I thought hard. “Can you share your storage with those things you actually want to keep?”
“If I do that, I’ll keep too much and it’ll take over.”
“So find a place in a separate room, then.”
He took a large box of keepsake items and shoved it under the dining room table.
“Now for the giveaways. If we load your car, we can take half of this stuff to Goodwill right now and you can drop me off at home.”
“And if we do two trips to Goodwill, it will all be gone outta my living room except for the stuff to sell, and then I can vacuum my rug, and then I can drop you off at home. Or you can stay the night and I can drop you off in the morning.”
I leaned into him, wrapping my arms around his waist. “This is all moving too fast, Rafael. I really want to sleep at home tonight.”
I felt his lips brush the top of my head, nuzzling my hair. “Okay, Goldilocks.”
“I’ll give you the second trip to Goodwill, Loverboy. Oh, and make a list of your donated items for a tax write-off next year. It adds up.”
“Whatever.” He stacked two boxes on top of one another and lifted them, heading out the door again. I followed his example. This time we exited the building through the lobby.
The doorman presented his familiar silhouette, his tall, lanky form bent over a book. He reminded me of a praying mantis.
“Hey, whatcha readin’ now?” I asked him on the way back. “Some fancy literature again?”
Blaine Kirby lifted his head and fixed me with a blank gaze. “You again!”
“Yeah, her again. Get used to seeing her around.” Raf grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and pulled me into the elevator.
“Hey Loverboy. I’m not a kitten. What was that all about?”
“You’re talking to the man who probably killed my sister.” His eyes were as cold as blued steel.
“That’s right. You want me to help you find out what happened, don’t you?”
“Huh.”
“Didn’t you notice what he was reading?”
“No. Why should I?”
“He had a climbing supply catalog on his desk.”
Our eyes met. Not letting go of my gaze, Raf grabbed the front of my dusty t-shirt and pulled me in. “You better keep your distance from that bastard. I don’t think he’s good company.” His voice was gruff, but his eyes were full of loss, and fear.
IT WAS Wednesday already. Raf was snowed under again, and once again he was surly and uncommunicative. I called Vicki right before lunch.
“Hey… it’s me, Evelyn. Are we on for Friday?”
There was a pregnant pause – the sound of which I didn’t like. Finally she cleared her throat.
“Well. As a matter of fact I meant to give you a heads-up on that. Honore wants me to attend a conference with him this weekend and our flight leaves on Friday, right before noon. I’m sorry, Eve.”
Honore.
My thoughts wandered back to my former boss. His quiet demeanor, his commanding presence, his lovely, anthracite hair. Much like Nick used to be. You’d never guess Nick to have some wild erotic tastes behind the closed doors, either.
“Vicki, is there something you’re not telling me?” I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face and it showed in my tone, because she began to stutter and sputter and had to clear her throat again.
“W… what makes you think that?”
“Oh, just about everything I know about my former boss? He lets you call him by his first name, he buys you lunch and takes you places – heck, you’re so smitten you’re even using utensils!”
“But – but – but – “
“I hope you’re using protection.”
There was silence on the other side.
“Your former boss and I certainly do.”
“Eve!”
“Have a good time at the conference, Vicki. We should do a double-date when you get back.”
“With Rinaldi-asshole? No way.”
“First of all, don’t call him that. Second, he seems to have mellowed some. Can’t think of a reason why.”
I heard Vicki giggle on the other side of town, and grinned. I knew she’d think about it, and bring it up with Wilson in some not-so-subtle way, and then we’d see. It could be fun. I could pump Wilson for all kinds of dirt on Rafael, getting all those embarrassing stories of what stupid pranks he used to pull in college. After what he’d put me through at my old job, I thought I deserved at least that much.
Next, I dialed an often-used number. Izzy was an antique dealer and I dealt with him while handling my “special finds”. He had told me he doesn’t accept stolen goods, so I’ve never told him. With a straight face I’d say, “Izzy, there was this cool flea market and guess what I found…” and he’d give me this look, and sigh, and look it over, and decide how much it was worth and whether he was willing to accept it and pass it on.
“Hey, Izzy, it’s Evelyn.”
“Evelyn! How have you been?” His voice was slightly nasal and I could just picture him, his short hair and an attempt at a beard and glasses perched on his nose. He kept his head covered with a fisherman’s bucket hat, rejecting the little black shabesdeckel of his tradition. Izzy Silberman observed Shabbat not as holy, but as one day of the week when he could have peace and quiet without the interruptions from incessant phones and emails and annoying customers.
“I’ve been great, Izzy. I have a new boyfriend.”
I felt his wince over the phone, and grinned.
“You be careful, Evelyn. I take it he’s keeping you out of trouble and off the rooftops?”
“Sort of. I actually broke into his place and he caught me. The rest is history.”
“Evelyn!” His voice was appalled, full of concern. “Is he a good man?”
“Well… I don’t really know him but I’d like to think so. My good man here is trying to dispose of an estate of his deceased sister and their two aunts, and has boxes of stuff at his place. I’m helping him sort it out, and I was wondering if you’d like to have a look?”
“Aha! Finally you offer me something with provenance. I’ll look. How’s tomorrow? I can close the shop early.”
“He’s working. Weekends are just about it, Izzy.”
“Hmmm…” I heard him mumble, looking at his calendar.
“Saturday after sundown. That’s legit, not even my wife can fault me for that and I’ll be able to drive.”
“I’ll let him know. Pencil it in, okay?”
We chatted some more and Izzy discovered that my best friend ever, Vicki Gomez, is indisposed and I’d be on my own on a Friday night.
“Come see us for dinner, Evelyn. Don’t bring anything. Debra always cooks extra for Shabbat.”
I didn’t want to go. If it hadn’t been for Izzy’s restraining influence over the years, I probably would have been in jail by now. Despite, or perhaps especially because of that I didn’t feel like writhing under his searching gaze. Plus I had other stuff to do.
“Sorry… I just feel like spending some time alone. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to do that. How about we plan for Saturday night, though. I think you’ll like him. Let me give you his number.”
ONCE AGAIN, my job waiting tables yielded a potentially profitable lead. I should have ignored it, but old habits are hard to break and with Raf busy and Vicki out of town, I felt like there was an empty void within me. My siblings were off to college, my mother had been dead for years, my father and I never talked to one another and I couldn’t really bother Claire and Nick – their baby was a handful and they barely slept. Plus, seeing them together still felt like rubbing salt into a recently closed wound: not terribly agonizing but not exactly fun either. I just had to find a way to entertain myself.
My eyes scanned the tables under my control as I mentally counted the money I had earned. Two hundred bucks in tips on Wednesday and a bit less than that on Thursday, so my rent was almost covered for the month but I still didn’t have phone and food mone
y – not until Novack paid the second half of his invoice. That is, I did have a modest amount of money sitting in my emergency cash stash right next to my getaway bag, but the rule was, I had to cover my basic expenses every month. If only BW&B had been a paying client… but they weren’t. If only I had more clients like Novack… but I didn’t. If only I could wait tables every day I’d be set for cash, but I couldn’t get any more hours – people with higher seniority were way ahead of me, with families depending on their income, and the boss knew that.
Friday sure looked like a good day to improve my financial standing by breaking into that lawyer’s house while he was at a baseball game.
DRESSED for work, I had my tools in my pocket and a change of clothing and a wig in my bag. My donor lived in a posh, suburban gated community. Those were always fun, because the luxury of a gate and a guard gave the residents a false sense of security. The new-construction houses were close together, screened from one another by vegetation and privacy fences. There was no dog; the owner had talked about his plans to acquire one.
After the fiasco where I met Rafael in person for the first time, I had concluded that looking like a girl would actually be a huge advantage. I hiked my short, black skirt all the way up over my black, opaque tights and climbed the six-foot brick wall, avoiding the metal spikes on top. A jump in my sporty Mary-Janes – a very comfortable girly shoe – let me land in a soft crouch on the other side. I then slipped my hat with an attached, brown ponytail over my microfiber cap and sauntered out, just walking, looking for my donor’s address.
I called; nobody picked up.
I knocked on the front door and rang the bell; nobody opened.
The light was still dusky enough for me to see the lock without a flashlight. The front lawn was carefully landscaped, with the mulch surrounding a large boulder and some short shrubs. There was something familiar about that boulder – before I reached for my set of picks I let my hand skim its surface.
Laminate. A fake stone…
I glanced up and down the street and bent down as though to check my shoe while my fingers dug under the hollow structure. The fake stone was hiding a plastic vent of some sort and there was a spare set of keys on the gravel surrounding the protruding white pipe. I pocketed the keys and, still unobserved, I unlocked the door. Most people kept a spare key somewhere. This fellow ordered one of the three available fake landscaping boulders from a home decorating catalog, apparently to disguise his eyesore of a utility vent. It also made a natural hiding place for his spare keys.
I slipped inside, drew the curtains, and locked the doors behind me before I clicked on my small flashlight. The interior was posh but sterile; the owner hasn’t been spending a lot of time in his living room. There were no plants; a picture of two older kids sat on the automatic, natural gas fireplace. No wife, though. Divorced, maybe? That would make him another lonely soul, I thought with sympathy.
I walked through quickly, making sure I was truly alone. There was a carved, wooden box on his bedroom bureau and I opened it, rifling through spare change and various receipts and stray cufflinks and carelessly crumpled money. My fingers skimmed an envelope; it held cash and felt substantial between my fingers. Behind the envelope sat a checkbook in its vinyl, leather-like cover. I pulled it out and checked the register; the account balance made my eyebrows rise. It must be nice to be king. Further examination of his drawers revealed underwear and socks and folded polo shirts – and a small baggie of white power atop a mirror, together with an old-fashioned razor blade.
The sympathy I had felt before had dissipated when I saw the cocaine. I reached into the wooden box and took the envelope, stuffing it in the front of my tights. I was taking the good barrister’s drug money, but from the look of it, he had more elsewhere.
Unwilling to push my luck any further, I exited the house, locked up, put the keys where they belonged, and snapped my clear gloves off my hands. Sauntering down the street, a couple walking a standard poodle bid me “Good evening”.
“Good evening,” I replied.
“Are you a friend of Ernie’s?” The woman asked.
“Just a casual acquaintance,” I smiled.
“I believe he’s out tonight,” she said.
“Yeah, a ball game.”
“Do you want us to give him a message?” The man was looking me up and down. That made me nervous; I smiled, eager to make my getaway.
“Sure. Just tell him Susie stopped by. Although, I’ve already texted him so he’ll know.” I nodded at them. “Nice to meet you.” Now I had to continue down the road at a regular walking speed and take a turn and cut through another cul-de-sac before I made it to the wall and over it.
Shit. Crap. Oh god.
That had been a close call. With a bit more timing, they could have seen me replace the keys under his fake stone. I could have gotten busted. Adrenaline coursed through my veins and I felt short of breath.
I giggled.
I had gotten away with it.
Again.
Just as I was about to congratulate myself and open my car, my cell phone roared in my skirt zipper pocket. I smiled. There was no need to check the caller ID.
“Hi Rafael,” I said, still slightly out of breath.
“What are you doing?” He sounded curious.
“Nothing good. Why?”
He paused at that, then he said, “Wanna come over? I did more sorting on my own.”
“Okay,” I said without even thinking about it. The idea of seeing Raf restored my adrenaline high and I grinned from ear to ear.
HALF AN HOUR later, he looked me up and down. My sensible high-tech girlie shoes were a bit muddy, the black tights had a run down the knee from where I snagged them on the wall, but the microfiber running skirt made me look dressed up instead of dressed for action. A neutral, green windbreaker covered my top. My long, honey-blond hair was in disarray and the strands that had been tortured by my microfiber cap only minutes ago were standing up in every which direction, charged with static and set in dry sweat. The microfiber cap always did that to me.
“What have you been doing, Pearson?”
Pearson.
He suspected, and he disapproved.
“I told you. Nothing good. You got anything to drink?” Adrenaline was still coursing through my veins. He took in my flush and my dilated pupils and turned into the kitchen. I followed him and watched him fix two martinis; mine with a twist of lemon, his with an olive.
He passed me my drink and we touched the triangular glasses in a silent toast.
The first sip always tasted the best; I could feel the soothing, liquid fire settling my jarred nerves. I felt like I could breathe again – until he spoke.
“Why?”
I cocked my eyebrow, trying to deflect his question.
He set his drink down on the kitchen counter and stepped right close to me, large hands running up and down my torso, over my waist, down my legs. I shivered and a sigh escaped my lips; my eyes threatened to close.
His fingers skimmed my flat belly; halting at the uneven bump inside my tights. Deft fingers slipped in, pulling out a bank envelope. I tried to reach out but the long-stemmed martini glass was balanced in my hand and, to my chagrin my nervous system felt incapacitated by Rafael’s recent touch.
He leaned his firm butt against the other kitchen counter and counted out the money, then he slipped it back in the envelope and closed it.
“I just don’t understand this, Pearson. You just broke into some dude’s house and stole over three thousand dollars.” His lips were pressed together and there was tension in his shoulders; a warning sign, the lull before the storm. I sipped more of the strong drink, savoring the gin on the tip of my tongue, inhaling the bright essence of lemon oil floating on its surface.
His hand shot out as he grabbed my shirt and pulling me in.
“Answer me.”
Martini sloshed over my wrist. I was stretched to my toes, with Raf and I staring eye to eye.
“C’m on, Rafael.”
“Why.”
“Because I’m running out of money.”
“Then get more clients. Get a job. Wait more tables.” His cyan eyes were cold, implacable.
I grabbed his hand and yanked it off my shirt; the whole unfairness of his attitude got under my skin - it burned like salt. I gave him my best-ever death glare.
“For your information, you jerk, I’ve spent fifty-three hours on that project on BW&B. At an extremely reasonable consulting rate of eighty dollars per hour – which I could easily double because that’s how I’ve been billed out by Wilson - that’s four thousand, two hundred and forty dollars that I’m not being paid because you decided to extort me. I considered getting a roommate, but it’s kind of hard with just one bedroom, y’know? Novack paid half upfront, which means I might get to eat this week. He referred another small client, his accountant, who needs to expand. Those projects have a long lead time and it will be at least three weeks before I see any money out of it. I’m doing a lot of work on my own, for free. No secretaries, no support. Nothing. And you dare to tell me how to spend my time? And even if I could get more hours, do you really think I went to school just to wait tables full-time?”
He didn’t even pause to think; he fired from the hip.
“My heart bleeds piss-water, Pearson. I did some things I shouldn’t have and I got my second chance. All three of us did, at the firm. We’re doing it all legit now. I got off easy – I’m on probation. We all are. And here, you’re risking everything for a few lousy bucks. Do you really think I want my girlfriend to go to jail?”
His eyes ignited with anger. “Do you realize that I’m violating my probation by consorting with a felon? That’s you, sweetheart. By not turning you in like I ought to, I’m aiding and abetting. You’re screwing up your life and taking me down with you. And for what? Money?” He spat the last word with contempt.
I Need A Bad Boy: A Collection of Bad Boy Romances Page 21
