Cook's Night Out

by Joanne Pence

  “It’s worth it, man.” Snake Belly pulled out a cigarette and took his time lighting up, clearly enjoying Paavo’s impatience. Finally, he spoke. “The bookie says it’s known all over town that a new banker’s moved in. The guy’s got plans to set up numbers in a big way. He’s moving in on the old-timers. They go along with him, or they’re dead.”

  Paavo listened in silence as Snake Belly confirmed his suspicions about the sudden rash of murders. “Who is this new banker?”

  “I don’t think the bookie knows. That, or he’s too scared to say. This guy’s got some mean guns with him. No mercy.”

  “Who’s he killed?”

  “I don’t know them. Some Irish dudes, for the most part. Devlin, O’Leary. Names like that. Mean anything to you?”

  “Yeah, they mean something to me.”

  “They wouldn’t go along. Now they’re dead. And everyone’s really scared ’cause this new banker’s got an in. You know what his in is?”

  “What?”

  “He’s in cahoots with a cop. A good cop gone bad.”

  Hearing Snake Belly say the words made him sick with disgust, even though he couldn’t say he was surprised. This whole situation had too many earmarks of an inside job. “Tell me about it.”

  “The cop covers for him, gives him the info he needs. Sets up guys who won’t go along, takes good care of guys who will. Even helps them beat murder raps. Do you know who the cop is?”

  Paavo felt the hairs on the back of his neck begin to prickle. “What is this, twenty questions?”

  “Just asking, man.”

  His patience was gone. “Out with it.”

  “You.”

  This was just the Snake being funny, he told himself, but one look at Snake’s eyes and he knew it wasn’t a joke. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Snake raised his hands, taking a step back. “Look, man, I’m just repeating what I was told.”

  Paavo moved toward him. “Where did the bookie hear that story?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me. He seemed kind of scared to be telling me this much. Things are rough out there, especially for an old-time bookie like this guy.”

  “So why doesn’t he join up with the new banker, too?”

  Snake dropped his cigarette and stepped on it. “Probably will.”

  “Who’s his connection?”

  “He wouldn’t tell me that either.”

  Paavo didn’t want to believe any of this, but he couldn’t deny the air of truth to Snake’s words. “I want to meet this bookie.”

  “I don’t know if it’s possible. I ain’t jiving you neither. He was scared, man.”

  Snake Belly sounded sincere. That gave Paavo pause. “Okay. Talk to him.” Angie’s story about Brother Tweeler and numbers had grated on him ever since she’d told him about it. This news made a dull, niggling notion grow into a full-fledged hunch. “Find out if the name Axel Klaw means anything to him. Or the Random Acts of Kindness Mission.”

  “Mission? You jiving me or what?”

  “Pay what you need to get him to talk—and to meet me. I’m good for it if he’s willing to name names.”

  “That’ll be big-time money.”

  “I said I’m good for it.”

  “In that case…meet me here in two nights. If it’s a go, I’ll take you to him.”

  “Done,” Paavo said.

  With that, Snake Belly vanished into the back alley.

  Angie was rarely at a loss for words, but that’s exactly what she was when she answered her door and saw Paavo. He’d rushed right over from his meeting with Snake Belly. The more he thought about the connection between numbers running, Klaw’s sudden return, and the troubles he was having, the more certain he became that somehow all three were connected. He had to warn her off and make her listen.

  She stared at his black leather jacket, black jeans, boots, and dark glasses a moment, then stuck her head out the doorway and looked down the hall.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, removing the glasses.

  “Looking for your Harley.”

  “Very funny.”

  She stepped aside and let him enter the apartment. Despite the cautious, serious way she studied him, she put her arms around him and forced a smile. “Is it true what they say about bikers?”

  He tilted her chin upward and kissed her. “What do they say?” he murmured.

  She gave him a saucy smile. “I don’t know. But we can come up with something.”

  Despite himself, he grinned, but then the smile fell away and he followed her to the sofa.

  “So what’s with the new image, Inspector?” Angie asked, still trying to force brightness on him. “You’re not an undercover Hell’s Angel, I hope.”

  He took off his jacket before sitting down. “I had to meet someone and not let the whole neighborhood know I’m a cop.”

  “It sounds dangerous,” she said with a small frown.

  “It’s a lot less dangerous than what you’re doing, Angie. Klaw’s behind some heavy stuff. You shouldn’t be anywhere near him.”

  Abruptly, she stood up and headed for the kitchen. “I’ll put on some coffee. Are you hungry, Inspector?”

  He followed her. Her kitchen looked like a candy factory, with bars and chunks of a variety of chocolates, nuts, glazed fruit, sugar, and recipes spread over the counters.

  “You’ve got to listen. Klaw might have someone on the police force involved. I’ve been hearing too many things; there are too many coincidences going on.”

  “Maybe it’s not Klaw at all,” she suggested, scooping coffee into a filter. “For example, I followed him today—”

  He grabbed her wrist. “You what?”

  She removed his hand. “It’s okay. Connie was with me.”

  “Oh, that makes it a whole helluva lot better.” He threw up his arms and began to pace. The last thing he needed was to worry about Angie.

  “Anyway”—she added water to the Krups, then flicked the on switch—“it turns out that he’s got another woman on the side. Her name’s Gretchen. He met her at a Russian restaurant on Clement, then took her to an apartment in the Ingleside. She’s young and plain but obviously adores him.”

  He could scarcely believe what she was telling him. “You found out all that?”

  She smiled smugly as she unwrapped a wedge of Brie and put it on a plate.

  “And a noontime fling was all there was to it?” He followed right behind her as she reached into a cupboard for a box of English crackers.

  “So it seems.”

  “Nothing’s the way it seems with Klaw. Nothing ever is.” He stopped talking, thinking about all the things going on around him that weren’t what they seemed.

  “It’s possible, Paavo, that some other crook picked up on this numbers business as a way to get at you,” Angie suggested, bringing the cheese and crackers into the living room. “It wouldn’t be the first time. It might not have anything to do with Axel Klaw at all. Aren’t there any other possibilities? More…more realistic ones, perhaps?”

  “Realistic?” He took hold of her arms, stopping her flitting about. He needed to talk about this. “Klaw’s damned realistic if you ask me.”

  “Paavo.” Her fingers tightened on his shirt. “There’s no reason to jump to the conclusion that it’s Klaw. I mean, you’re obsessed with the man, and that could be clouding your perception.”

  “Obsessed?” He drew back from her and his voice lowered, soft yet dangerous. “So that’s what you think.”

  “I don’t trust Klaw either!” she cried, stepping up to him once more. “But before you decide it’s him, I want you to be absolutely sure there’s no one else, no one at all, that you’re suspicious of.”

  He rubbed his forehead, trying to contain his irritation at Angie’s questioning Klaw’s guilt, suggesting that he might be wrong about Klaw, might be obsessed with the man, and that he should concentrate instead on the other players involved. “A couple of young cops from the Richmond sta
tion seem to turn up almost every time something happens involving me and numbers running,” he said. “Considering how many patrolmen there are at that station, the odds against that happening are phenomenal. It makes me want to know what’s going on there as well.”

  “Maybe they’re the crooked cops,” she suggested. “You said this looked like an inside job. Aren’t they the ones who caused Internal Affairs to go to the Isle of Capri restaurant?”

  “I don’t know that for sure, though the whole thing reeked of a setup. But how would they know we would go there?”

  “They must be watching you. Or having someone else watch.”

  “Yet another crooked cop, Angie? There’s got to be another way.” He forced himself to look at the situation objectively. He didn’t want to be narrow-minded and obsessed—God, how it grated that she’d say that to him. He took a deep breath. “Did you say anything about your father or Tagliaro to anyone but me?”

  “Only my sisters.” She looked relieved at this new approach. “They all agreed with my mother—that we should talk to you about this.”

  “Okay. So your father was approached by Tagliaro, then your mother went to you because of me.”

  “Then we go together to see Tagliaro,” Angie added, puzzled.

  Paavo began to pace, then stopped and faced her. “An idea struck me, but it’s too crazy.” He pondered it a moment longer. “You said this Tagliaro hadn’t had any contact with your father in years, right?”

  “That’s right.” Angie clasped her hands, her eyes never leaving his. “My mother said Papa didn’t know Frankie very well, and all of a sudden, he showed up.”

  “Which means something—or someone—caused him to decide to go to your father.” He paced again, his hand stroking the back of his neck. “If I’m the target here, which seems to be the case, it means somebody might have figured out that they could get to me through you…and they could get to you through your family. It’s someone who knows you, knows your character. Someone who put Tagliaro up to going to your father in hopes you’d find out about it and take matters into your own hands.”

  “What?” Angie was shocked. “How could anyone assume I’d do a thing like that?”

  Paavo decided it was best not to explain that one to her.

  “It was a setup.” He dropped his hand and faced her directly. “An elaborate setup. It’s got to have been Klaw!”

  “Don’t make assumptions, Paavo, please,” she urged. “God. I give up.” She banged the door going into the kitchen to get the coffee.

  He stormed after her. “What’s wrong? I’m using pure logic.”

  “You’re too involved.” She seemed to scrutinize him, to fairly pick apart his mounting tension, his need for revenge. “Let another cop take over. Let someone else follow Klaw and see, clearly, what he is or isn’t doing.”

  There was no way she could understand. He withdrew—physically and emotionally. “Klaw is my business, Angie. Nobody else’s.”

  She gripped his hands. “I’ll be damned if I let you get yourself killed over that man. Even if he isn’t the problem, you’ll make him it.”

  He looked down at her small, pale hands holding his large, hard ones. Where other people cowered at his anger, she stood up to him. She wouldn’t let him get himself killed over Klaw. He’d have laughed if it hadn’t been so touching. He didn’t know what the hell to do—about her, or Klaw, or even himself. “You worry about me, and you’re the one who goes and follows him,” he said quietly. “He is a killer, Angie. He killed my sister. How do you think it makes me feel to know you’re anywhere near him?”

  She threw her arms around his waist, her soft cheek pressed against his chest. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to worry you.”

  He ran his hand over her hair. “You know why you worry me, don’t you?”

  She gazed up at him. “Yes,” she said softly.

  He cupped her face. His hands seemed to quiver slightly at the emotions running through him. “If I lost you, I don’t know what I’d do.”

  He saw the fullness of her heart in her eyes. “You won’t,” she whispered, then drew his lips to hers and melted in his arms.

  That night he let her find out everything she wanted to know about men who wear black leather.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Angie was bending over the desk in the donation room, trying to count up how many tickets they’d sold so far. The sales were going well, despite Reverend Hodge’s anxiety. Besides, they still had a week before the big event—lots of time to sell more tickets.

  His irritation at the cost of the caterer and the small army needed to cook and serve the hors d’oeuvres and pastries struck her as nothing more than him being cheap. Every time she talked to the caterer, he came up with more exciting food to serve, so of course the cost kept mounting. It was now around $110,000, but who could say no to gâteau Saint-Honoré, even though the fifteen hundred cream puffs—one on top of each piece of cake—added considerably to the cost? It wasn’t as if they could give someone half a cream puff. But with Picassos and diamonds to sell, she couldn’t allow the food or wine to look skimpy. Considering the cost of wedding banquets, she thought she was doing pretty darn well.

  She’d simply have to find cost savings elsewhere. Maybe paper napkins instead of linen would help?

  Suddenly, the world went black as hands clasped playfully over her eyes.

  She gave a little yelp, pulled free, and spun around with a smile, thinking it was one of the other volunteers clowning around. To her horror, before her stood Axel Klaw.

  He put his hands on his hips, his feet apart, and laughed uproariously.

  She wanted to tell him he wasn’t that funny, but somehow, she couldn’t get the words past her throat. The thought of Klaw’s touching her made her skin crawl. Finally, not knowing what to do, what to say, or how to act, she grabbed her purse and ran from the room.

  Klaw laughed louder.

  “You got problems, buddy.” Yosh shook his head. He sat beside Paavo’s desk as the two filled each other in on what had happened at the Isle of Capri and on Hanover Judd’s tale of rumors—most likely from those two rookies.

  “We’re investigating the dead numbers runners well enough between all of us. It’s Klaw, Lili Charmaine, Van Warren, and now a new player—a girlfriend of Klaw’s named Gretchen—that I want to find out about.”

  “I’m with you, partner,” Yosh said.

  Paavo studied him. Looking into the doings of a man such as Klaw and his friends could get dangerous. Not to mention that if Yosh tried to help him on department time and anyone wanted to get nasty about it, Yosh could end up in hot water, too. “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “It’s no more than you’d do for me,” Yosh said, his gaze direct and open.

  Paavo just nodded.

  Angie’s heart eventually stopped racing as she sat in the Senseless Beauty Café and talked with Rainbow Grchek. The café, Angie was pleased to learn, was proving quite successful. Office workers from the financial district and Market Street jogged or walked along the Embarcadero at lunchtime, and often stopped in for something vegetarian or low-fat. Or, if they’d had a bad day at work—which for some people was every day at work—they’d order a scrumptious pastry to lift their spirits.

  “Oh, hi! What do you hear?” Angie knew that voice—the sound of fingernails scraping along a blackboard would have been more welcome. She looked up quickly, fearfully, wondering if Klaw was with his girlfriend. Luckily, Lili was alone.

  “Hello, Lili,” Rainbow called. “Pull up a chair.”

  Lili sauntered over to their table. She wore a short turquoise jacket, a white ruffled blouse, and a teeny skirt that looked as though it had been made out of a band of turquoise spandex. “No time for a calorie fest for me. I’m hitting the stores. Axel will go ballistic if I don’t do what I’m supposed to, when I’m supposed to.”

  “You mean Axel actually wants you to go shopping?” Angie asked. “That’s a switch.” Unless it was to bu
y better-looking clothes, she almost said, but thought better of it.

  “Yeah. He gives me snaps for courageous fashion efforts. Most people say, like, hello-o-o, you’ve already got more clothes than you can wear in, like, twenty years, but not my guy. That’s why I’d do whatever he says, just to show him he’s right.”

  “That’s good, Lili.”

  “Yeah. Sometimes I get way bored, though, but what the hey.”

  “I can’t imagine that he’d ask you to do boring things.”

  “He does. He’s into athletics in a monster way.”

  Angie had doubts about pursuing this conversation any further. She could well imagine some of the athletics Klaw liked to pursue with Lili. “I didn’t know,” she said finally, curiosity outweighing good taste—as usual.

  “He hangs with a bunch of joggers,” Lili said.

  “Joggers?” That was the last thing Angie expected to hear. “Jogging can be boring, I guess.”

  “He wants to open a string of health clubs.” Lili clearly relished the fact that someone was listening to her. “I thought, like, okay, whatever you want to call them is okay with me.”

  “So they’re not health clubs?” Angie was growing more confused by the minute.

  Lili’s gaze grew almost shrewd. “If Axel says they’re salami sandwiches, that’s what they are.”

  “Of course.” Angie wasn’t about to alarm Lili.

  “Now you’re talking. Of course, if those investors I met in Las Vegas tried to jog, we’d have to call for oxygen fast.”

  “I didn’t know you were both in Vegas.”

  “Oh, yeah. I was onstage, even. Actually, Lili Charmaine isn’t my real name. It’s my show name. But then, I got to be so last-season, I was fired. What could I do? I gave a few shows one-on-one, if you know what I mean.”

  Angie got it. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “It’s okay. Showgirls are twenty, twenty-one. I’m thirty-two. Not that anyone could tell.”

  Angie could.

  “That’s why,” Lili continued, “I’m way grateful to join the reverend. I can talk to the girls who’ll come here when the place gets going. I’ll steer them right. Make a difference. Does that make me sound like a retard?”