by Heidi Lowe
When Willa spoke again, her voice took on a different tone, a husky, deep and sensual resonance that Layke could almost feel all over her flesh. “That's just because you have no idea what I'm capable of. I can do things to your body that you never thought possible. Could touch you in places undiscovered on the female anatomy. Force noises from your lips that you've never made before, or thought you could make. First I'd explore you with my fingers, then with my tongue, and then with both, simultaneous, working you over like I'm powered by electricity. And when you're on the edge, right at the tip, so close you can taste the orgasm on your tongue, feel it sizzling your skin, and you're afraid of how hard the climax will be, afraid your body can't take it, I would...”
Layke didn't realize her breathing had grown erratic and heavy, didn't realize she'd licked her lips, didn't notice that during the painfully slow but tortuously hot monologue Willa delivered, she'd grabbed her own thigh and had squeezed so tight she'd almost torn the fabric of her trousers. She wanted to ask, What? What would you do? That was the extent of her delirium. Never had she imagined that mere words could turn her in to putty, could cause the type of throbbing in her loins that she could only describe as debilitating. Nothing she said or did now would ever get her out of this. Because the tiny, victorious smile that appeared on Willa's face then was telling. Willa knew, she'd seen it all. The crippling desire, that beast-like hunger: she knew that Layke wanted her.
“Well, you'll just have to leave that to your imagination, detective... Or not...”
Layke couldn't get up fast enough. She stumbled out of her seat and practically sprinted out of the diner, wet and uncomfortable, and totally busted.
SEVEN
If Willa's goal was to unnerve her by causing her to question everything she thought she knew about herself, she'd succeeded masterfully. She'd immobilized the enemy, taken her out of the battle using one simple, yet highly precarious weapon, often overlooked: her sexuality. And Willa di Blasio oozed sex appeal like she invented it herself.
The more Layke thought about it, the more confused she became. As she sat down in the briefing room, lost in a daze while her team sergeant jabbered on, more unsure than she had ever been, she had difficulty fathoming how it had even worked on her. She'd admired plenty of women before, sure, but it had never gone as far as this. Well, except the head cheerleader in high school whom, now that she thought about it, she'd crushed on hard in senior year.
Holy shit! It was a crush, Layke thought, feeling slightly lightheaded with the revelation. Mere admiration didn't compel you to join the squad just so you could spend time with her. Funny, she remembered her name even now – Zoe Ellis – yet she couldn't remember the names of the guys she'd dated in school.
Once she'd started down that road, however, she didn't like the destination. She wasn't ready to admit or accept the truth, and no two-bit criminal arms-dealer would force her to, no matter how irresistible she was, no matter how much she promised to do to her. Layke's only recourse had been to steer clear of Willa for a few days. She couldn't face her, not after their last encounter in the diner. Fear. The fear of not knowing what Willa might do to her; but most of all, not knowing what she, Layke, would happily let her do. Her resolve, she realized, was slowly being chipped away at.
“I think it's probably prudent for us to add this little missy here,” her boss said, which was the first thing she'd heard since she'd sat down, now out of her daze. On a large white board filled with pictures and various colored lines and notes connecting them, another photo was added. Beneath the three other di Blasio children, a hazy picture of Willa, shot from a distance, joined her brothers. He scribbled her name below her picture. “Willa di Blasio. Thanks to Layke's contribution, nice catch by the way, we know that this girl is involved in the family organization, though we are still unable to ascertain in what capacity.”
I told you what capacity – she's the boss, Layke mused but didn't say. If they hadn't believed her the first dozen times she'd said it, why would they do so now? The bottom line was that she'd succeeded in drawing their attention to Willa, making her a person of interest.
“At present she isn't a concern of ours, though I would appreciate it if you continued to keep tabs on her, Owen,” he went on, missing the brief look of despair that passed across Layke's face. How was he to know that her will was weakening, that she was currently being tempted by the most forbidden of fruit?
“Yes, sir,” she mumbled.
Her boss tapped his index finger on one of the pictures to the left of the board, beneath the heading Warehouse Deceased. It was a young guy, early-twenties, good-looking with a cheeky grin. “We just got word that this guy is, as we suspected, Luca Gambiani. He was Eddie Ambrisi's nephew, his sister's son. They were very close apparently. So you know what this means, don't you?”
“Revenge,” one detective said with a little laugh. “I'm surprised he hasn't hit back already. What's taking him so long? He had the daughter of his enemy within his grasp and he let her walk away alive.”
“Maybe he's a gentleman,” Corman suggested, and got a few snickers from the others.
“Maybe he doesn't know.” Everyone turned to look at Layke when she spoke.
“How can he not know? He met with her, didn't he?” someone said, skepticism heavy in his voice.
“I'm sure he knows which camp she's in, but that doesn't mean he knows her true identity. I couldn't tell either way, they were speaking Italian when I arrived.”
“Okay, but it still doesn't explain why he didn't strike back then,” the first detective said. “If I were him I would have taken my chance.”
“It does if he's got something bigger planned,” Corman said. “The Italians are just as meticulous as the di Blasios. The meeting was probably their way of luring the di Blasios into a false sense of security.”
“We should just sit back and let them kill each other. Job done.” This suggestion from Velazquez, though made in jest, received several hearty groans of agreement.
“There's a better way. What if we got Ambrisi to talk? Got him to rat the di Blasios out?”
“When have you ever known a gangster to rat on anyone, Owen?” She hated it when Corman gave her one of those condescending looks, with his head tilted to one side. “He'll take care of this in-house. You know they don't trust the law.”
“It's his nephew, this time it might be different,” Layke said.
“Well I think it's worth a shot,” Velazquez said beside Layke, giving her a friendly, reassuring smile and nod. As the only two women in the room among five men, female solidarity went a long way. “Ambrisi's smart enough to know that he would never win in a war of attrition against the di Blasios, especially after losing seven of his guys. Turning on them if they in fact did ambush him, killing his nephew, that might be his only chance to get back at them.”
Their boss, after a long pause and a tired sigh, signed off on it.
“Hey, thanks for having my back in there,” Layke said as she and Velazquez stepped into her car.”
“No problem. You really think he'll talk?”
“Nope. But what other leads do we have?”
If his enemies or victims would have seen him at that moment, floating in his large pool on an inflatable red lounge float belonging to his wife, the sun's rays streaming down on him, browning him, they would never have believed he was one of the most dangerous men in Miami. He looked placid in his multicolored trunks, his sunglasses on, his large, round stomach shiny in the sunlight, water glistening off it.
“Mr. Eddie, you have visitors,” his housemaid said, her Italian accent strong. She was old and small but moved with surprising agility as she led Layke and Velazquez out to the pool.
When Eddie woke from his slumber and saw the two beautiful women in suits standing at the edge of his pool, he thought his ship had finally come in. He removed his sunglasses and smiled eagerly.
“Did I drown while I was sleeping and go to Heaven?” he said, cruising his
eyes over both of them, pleased with what he saw. “How 'bout you ladies get out of those hot clothes and come join me in here. Plenty of room. The wife won't be back for hours.”
They rolled their eyes in unison, then with almost practiced synchrony held up their badges and introduced themselves formally.
“Wait, now I remember you. You were the badge that came into the diner a few days ago.” His whole demeanor changed then, became hostile. “What do you want? Shouldn't you girls be painting your nails or something, instead of wasting my time.”
“Whoa, slow down, Mr Ambrisi,” Velazquez said, amused and seemingly unaffected by the slight against her sex. “We haven't even gotten to the reason for our visit yet. How do you know we're going to waste your time?”
“Because I already know why you're here, and I don't know anything.”
“You buried your nephew recently. You want to tell us about that? He was at the warehouse, right?” Layke said.
“Yeah, a bunch of my guys were throwing a party. Some hooded fellas came by, shot the place up.” He spoke with no emotion, with a rehearsed tone to his address.
“A party?” Layke said incredulously. “Do you usually throw parties with machine guns?”
“They were a wild bunch,” he said evenly, putting his shades back on. “I didn't know half the things those guys got up to. No one tells me anything anymore.” He gave them a little white smile to accompany his big white lie.
“So you have no idea who took your men out?” Velazquez asked.
“No, sorry, I don't. A lot of people don't like Italians, can you believe it? Or maybe it was just a gratuitous act by some bored teenagers.”
“You really expect us to believe that?” Layke couldn't help her rising agitation. His nephew and some of his best men had been gunned down in cold blood, and he was as cool as a day in Greenland. Was murder and death so commonplace in his world that it no longer affected him?
“What if we told you we know who did it?” she said.
“I'd hope you got a conviction that would hold, then jailed them for the rest of their miserable lives.” He was saying the right things, but everyone knew he didn't mean a word of it.
“So you're not even a little bit curious to know who was behind it?” Velazquez said.
“I trust the law to take care of it. After all, that's your job isn't it?”
“Well, we can only do it if good people like you come forward with any information they have,” Layke said. “I mean, with your testimony, Mr. Ambrisi, we could put some very bad people away for a very long time. Wouldn't you want that for Luca?”
Ambrisi turned his hands over hopelessly. “What can I say, if I knew anything I would certainly tell you guys.” Everything he said was said coyly; an act reserved mainly for the law, in all of its forms, whether in front of the cops or in front of the judge. It hadn't failed him yet.
“Okay, then maybe you can tell me what you were doing meeting with someone from the di Blasio camp when I saw you at the diner?”
“I was getting coffee with a beautiful woman. That's not a crime is it?”
“What did you talk about, out of curiosity?”
“I don't know, the weather. The Dolphins. This and that. Their secretary's an interesting girl.”
Layke narrowed her eyes at him. “So you didn't talk about the warehouse massacre?”
“Why would we have?”
“Oh, you know why, Mr. Ambrisi,” Velazquez said. They were skirting the line. Although she knew he was fully aware of who the shooters were, it would have been gross misconduct to tell him, just on the off chance that he didn't. Detectives couldn't be responsible for starting a war.
“No, I don't. Now if you don't mind, I wanna get back to my sleep. You ladies run along now.” He waved them away with a dismissive hand.
“You do know, sir, that just in case you were thinking of striking back, you wouldn't stand a chance against the group in question,” Layke said. Her patience had run out, and she realized they'd wasted their time coming. “They have more power, more people, more weapons, and they're a thousand times smarter than you. So do yourself a favor and tell us what you know. We're the only ones who can help you. If they ambushed you, and we both know that's exactly what happened here, it means whatever truce, whatever respect they once had for you, is gone. Probably died with Maurice di Blasio.”
“You should leave now.” No trace of the false gaiety remained in his voice when he spoke. All that could be heard was contained fury.
“We're going.” Velazquez touched an equally furious Layke on the arm as though trying to drag her from her tiny rage cloud. “Have a nice day, Mr. Ambrisi.”
As they made their way back into the house to leave, Layke stopped. “Just one more thing. The “secretary” you had coffee with... that was Willa di Blasio, Maurice's daughter. And she's in charge. She told you she was their secretary? Looks like they're still playing you.”
Behind his expensive glasses, his eyes burned with fire. Layke didn't see it, didn't even look back to see his reaction. She didn't have to. She knew what effect her words would have.
If you wanted to do business, the best place to do it was surrounded by alcohol and beautiful women. That was what Willa's father always said. He'd instilled this into her when she came of age; at sixteen, when he'd allowed her to listen in on her first meeting, stashing her in the backroom of his office in the old strip club, before it burned down. She remembered being appalled by the way her father's business partners spoke about women, as though they were nothing more than cheap toys for cheap thrills. The language was filthy. Even if she hadn't already known that she was gay years before, these men would have got her there.
“That's life, honey,” her dad had said with a shrug, after she'd voiced her outrage.
Though he probably didn't know it, she lost a little bit of respect for her father that night, and vowed to do better, be better, when she ran her on business.
As she sat in the VIP area of Yum Yums, her strip club, Guy sitting beside her, and four Cuban gangsters with them, she had started to lose respect for herself, too. Two exotic dancers gyrated on poles on the podium in the center of the room, while dozens of lustful middle-aged men catcalled and wolf-whistled eagerly, tossing money at them. On their fingers, wedding rings gleamed. A half-naked waitress came by with another round of drinks and received a tap on the backside from one of the Cubans. She flashed them a smile, but as she walked away mumbled “assholes” under her breath.
“Don't do anything stupid, Wills,” Guy said through the corner of his mouth, nudging his sister, noticing the seething look on her face. He knew her too well, suspected that any one of the beer glasses on the table was about to become a weapon if he didn't intervene. The Cubans had been disrespectful all evening, even going as far as questioning Willa's presence at the meeting, thinking Guy was in charge. Worst of all, they didn't seem to want to talk business, which was the whole reason why Willa had flown them in.
She didn't get it. Beer and beautiful women only made lewd pigs out of already lewd men. Her father's reasoning, about those things pacifying them and making them more inclined to do business, didn't seem accurate. In any case, she was disappointed in herself for stooping to her father's level of objectifying women all in the name of business. This, she was certain, he would have called a part of life, too.
“You know what I like about this country?” one of the guys said, his huge, black mustache fluttering when he spoke. “Everything is sex, sex, sex. It's wonderful!”
He and his comrades erupted in laughter, with Guy giving a little laugh out of respect, even though he too was sick of them and didn't find them amusing at all.
“Welcome to America. Home of the free,” he said. “So listen, fellas, I don't mean to rush you or anything, but we've got a couple of other people interested in the merchandise, so we'll need to get an answer on that.”
Willa had sat back and watched her brother a number of times, and it always impressed he
r how well he could bluff and lie. He was such a smooth operator that she even began to believe his lies, that they did indeed have others interested in the gear, despite knowing they didn't. The more she watched him work, the more she wondered why their father hadn't entrusted him with the family business instead of her. He was an all-rounder; sociable, honest, quick on his feet, and remained level-headed in a crisis. Strategy was where he fell short, however; this had likely decided it for their father. Because if you didn't have a strategy, you were as good as dead.
“That's not what we heard,” one of them said, once the laughter had faded. “We heard you couldn't find any buyers because it's too hot.”
“You shouldn't believe everything you hear,” Guy said coolly. “Come on, fellas, we live in an age where every nation has a grudge with every other nation, where nobody talks to each other anymore, and it's every man for himself. Do you really think that we couldn't find someone else to shift these to?”
They thought that over.
“And how much heat is on this stuff?” another asked.
Guy shrugged. “Nothing a group of astute men like yourselves couldn't handle. They have no way of linking us to them.”
Willa watched their faces, trying to read them to see if they would bite, or to ascertain whether or not she'd wasted her money flying them over. They appeared to be interested, but one could never be sure with these guys. There was something mystifying about the Cubans that made them very difficult to read. Her mother was the same. It drove her nuts.
Just as she was about to reach for her drink, her eyes drifted to the entrance, where a line had formed. Among the crowd, sticking out like a sore thumb as one of the only women in the place – and because of her fiery red hair (which she wore loose tonight) – was Detective Owen.
Willa excused herself from the table, leaving negotiations in the capable hands of her brother, who she was positive could sell fire in hell. Overcome with two conflicting emotions, she made her way to the entrance, where the bouncers were frisking everyone. This couldn't have been a coincidence that, on the same night of their meeting with the Cubans, a cop showed up. Someone had tipped them off. Except, Layke wasn't dressed in her usual way; besides wearing her long hair down, she was dressed casually in jeans and a loud, colorful T-shirt that screamed hippie and not cop. Bangles to boot. The pretty Latina beside her, Willa noticed, from the way she scanned the room, was also a cop.
