Fast Women

by Jennifer Crusie

  She stopped with a small waxed carton in her hand. “Really?”

  “He’s very young,” Gabe said. “I take mine black.”

  “He’s very boring,” Riley said. “Is that real cream?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Riley peered into the box and pulled out a bottle of glass cleaner. “What’s all this cleaning stuff for?”

  “The office. You really should hire a cleaning service.”

  Gabe frowned at her. “We have a cleaning service. They come once a week. Wednesday nights.”

  She shook her head. “This place hasn’t been cleaned in at least a month. Look how thick the dust is on the windowsill.”

  There was a faint coating on everything, Gabe noticed. Except for the bookcase where the new coffeemaker perked cheerfully, the whole office was full of dust and gloom.

  “The number for the cleaning service is in the Rolodex.” Gabe opened the door to his office, escaping before he went headfirst into the coffeepot. He’d forgotten anything could smell that good. “Hausfrau Help.”

  “You’re kidding,” she said, and he closed the door behind him to shut her out. Thank God he had an office to escape into.

  An office that looked like hell, he realized when he was sitting at his desk in the unblinded light from the broken window. The room was littered with papers, Styrofoam cups, books he’d pulled off the shelf, and the other general rubble of his daily work. When had this place been cleaned last? Some of the mess looked like it dated back to his dad’s day. His keyboard was buried under more paper, and there was dust on everything, and suddenly it mattered.

  It was Eleanor Dysart’s fault. He hadn’t noticed any of this until she’d come in with her coffee and her china and her Windex and torn down his blinds.

  He picked the Styrofoam cups out of the mess and threw them away and went through the papers, pitching notes he’d already dealt with and putting letters that the Dysart woman would have to file in a separate stack. That would slow her down. He’d just turned on the computer when she came in, bearing a china cup and saucer and a determined expression that sat strangely on her finely drawn face. Gabe thought of his father, three sheets to the wind, reciting Roethke to placate his furious mother: I knew a woman, lovely in her bones. Eleanor Dysart was too thin and too pale, but she was lovely in her bones.

  “I called your cleaners,” she said, setting the cup down. “They haven’t been here in six weeks because they haven’t been paid.”

  Gabe frowned at her and forgot his father. “Of course they have. I signed the checks.”

  “Not for July and August, according to their bookkeeper. If you’ll tell me where you keep the canceled checks, I’ll fax them over.”

  “Reception desk, bottom right-hand drawer,” Gabe said automatically as he hit the keyboard to open the office bookkeeping program. He did a search for “Hausfrau.” Eight entries came up for 2000, including two for July and August. “There,” he told her, and she came around behind him.

  “That’s Quicken, right?” she said. “Is that on the computer on my desk? Good, I’ll take care of it. Thanks.”

  “For what?” Gabe said, but she was heading for the door, a woman on a mission.

  When she was gone, he sat back and picked up the coffee cup. It was a sturdy but graceful piece of china, cream colored with a blue handle, and it felt good in his hand, a luxury after the flyweight Styrofoam he’d been drinking from for years. He took a sip and closed his eyes because it was so rich, speeding caffeine into his system while assaulting every sense he had. When he looked again, there were blue dots on the inside, appearing as the coffee level dropped. It was absurd and charming and completely unlike the tense woman vibrating outside his door.

  Maybe he’d misjudged her. Maybe she was nervous because it was her first day. He didn’t care, as long as she kept the coffee coming.

  Fifteen minutes later, he went out to the reception room for a refill and found her with a frown on her face.

  He picked up the coffee carafe and said, “You okay?” as he poured.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “You have a problem. Look at this.”

  She had eight checks spread out before her. “These are all from Hausfrau,” she told him. “Here are the endorsements from January through June.”

  Gabe shrugged as he looked as six smudged stamped endorsements. “Okay.”

  She pointed to the last two checks. “These are the endorsements from July and August.”

  The checks were endorsed in blue, loopy handwriting. “That’s Lynnie’s writing.”

  “It appears she turned to embezzlement in her last two months with you.”

  “She was only with us for six weeks,” Gabe said and thought, Damn good thing, too. “Give Hausfrau some story about administrative screwups. I’ll handle the rest.” He took his coffee back to his office, thinking of Lynnie, black-haired and lovely, making lousy coffee and embezzling the cleaning money, and now sitting at home recovering from her sprained back with a thousand dollars and, he hoped, a sense of impending doom.

  He took another sip of coffee and felt slightly better until another thought hit.

  He was going to have to hire Eleanor Dysart permanently. For a moment, he thought about keeping Lynnie—so she stole money, she was cheerful and pretty and relaxed and efficient—and then he gave up and resigned himself to a tense reception room filled with the smell of great coffee.

  An hour later, Riley knocked on Gabe’s heavy office door and came in. “I finished most of the background check,” he said as he lounged into the chair across from Gabe’s desk. “I’ll go see the last guy and then I’ll ruin the rest of my day with the Hot Lunch.” He ducked his blond head to look at Gabe. “What are you pissed about?”

  “Many things,” Gabe said.

  “Nell?”

  “Who?”

  “Our secretary,” Riley said. “I said, ‘I’m Riley.’ She said, ‘I’m Nell.’ I think she’s doing a pretty good job.”

  “She seduced you with her coffee,” Gabe said. “And you have no idea what a good job she’s doing. She was only here an hour before she nailed Lynnie for embezzling the cleaning money.”

  “You’re kidding.” Riley laughed out loud. “Well, that’s Lynnie all over.”

  “Since when?” Gabe scowled at his partner. “If you knew she was bent—”

  “Oh, hell, Gabe, it was in her eyes. Not that she’d embezzle,” he added hastily as Gabe’s scowl deepened. “That she’d cheat. Lynnie was not a woman you’d leave alone for a weekend.”

  “Or with a checkbook, evidently,” Gabe said.

  “Well, that part I didn’t realize,” Riley said. “Although she was into luxury. Her furniture was all rented, but everything else in her duplex was first class with a label on it, right down to the sheets…” His voice trailed off as Gabe shook his head.

  “We have three rules at McKenna Investigations,” he said, reciting his father’s words. “We don’t talk about the clients. We don’t break the law. And—”

  “We don’t fuck the help,” Riley finished. “It was just once. We were doing a decoy job, and I took her home, and she invited me in and jumped me. I got the distinct impression she was just doing it for practice.”

  “Does it ever occur to you not to sleep with women?”

  “No,” Riley said.

  “Well, try to restrain yourself around the new secretary. She has enough problems.” Gabe thought about her tight, frowning face. “And now she’s sharing them with me.”

  “If you’re that unhappy, fire her, but do not get my mother back from Florida.”

  “God, no.” Gabe said, picturing his aunt behind the reception desk again. He loved her dutifully, but duty only went so far. She’d been a lousy secretary for ten years, and a worse mother for longer.

  “Get Chloe back. She’s tired of selling tea, anyway. She asked me if I knew anybody who’d like to run The Cup for her.”

  “Great.” Chloe and the stars. “I married
an idiot.”

  “No, you didn’t,” Riley said. “She’s just wired different from most. What’s going on?”

  “She dumped me,” Gabe said, and decided not to mention that she’d done it in favor of Eleanor Dysart. Riley would have a field day with that one.

  “Now see, that’s what I hate about women,” Riley said. “They divorce you, and then ten years later, right out of nowhere, they stop having sex with you. She have a reason?”

  “The stars told her to.”

  “Well, then, you’re screwed,” Riley said cheerfully. “Or in this case, not.”

  “Thank you,” Gabe said. “Go away.”

  His new secretary knocked on the door and came in.

  “I fixed it with the cleaners,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Now, about your business cards. There’s a note in the file from Lynnie that says it’s time to reorder.” She was frowning, as if this were a major problem.

  Gabe shrugged. “Reorder.”

  “The same cards?”

  “Yes, the same cards.”

  “Because, while they are lovely, of course, they could be better—”

  “The same cards, Mrs. Dysart,” Gabe said.

  She looked as if she wanted to say something else, then she lifted her pointed chin, took a deep breath and said, “Fine,” and went out, wincing as the office door creaked behind her. It had probably creaked for years, but Gabe hadn’t noticed until Eleanor Dysart showed up and started wincing.

  “I don’t think she likes our business cards,” Riley said.

  “I don’t care,” Gabe said. “I have to go see her brother-in-law and then deal with Lynnie. I am not screwing with perfectly good business cards on top of that. And you’ve got the Hot Lunch. Go act like a detective so I can get some work done.”

  “Maybe Nell could do it,” Riley said. “You were training Lynnie. Nell—”

  “She’d stick out a mile. People would stop by, trying to feed her.”

  “Just because you like your women upholstered doesn’t mean everybody does. You have to broaden your tastes. Which in your case would mean anybody besides Chloe. You know, she did you a favor by dumping you—”

  “And God knows I’m grateful,” Gabe said. “Now I have to work, and so do you. Go away.”

  “Fine,” Riley said. “Resist change. It’ll get you anyway.”

  Five minutes after Riley had gone, Eleanor Dysart knocked and came in, creaking the door again, and Gabe closed his eyes and thought, The hell with her bones. She’s going to drive me crazy. “Yes?”

  “About these business cards—”

  “No.” Gabe shoved himself back from his desk. “We’re not changing the business cards. My father picked those out.” He shrugged his suit jacket on. “I am now leaving. I will be at Ogilvie and Dysart and I won’t be back until well after lunch.” He detoured around her to the door, adding, “Just answer the phone, Mrs. Dysart. Don’t change anything. Don’t cause trouble.”

  “Yes, Mr. McKenna,” she said, and he looked back to see if she was mocking him.

  She was standing in the doorway, looking down at his business card with a potent mixture of displeasure and frustration on her face. He didn’t care. His business card was staying the way it was.

  She looked up and caught him watching her. “Anything else?” she asked him, her voice polite and professional.

  At least she was obedient. That was something.

  “Good coffee,” Gabe said and closed the street door behind him.

  * * *

  Nell went back to her desk and sat down, disliking Gabe McKenna intensely. She watched him through the big plate-glass window as he put on sunglasses and got into a vintage black sports car. He looked the epitome of retro cool—big guy, sharp suit, dark glasses, snazzy car—as he pulled out into the street and drove away.

  Well, looks could be deceiving. After all, he’d hired a secretary who’d embezzled a thousand dollars and left the place looking like a hellhole. How smart could he be? And then he’d dismissed her with those dark eyes as if she were just … a secretary. Well, the hell with you, Mr. McKenna. Frustrated beyond measure, Nell picked up her paper towels and spray cleaner and attacked the reception room, grateful that his good-looking younger partner wasn’t as annoying as he was. She wasn’t impressed with Riley’s intellect or energy so far, but he was big, blond, and blue-eyed, so at least he was fun to look at.

  An hour later, the phone still hadn’t rung, but the room was clean, right down to the big window in front that said in ancient, worn gold lettering, MCKENNA INVESTIGATIONS: DISCREET ANSWERS TO DIFFICULT QUESTIONS. Nell had scrubbed it with enthusiasm until she realized that she was taking some of the flaking paint off and slowed down. Not that it would have hurt if she’d taken it all off; the lettering must have been on there for fifty years or at least as long as they’d had those ugly business cards.

  When she went back inside, the window let in enough light that the deficiencies in the rest of the decor were plain. Nell’s desk was a scarred mess, the couch where clients presumably waited was a brown plastic-upholstered nightmare on its last spindly motel-Mediterranean legs, and the Oriental rug on the floor was so threadbare it was transparent in places. The bookcases and wood filing cabinets were good quality and had probably been original to the office, but the middle cabinet had an unfortunate black statuette of a bird perched on it, brooding over the place like something out of Poe. She gave one despairing thought to the office she’d lost in the divorce—the pale gold walls and gold-framed prints, the light wood desks and soft gray couches—and then she sank back into the battered wood swivel chair—her chair at the insurance agency had been ergonomic—and thought, At least it’s only for six weeks.

  Except maybe it wasn’t. She straightened slowly. He was going to have to fire Lynnie. Which meant she might end up permanently employed here. She looked around the office again. If she were permanent, she could make some changes. Like get the place painted. And lose the couch and the bird. And—

  Her eyes fell on the business card on her desk. “McKenna Investigations” it read in plain black sans-serif type on plain white card. It looked like something somebody had done with a kid’s printing set. But the boss didn’t want them changed. He didn’t want anything changed, the dummy.

  She went back to the computer, wondering if he was going to do anything about Lynnie or if that would be too much change, too. He hadn’t even told her to check the rest of the finances. Nell stopped typing and opened the drawer that held the canceled checks. There was a gray metal box tucked in behind the check folders, and she pulled it out and opened it to find a stack of papers, each marked “Petty Cash” followed by a dollar amount. They were all signed “Riley McKenna” in writing that wanted to be spiky but kept rounding off at the end.

  Nell leafed through the reports she was typing until she found one Riley had signed in a strong, dark, jagged scrawl. Nothing round anywhere, much like Riley. She went back to the petty cash slips and totaled them: $1,675. You had to admire Lynnie; the woman was thorough.

  She spent the next hour compiling a stack of forged checks. The breadth of Lynnie’s perfidy was astounding; she’d managed to cheat the McKennas and their creditors out of almost five thousand dollars. Just making good on the forged endorsement checks was going to cost the agency over three thousand. If Gabe McKenna didn’t go after this woman—

  Somebody tried to open the heavy street door, and the glass in it rattled. Nell jammed the slips back into the cash box as a sharp-faced redhead popped the door open and came in frowning, dressed in a good business suit and wearing even better shoes. Money, Nell thought, shoving everything back in the bottom drawer. “Can I help you?” she said, smiling her best we’re-the-people-you-need smile.

  “I want to see somebody who can handle a sensitive matter,” the woman said.

  “I can make an appointment for you,” Nell said brightly. “Unfortunately both our—” Our what? What the hell di
d they call themselves? Detectives? Operatives? “—partners are out. They could see you on—” She turned to the antique computer on her desk as she spoke and opened the file labeled “Appointments.” It was blank. They were both out on jobs right now and the damn page was blank. Who ran this place, anyway? “If I could have your number,” Nell finished, even more brightly, “I’ll call you when they get in and set up an appointment.”

  “It’s sort of an emergency.” The woman looked doubtfully at the couch and then sat gingerly on the edge of it. “I’m getting a divorce, and my husband is mistreating my dog.”

  “What?” Nell leaned forward, propelled by outrage. “That’s terrible. Call Animal Control and get—”

  “It’s not like that.” The woman leaned forward, too, and Nell held her breath that the couch wouldn’t tip or break or just give up and fold. “He yells at her all the time and she’s very nervous anyway, she’s a dachshund, a longhair, and I’m afraid she’s going to have a nervous breakdown.”

  Nell pictured a longhaired dachshund having a psychotic episode. Just like a man to pick on something that couldn’t fight back. “Have you tried Animal Control—”

  “He’s not hitting her. There aren’t any marks. He just yells all the time, and she’s a mess.” The woman leaned closer. “Her eyes are just tortured, she’s so unhappy. So I want you to rescue her. Get her away from that bastard before he kills her. He lets her out every night at eleven. Somebody could take her then. It would be easy in the dark.”

  Nell tried to imagine Gabriel McKenna rescuing a dachshund. Not likely. Riley might, though. He looked as though he’d be up for anything.

  “Let me take your name and number,” she told the woman. “One of our partners might be able to help.”

  And if they wouldn’t, maybe she would. Maybe she’d just go out there and rescue the poor trapped dog from the man who’d promised to take care of it and then just changed his mind. She tried to picture herself creeping into somebody’s backyard to steal a dog. It didn’t seem like something she’d do.

  “I’ll have Riley call you,” she said when she’d taken down the woman’s name—Deborah Farnsworth—her expensive Dublin address, and her dog-abusing husband’s even more expensive New Albany address.