Stilettos & Scoundrels (35 page)

“Mother…Mother!”

“What?”

“I’ve got to go.
Cooper
’s on the other line.”

“Fine. Avoid me now, but we’re not finished, young lady. What time will you be home?” she demanded.

“I don’t know, Mother. I will call you later.”
I
hung up and clicked over to
Cooper
.

“What!”

“Well, I’m happy to hear from you too, King.”

“Don’t even start with me,”
I
warned. “I just got off the phone with my mother.”

“Ahhh,” he said as if he understood.
I
didn’t think that likely but wasn’t about to go into it. Like he would care anyway. Before asking why he called,
I
launch
ed into all the tidbits I
had found out.
“Listen, I am glad you called. I got some interesting information. Helen Daniels paid me a visit. She confirmed the Senator had a gambling problem and owed some people, some bad people.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Just the kind of people you don’t want to owe. She told me they were blackmailing him.”

“Fuck,”
Cooper
said under his breath. “Why the hell didn’t he tell me this? I knew he had a gambling problem
in the past
and this doesn’t surprise me, but he had to
have
known he was getting in over his head. He paid me to keep him safe. Which is pretty damn hard to do when I don’t know everything and everyone I need to keep him safe
from
.
”

“That’s not all. Now they’re trying to blackmail Helen for the money, according to her. And
Cooper
, it’s not your fault. The Senator made the choice not to tell you. You couldn’t help that. Let’s fix it by finding out who killed the Senator and why.”

“
We
don’t need to fix anything, Pres.
You
need to stay out of it, and
I
need to fix it.”

Whatever
,
I
thought. He must not know
me
very well. “Have you heard anything?”

“No, not really,” he said without much conviction.
I
wasn’t sure
I
really believed him.

“I just need you to stay out of things, Presley. I can’t worry about what you’re doing and give all my attention to this case. Plus
,
I still have other jobs I am working on.”

Did he really think
I
was going t
o listen to him? He expected me
to tell him everything, but didn’t want to share anything in return.
Wasn’t that like a man? All take and no give.

“Sure,
Cooper,” I replied, rolling my eyes and crossing my
fingers. Everyone knew when you said something you didn’t mean it wasn’t lying
if
you crossed your fingers. That was
my
out.

“Oh, and since it will probably get back to you anyway, I have something else to tell you.”

“What?” he asked warily.

W
ith that attitude
, he was lucky I
was even going to tell him anything.
I should just keep it to my
self.
But
I
was committed to the greater good.
I
would tell him because
I
knew he was probably better equipped to solve this than
I
was.

“I heard that Bobby Johnson has a gambling problem as well.”
I
figured
Cooper
already knew this, so
I
would act as if
I
wanted to share to make him think
I
wanted to help him.

“So? What does he have to do with anything?”
Cooper
asked skeptically. “I hardly think Senator Daniels and Bobby were pals.”

“I don’t know exactly. I just thought it was out of the norm and might relate to the Senator and his gambling problems. Maybe Bobby and the Senator were connected somehow. Isn’t it sort of odd that in a small town
like Alkon
there would be two people with gambling problems?”

“Presley, it might sound like a coincidence, but I doubt it’s related
,
and the Senator is not really from here.
And
many people have gambling addictions. You would be surprised. Ask your dad sometime. I bet he could tell you a half a dozen people with a problem of some sort. Besides, don’t you think it would be a stretch that they would be traveling in the same circles?”

“Well, maybe gamblers and
M
obsters who loan out money to losers who gamble are tighter circles than we think. Besides Betty told me Mabel Winter’s daughter told her that Bobby saw the Senator there. ”

“Well
,
if
Betty
told you…”
Cooper
said sarcastically.

“Betty’s gossip is always reputable
,
I will have you know.”

“King, I’m not saying it isn’t
,
but you have to admit it is farfetched they would be running
with
the same
crowd
.”

I narrowed my
eyes
and bad thoughts ran through my head about what I
wanted to do to h
im for taking that tone with me
. Thes
e were not the sexual thoughts I
had been having lately either. No, they were strictly the evil type of bad. He
was going to regret thinking my
information was trivial. He was lucky
I
told him anything
,
and
I
wouldn’t be quite so willing to share next time.
I
wouldn’t tell him anything else
,
and he would be sorry when
I
came up with some fantastic information.

“
Pres…
,
”
h
e asked again.

“Are you going to share and let me work with you?”

“I told you this is not something you need to get involved in.”

“Well, since you don’t need me, I’ll let you go,”
I
said frostily.

“Please just tell me what is going on,”
Cooper
sighed.

“Sorry, someone else is calling in.” A lie, but
one he couldn’t prove. Yo
u always wanted the guy to think you had someone else on the other line. Made you seem more desirable that way. This was what
I
had been trying to get across to Katy. Plus,
I
was still mad at him for laughing at
me
and
my
information.
I
would show him.

“Pres, wait a minute.”

“Bye-bye,”
I
said with fake friendliness, and hung up.
I
hoped he would call back
. It was
twisted
I kno
w,
but I enjoyed
trying to decide if
I
would answer if he
called
. Five minutes went by and
I
started to realize he probably wasn’t calling back.
Damn,
I
thought,
hanging up might have been a little premature
.
I never even let him tell me
why he called.
Not to mention I had wanted to ask him who Simon might have been talking to in the parking lot. Sometimes I
l
et my emotions get the best of me,
but he still should have called back. It was supposed to work that way. Everyone knew the girl should play hard to get
,
and the guy was supposed to suck it up and chase her. It had been that way since the beginning of t
ime. Who was I to mess with that? I
had to stop thinking abou
t him because the last thing I
needed was to start liking him. Nothing good would come out of that.

I
pondered the
“M
en are from Mars, women are from Venus
”
thing, and wished
I
understood men better
, o
r wasn’t so bad in relationships
, o
r so
mething. What was wrong with me
?
I
started driving
. Eventually I was excited to
see the outlet mall in the distance,
thinking I would get back on track with my
shopping idea from earlier.

I considered my
self a pro at spotting shopping a mile away and could sniff out bargains with the best of them. As
I
drew closer
,
the excited feeling
I
got when
I
was about to discover a new store first, or come across a great deal
,
washed over
me
. This mall hadn’t been open the last time
I
was home. Maybe
I
would come across some great find and all
my
friends back in the city would be
jealous. Pretty farfetched, I kno
w.
I
didn’t need to be spending money, the bill collectors were about one we
ek from calling, but felt it my
duty as a professional shopper to check it out.
I
owed it to the economy and to others who may struggle with being fashionable to be able to take the word back
about the new mall
and share all the great deals. Not to mention
that I
always
needed to look good
and I had been in Alkon longer than I had planned. I needed to freshen up my wardrobe
.
I
knew that wasn’t a healthy way to look at things
,
but that was a topic for a different day and
it
would probably
take
years of therapy to break the habit.
I
pulled in
to
the mall parking lot and
my
excitement deflated a little. Unfortunately
,
it seemed to be the same old run-of-the-mill outlet
—
the kind with a bargain haircut place, a Chinese fast-food restaurant, and a Starbucks knockoff, called Le Café
—
not very original. Of course, the fact there wasn’t a real Starbucks here reinforced
my
decision to live in the city. But wait
…
squi
n
ting,
I
could vaguely make out
a brand all too familiar to me
and one
I
loved beyond...beyond…well, in a way, life itself. The sparkly neon spelled out
“
Coach.
”
I looked at my purse and wrinkled up my
nose. It was a Prada knock-off, of course
—
kind of worn and dirty looking.
I
bought it from a street vendor right after the holidays.
I
thought maybe a new Coach purse
was
just what
I
needed
—o
ne that still had the new leather smell
. B
esides,
I
deserved a new purse just for having to put up with
my
mother this weekend. Plus
,
everyone knew Coach lasted forever. It was an investment in fashion.

I
thought
I
might check out the Chinese place
too;
I
hadn’t eaten since
that
muffin earlier and
my
stomach was growling, and
fried
rice sounded yummy. All this detective work built up an appetite.
I
walked into the Chinese restaura
nt, thinking I
would grab an eggroll along with
my
ch
icken fried rice, to fortify my
self for some serious purse shopping, but
I
stopped short. Sitting in a grimy back booth
, (
the place didn’t look the cleanest
),
was Bobby and someone
I
didn’t recognize.
I
thought it unlikely
that
this man was a new boyfriend, if those rumors were true. If
I
looked in the dictionary under
“M
obster,
”
this man’s picture would be worth a thousand words. First of all, he was Italian. Not to be discriminatory here, but everyone knew
that M
obsters were Italian. Anglo-Saxon
s
were more about white-collar crime. They liked to do it behind your back, really sneaky
,
and then deny, deny, deny. The Italian Mob bosses called it straight out. Piss them off
and
you got a bullet through the kneecaps
—if you were lucky
.
I
admired that in a way. At least you knew where you stood
with that style of justice
.