“It’s a proceeding where my partner and I and Archer’s attorneys question you about your testimony.”
I wanted to barf on his shoes. Suddenly wrinkle-poofer was the least important thing on my list of things to do.
Sunglasses said, “You won't be hearing from us but we’ll be hearing from you. And find out everything you can about a company called Red Queen, Ltd.”
A thorn lodged in my throat. “You want me to spy for you?”
Sunglasses’ mouth curled up in the corners, but it was far from a smile. “It would be to your advantage to play ball with us. If you don't...” he slid his finger across his throat. “Get out.”
I stepped from the black car onto the surface of a marshmallow. My legs buckled. I leaned on the nearest vehicle and set off its alarm.
“You’ll need this.” One of the Tweedles handed me my cell phone. I took it with shaky hands.
* * *
Going to the office was out of the question. No one would miss me on New Year’s Eve day. I drove back to my house in Westminster Lakes, a gated community just outside Miami.
My garage door came down with a reassuring thud. It would be easier to think clearly within my own walls. And I had a lot to think about – Sunglasses, Leslie... and what the hell was RICO?
I walked into the kitchen, threw my bag on the counter and grabbed a bottled water from the fridge. My cat Gem and I share a large contemporary Florida house on a tiny pristine lake. It’s an island of security in a crazy world.
What did I know about RICO? In the back of my mind sat the slippery eel of a thought I had heard that word attached to Leslie before today. I work for Leslie Archer, the worst human being on the face of the earth. He develops upscale resorts; I brokered the luxury apartment buildings that sit on the land he owns, mostly to pension funds and investment groups. In his fifty-three years, Leslie has managed to insinuate himself into the top slot on some impressive enemy lists.
At my computer, I typed RICO in the search bar and like a slot machine, the tumblers spun. Up came a definition that fit Leslie like his spray-on tan: Racketeering. If Hare won under civil RICO, he would be able to get all Leslie's money, homes, and jets. Leslie was all about possessions. This was going to get ugly.
I was mouse-trapped. Leslie wouldn't let me out of my employment agreement with Archer Resorts. And now I was supposed to be an undercover snoop for some thug.
Chapter Two
For many years I had promised myself I would find a way to live in England. It was the perfect time to split. I called my best friend Ron, a good-looking guy with two great shoulders for my slender body to lean on. “I need to talk.”
A multi-talented guy with polished street smarts, Ron Watson came close to getting his law degree from Tulane, but dropped out and traveled the world. Professionally single with a taste for Rubenesque women, Ron brokered and built apartment communities. After teaming up for the sale of the Dormouse Arms Apartments we became close friends and confidants. Though we talked every day by phone or in person, neither of us was willing to give up our friendship to try for a romance.
As I drove to Ron’s office, the road appeared to change and drift. My hands grew tiny and I couldn't control the steering wheel. When I pulled into a parking space, I misjudged the length of my car and bounced against the curb. I hate when that happens and it was happening more often.
Since my divorce court days my personal growth was non-existent and my life was out of control with daydreams and nightmares colliding. The stress generated by Leslie was pushing me over the edge.
Ron had a one-man, one-secretary office due to a recent downturn in his finances. The furniture was rich and bulky with original oil paintings on the walls and oriental carpets on the hardwood floors. He was alone when I got there.
“Gimme a hug. I need it,” I said.
He gave me a buddy-hug with three pats on the back. I returned the thumps.
We shared a seat on his leather sofa. He opened a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue and poured us each a double shot in crystal cocktail glasses. I shook my head to clear the little stabby pains that threatened to poke my brains out.
He stretched his long legs, his wing-tips touching the end of the coffee table. Head back, he studied the ceiling. “Do you think Archer did it... had Jug Hare beheaded?”
“There’s more. This Sunglasses dude wants me to dig up dirt on an Archer company – Red Queen, Ltd. I think I might be the registered agent for Red Queen. When I first started working for Leslie he had me sign to be director of an off-the-shelf company he formed in the Bahamas. He did a lot of that back then.”
Ron focused his dark eyes on me.
I looked away. “I tried to forget. I was embarrassed. It was dumb. I believed him when he told me it was routine. I have no idea what Leslie has done with that company. If he used it to destroy Jug Hare, then I’m as good as dead. Marc Hare is not going to be satisfied with Leslie’s assets. After he takes the toys, he’s gonna kill Leslie and maybe me too. That's why I’m going to leave Archer Resorts... ASAP. I firmly believe in running when the time is right.”
“It might be your imagination that’s running... amok.”
“You had to see these guys. The lawyer looked like the Walrus in Alice in Wonderland. And the two thugs looked just like Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee.”
“The stress is getting to you. It’s not normal to meet fairytale characters, not at your age. Lay off the pills.”
“No. They were the Tweedles. He’s the Walrus. And I keep seeing the Cheshire Cat.”
He shook his head. “So you’re going to run away.”
I wished I smoked. I reached in my purse and popped a Xanax. “The first time I ran away from home I was only three years old. I had enough of my mother. I packed up my doll's suitcase and marched down four flights of apartment stairs, dragging the suitcase behind me and hitting every stair with a thump-bump. I knew my mother was following, I could hear her creak. When I stepped into the gutter to cross the city street, I was lifted airborne by my hair and carried home.
“After my mother beat the punk out of me, I curled up in the hall closet with my White Rabbit doll. I shut my eyes real tight and wished and wished with all my might that my White Rabbit would take me to Wonderland for keeps. My mother yanked the closet door open and pulled my bunny from me. She put him on the highest shelf. The next day I tried to get him. I stacked boxes on a chair and climbed up to that shelf, but... he was gone.” I closed my eyes to hold my tears back. “He’ll come back to me someday.”
“And what’ll you do when he returns?”
I was starting to feel the scotch. “He’ll be from England if he’s a real white rabbit. I cling to the dream of starring in my own British romance, sharing scones and clotted cream with someone who says outrageous Oscar Wilde things. He’ll be like John Cleese and make me laugh until my sides ache. I’ll go to bed giggling and wake up with Cleese, naked, at my pillow serving me coffee.”
“Now I understand why you give those White Rabbit dolls to the Children’s Shelter.”
“I feel like the Rabbits are a tiny piece of hope for those abused kids. Let’s not talk about it.”
Ron put his arm around my shoulders. “So until your personal White Rabbit returns... ”
“I feel like I’m in the wrong kind of Wonderland – the Blunderland version. I need to start documenting all this insanity, maybe start keeping a journal or a diary to protect myself.”
“There is no such place as Wonderland.”
Irritated, I deflected his remark. “How’s your bankruptcy doing?”
“I’m working it out with my creditors according to Chapter 11. I can’t help but be mad at myself for getting involved with that Crete-It product. My building looks like a giant piece of Swiss cheese on the 17th green. Every golf ball that goes astray leaves a round pock mark in the yellow fake stucco.”
“Logic says the Crete-It Company would have settled with you. They sold you defective construction materials.”
&n
bsp; “Instead they folded the company and reincorporated under a new name. There’s no one to sue. I’m left with sixty condos I can’t sell because they look like they’ve been under mortar fire. The things that seem like slam-dunks are the things that most often do you in.”
He put down his glass, took my elbow and nudged me out off the sofa. “New Year’s Eve is amateur night. Get your butt home before the drunks hit the road. And forget about the diary. It’s a stupid idea. What you write down can only come back to haunt you in the end.”
“You got a date?” I asked, feeling a teeny bit jealous.
A cloudy look crossed his face. “Nothing special.”
We clinked glasses and did the pal hug thing. Then I hit the road, making a quick stop at Barnes & Noble against Ron’s advice. In an effort to avoid any more thugs in parking lots, I parked at the curb with my emergency flashers blinking.
In the dim glow at the back of the stationery section I found a solitary diary just waiting for me. It was a thick daily journal with quotes from Alice in Wonderland on each page. It was perfect.
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Bonus excerpt from
Wendy and the Lost Boys
Pirates
Chapter One
Sometimes the journey you set out on is not the one you return from.
I lay on my stomach on Belgian cream-colored sheets in my suite on the 370-foot yacht rocking in the waters somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle. I had finished a pitcher of screwdrivers before the sun came up and was feeling woozy. As I dozed in my bikini, something jumped on my back. I tried to fight it off, rolled over, and found myself looking at a giant tongue and two beady eyes. It was like being married again.
All six feet of Hook’s bony body retreated when I brought my knee up catching him in his man-berries. He turned, rolling off the bed and abruptly slamming his johnson into the teak nightstand. His penis was huge, dark, and engorged. I was right about the blue pills in his master suite. They were erectile dysfunction drugs. Of course, with the name UpUGo, it didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure it out.
“I knew you were taking that junk. Don’t waste your time,” I said to the naked old man with the flabby butt as he held himself with a panicked look on his face. “And get out of my suite. The door was locked for a reason! How’d you get in here?”
“It’s been more than four hours, Wendy,” he whimpered. “I’m still hard and it hurts like hell. Help me!” His once chiseled features hung like melted wax from his cheekbones.
“My promise to Marni to care for you did not include sex... no way... under no circumstances. That’s what you get for messing with that stuff. Just get out of my way!”
I snatched the ten-pound white hairball called Tinkerbelle from the foot of the bed and made my way to the sun deck. Hook’s Predator was a yacht on steroids. It took ten minutes to get from my suite to the upper floor. Hook had spent over $200 million of Ponzied money on this floating erection. He recited the Predator’s talents daily, like a mantra he hoped would keep away the feds, investors, and victims who wanted nothing more than to see him keelhauled.
Once on the sun deck, I reclined on a cushioned lounge chair. Tink licked my face, her Maltese dog fur tickling my nose. I wrapped her leash around my left hand and whispered into her ear, “You poor little puppy. You don’t understand we buried your mama yesterday.” The tears came. There was no holding them back.
How did I let myself get into this situation? I regretted the day I first heard Hook’s name and regretted even more the day I introduced him to Marni.
* * *
It started almost two years ago as what had become a normal poison-ivy-like night for me. Standing at the window of our suite at The Plaza, I gazed out over the pink and white blossoms of June in Central Park wondering when I would learn to say “no.” It was a hellacious sacrifice to drop what I was doing, leave my clients in Miami and haul up to New York to be at my husband Croc’s side as he pursued investors for his hedge fund Privateer, LLC.
I thought I’d finally found a good man when I first met James Crocowski at a fundraiser for hurricane victims. We continued to bump into each other at a series of charity events over the next few weeks. After a few months of frantic dating, I woke up in the bridal suite at the Luxor Hotel in Vegas. I was Mrs. Crocowski, the thirty-nine year-old wife of a hedge fund manager. I was ready to admit I’d made a mistake.
“How do I look?” Croc did a spin in his tux.
I turned from the window to study him. The man was an optical illusion. He looked intelligent, hardly the picture of a guy who’d just lost triple-digit millions. And obviously to him he looked primo. I bit off a really nasty comment and settled for, “Stop panting. You sound like a dog.”
“Yeah, but how great do I look? We’re going to a Charlie Hook party. It’s important.”
The name meant nothing to me. This was not a charity event, despite the embossed wording on the invitations. Croc, aka the Crocodile, was set to snare a new pool of investors with his welcoming grin and promises of extraordinary returns. I was sick to my stomach with what I suspected were his less than honest guarantees. I regretted my last minute decision to join him, torn between wifely loyalty and rat-sniffing instincts.
Dressed in my size-six little black dress that screamed designer original, while I screamed inside my head, I grabbed my velvet coat and struggled into it. My highlighted hair swung loose on my shoulders. “You look fine.”
“Didn’t I buy you some bling to wear to these events?”
I shot him my dirtiest look, feeling unclean being in the same room with him.
The doorman helped us into the hired limo, and we headed to a private party in Montclair, a city in northern New Jersey. I settled back and watched the cars rat race along.
Somewhere on the Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge we were sideswiped by another vehicle. First there was a thump and then a shattering crunch.
“What was that?” I yelled to our driver. The limo bounced over rough pavement, hit gravel, and came to rest against the guardrail.
Crack! A gun shot and then another ricocheted off the front right fender in a splash of sparks.
Croc threw his weight against the limo door but it didn’t open. I yanked his sleeve. “Don’t leave me here, you chicken-shit!”
We were still struggling when a tall thin man reeking of cologne and cigars got into the front passenger seat. He aimed a large gun at my husband. “Don’t move or I’ll blow your head off.”
I pegged his accent as Russian.
My precious mate tried for the door again, knocking me in the ribs with his right elbow.
The Russian flashed me a quizzical look. “You married this coward?”
“I was drunk at the time.”
He smirked. “I could never get that drunk.”
“Nobody asked you,” Croc snapped. His smart mouth was about to get us both killed.
I put my hands in the air and slid into the far corner of the car trying to fold into the upholstery.
The limo driver sat stone still, almost blasé.
“We told you three weeks. You have until Monday. Ninety-three million dollars,” the Russian said.
“I promise 18% on your money if you wait until Thursday!”
Had my husband lost his mind? Facing a gun he negotiates interest rates?
The Russian cut his eyes to me and left the car.
Croc exhaled in a whoosh. “I guess they want their money back.”
“Give it to them.”
“I don’t have it. We had operating expenses.”
It dawned on me. “Are you involved in a Ponzi?”
“No, it’s a creative new-age investment opportunity and my tireless efforts are under appreciated.” He avoided eye contact and stepped out of the car.
“Doesn’t this shake you up?” I ask
ed the driver as I dialed 911 on the car phone. “By the way, shut off the engine.”
“Lady, welcome to the new Wall Street. You get used to it after a while.” He yawned.
Outside the limo, Croc puffed on a cigarette. I’d never seen him smoke before. There was a lot I didn’t know about this man I married after I’d downed three bottles of champagne. Drink in haste. Repent in leisure. I put my head back and closed my eyes. It was time to see a lawyer.
The police arrived in less than ten minutes. By then Croc had disappeared. Maybe he walked off into the night or maybe the Russians decided not to wait until Monday. Either way, my wish had been granted. I was Croc-less.
Along with the details of the mugging, I filed a missing person’s report then went back to the Plaza and did a happy dance in our suite. My husband had abandoned me. Confirming my morning flight back to Miami, I changed rooms and for safety’s sake registered under my maiden name... Wendy Darlin.
Chapter Two
Five months later, Kit and I were pigging out on stone crabs and Bloody Marys at Joe’s Stone Crabs. A November day in Miami is perfect al fresco weather. Kit is my nail tech and consigliere. I tell him everything. Sometimes I listen to his advice. We were talking about my recent divorce.
“You’re well rid of him. Croc could have cost you your life.”
“I wasn’t cut out for marriage. Being financially responsible for his unpredictable actions was driving me crazy. It was only a matter of time before I was slaughtered or sued.”
Kit stretched his long legs and yawned. “I don’t know how you straight people do it... live in such close quarters.”
“Remember how crazy I was that first week after the final decree? I couldn’t wait to get away from him. I flew off shedding my possessions like feathers from a molting bird. I wanted to be free of everything that smelled, tasted, or felt like Croc.”
He laughed. “Not going to make that marriage mistake again, are you?”
“Nope. I live snug in my little condo on the beach. There’s no room in my life for a man. My closet’s too small.”
The Adventures of a Love Investigator, 527 Naked Men & One Woman Page 20
