“You didn’t have a choice, sweetheart. What if he did do all the things he’s been accused of?” Frankie eyed me sympathetically. “Come on, Midget Brat. You look like you could use a good meal.”
“Carla’s not cooking again, is she?”
“I was thinking more of Woo’s Garden on Race Street.”
In my family, food is the great consoler. Have a fight with your boyfriend? Eat some lasagna. Bad credit report? Cheer up with pot roast. Squeal on your roommate? Break out the chopsticks. I was just digging into the sweet and sour pork, when my cell phone went off. I ignored it and kept on eating.
“Aren’t you going to answer it?”
“Nah.” It was either another reporter wanting an exclusive on “the ice-box killer,” or Keith Harrison, for the forty-millionth time today.
“It may be your mother.” All the more reason not to answer.
I peeked at the caller I.D. City jail. I’d been calling it so often I’d decided to put it in my phone book, for easier access. I thought it would be DiCarlo, or Mike Mahoe. I wasn’t prepared for the sound of my ex-roomie’s voice.
“Hey, Brandy. It’s me. Toodie.”
I almost choked on the chow mein. “Toodie, what are you doing calling me?”
“I’m in jail.”
“I know. I’m sorta the one who turned you in.”
“It’s okay. I figured you’d find me. You’re really smart.”
“Toodie, you should be talking to a lawyer. Why are you calling me?”
“You’re my friend.” Oh jeez. “Listen, Brandy, don’t feel bad. You did what you had to do. And anyway, I don’t think I could’ve stood another minute in that house. It smells like cat pee.”
The waiter came over and started to take my plate away and I nearly stabbed him with my chopstick. “Look, Toodie, I’m glad you’re not mad at me, but you need to talk to somebody who can help you.”
“You still believe I’m telling the truth, don’t you, Brandy?”
I hesitated a beat. “You know they found Ilene’s head in your granny’s winter squash garden, right?”
“I swear on my granny’s life, I didn’t do it.” Toodie began to cry. Oh shit.
“Don’t cry, Toodie. I believe you.”
Uncle Frankie lectured me all the way back to the gym. Then he made me take a boxing lesson and he threw in some self-defense moves for good measure.
“Look, it’s not like I baked the guy a cake with a sawedoff shot gun in it. I just told him I’d check out a few things for him, that’s all.”
Uncle Frankie answered me in Italian, and there were a lot of hand gestures involved. But once he calmed down, he promised not to mention anything to my mother.
The Diamond Casino on the Boardwalk, near Delaware Avenue is a mid-sized hotel-casino, with an Asian décor. According to my Internet research, it’s a family owned operation, the Ellenbergs having purchased it from the Chans, back in nineteen ninety- two. In ninety-seven they were investigated for hiring illegals, but the Feds couldn’t make it stick. The place looked like it had fallen on hard times. There was something really depressing about the worn carpeting, garish lighting and fake pagodas.
Fran and I played a couple of slot machines and mingled among the mostly Asian crowd. There was a group of elderly white folks at the craps table, who’d come down en masse from Philly on the Gray Panther Special, and a sprinkling of guys in polo shirts, trying their luck at Poker. I cast my eye around the room. Something was out of place, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. And then it came to me. All the “worker bees”—the low level employees, were Asian, while the pit bosses and “suits” were white.
We moved to the bar and ordered a couple of cokes. Franny leaned over and whispered loud enough for the people in the next casino to hear, “This place is a dump.”
The bartender snorted back a laugh. “What can I get you ladies?” He was a middle-aged Asian, Chinese, I think, with a thick accent.
I smiled and whipped out the picture of Keith that I’d taken off the Internet. “Excuse me, but I was wondering if you’ve seen this man in here before.”
The bartender barely glanced at the photo. “No, sorry.”
“If you could just take a look—”
“I told you, I don’t know him,” he muttered, stalking off.
“Is there some Chinese taboo against showing pictures of men around in a bar? Did I just commit the ultimate Asian faux pas?”
“I don’t know,” Fran said. “Let’s ask this guy.” She grabbed the photo from me and called to the other bartender, a stunning young man with long, jet-black hair pulled into a ponytail.
“What can I get you?” His accent was less pronounced than the other guy, but you could tell English was not his first language either.
Franny held up the photo and flashed him a smile that could melt rocks. “I was wondering if you’ve seen this guy around here?”
He returned Franny’s smile with one of his own, doubling the wattage. “He’s not your husband, I hope.” Oh jeez, he’s flirting with her.
“Listen,” I said, grabbing the picture back, “do you recognize him or not?”
“Yeah, I know him. Not by name, but he used to come in here, two, three times a week.”
“Are you sure?” It’s a real schlep from Philly to the Jersey shore.
“I remember because he used to run a weekly tab, but the last time he was in I was told to turn him down. He owed big time and they cut him off.”
There was movement at the other end of the bar and then the older bartender appeared and barked at him in Chinese. The younger one shook his head. “What they gonna do? Fire me?” He laughed, but there was genuine anger behind his words. That and something else. When I tried to engage him again, he said he had things to do and went back to the other end of the bar.
The older guy refilled our glasses, on the house. “Sorry, but it’s house policy not to talk about our clientele. He’s new here.”
“Hmm,” I said, after he left.
“Hmm, what?” Franny reached over and grabbed a handful of wasabi nuts out of the bowl on the counter top.
“I was just thinking of the bartender’s reaction when the other one started yelling at him. I mean he acted all cocky and everything, but underneath it, he seemed kind of scared.”
“Maybe he really needs this job and was worried about getting fired.”
“Yeah, but then why would he say, ‘what are they gonna do, fire me?’ To me, he didn’t seem all that concerned about the possibility of losing his job, but something scared him. I just don’t know what.”
“There you go again, reading all kinds of stuff into things that aren’t really there.”
“When have I ever done that, Franny? I’ll bet you can’t even name one time.” Okay, she could name about a thousand, but this wasn’t necessarily one of them.
Franny rolled her eyes and went back to eating the wasabi nuts. I decided to forgive her, since she was my ride home. And anyway, another, more pressing thought occurred to me.
“If Keith couldn’t pay his bar tab, I wonder what else he wasn’t paying.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, what if he ran up a tab at the tables and couldn’t pay it back? It would make sense that they’d send someone after him to collect. Someone like Bulldog, maybe.” But that still didn’t explain what was so important about the thumb drive and why they both seemed to need it so badly.
“I have to hit the john,” Franny announced. She was averaging about four times and hour, and she was only in her third month.
“Wait, I’ll come with you.”
“Let’s go to the one at Trump Marina. I hear they’ve got marble toilet seats and a breath mint dispenser.”
We passed the bartenders on the way out. The older one was crouched next to the dumpster, smoking a cigarette, while the younger one leaned against the side of the building, a sullen look on his handsome face. The older one was ranting in Chinese. I pulled on Franny’s arm, dragging her
back around the corner, out of sight.
“Wow. I wonder what they’re fighting about.”
“They’re bartenders. They’re probably arguing over whether a martini should be shaken or stirred. Come on, I have to pee!” She began to pull away, but I yanked her back again. Another man joined them. He had several bags of trash, which he tossed into the dumpster. The younger man said something in English and the guy with the trash started to shake his head, vehemently. Either he strongly disagreed with what was being said to him, or he had water in his ears.
“I think this could be important, Fran. And I’m not just playing Nancy Drew. You said you wanted an adventure. Well, here’s your chance.”
I pulled my cell phone out of my pocketbook and dialed Fran’s cell. As soon as we connected, I handed hers to her and dropped mine back into my purse. Then I walked around the side of the building, towards the dumpsters. When the men saw me, all conversation stopped. I pulled a wad of paper out of my bag and crumpled it up, throwing it into the bin. As I went to close my purse, I “accidentally” spilled the contents onto the ground. The men paid little to no attention to me, just marking time until I left. Quickly I picked up my stuff, nudging the open cell phone under the dumpster. I walked back around the corner to Franny. She was holding her phone to her ear.
“Chinese…Chinese…Chinese…” she said, muffling the part you talk into. “Ooh, English.” She shoved the phone into my hand and we stood together, listening. The voices were distant, but discernible.
“I’m sick of this. If I had known it would be so bad, I would have stayed in China.”
“Well, you don’t have a choice now. Unless you want to go back the way you came.”
“Hah,” said a voice I didn’t recognize. “He’ll go back in a body bag.”
Fran jerked her head up, her eyes so wide I thought they’d pop right out of her head.
There was a shuffling movement and then someone spoke. “What’s this?” The words came in loud and clear. I panicked and stuck my head out from around the corner. Oh shit. The smoking bartender was bending down to pick up my phone. I disconnected Fran’s, instructing her to stay put. Then I began running towards the dumpster.
Affecting a casualness I certainly didn’t feel I called out to them. “Hey guys, have any of you seen my cell phone? It fell out of my pocketbook when I went to throw some trash away. Oh, you found it.” I smiled, extending my hand expectantly. If suspicious looks could kill, I’d be writing this from the grave. He handed it to me and I plunked it into my bag. “Thanks.”
Franny was waiting for me on the boardwalk when I reappeared around the corner. The normally unruffled Di-Angelo twin was shaking in her high-heeled booties.
“Did you hear what those guys were talking about? Body bags! I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t want to know what’s going on, and if you had a brain in your head, you wouldn’t either.”
“What happened to all that need for adventure?”
“Okay, so maybe I was wrong about needing excitement in my life. I’m going to be a mother. That’s plenty exciting enough. I’m gonna go home, take up knitting and trade the T-bird in for a station wagon.” We’d reached the parking lot. The T-bird was the hottest looking car there. “Maybe I’ll just keep the T-bird for a little while longer.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Ya gotta work up to this motherhood business gradually.”
Franny dropped me off at the martial arts studio. I’d stayed over at Frankie’s last night, for various reasons, mostly having to do with my ever-growing feelings of lust for Nick. Plus, I figured he could use a break from me—too much of a good thing and all that. But the truth is, I missed him.
He was teaching a class when I walked in. I stood in the doorway and watched for a while, but all that testosterone flying around made me kind of nervous. I looked instead, for Tanya, figuring we could have some “girl talk”—you know, where do you shop for clothes, who cuts your hair, have you ever slept with Nick—but she didn’t seem to be anywhere in sight. Finally, I went back into Nick’s office to wait for class to be over.
While I was back there, I hit the Internet looking up articles on illegal immigration in the state of New Jersey. Bobby always told me to start with what I already knew. Okay, what did I know, or at least suspect? The casino owners had been investigated for hiring illegals. The majority of the “grunt” workers were Asian. The employees I had contact with were unhappy with their work situation, but seemed too frightened to do anything about it.
According to the articles I read, the illegals are smuggled into the country, via Mexico, and shipped to various states including New Jersey. They then pay back their passage, essentially, by becoming indentured servants. Could the bartenders have been part of an illegal alien smuggling ring? No wonder they were so grumpy.
So where did Keith fit in to all this? Was he just some hapless compulsive gambler who owed money to the Diamond Casino, which co-incidentally is a hotbed of illegal activity, or does he play a broader role in this?
I went back to looking for common threads. Bulldog and Harrison were both connected to the casino—Bulldog was the bouncer, Harrison was a patron who owed them money. Both men were after the thumb drive, ergo, the thumb drive is in some way connected to the casino. I paused for a minute. When did I start using words like ergo? But I digress.
The more I thought about it, the more I was sure Bulldog was the guy who beat up Keith. On the one hand, maybe he just did it as payback for the money Harrison owed the casino. But what if there were more to it than that? What if Harrison was supposed to bring the owners the thumb drive, only the dog ate it? The key was in finding out just what was on the damn thing. Then the pieces would start falling into place.
Carla called me, just as I was dozing off in the red velvet chair. She caught me off-guard, or else I’m sure I would have put up a better fight when she told me what she wanted. “Bran, I was talking to Mrs. Starlucci, down at the shop. Her nephew is new in town and—”
“Forget it, Carla. The last guy you set me up with was a hundred and eight.”
“Will you listen? I’ve met this one. He’s your age and he’s hot.”
“How hot?”
Okay,” she conceded, “maybe not ‘Nicholas-Santiago-Columbian-Underworld’ hot, but a nice, respectable P.E. teacher hot. Cute, good build, never been married—”
“He’s gay.”
“He’s not gay. He just broke up with a woman he’d been seeing for two years.”
“Oh. Rebound.”
“It was mutual and they’re still good friends.”
“Republican?” Carla paused, and I could hear her eyeballs rolling around in the back of her head.
“Independent,” she said through clenched teeth. “Anything else?”
I’d run out of objections so I decided to play my Ace card. I sucked in a dramatic breath. “Now’s not a good time. I’ve got a homicidal maniac after me.”
“Well, when don’t you?” She had a point.
Nick’s phone rang and I automatically leaned over and checked the caller I.D. The readout said Alana. Alana of the Jimmy Choos. Was she calling for a rain check on her interrupted evening? The thought propelled me into a deep funk. I sighed.
“Okay, Carla. I’ll go out with Mr. Wonderful.”
“Great, honey. I’m sure you’ll have fun.”
Maybe Carla was right. This might actually be fun. After all, anything that could possibly go wrong on a blind date already did. The way I figured it, I was home free.
Chapter Twelve
“I saw Nick.”
Janine took a sip of her diet coke and tore off a chunk of Italian bread. We were having dinner at Sargenti’s, in celebration of Janine’s new job as the newest member of Team Tony, Tony being Tony Tan, South Philly’s premier realtor. “Aren’t you staying with him?” she asked. “You must see him every day.”
“No, I mean I saw him—ya know, in the ‘biblical sense’.”
“What?”
I pointed “down there.”
Janine stopped eating the bread. “Shut up! I can’t believe you’ve been holding out on me. I want details, girl.”
“No. No details. He took a shower, dropped the towel, I saw him. End of discussion.”
“Well, what did he look like? Oh my God, he must be incredible.”
I had no choice but to tell her. “I think I insulted him.”
“Did he seem insulted?”
“No, he was really cool. Said a lot of women find it more—”
“Pleasurable,” Janine nodded, dreamily. “It’s true. You are one lucky woman.”
“Janine, he thinks I’m a sexual retard, and he’s right. Now he’s never going to try anything with me again. As we speak he’s probably whipping it out for someone else and I’ll die alone with a houseful of cats feasting on my decaying body.”
“Yep,” Janine agreed, tearing off another chunk of bread. “That’s just what’s going to happen.”
Tony called, midway through our meal. Seems he had a hot prospect for a property in Bella Vista and needed Janine’s special touch to seal the deal. Considering the prospect was a horny hetero twenty-nine year old, single male, I began to suspect Tony had hired Janine for more than her typing skills—which were negligible.
“Sorry to skip out on you, Bran. I hate to leave you alone. Can you call someone?”
I assured her I was a big girl and was perfectly capable of getting myself back to Nick’s in one piece. Truth is, I was scared shitless, so when Bobby walked in ten minutes later, I called him over to the table and offered him a seat.
“I’m on a dinner break. Just getting some “to go” food for some of the guys.” He had on his black leather bomber jacket and black jeans. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days and hadn’t slept in longer than that. Crap. I hate it when he looks endearingly vulnerable. It rips my heart out.
“How’s Toodie doing?” I asked. “Have you seen him?”
Bobby sat down opposite me and started tearing at the bread Janine had left. “Not great. They won’t bond him out because he’s a flight risk.”
No Such Thing As a Good Blind Date: A Brandy Alexander Mystery (No Such Thing As: A Brandy Alexander Mystery) Page 18
