A Taste of the Nightlife (6 page)

When we pulled up to the back of the building, Georgie—a mountain of shaved-head white guy from Jersey—stood by the door with his heavily tattooed arms folded. Beside him on the sidewalk lay a smashed smartphone, a crumpled wad of bills, and a much skinnier white guy with highly gelled hair and an impressively bloody nose.

“I wan’ do rebord ’n assauld!” shouted the gelled guy as Officer Randolph opened the car door for me.

I looked at the wad of bills and then at Georgie. “What’d he offer you?”

“Twenty bucks!” snorted Georgie. “Can you believe this cheap shit?”

Running footsteps sounded from around the corner. Officer Randolph jerked his chin toward the door.

As Georgie hustled me inside, Randolph pulled out a ticket book. The door closed as I heard the word “loitering.”

I wondered if Officer Randolph liked lasagna. I make a killer lasagna.

“Sorry about the fuss,” I said to Georgie.

“S’okay.” He pulled the grille shut on the ancient service elevator and worked the switches. “Gives me something to tell the guys. And don’t worry.” My super cracked his knuckles and poured on the Jersey accent slowly, like melted butter. “Nobody gets in here for under a hundred. You know what I’m sayin’?”

“Thanks, Georgie.” Tuna hot dish for Georgie. With the green peas mixed in with the mushroom soup and potato chip crumbs on top. He’d probably like Velveeta in there too, but even the heights of gratitude had their limits.

He grinned at me as the car lurched to a halt. “Your stop, Chef C.”

Georgie hauled the door open to reveal the hallway and Patricia Lehner—otherwise known as Roommate Number One—who stood in front of the open door to our apartment.

“At least you were smart enough to come in the back.”

Trish is an attorney in midtown. She lives with two roommates in Queens so she can squirrel away enough money to get her own practice going. Her pastimes include eating Instant Ramen even when it’s not strictly necessary and questioning my common sense.

“What’re you doinge?” I demanded.

“What do you
think
?” Trish shoved me through the door and slammed it behind us. “Sit,” she ordered in a voice that has been known to make wiseguys think twice, and proceeded to slap, turn, click and chain all the bolts.

I sat.

Trish has a frame to match her personality. She’s tall and strong, with a figure that would have brought Rubens to his knees. She dressed to impress, even on the weekend. Just then, she wore immaculate black slacks, an emerald green silk sweater and a heavy gold locket. She looked like she was about to very elegantly rip somebody’s head off.

“So.” Trish folded her arms. “What the hell really happened?”

She’d also clearly been spending too much time with Georgie.

My cell buzzed against my hip. I checked the number, didn’t recognize it and let it go. Trish raised one eyebrow.

You know the feeling that comes over you when your mother uses your middle name? Trish could induce that with a single cocked eyebrow.

So, she got to hear the saga of Cousin Pam the Fang Tease and Cousin Dylan the Drunk, alive and dead. If I played down the Warlock vs. Vampire incident, that was my own business.

My phone buzzed again. Again, no name with the number.

“Why’d somebody dump this on you?” Trish asked with a straight face and in total seriousness.

“How should I know!”

“Remember that look of shocked innocence. You may need it.”

“What could I know! I’m just a cook!”

“Just a cook?” Now in addition to the brow being raised, her perfectly made-up mouth puckered. One of Trish’s few faults was being a walking billboard for Roommate Number Two, Jessie-the-Mary-Sue-Cosmetics-Saleswoman. “You’re a New York restaurateur, sweetie, which makes you a bigger shark than I am. But bewildered little sister will play well on FlashNews.”

“I’m the bewildered big sister.” My cell buzzed again. “And I think we should maybe get a lawyer.”

Trish plucked the phone out of my fingers and thumbed it on. “Yes? No. No comment. None. You may contact Ms. Caine’s lawyer for any additional information. Yes. Annette Beauchamp at Piziks, Popkes, and Percival. In Manhattan, yes. Thank you. Good-bye.”

I blinked. “Trish, did you just give false information to a member of the media?”

“Certainly not. You are distraught and must have misheard me. Do not under any circumstances answer that.” She handed me back my cell with one hand and hit a button on hers with the other. “And yes, you’re going to need a lawyer.”

“Is this the part where I give you a dollar as a retainer?” My smile was pretty weak, but at least it was there.

Trish snorted. “No way am I your lawyer. Too much conflict of interest.”

“We’re just roomies.”

“You got me into a rent-controlled apartment.”

She was right. Too much conflict of interest.

“Don’t worry.” Trish leaned back, crossing one long black-clad leg over the other and circling her ankle thoughtfully. I could all but hear the Rolodex flipping her brain. “We’ll get you in with Rafe Wallace. Best paranormal lawyer in the city.”

“Um, do we tell him I don’t have any money?”

“We save that for later.” She took my hand and held it tight. “It’s going to be okay, Charlotte.”

I decided to try to believe her.

“Oh my God!”

A good chunk of daylight had passed since my police-and-super escort into my own building when Jessie Van-Reebek—Roommate Number Two—catapulted through the door with her arms full of party bags that looked like they’d come from the same manufacturer as Dorothy’s ruby slippers.

“Oh my God, Charlotte! Oh my—” Jessie pulled up short and stared at me from behind a mass of tissue paper points, white ribbon curlicues and a dozen sparkly bags proclaiming SHOW THEM THE REAL YOU! “What are you doing?”

“I’m cooking.”

In point of fact, I was in the kitchen whacking on half a helpless pomegranate to get the seeds out while keeping one eye on my pan of gently simmering shallots.

Jess rounded on Trish. “What are
you
doing?”

Trish had her stockinged feet up on the coffee table and a chunk of dipped bread halfway to her mouth.

“I’m eating.” She held out the crock of asparagus Parmesan dip. “You should eat too. It’s amazing.”

Jessie looked for a place to dump her armload of bags and found our dining table covered with food; there was the lasagna for Officer Randolph and the tuna hot dish for Georgie plus a few other things I’d thrown together.

Despite Trish’s insistence and my exhaustion, I’d been able to manage only a brief sort-of nap. After giving up on sleep, I alternated between phoning the Nightlife staff to lie my chef’s fundament off about how everything was going to be cleared up Real-Soon-Now, calling Chet even though I knew he couldn’t pick up during the day, and clicking through the FlashNews stories, blog posts, and comments. All of these were stupid beyond belief, especially the ones calling for revamping . . . er . . . reworking the paranormal registry laws.

The worst, though, carried the name stamp of Lloyd Maddox, Brendan’s grandfather.

“How much longer are we going to permit the undead lobby to blind us to what’s really going on in this country?” The news clip showed a powerfully built man, for all that his hair was pure white and his weather-beaten face had more lines than a map of the Jersey thruway. The media called him “the current head of the Maddox warlock clan, one of the oldest magic-working families active in the United States.” “We are under siege! Our families, our values, our very identity of a country which cherishes life and the right to life is being constantly undermined by permitting this so-called ‘death-style.’ Death-style! This style of death caused my nephew to be mercilessly drained of his blood and his corpse thrown aside. . . .”

Any normal person would consider it natural to get a little loud while taking in this ignorant, vitriolic crap. At the end of hour three, however, Trish actually dangled my smartphone out the window and declared it was taking the direct route to the ground floor if I didn’t, in her words, shut the hell up.

Effectively cut off from the outside world, I did the only other thing I could think of.

“You found a body, your brother is under suspicion for murder, and you’re
cooking
?” said Jessie.

“I made those cheese straws you like.”

Trish helpfully rattled the basket on the coffee table. “They are really good with the asparagus dip.”

“Asparagus dip?” Jessie leaned sideways toward the steaming crock. “Wow, that smells . . . No.” She jerked herself upright. “No!” She dumped her goodie bags beside the coat closet and held up both hands. “This is
not
right!”

I sighed and turned down the burner under the shallots. “The cops have the body. I can’t talk to Chet until sundown, which isn’t for another fifteen minutes and thirty-three seconds. I’ve already left six messages for Elaine, our PR rep, but I think she’s avoiding me. The only other thing I’m good for right now is sitting around staring like a deer in the headlights. You want to support me in my hour of need? Eat something.” I gestured toward the plates laid out on the coffee table—crostini with olive tapenade, a Mediterranean couscous salad with chicken and green grapes beside a plate of toasted pita triangles, and sliced apples with this killer sour cream, spice and honey fruit dip.

“Oh. Well.” Jessie plunked down onto the sofa next to Trish and reached for a cheese straw. She swirled it in the asparagus dip and took a nibble, letting me see that she did this only to humor me. But as she chewed her expression changed. “Mmmm . . .” She took a healthier bite.

Some of the tension left my shoulders and I went back to spanking my pomegranate, which is nowhere near as kinky as it sounds. I’d been playing around with an idea for a warm pomegranate salad with wilted greens and white-wine-and-shallot vinaigrette for the restaurant. Now was as good a time as any to try the idea out. The only greens we had on hand were in the form of a giant bag of arugula, which wasn’t exactly what I’d wanted. I was thinking a mix of dandelion greens and micro watercress, but the arugula helped me get the general idea.

I was tasting the vinaigrette and considering if it needed more pepper when the sun dropped below the horizon. Ten seconds later Chet’s ringtone, “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” sounded on my cell phone. I dropped my spoon. Trish snatched the phone up off the table and tossed it to me. I caught it in midlunge and stabbed at the screen.

“Where are you?”
I inquired.

“I’m home. Charlotte, what the hell . . . ?”

I told him about finding Dylan Maddox dead in our foyer. Ever the eloquent one, my kid brother replied, “Shit.”

“The cops want to talk to you, Chet.”

Over the phone, very faintly, came the sound of a door buzzer. “I think they’re here.”

My throat seized up. “Don’t say anything. Trish’s got a lawyer friend who specializes—”

“I don’t need a lawyer.”

Oh, no.
“Those words did not come out of your mouth, little brother, because I know you are not suicidal.”

“Charlotte, I didn’t
do
anything. I don’t need a lawyer.”

Nononononono.
“This is not about what you did or didn’t do. This is about the Paranormal Squadron and the dead Maddox having bite marks on his neck!”

The buzzer sounded again. “I’m going to get the door Don’t worry, Charlotte. It’ll be fine.”

It’ll be fine.
Coming from Chet, those words were as dangerous as “Hey, guys, watch this!” from a frat boy. “Chet!”

“I’ll call back as soon as I’m done here.”

“Do
not
hang up on me! Chet!”

I was talking to myself.

Trish was already on her cell. “Rafe? Yeah . . . he did. . . . No, I’d go straight downtown. . . . He’s going to try to brush you off. . . . Ha-ha, maybe not . . . Thanks. She owes you one.”

“I’ve got to get over there.”

“No.” Trish put her very solid self between me and the door. “You don’t. Let Rafe handle it.”

“But . . .”

Trish held up her hand. “You already talked to Linus O’Grady, right?”

That stopped me. “You know him?”

“Gimme strength,” muttered Trish to the ceiling. “Every criminal lawyer in the five boroughs knows Little Linus. You go in there to defend your little brother, he’s going to look up at you with those puppy-dog eyes and next thing you know you’ll be writing Chet’s confession for him.”

I remembered those eyes. I swallowed.

Trish took my hands. “Let Rafe work. Just . . .” She rubbed a smear of Ricotta off the back of my hand and picked a fragment of arugula off my sleeve. “Just cook something, okay?”

“I’ve cooked everything.” The little undertone of helplessness was just stress. Really.

“Then we’ll have to go grocery shopping.” Trish let me go and slung her purse, which was big enough to hold a whole week’s worth of briefings, over her shoulder. “Come on, Jessie.”

“I don’t think she should be left alone.” Jessie had picked up a second slice of crostini.

“Your dear friend and roommate is in dire straits and needs food. You are coming with.”

A fresh wave of gratitude ran through me. Jessie was a good roommate, and a good person. But if she stayed here, she’d try to get me to release and to start a course of lemon-scented aromatherapy and detoxing bath salts. And I would say what the hell good is a lemon scent not attached to something you can eventually eat? It would all go downhill from there, and probably end with my attacking her with a micro-plane grater.

“All right, all right. I’m coming with.” Jessie’s purse was a minuscule Kate Spade custom job in Mary Sue Red (sorry, Mary Sue
Scarlet
). It had been her prize for most new facials given in March.

And she thinks I’m nuts.

“Don’t answer the phone,” said Trish. “Don’t open the door.”

“Get some fresh spinach. I’ll make a frittata for breakfast.”

“Will do. Come
on
, Jess.” Trish jerked Jess upright from in front of the closet, where she was crouching to set all her little gift bags upright.