“What I said was, don’t even think about taking my fucking parking space. I’m not in the mood.” Stella leaned down, forearm resting on his open window, until she was looking the man in the eye, their faces inches apart.
“Yeah? Well, I don’t care what sort of menopausal hissy fit you got going on,” he snapped, and in the fraction of a second when his gaze tracked from her to the space that was finally being vacated by the elderly gent, when his hands shifted on the wheel, when his foot began its journey to the pedal, Stella had a rush of the kind of killer instinct that she’d honed to a razor edge, which had served her well in so many of these good-versus-asshole moments.
She shot out her hand and grabbed a handful of crotch, dug in her fingers with the concentrated force of all her might, just like she’d learned to do during all those months of physical therapy, and gave a ferocious twist.
He screamed. Stella dug in and twisted some more.
“We clear?” she demanded, so close now, she could smell his aftershave, mixed with sweat and fear.
“Yeah-yeah-yeah-please-yeah-please,” he blubbered, scrabbling with his damp and squishy hand, trying to dislodge her iron grip. But he was messing with an angry woman who’d cleared the midcentury mark with attitude to spare, and that put him at a distinct disadvantage.
“Drive forward very slowly,” Stella suggested. “If you go too fast, I’m liable to keep your balls as a souvenir.”
The car began to move, at about the pace an ocean liner would go if it had started at a standstill on calm waters. Stella strolled along until she was satisfied that her new friend had time to process the situation.
“Now, explain to me how you just had a moment of poor judgment, which has thankfully now passed,” she said. “And how you feel about that little incident a few minutes ago.”
“I’m so-so-so-sorry I tried to take your spot,” he stammered. His face was now turning an interesting shade of green.
“And I won’t do it again to some other lady in the future.”
“And I wo-wo-won’t … I won’t…”
Well, that was good enough, she supposed. She released him and gave the windowsill a little pat. “Drive safe now,” she said as she stepped back and the car shot forward.
Back in the Jeep, Chrissy was shaking her head. “You and your violent ways. Got to solve everything with pain, don’t you.”
“Don’t sass me, little girl. I ain’t in the mood.”
She executed a perfect three-point parking job, which surprised even her—there wasn’t much call to put those skills to the test in Prosper—and grabbed her purse and made a hasty exit.
“We cain’t go in there like this,” Chrissy said as Stella fed coins into the meter. “We ain’t dressed for the occasion—we’ll stand out. Come on.” She grabbed Stella’s arm and spun her down the street in the other direction from the hotel.
“Where we going?”
“To fancy up some.” She led the way down the street at a good clip and force-marched Stella into a storefront whose sign had big sparkly red letters spelling WIG’N’MORE. In the windows, as the name suggested, a variety of hairdos were displayed on featureless foam heads, decked in piles of glittering costume jewelry, draped with scarves and boas and crystal-studded eyeglasses.
“That isn’t gonna help us,” Stella complained. “Besides, I bet they mark everything up to city prices.”
“We ain’t exactly bustin’ out with options here,” Chrissy insisted. “And we don’t want to miss that party, do we? In case you haven’t noticed, we are in the middle of a city we don’t know nothing about, and far as I can tell, it’s this joint or nothing. Besides, we got that hush money from Jake and Lawrence—it won’t kill us to spend a little. So shut your damn trap and let’s see what they got.”
* * *
Stella’s fears about blending into the party were set to rest the minute they entered the ballroom marked with a sign reading SEVERANCE CHRISTENING. It was jammed with people—easily over a hundred guests milled about, helping themselves from the buffet line, lining up at the open bar, admiring the ice sculpture of a cherub riding a dolphin.
And it wasn’t just the crowd that put her at ease, or the fact that it appeared to be open seating, with the guests milling about on a wave of boozy good cheer despite the fact that the usual cocktail hour was quite a ways off.
No, what really heartened Stella was that the bastard child—baby Tremayne—appeared to have sprung from a blended family. Blended in the sense that half the guests looked like they rode over on the Mayflower—the men dressed in navy blazers and striped ties and even the occasional ascot, the women in more conservative versions of the solid-colored suit that the judge wore. But the other half had taken a decidedly more lowbrow interpretation of the dress code. The women wore giant-print dresses and miniskirts and high-heeled sandals and ankle bracelets. The men sported a fair number of slicked-back mullet-esque haircuts, and shiny double-breasted jackets and silk shirts open at the throat, all the better to show off their gentlemen’s jewelry.
“Why, some a these gals make me look downright sophisticated,” Chrissy marveled, echoing Stella’s own unspoken sentiment.
Not that Chrissy looked bad. In fact, she had a certain preening charm that was not lost on any of the men in the vicinity. Wig’n’More had yielded a lace-up bustier top, which, coupled with the black pants Chrissy had been wearing as well as a pair of lime green mules that had been tucked away in the sale shelf at the back of the shop, looked quite fetching. She had accessorized with a pair of dangly green crystal chandelier earrings and a chunky gold bracelet, but the most memorable accessory had to be her own cleavage, which had attained an astonishing new level of magnificence with all the extra support lent by the stiff leatherette material from which the bustier had been crafted.
Stella had to settle for something a bit more sedate. The proprietress of the shop—CALL ME MYSTI, her name tag had commanded—gave her only the briefest of once-overs before fetching a number of things from the “hold” rack, claiming that they were so much better with Stella’s fair coloring and lovely eyes that it would be a crime for her to selfishly hold them back for another customer. All of which Stella saw right through, but when she slipped on the silver burn-out velvet jacket over the matching stretch-velvet tank top, and added some fake pearls that would have had to come out of twenty-pound oysters, she had to admit that she looked fine, fine, fine.
Now, scanning the room, she was aware of the smooth stretchy fabric keeping her midsection nicely restrained, of the jaunty stance forced on her by the new silver-strapped sandals of astonishing height. The shoes might be the death of her, seeing as they were barely walkable, but it would be a pretty death, at least—Stella would go out clutching the sparkly handbag that their new friend Mysti had talked her into.
The clothes were an unexpected expense, it was true, and something Stella hadn’t budgeted for. But they were a business expense, and that ought to count for something. Plus, maybe she’d get herself invited somewhere special for dinner and dancing by a certain gentleman friend. The silver ensemble would come in plenty handy then, wouldn’t it?
Stella had a firm rule: She refused to engage in any of the petty competition that seemed to come over so many women when it came to men. Stella rued the millennia it must have taken to lodge in the female mind that they had to brawl for limited resources, except nowadays instead of fighting over a berry bush or roasted brontosaurus leg, women seemed ready to throw down over any kind of man, including the good-for-nothing ones. Why, it was epidemic—as anyone who flipped on the Maury show could see.
Marilu, however, didn’t appear to share that perspective. She was standing in a circle of ladies, all appearing to harken from the old-money clan, with Beau hovering behind her as though he were there to hold an invisible train. Stella couldn’t make out her words, but it was clear she was the center of the conversation, talking and laughing and occasionally touching the arm of her handsome escort in a decid
edly proprietary way.
“What we need to do,” she said thoughtfully to Chrissy, “is we need to separate those two.”
“You want to git the judge off by herself?” Chrissy asked, piling a plate high with mini quiches and darling little deep-fried puffs of something glistening and golden. “Can I just have me a snack first? I ain’t really had a lot of sustenance yet today.”
Stella helped herself to a puff: cheesy, and spiced up with little chive bits. “Put some in your purse for later,” she advised. “I don’t think we want to wait—you know how these things are, folks start drifting off when all the good stuff is gone, and nobody really wants to stick around to watch them open up their baby gifts.”
“Oh, yeah, I hate that,” Chrissy said. “Every fuckin’ baby shower I go to? First they make you play all them stupid diaper-pin games and then you got to sit there and watch ’em and it’s like, get over it, it’s another damn bib and you know the kid’s just going to puke all over it.”
“That’s a terrible attitude—and you a mother yourself,” Stella clucked, shaking her head. “What do you want ’em to do, show porn movies? Set up a poker game?”
“Just sayin’.”
“Okay, Little Miss Sunshine, I’ll take lover boy. Give me ten minutes or so, and then get the judge off somewhere you two can talk.”
“Whyn’t I take him, and you deal with Marilu?”
Stella rolled her eyes. “Right. I know you can’t leave a piece of man candy alone for thirty seconds without taking a bite. Besides, we got to give that gal a reason to crack.”
“Oh, so you’re fixing to beat him up?”
“Come on, now, you don’t want me to take all the surprise out of it, do you?”
Stella popped one last cheese ball in her mouth and wiped her fingers on a paper cocktail napkin—light blue, so maybe the tyke truly was a boy after all. She made her way through the crowd of folks, scoring a glance at the guest of honor, a wrinkled, homely little thing being passed among a thicket of starchy older ladies with ponderous handbags who appeared to be examining him for defects. Stella couldn’t help noticing that the old gals from the other side of the family seemed to be having a lot more fun; they’d set up camp in a cluster of upholstered chairs in a corner, a trio of champagne bottles in the center of the table, and several had taken their shoes off and a few had their wigs askew and their lipstick a little sloppy. One had brought, in lieu of a purse, a recycle bag from Green Foods, the kind you were supposed to carry around so they didn’t waste a paper bag on you; on the side was emblazoned BECAUSE WE CARE, and its owner was tipping an entire tray of mini sandwiches into it.
My people, Stella thought warmly.
She circled Marilu’s cluster of acquaintances, easing behind a balloon-festooned column and listening carefully.
“… conversational Mandarin,” Marilu was saying. “Isn’t that right, Beau?”
“Um, yeah.” Beau nodded and flashed his megawatt smile.
“I imagine that’s very helpful in your business,” one of the ladies said, appearing drawn toward him like a magnet.
Another gal, one who bore a striking resemblance to Marilu herself, but lacking the expensive polish, made a harrumphing sound. “And what exactly was your business?” she demanded. “I don’t recall.”
Marilu shot her a look that could freeze lava. “Beau works in futures,” she said frostily. “Really, Dorcas, I doubt we want to bore anyone with the details.”
Stella slipped from behind the column and tapped Beau on the arm. “Sir,” she murmured, “you have a call from Tokyo. I’m sorry to bother you, but he insisted it was most urgent.”
Beau’s eyebrows shot up with surprise. “Me? I didn’t—”
“The gentleman explained that you had given strict orders not to be disturbed,” Stella said hastily, aware of the ladies’ sudden and keen attention. She shifted slightly so her back was turned to Marilu. “He was terribly sorry, but said to mention there is a crisis in the, uh, London office that requires your immediate attention.”
For a moment Beau glanced around, openmouthed, as though looking for guidance. Stella gave his sleeve a little tug, but he seemed rooted to the spot. Not an improviser, she observed, and perhaps not all that bright after all.
“Go, sweetie,” Marilu said, the first to regain her composure. Stella chanced a quick look and found that the judge’s eyes were narrowed with great interest as she examined her. “That sounds important.”
“Oh. Okay. I. Um.”
Stella tugged more firmly and led him away from the group. She dragged him down the hall and into an alcove, where a bank of pay phones lined up in lonesome neglect, keeping up a steady stream of chatter about the party and the hotel, and maneuvered him easily into a corner out of view from passersby.
Then she slipped her little handgun from her purse and pressed it to the front of his pants.
Chapter Eighteen
“Hey!” he yelped. “What the fuck!”
Stella jabbed a little harder, getting a grunt in response. “Don’t move, and keep your voice down. Put your hands together behind your back. Easy now.”
He did as she asked, very slowly, while his face displayed three kinds of wonderment and confusion. “I think you might have me confused with someone else,” he finally said.
“Don’t think so. Beau your real name?”
He managed to look hurt. “Yes. I mean, I use a professional last name, Mandrake— Hey, did Priss sic you on me?”
Stella tried to keep the surprise out of her face. What a fascinating development. “We’ll save that conversation for upstairs. How much cash you got?”
“How much … you want my cash?”
“I don’t want it, no. But the nice lady at the front desk is going to want it when we march over there and get us a room.”
“You want to get a room? Christ, lady, you could of just said so. I mean you didn’t have to go threatenin’ me this way. Only, it’s not going to help my performance much if you plan to keep that gun on me the whole time.”
“Hold on, bucko, that ain’t what I got in mind. You’re not my type.”
He gave her a world-weary eye-roll. “Trust me, I’m your type. I’m everyone’s type. I mean I don’t mean to brag or anything, but there’s a reason I’m the second-most-requested guy in the company.”
“Yeah, well, not today.” Stella explained what she had in mind and tucked the gun into her purse, and then they walked companionably to the lobby, avoiding the party, her arm looped through Beau’s. He paid in cash and managed to stay remarkably calm. When the desk clerk insisted on seeing a credit card, Stella squinted at it and read BEAU FAHRQUARDT.
Mandrake, indeed.
“So, all you rental fellas use made-up names?” she asked as they rode the elevator to the fourth floor.
“I don’t believe I like your tone,” he said, blushing, and they stayed silent the rest of the way to the room, where Beau slipped the key card into the lock and held the door for her. She had to admit that his manners were very nice.
Inside, she motioned him to the bed farthest from the door, and sat on the other bed and kicked off her shoes, which were rubbing across her instep painfully.
“I knew it,” he exclaimed, a look of resignation taking over his features. “So now we get down to it. You must a got something awful nasty in mind if you couldn’t even find anyone to pay to do it.”
“I told you I ain’t interested in your professional skills,” Stella snapped.
Beau’s whispered “dyke” was quiet indeed, but not so quiet that Stella didn’t catch it. Figures, she thought stonily, tell a man you aren’t interested and suddenly you’re gay. Maybe Noelle was on to something after all—at least if she hooked up with another gal, she wouldn’t have to put up with this kind of nonsense.
“I got a few questions for you, and I ain’t real interested in the long version, so you might as well get right to the point. First. Why’d you think Priss sent me? How do you know her?�
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Beau’s neatly groomed eyebrows took another trip north. “Huh?”
“I said—” Stella repeated herself, slowly and with great care.
“I. Work. For Her,” Beau said, replying with an identical spacing and emphasis of words, looking at Stella as though she might be slow. “She. Is. My. Boss.”
“I get that, fucktard, but what is it you do for her? You, um, service her or what?”
Beau’s eyes narrowed and he looked at her with great suspicion. “She owns the business.”
“What, the landscaping business?”
“What the—? No, she owns Elegant Company. You know, the whole thing. Eighteen employees. Well, seventeen, now she killed Keller.”
“Now that she … slow down. What’s Elegant Company?”
Beau gave her a look of incredulity. “The escort service! Are you sure you know what you’re doing? ’Cause you sure don’t seem to know much—”
Stella slapped him medium hard with the side of the gun barrel. “Shut up and let me think. Priss Porter runs an escort service. Not a landscape business, not a, a, legitimate business of any sort?”
“Yeah.”
“And you think she killed one of her employees? Another escort?”
“Yes, Keller McManus. A couple days ago, she sent us all an e-mail saying—well, it’s not like she came out and admitted she killed him, ’cause you can’t go writing that kind of stuff in an e-mail, but she said he’d been disposed of and shouldn’t none of the rest of us be asking questions unless we wanted to worry about our own futures. Mighty threatening, you ask me. ”
“What’d he look like, anyway?”
Beau touched his hands to his hair, which maintained its sassy razor-cut fullness despite the rigors of having been kidnapped at gunpoint. “Well, good, of course. Kind of a Matthew McConaughey build. Probably around a forty-two long. Circumcised—”
“Blond or brown? Facial hair?” Stella couldn’t add much about the rest of his features, since they’d been, well, dead, and grayish and unfresh and quite possibly swollen. “Wearing a brown leather coat?
A Bad Day for Scandal Page 13
