Harry handed over the small cup with no handles to the detective. “Enjoy your tea, Mr. Suliman. I have something I have to attend to. I’ll be back in a few moments. As you know, tea is to be savored, to be enjoyed.”
“Uh-huh,” Suliman grunted. He took a cautious sip when Harry left the room. The tea tasted like tree bark, wet dog, and moldy leaves.
While Mike Suliman was gagging over his tea, Harry was hissing and snarling at Jack on the phone. “What? What? Spell it out, Jack. I already scared the shit out of him. You want me to coddle him? How the hell do I know if he’s reliable? You want me to make sure he’s on our side as a double agent when he leaves here, is that what you’re saying?” Harry listened. “How much of a bonus? Yeah, yeah, how many times have I heard you say money talks and bullshit walks? Too many to count. And what did Abner find out about him when he ran his profile?” Harry listened again. “Okay, I got it. I’ll call you back when he leaves.” Just as he was about to break the connection, he heard Jack ask about the midshipmen. Harry laughed and then filled Jack in with all the details from his class with the midshipmen.
“That bad, huh? Well, you’ll whip them into shape. Pink, huh? Oooh, I like that, Harry. Tell them West Point is sending its graduating class to you for a full month of training in January, then say there will be a dust-off when both sides compete, and Navy has to wear pink unless they perform to your standards. It’s that old Army-Navy thing. See ya, Harry.”
Harry was grinning from ear to ear when he finally signed off. Now, why didn’t he think of that? Guess that’s why Jack earned the big bucks.
Back in the waiting room, Harry eyed the private detective and the empty teacup. “More?”
“Ah . . . no thanks. Can we just get to it, Wong.”
“I like that, a man who likes to get to the point, as long as it’s my point.” Harry straddled a straight-backed chair and focused on the detective. “Okay, Mr. Suliman, this is what I know. You’re thirty-two years old, never married. You have women falling all over you because you like to wine and dine and party with them. That takes a lot of money. You live in a crappy garden apartment and make the rent, which is quite reasonable, by the skin of your teeth. You drive a muscle car, payments up to date. You work out at Gold’s Gym, which is a high-dollar place to get fit. You wear Brooks Brothers suits, but you do have one Armani that you haul out for special occasions. You have monogrammed cuffs on your shirts. You take a Caribbean vacation twice a year that you can’t afford, and your credit cards are about maxed out. How’m I doing so far?”
Suliman grunted.
“Okay, you wear boxers and like bold . . . um . . . patterns. You save the tidy whities for your dates to show off your muscular legs. You have a six-pack of designer beer in your refrigerator, twenty-seven bags of Ramen noodles, and your brown eggs expired last month. You need to throw them out, Mr. Suliman. You whiten your teeth, use Crest for cavities, and have a variety of manly colognes.”
“You son of a bitch; you invaded my space!” the detective exploded.
“How does it feel, you piece of shit? Okay, now that we have leveled the playing field, we’re starting from square one. You on board or not?”
“Yeah, I’m on board. Spell it out, Wong.”
“Okay, I want to know everything your fellow dicks find out about my colleagues. Daily. You screw up, and you will regret it. I will tell you what you report to Miss Spritzer, so we will have a standing six o’clock appointment daily. How you ferret out the reports from your colleagues is up to you, but I want detailed information. As a reward, you will be paid one thousand dollars a week. In cash. Under the table. No paper trail. You following me here?”
All Suliman heard was $1,000 a week in cash. Man, this weirdo was truly saving his ass. He nodded because he felt too giddy to speak.
“Do we have a deal, Suliman?”
The detective finally got his tongue to work. “We have a deal.”
Harry nodded. “I have a class coming to the dojo in fifteen minutes. I want you to sit here and compile your first report. Be as creative as you wish. I’ll be grading you. I’m going to help you out here, so that you can talk to your fellow workers. My colleagues will be filtering in here one by one, starting at six o’clock, at which point you will be outside in the cold watching this dojo. You can all convene outside the dojo, talk it to death, but lead them to believe this dojo is where all the action takes place. Secret meetings, telephone calls, strange goings-on. Like I said, be creative. I want you to fax me a copy of your daily report by nine this evening. Before you report to Spritzer. In case I need to make any changes.”
“You’re trying to screw this Spritzer babe, is that it?”
“That’s a rather crude way of putting it, Mr. Suliman, but yes, we want to come out on top. With your help. By the way, when this is all over, and you’ve complied with all I asked you to do, I’m authorized to tell you there is a bonus of ten thousand dollars on the table.”
Suliman barely heard the words; his mind was already on possibly relocating to one of the high-rises in Crystal City and turning his life around. Maybe this psycho kung fu artist was his savior. Well, damn.
Harry favored Suliman with his evil smile, narrowed his eyes, then turned and padded away.
When his heartbeat returned to normal, Mike Suliman took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Well, damn!
Chapter 13
Nikki Quinn shoved her shoulder against the door and held it for Alexis to barrel through. Both women were gasping, breathless from the run across the parking lot to the warmth of the lobby.
Panting, Nikki yanked at the scarf around her throat as she steered Alexis down the hall and around a corner to the building’s coffee shop. “We need to talk.”
“That we do,” Alexis said, following Nikki into the steamy warmth of the little coffee shop, which had four small tables and one secluded booth in the rear. Nikki headed for the booth. Lunch hour was over, so the place was virtually empty.
The women ordered the restaurant’s specialty, tuna on rye and black coffee.
“That was a fiasco if ever there was one,” Alexis said, referring to the sisters’ luncheon as she squirmed out of her down jacket. “But that’s not why you want to talk, is it, Nikki?”
Nikki looked down at the watch on her wrist, a birthday gift from Jack several years ago. She let loose with a long, drawn-out sigh. It seemed as if her entire life was scheduled in minutes. Six minutes to do this, nine minutes to do that, fifteen minutes to do something else. At the end of the day, every day, to her own chagrin, she simply ran out of minutes.
“No, it isn’t. I just want to give you a heads-up. You’re my friend, my employee, an associate at the firm.”
Alexis held up her hand to stop Nikki’s flow of words. “Nik, you don’t owe me an explanation of anything. I work for you. I have no intention, ever—that’s as in ever—of asking you to make me a partner. I’m happy as a clam with the salary you pay me, which is more than I deserve. I don’t want or need any extra responsibility. I don’t want for anything, I’m content with what I have. I just hope you are satisfied with my work performance.”
“Alexis, we’re soul sisters. When I started the firm years and years ago—and they were lean years, believe me—I had a goal. I reached that goal. Now, my back is to the wall, and my employees are making demands I will not tolerate. The meeting at two-thirty, with Allison, Irene, and Pamela, is not going to go well. I’m going to cut them loose. I’ve already alerted security to be on standby, and HR knows what is going down.”
“If you’re asking me if I approve, the answer is yes. We’ll manage without them. I know three lawyers who would jump at the chance to work for you. They’re young, fresh out of law school, but that’s what you need, Nik, young blood, gung ho, and ready to set the legal world on fire. Georgetown Law will give you a steady flow of young lawyers. You and Jack are both alumni, and they’ll bend over backward to help you. You hire more paralegals. We can wind these class-action
suits down if we have enough eager bodies willing to work late and weekends. Every young lawyer knows you have to pay your dues before you make the big bucks.”
“You make it sound so easy, Alexis. It isn’t. I think I’m a hair away from Jack’s asking for a divorce. It’s my fault, too. I took on too much. I didn’t think it all the way through, then Jack up and left the firm. I was counting on him. I couldn’t stand in his way when he said he wanted out. We’re a hot mess is what we are at the moment.”
“Kind of like me and Joseph. I hear you, friend.”
Their food arrived, and both women gobbled it down and asked for refills on the coffee.
“Beats that hard-boiled egg I eat every day at my desk,” Alexis said, laughing in a way that indicated a total lack of amusement. “What do you need me to do, Nik?”
“Sit in on the meeting with me. Then, or before if you have time, call around, find me some good lawyers who are willing to come on board. The firm has a healthy bank account, so offer double what the other firms are paying, with a robust bonus when we wrap up these three class-action suits. And, of course, a generous expense account. I want them ready to go to work Monday morning. Make sure they understand we will be working through the holidays, with Christmas Day and New Year’s Day our only days off, and make sure you tell them there will be travel involved. Lots of travel.”
Nikki whipped out her company credit card and handed it to the waiter.
Ten minutes later, the two women were in the elevator, heading toward the offices of the Quinn Law Firm, which took up the eighth and ninth floors of the huge office building in Georgetown. Nikki looked down at her watch. She had forty-five minutes to get her ducks in a row. She stopped at reception to ask if HR was on standby and if security was ready to go. Betsy, the grandmotherly receptionist, assured Nikki that everything needed for the aftermath of the upcoming meeting was in place.
“I’ll start on my calls. Meet you in the conference room at two-thirty.” Alexis was a whirlwind as she moved down the hall to her office.
Nikki walked down the opposite hall to her own office. She stood in the open doorway, staring at what she called her space. She’d decorated it herself. It had comfortable furniture that stopped just short of being called cozy. She’d picked this particular room when she started her firm because of the real wood-burning fireplace. She did love curling up next to it in the winter, while she wrote briefs and studied depositions. There was greenery, not a lot, but what she had filling the corners was lush and healthy-looking. She tended the plants herself. She looked at her Christmas cactus, which was full of cherry-red blooms. She smiled. Isabelle had given her the plant years ago.
The walls were covered in bookshelves, holding books that she referred to on an almost daily basis. Her walnut desk was covered with files and folders. Her chair was a gift from Myra, who said it had once been her father’s. She loved it, and the old cushions on it, which were almost flat from years of use.
The plank floor was covered with colorful hooked rugs she’d picked up at a long-ago flea market. The small fish tank, with beautiful tropical fish, was a gift from Jack five years ago on Christmas. All the fish had names: Teddy, Freddy, and Lettie. She had no idea, and neither did Jack, if the fish were boys or girls. All in all, a very pleasant workplace.
Nikki hung up her coat, stashed her handbag in one of the desk drawers, and walked over to the fireplace to poke at the dying fire. She added another log. Her favorite wing chair, covered in nubby chocolate-brown fabric, beckoned her. This was where she sat to take deep breaths and focus on troubling issues. Staring at the flames somehow seemed to calm her, gave her perspective, and managed to rejuvenate her. She hoped the magic worked today.
At twenty after two, Nikki stood up, smoothed down her jacket, and was nearly overcome by the realization that she’d screwed up her marriage, had overextended herself with the three class-action suits, and was indeed a mess. She took a deep breath, fought the tears burning her eyes, and made a vow to ask Jack for help.
Would he help her?
Be sure to read the next title in
Fern Michaels’s
The Men of the Sisterhood series,
COUNTDOWN,
available as a Zebra eBook in
September 2014!
In the second episode of a spectacular new series from New York Times bestselling author Fern Michaels, the men in the Sisterhood’s lives join forces to protect the underdog and see justice ser ved . . .
It takes a special kind of man to love and be loved by one of the Sisterhood. The women’s escapades have brought them worldwide fame and created a bond among their menfolk too. But now, Jack, Ted, Harry, Joe, Bert, and Abner have formed a secret group of their own and they’ve got a project in mind—taking down some of Washington, D.C.’s most ruthless slum landlords.
First step: making reparations to the tenants who’ve suffered. Second step: making sure the bad guys pay. Ted, Jack, and company must find a way to hit the villains where it hurts most. Good thing these modern-day Robin Hoods have learned from the best, and that the Sisterhood can always be counted on to help fight for what’s right . . .
And be sure not to miss the conclusion, TAKE DOWN, a Zebra eBook, also on sale in September 2014!
Photo by M2IFOTO © 2006
About the Author
FERN MICHAELS is the USA Today and New York Times bestselling author of the Sisterhood and Godmothers series and dozens of other novels and novellas. There are over seventy-five million copies of her books in print. Fern Michaels has built and funded several large day-care centers in her hometown, and is a passionate animal lover who has outfitted police dogs across the country with special bulletproof vests. She shares her home in South Carolina with her four dogs and a resident ghost named Mary Margaret.
Visit her website at fernmichaels.com.
KISS AND TELL
In this page-turning new novel in her beloved
Sisterhood series, New York Times bestselling author
Fern Michaels pits the indomitable vigilantes against
a corrupt and ruthless billionaire . . .
All good things must come to an end.
Even the women of the Sisterhood—
the stalwart sorority that has helped to right
so many wrongs—have been content to let their
gold shields gather a little dust while they enjoy
friends, family, and the comforts of civilian life.
But the group’s leaders, Myra Rutledge
and her best friend, Annie de Silva, remain as vital
and feisty as ever. So when a string of anonymous
e-mails arrives at Pinewood, suggesting shady
dealings at a local assisted-living facility,
the two immediately set out to investigate.
Emanuel Macklin, the financial wizard behind
the sprawling, high-end senior complex,
has amassed a private fortune that would make
Fort Knox look like spare change. But the hefty
returns Macklin promises his investors may be
garnered at others’ expense. In fact, Macklin’s
entire enterprise is one enormous Ponzi scheme
that’s about to collapse—taking the life savings
of thousands of innocents with it. Myra and Annie
know this is a mission tailor made for their brand
of justice, but they’ll need to enlist some new
and untested allies. And even as they set out to
foil one of their most cunning adversaries to date,
Myra faces a personal challenge that will rock the
Sisterhood to the core . . .
A FAMILY AFFAIR
From #1 New York Times bestselling author
Fern Michaels comes a captivating and heartfelt new novel,
as a young dancer finds an unexpected partner—
and gains the courage to live according to her heart . . .
In a
city built on dreams, Trisha Holiday makes her
living moving like one. But out of her dancer’s
costume, she’s as down-to-earth as they come.
That’s why she ignores the admiring note—
and the accompanying $1,000 bill—that arrives
backstage after one of her ethereal performances.
Yet the sender, a wealthy foreign prince,
isn’t easily dissuaded. Seven years living and
studying in the United States have made Malik
long for the freedom to choose his own bride—
and the woman he wants is Trisha.
After a breathtaking visit to Malik’s kingdom
culminates in a marriage proposal, Trish attempts
to adjust to an opulent new lifestyle complete with
servants, sumptuous surroundings, and vast wealth.
None of that matters to Trish as much as Malik’s love.
With Malik’s sister Soraya proving a trusted new
friend, they plan a lavish wedding surpassing
anything she could have imagined.
Yet Trish’s new life will have challenges too—
adjusting to a new and complex culture,
to the myriad demands of Malik’s royal position,
and to the expectations she faces as his wife.
In the midst of her own major changes,
Upside Down Page 9
