Fast Women

by Jennifer Crusie

  Gabe leaned back. “He said Jack talked to him?”

  Nell nodded.

  “Maybe Jack’s upset about Suze working and thinks if you quit, Suze’ll quit.”

  “Jack doesn’t know Suze is working. She tells him she’s going out with me.”

  Gabe was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “Thanks for not quitting.”

  “Quitting?” Nell said. “I’m just getting started. I’m tearing apart the basement next.”

  “Oh, good,” Gabe said. “We don’t have enough upheaval around here.”

  But for the first time, he didn’t sound exasperated, and Nell went back to work feeling positively cheerful.

  * * *

  Gabe’s life was not as tidy.

  For one thing, he couldn’t find Lynnie or any evidence of where she’d gone or who had broken into her apartment, and he considered that a personal affront and a professional failure. Riley’s canvassing of the back records of jewelers and pawnshops wasn’t getting anywhere, either. “The damn diamonds could have been pawned anywhere,” Riley told him. “In fact, if the guy who had them had any brains at all, he’d have gone out of town. Give it up.” But Gabe couldn’t, even though he had other problems more pressing.

  Budge Jenkins, for example, called regularly, miserable about Margie taking over The Cup. “It’s not safe for her,” he said, the only man Gabe had ever known who could fidget over the phone. “She could get robbed.” Gabe had said, “Budge, it’s a teashop not a 7-Eleven. She’s closed by six every night,” but Budge continued to fuss and nag until Gabe thought seriously about kicking Margie out just to get Budge off his back.

  Then there was Riley. “Suze is a menace,” he told Gabe after the first decoy with Suze. “She walks in a bar and everybody comes on to her.” “Considering her line of work for us, that’s a plus,” Gabe said. Suze herself was a complete professional, and Gabe saw her in the office most days, either helping Margie close the register at six or aiding and abetting Nell in her ceaseless efforts to transform an agency that didn’t need it. He’d decided to let Nell have her way on the rest of the place as long as she left his office alone, a decision reinforced by her matter-of-fact refusal of Trevor’s offer of a job and a pay raise, but in the second week in November, she made her move.

  “Your furniture needs work,” she told him, facing him down across his desk, blinding him with her red hair and an orange sweater with a bright blue stripe across the bust. “It’ll only be for a day, two at most.”

  “Stay out of my office,” Gabe said, trying not to look at the stripe. “You can have the bathroom and the outer office, but this is mine. I know it’s out of date, but the fifties are due to come back any day now.”

  “This stuff isn’t fifties, it’s forties. And it’s already back. I don’t think you should get rid of it, I think you should have it cleaned and repaired.” Nell sat down, aiming the stripe right at him. “But you’ve got to clean the leather and the wood on the furniture, and some of it’s wobbling and needs to be reglued.” She looked at the ceiling. “There’s even one with a broken arm.”

  “I know,” Gabe said. “You broke it.”

  “And we need to replace the blinds in here—” Nell said brightly.

  “Damn it, Nell,” he said, “could you please leave something here alone?”

  “—but it wouldn’t be a change at all.” She smiled at him. “It’d be a restoration.” She looked cheerful but tense, and he realized she was braced for him to yell.

  He’d been yelling a lot lately. He took a deep breath and waited until he was calmer. “All right,” he said finally. “If it doesn’t cost too much, and you’re not changing anything, go ahead with the furniture.”

  “And the blinds.”

  “And the blinds.”

  “And the rug.”

  “Don’t push your luck, Eleanor.”

  “Thank you,” Nell said and headed back to her desk to start phoning repair people.

  “But you can’t change anything,” Gabe called after her, and she stuck her fiery head back in the door to say, “I’m not changing anything around here. I’m improving it.” Then she disappeared again.

  “Why is that not reassuring?” Gabe said to the empty space that vibrated with her afterimage.

  When he came in a week later, all his office furniture was gone.

  “Nell!”

  “The restorer came,” she said, materializing in his doorway in a violet sweater this time. There was a red heart knitted into the fabric above her left breast. Why doesn’t she just wear bull’s-eyes? he thought. “He said the wood just needed to be cleaned and waxed,” Nell went on, chipper as hell, “but that restoring the leather upholstery and reinforcing the loose joints might take longer.”

  “Restoring the leather? That sounds expensive.”

  “It is, a little, but not like buying new,” Nell said brightly. “And think of what a difference it’ll make.”

  “Nell—”

  “And when that’s done we have to talk about the couch in the reception room—”

  “The couch is fine.”

  “—because it isn’t period, it’s just ugly and falling apart. We—”

  “Nell,” Gabe said, and something in his voice must have gotten to her because she stopped and looked at him warily, a redheaded, wide-eyed Bambi in purple cotton knit. “Stop it,” he said and felt guilty for saying it.

  “A new couch and I’m done,” Nell said. “I swear. That and the business cards and the window, but the new couch first. Somebody’s going to fall through the old one and then where will we be? Sued, that’s where. Really, I know what I’m doing.”

  “I never doubted it,” Gabe said. “I’m just not sure you know what we’re doing. That would be running a detective agency. We do not have the kind of clientele that notices the decor. By the time they get to us, we could be meeting in Dumpsters and they wouldn’t care as long as we got the answers they needed.”

  “The couch will be the end of it,” Nell said and crossed her heart, both of them. “I swear.”

  “No couch,” Gabe said. “I mean it.”

  Nell sighed and nodded and went back to her desk as the phone rang and then stuck her head back in. “Riley’s on one and your phone is over there on the floor by the window.”

  “How many days?”

  “Larry said tomorrow, Wednesday tops.”

  “Who’s Larry?” Gabe said as he picked up the phone.

  “I don’t know,” Riley said on the other end. “Who’s Larry?”

  “The guy doing the furniture,” Nell said. “You’d like him. He liked your stuff.”

  She disappeared back through the door as Riley said, “You did not send me out to find any Larry.”

  “Forget Larry,” Gabe said. “Where are you?”

  “Cincinnati,” Riley said. “The pawnshops here also have no record of the diamonds in 1978. And I’m tired of this. Trevor said he buried them with Helena, and I’ve decided to believe him.”

  “Don’t stop until you’ve hit every damn shop in the city,” Gabe said.

  Riley sighed his exasperation into the phone. “So who’s Larry?”

  “Some guy Nell has redoing the furniture in my office.”

  “You know, you and Nell have a lot in common,” Riley said. “Neither one of you ever gives up.”

  “Maybe I’ll send Nell after Lynnie.”

  “She got her the first time,” Riley said. “I’d give her a shot at it.”

  Nell knocked on the door and came in again. “Client to see you,” she said and then stood back to let Becca Johnson in.

  Becca looked miserable, which was par for her; she hired the McKennas to check the background of every man who came along that she thought might be The One, but unfortunately Becca’s intelligence and common sense were equaled only by her lousy taste in men. Now as she stood in front of him, her breath coming in shudders as she bit her lip, Gabe knew Becca had picked another winner.

  “I�
�ll talk to you later,” Gabe said to Riley and hung up. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’ll get a glass of water,” Nell said and disappeared through the door.

  “His name isn’t Randy,” Becca said, and then her face crumpled and she walked into Gabe’s arms.

  “Okay,” Gabe said, patting her. “Whose name isn’t Randy?”

  She lifted her pretty face from his shoulder. “He’s really wonderful, Gabe. I was so sure this time, I didn’t even hire you because I knew. But his name isn’t Randy at all. He lied to me,” Becca wailed, and Gabe winced as her voice rose.

  Nell came back in with the water and then stopped, raising an eyebrow. Don’t start with me, he thought and crossed his eyes at her over Becca’s shoulder. She crossed hers back at him, put the water on the windowsill, and left the room with a nice swing to her walk. I should annoy her more often, he thought. It puts some bounce in her step.

  “I really trusted him,” Becca said, reminding him he had a problem on his hands. “I was so sure.”

  “Did you ask him about it?” Gabe said, patting again.

  “Ask him?” Becca pulled back. “Ask him?”

  “Yes,” Gabe said patiently. “How did you find out?”

  “His suitcase,” Becca said, sniffing. “In the back of his closet. I was looking for an extra blanket and found it. The initials on it are EAK.”

  “Maybe it’s a secondhand suitcase,” Gabe said. “Maybe it was his maternal grandmother’s.”

  “It’s his,” Becca said. “It’s almost brand-new. He doesn’t buy secondhand. Everything in his place is brand-new.”

  “Maybe he borrowed it,” Gabe said, and she stopped hyperventilating. “Becca, ask him. Then call me and tell me what he says, and we can investigate that if you want. But don’t jump all over the guy because of initials on a suitcase.”

  Becca sniffed again. “You really think that’s it?”

  “I don’t know,” Gabe said. “But it’s time you talked to him. If you’re really serious about him—”

  “I am so serious about him,” Becca said.

  “—then you’re going to have to learn to talk to him.”

  “We talk,” Becca said, and then when Gabe shook his head, she said, “Okay, I’ll ask him.” She swallowed once and said, “I really will. Tonight.”

  Gabe found his notebook on the bookshelf and took down all the particulars about Randy, his background as far as Becca knew it, and his suitcase. Then he took her elbow and steered her toward the door. “Okay, I’ve got all I need. Call me when you’ve talked to him, and if you’re still not happy, we’ll find out everything.”

  “Thank you,” she said, with the tiniest catch in her voice. “I’m sorry, Gabe, but I really thought this was it, and then I saw those initials.”

  “Don’t panic yet,” he said, urging her gently through the reception room.

  When she was out the door, he turned back to Nell. “Was there something you wanted to say?”

  “Me? No,” she said, all innocence. “You groping clients is no business of mine.”

  “Remember that,” he said, going back to his office. “And try to send in only really built women from now on. They’re more fun in a clinch.”

  He closed his door just as something hit it. Probably a paper wad, he thought, and went back to work smiling until he realized he didn’t have a desk or a chair.

  * * *

  Later that evening, waiting for the last callback from California on a background check, Gabe sat on the floor in his office and ate Chinese next to Nell while he looked at her legs stretched out beside his. At least sitting beside her, he couldn’t see that damn heart.

  “What would you do if you went after Lynnie?” he said.

  “Find some guy with money, stake him out like a goat, and wait for her to show up,” Nell said. “Do you have the potstickers? Because I—” She broke off as he handed the potsticker carton to her.

  “You know, I remember when I had furniture,” he said, reaching for the garlic chicken carton. “It was nice in here then.”

  “I called and Larry’s bringing it back tomorrow,” Nell said. “You’re going to love it. Tell me about Becca.”

  “What about Becca?” Gabe said, willing to fight but not really up to it. It was so much more pleasant to savor the garlic and look at the scenery.

  “Riley calls her the Check-Out Girl, so I gather she checks out the men she dates?”

  “Becca comes from a small town where everybody knows everybody else,” Gabe said. “She now lives in a big town and works in a big university with a huge transient population. Nobody knows anybody. So she hires us to do the work that her mother and grandmother would do back home.”

  Nell considered it around a fork full of sweet and sour pork. “That’s not dumb.”

  “No, but this time she didn’t want us to investigate. This time it was the real thing. Stop hogging the pork.”

  He stretched out his hand and she passed the carton over.

  “So what happened?”

  “She thinks he lied about his name.” Gabe took a bite of pork and let the tang of the sauce linger for a moment before he swallowed. The good things in life deserved to be savored. No point in moving fast.

  “You don’t sound too convinced,” Nell said.

  “No reason to panic yet.” Gabe picked up his paper cup, and just as he realized it was empty, Nell passed him another one full of Coke. “Thank you.”

  “So who else is a regular besides Becca the Check-Out Girl?” Nell said, prying open the potsticker carton. “Boy, this smells good.”

  “Trevor Ogilvie,” Gabe said, watching her ankles. “He hires us every three or four months to find out what Olivia’s up to.” He put down his plate to find the hot and sour soup. There were two small containers of it, so he handed one to Nell and opened the other for himself. “Riley calls her the Quarterly Report. He likes her because she goes to places with loud music and cheap beer. She’s due again next month.” He tasted the soup, thick and hot, and the sourness reminded him of Nell’s french fries. He’d been having all of his fries with vinegar lately because the tartness woke up every taste bud he had.

  “And then there’s the Hot Lunch,” Nell said.

  “Harold Taggart and his lovely wife, Gina.” Gabe pointed his spoon at her. “You get them the next time. Riley’s fed up.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “You sit in the hotel lobby and watch to see if Gina shows up with her newest, which she will. Completely dependable, our Gina is.”

  “Then I point my finger and say ‘I Spy’?”

  “Then you point the camera and take the picture. Harold likes pictures.”

  Nell shook her head and jostled his shoulder a little. “That’s sick.”

  “That’s what Riley says. I try not to pass judgment.”

  “You’re an example to us all,” Nell said.

  “I like to think so,” Gabe said, gazing at her legs again.

  Nell uncrossed her ankles. “They’re good, aren’t they?”

  “Yep.”

  “They were the only part of my body that didn’t go to hell when I lost weight,” Nell said. “I think it was because I kept walking.”

  “You look a lot better,” Gabe said, passing the sweet and sour back to her. “You were a little scary when you started here.”

  “I feel a lot better,” Nell said, peering into the carton.

  The top of her head brushed his chin, feather soft and surprisingly cool. Hair that red should be hot, he thought.

  She held up the carton. “You want any more of this or can I finish it off?”

  “It’s yours,” Gabe said. “Hard to believe we used to have to force you to eat.”

  “So what other regulars?”

  “Nothing else colorful,” Gabe said. “We do a lot of background checks for some firms in the area.”

  “Like O&D.”

  “Especially O&D. We got a lot of their work because my dad and Trevor
were buddies.” Gabe lost some of his good mood thinking about them. “And then we did such a crackerjack job nailing Jack in both his divorces that he sent us work from his department, too.”

  “That’s open-minded of him.” She frowned into space. “I’m having trouble seeing Trevor as anybody’s drinking buddy.”

  “Trevor was not always a thousand years old,” Gabe said. “He and my dad really tore up the town.” He tried not to think about what else they might have done. “There’s a picture of them on the wall. Over there, behind the coatrack.”

  Nell pushed herself up off the floor and went to look, and Gabe watched her legs as she crossed the floor. Great calves. He considered leaning over to look up her skirt and decided the light wasn’t good enough to bother.

  “My God,” Nell said, bending to squint at the picture, which Gabe appreciated. “Trevor looks positively dashing.”

  “Well, back then he was. He was a tough litigator, too. He could stonewall with the best.”

  “Your dad looks like you.”

  “Actually, I look like my dad, but thanks.”

  Nell looked back at him and then at the picture again. “Not exactly. You look like somebody I’d trust.”

  “Thank you,” Gabe said, surprised. “I think. Does that mean ‘boring’?”

  “No,” Nell said. “That means your dad looks like a player.”

  “Good call,” Gabe said.

  She stepped back and took the blue pinstriped jacket from the coatrack. “Was this his? It looks like the one in the picture.”

  “It was his,” Gabe said. “Don’t know about the picture. He liked pinstripes. Ring-a-ding-ding.”

  Nell shrugged the coat on, and it hung down past her hips, almost covering her skirt. Take the skirt off, Gabe thought, and then thought, Oh, no. It was one thing to idly appreciate a woman’s legs; it was another thing entirely to start fantasizing about loss of clothing in conjunction with a McKenna secretary.

  “This is a great jacket.” Nell turned back to him as she pushed the sleeves up her arms. “Why don’t you wear it?”

  “Not the pinstripe type,” he said, enjoying the slash of her red hair above the deep blue of the jacket. She looked more than cute, she reminded him of somebody: gamine face, almond eyes, pale skin, a smile that could melt concrete. Somebody old-fashioned but hot. Myrna Loy, he thought. She brushed her hands over the front of the jacket, and he said, “That’s a good color for you.”