jeff on chiggers instead of steroids.

  I mean those two were a scratchin’ and jumpin’ around outta their seats, as if they had much more on their skin than their outrageous cologne.

  “Nice move with the pepper spray itching powder,” Roman had said after making sure I was safely in the car before returning to the scene of my small-time crime.

  “You said to use what I know about the fashion world, and runway and pageant sabotage is right up my alley. It sort of worked in the 2007 Miss Universe Pageant, so as you asked, I applied my knowledge.”

  My plan really was rather ingenuous, I thought. I’d had Roxy quickly tailor the jackets to our thugs’ sizes, which I’m a pro at figuring out thanks to my day job. And who wouldn’t take a coat from the sweetest, little old-lady assistant Grams was pretending to be.

  With Roman’s return to the limo, though, I was suddenly shaken out of my revelry.

  “Floor it. We’ve got trouble brewing,” Roman commanded R who didn’t hesitate before taking the car from parked to Monte Carlo racing speed.

  You’d have thought we were in a Formula One car, not a chauffeured limousine.

  “We’ll be going straight back to the hotel. No more Fashion Week today,” Roman then added.

  “But why not?” I asked, knowing I had to seriously start looking for Camilla’s Oscar dress.

  “Because we have more immediate concerns right now.”

  “Like what?! You know I’ve got to find a dress for Camilla de Vil. And I’ve already taken care of our thug patrol for the day.”

  Roman laughed, although his guffaw was coated in a bit of nerves covered by steel instead of amused sugar.

  “You took care of ‘em for more than just today, Plum Puddin’.”

  “Whatdaya mean? That pepper spray should wear off in a few hours, by tomorrow at the latest.” I knew that for a fact.

  We’d covered pepper spray and many self-defense items in my P.I. training. And, I’d also read every instruction sheet that came with the hot shot powder variety I’d purchased.

  “Not when it’s been mixed with cocaine.” Roman said, softly but quite matter-of-factly.

  “Cocaine?! I don’t understand. I certainly didn’t mix it with cocaine!”

  “I know you didn’t, Witherspoon. Give me a bunch more credit than that,” Roman said, lowering his head then pinching the bridge of his nose, which I’d never seen him do before, and which really, made me rather nervous. More nervous than the cocaine.

  “But Larry and Lowell did.”

  “What?!”

  “Larry and Lowell are big-time coke users. You’re probably not aware of this, but because of the high levels of epinephrine released into the body due to the pain and discomfort of the pepper spray, coupled with an already increased euphoric state of a body with cocaine in its systems, heart attacks and strokes can occur.”

  If I hadn’t been sitting, I would have crumbled to the floor and wound-up in something resembling the fetal position.

  “You mean…”

  “Yes. Lowell and Larry won’t be targeting us anymore. Congratulations, Witherspoon. You’ve taken out your first two thugs.”

  “You’re serious?!” I asked, the question more of a high-pitched squeak than a properly asked inquiry.

  “Dead serious. And so are Lowell and Larry. Seriously…dead.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Now secured in our suite at The Mayfair, I still thought the fetal position sounded like the best for me, so there I remained, on our hot pink velvet couch, curled-up in a ball like a baby yet to be born.

  All I could think about were mice.

  Why?

  Because Roman had told me about all the recent studies done on lab mice regarding lethal mixes of pepper spray and cocaine.

  And now, I’d managed to up the ante a bit.

  Who needed to focus on lab mice when you could unwittingly manage to take out big ass rats…as in Russian mob rats?!

  Oh yeah. I’d also managed to implicate my friends in my twisted plan. So now Roxy and Grams were sort of murder suspects too.

  Let’s hope my Roman the Wonder Bond could erase our blunder. If ever I needed one of his miracles, it was now.

  I remained in the fetal position, one hand hugging my stomach, as if that could settle down the flip-flop acrobatics contained within, while I used my other hand to try and rub out the massive twinges of WTF grief spearing my forehead.

  Feeling first Roman’s strong hands on my thighs, then his soothing voice, asking me to scoot over so he could sit down, I vacated my fantasy hell for a moment, deciding that prison stripes definitely weren’t my best look.

  “Are you okay?” He asked, although, I knew from the sincere concern in his voice, he knew the answer was definitely no but cared enough to ask anyway and do what he could to make the answer a yes, sort of.

  “You know…your first deaths are always the roughest. After that initial one, it gets a bit easier to take. And look at it this way, you got two for the price of one. So you should be good to go.”

  I gave him one of my looks. You know, the look that says “yeah, whatever Asshole. I’m thrilled you’re amused at my expense.”

  Although, hearing his take on my death by pepper spray journey, I was a bit relieved. Not that I planned to let him know this little fact.

  “Besides,” he continued, doing his best to cheer me up which I did appreciate and which did further endear him to me, although I sure as hell wasn’t sharing that fact either, “just like in the USA, the governments here in Europe treat the large-gun criminals, and the pepper spray variety, with kid gloves. It’s only the small-time cons that get the rough stuff. And being as you knocked-off two of the largest goons known to be Russian mob-affiliates, you’ll be praised for your efforts and quite possibly thanked.”

  That sounded pretty good, I thought, relaxing into the power of Roman’s fingers massaging my stressed-out temples.

  How ‘bout if I just disappeared under the spell of his muscular fingertips…never to be heard or seen from again?

  ‘Course Camilla de Vil would find me, being as I still had yet to find her a dress. And that bitch would be harder to shake than the entire Russian mob combined.

  But…we did have Milan’s Fashion Week next. And the Italian designers never let me down.

  Just like I was now learning to count on my Italian Stallion Bond Boy, who I’d decided gave the best damn head massages ever.

  I used to think that title went to my gay, master stylist back in Beverly Hills. But indeed, a new King of the Massage Throne had just been crowned. A chick could get used to this. Wow. Sooo used t
o this, I thought, as he ran his fingertips through my hair then did one of those lift-off techniques where it feels like your body is following his fingertips, off the top of your head, in one, long string of fantasmic ecstasy.

  I sat-up and curled my legs underneath me on the sofa, adopting one of my fave, Zen thinking poses.

  “So, we know the US Government doesn’t care if you’re cooking the books at large Wall Street corporations and institutions, and consequently, do not protect investors as they’re supposed to,” I said, trying once more to begin piecing together all our US evidence, deaths and financial destruction with what we’d discovered in Vienna and now London as well.

  “Right. So unless the investors get royally screwed, as McCall’s Ponzi-scheming groups did, nothing happens. Everyone looks the other way. As long as the money’s flowing, there’s no trouble. But when it stops…”

  “Exactly. When it stops. Look out. In our Cozy Cash Case then we have McCall whose money well ran dry. Which meant none of Sonja’s European investors would get paid. And…those investors didn’t just lose their expected interest and returns, in their case, their principle investments were lost too, right?”

  “Right so far. Many investors, here in Europe…well..let’s just say, we’ve now gone from riches to super riches to rags. And some from rags to riches to rags.”

  “What do you mean we? I thought you were a U.S. Marshal based in New York City and sometimes D.C.?”

  I couldn’t resist the temptation to once again try to pinpoint his truth.

  All I knew for sure was he sure wasn’t givin’ it to me yet.

  “Just a figure of speech,” he said, evidently unwilling to bite this time, although the brief flash of hot red flush I saw briefly burn his neck was good enough for me to know I’d hit on something a little too close for comfort.

  “Right. That must be it. Just a figure of speech,” I said, deciding not to keep hitting him now because I was on a roll with Cozy Cash and couldn’t afford to stop my intelligence train before it crossed the section of track I was going toward full-throttle.

  “As far as motivations to take people out…I get Larry and Lowell coming after us, since evidently we’ve been too close to some part of their role in the entire scheme which resulted in their brother Ludwig taking a couple bullets that did him in,” I continued, hardly taking time to breathe so as not to lose my line of reasoning.

  “Okay, Witherspoon. Let’s go with that a little further. So someone beats us to Ludwig. And someone also beat us to your friend Zicower. We know the Ludwig, Larry and Lowell connection. We know their connection to Sonja Medici. We know Zicower’s personal banker was Sonja Medici. So is Sonja calling the shots?”

  “Or is she just on the run, scared shitless of the mobsters she’d once made incredibly rich and now turned into damn near street urchins? And what if she’s about outta cash herself to keep the mob bought off and her and her family still counted among the living on this Earth?”

  “Well done, Witherspoon. Now let me throw this part out there too,” Roman said leaning back against the crushed velvet of the sofa, looking mighty fine, even though he was surrounded in the hottest shade of pink I’d ever seen around a man.

  In fact, his dangerously dark, Italian olive skin reeked a come-get-me-now invitation I could hardly shake to focus on our Dead Guys and who was next in line for that esteemed list.

  “Larry and Lowell may have been chasing us down, but, and no offense to be taken here, they’re way too inept to mastermind all this. And we know, well, at least we don’t think they had any vendettas against their brother, so thus, they didn’t take out Ludwig.”

  “I see what you’re getting at, SB. Who killed Ludwig? And also, who killed Zicower? That’s who’s after us, right?”

  “Could be. I wouldn’t bank on it,” Roman said, an ornery smile forming across his lips, making that come-get-me-now invitation scream I’m-waiting-on-you.

  Before I got way too involved with my new “boyfriend”, I took our guessing games and deductive or inductive reasoning—I never could remember which was which—a step further.

  “Speaking of banking. From what I’ve read on Sonja, she doesn’t seem the type to have the balls to actually kill people,” I ventured, not even sure I believed that, but thought I’d like Roman’s opinion.

  “Never ever underestimate what people will do when they’re desperate,” Roman said, his eyes turning a midnight darkness, sans starlight, that I hadn’t seen for a few days.

  That shade I was growing more and more afraid of. But, at the same time, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the root of the resolve and passion cloaked underneath that kinda darkness.

  “Maybe Sonja herself wouldn’t do the deed, but she’s certainly stashed away enough of her McCall kick-back cash to pay someone else very well to take care of anything or anyone threatening her criminal exposure any more than it’s already been exposed,” Roman suggested.

  “I see what you’re saying. And she’d have time on her side, wouldn’t she? Because we both know how long it takes government agencies to investigate and bring cases to justice. Hell, it’s taken ‘em nine years to even initially bring down McCall. Governments just don’t mess with the kings of their financial industries, especially when these people are widely respected philanthropists, chairman of big-time commissions like NASDAQ, and also when those same bad guys are feeding government officials tons of cozy cash on the side, right?”

  “Now you’re getting it, Plum Puddin’. Taking on men and women of McCall and Sonja Medici’s caliber often requires whistleblowers who risk their own and their families’ safety. Think back to how much your friend Alexandra McCall lived in fear, knowing her father had stolen from all these Russian mafia and other drug cartels. She was more than justified in her fears. Hell, whistleblowers exposing mere million dollar scams have been beaten with bricks in Boston. What do you think exposing billions will get you?”

  I shivered thinking of what we were up against. I don’t think, ‘til that moment, I realized how damn scary our situation was.

  We were about to expose more than two decades of Cozy Cash scheming, on money from mobsters that had never once been invested in anything except Sonja and Bernie’s beyond decadent lifestyles.

  We’re talkin’ $65 billion dollars at least. A whole helluva ton of cash.

  But whose cash was it to begin with?

  That’s what we had to keep tracking to find our killer or killers.

  “So who besides our fave banking bitch Sonja has the most to lose with all this exposure?” I pondered aloud.

  “It’s whose lost the most already and wants it back at all costs,” Roman said, staring into the fire crackling across the room from our sofa.

  The bright orange and red flames flickered off his ebony black eyes, creating a danger zone I knew I was about to become part of.

  I guess I already was. But why make me scared shitless even further?

  Maybe we’d find part of the answers we needed in Milan.

  At least I hoped so.

  And beyond that, we’d better find a damn amazing dress for Camilla.

  If I wasn’t a victim of foul play, complements of the mob, I’d be in some kinda torturous hell, by Oscar time, without a beyond fabulous dress for Camilla de Vil.

  Chapter Seventeen

  In my studies on McCall’s fall, I’d read an account by a veteran business writer who advised all journalists, regardless of the story they’re working on, to follow the money. He claimed that eventually, most crimes come back to the money. Or at least that it was the money that linked all the other pieces together.

  Roman had asked me to consider who now had the most to lose from McCall’s fall. Better yet, who had already lost the most?

  And I think on the flight to Milan’s Fashion Week, I had the answer he was prompting me to hone-in on.

  There may have been three Kohn brothers—Ludwig, Lowell and Larry—but shortly after Roman and I had propelled down the side of o
ur first skyscraper together, he clued me in about their sister Lucinda. And if I recalled correctly, he said the three Kohn stooges were nothing when held up against Lucinda.

  As soon as we’d landed, been shuttled to our castle by our beloved R, and yeah, I said castle, as in this grand Baroque of a place that certainly gave the famed Palace of Caserta a run for its grandeur, I got right to work learning all-things-Lucinda-Kohn.

  Even though, yes, I’d much rather be exploring the castle grounds with the rest of our Cozy Cash Crew.

  I laughed all to myself. Here I was tucked away in Roman and I’s big ass bedroom that looked more like its own, miniature, Vatican City. But once The Mom Squad and my three BFFs got done exploring, the castle grounds would never be the same, and neither would The Vatican.

  And what a hoot that my dearly despised Camilla was finally staying at a place she deemed worthy of her highfalutin, annoying as hell and arrogant ass. Hell, she might even feel a bit underprivileged to be here. The rest of sure as heck did.

  But not my Secret Bond. He not only seemed comfortable—except when dealing with my bemused preoccupation with how it was he came into arranging for us to stay here—he seemed to know his way around as if he’d been here many times before. Same with R.

  Wishing again I could be touring the elaborate grounds with the rest of my crew, I tapped my nails against all the photos of Lucinda I’d just printed off in the private office adjoining our bedroom.

  Bedroom. Right.

  I mean our quarter of the castle. Saying bedroom just didn’t cover the size of our private wing.

  Most any celebrity home in Beverly Hills would have fit very easily into our wing of this castle. Its gardens, pools and tennis courts included.

  Well, damn, I thought, really looking at the overall collage of photos I’d put together of Lucinda Kohn. She looked sooo much like Victoria Gotti, the daughter of John Gotti, boss of the Gambino crime family, and now a Reality TV star in her own right, it made for a very eerie coincidence. And the two of ‘em combined could be twin sisters with my Camilla de Vil.