Killer Getaway (8 page)

Where most ­people would keep out of the way of such a debacle, politeness demanding that someone who appeared as ill as Slavica be given some space and privacy, Bootsie isn't most ­people. She was out of her seat and at a dead run, her tall, flowered back disappearing inside the restaurant within seconds of Slavica's restroom run.

A few minutes later, Bootsie returned, the excitement of fresh news written all over her face.

“This isn't good,” she told us. “Slavica's puking in the ladies' room. Jessica's in there with her, while the brother is hovering outside. He said it had to be the clams. And Channing is freaking out, because bad shellfish can ruin a restaurant in this town, especially when it was consumed by the top realtor in Palm Beach County.”

Chef Gianni and Olivia appeared on the patio behind Bootsie, pausing for a moment at our table.

“Too bad for Channing. He serve this lady the bad Florida littlenecks,” said Gianni happily. “And I'm sorry for you, Sophie, I hear you got a lotta money sunk in this Ronald McDonald restaurant.”

“Everything will be okay!” Sophie squeaked. “Slavica's probably got a stomach virus.”

“No, is from old clams,” Gianni said positively. “I seen this before. The projectile vomiting is always from the bad fish.”

“Look,” Sophie said, as we passed the table Slavica had vacated in such a hurry. “That's so weird!”

The waiters had immediately removed all traces of Slavica and her brother's meals, but on the otherwise bare table sat a package of Imodium.

“That's good stuff!” Sophie told us. “Barclay lives on it, since he's got major Irritable Bowel Syndrome. And who wouldn't, the way he eats!”

Joe and I exchanged glances. The Imodium was clearly a nasty little joke and confirmed what Gianni was saying.
Someone knew Slavica was going to get sick.
And Gianni was in prime position to have deposited it on the table.

Gianni rudely grabbed Olivia's arm and headed toward the street.

“Looks like I open my new place just in time,” he called over his shoulder. “This place gonna be out of business in a week!”

 

Chapter 10

T
HINGS SPIRALED DOWNWARD
quickly that night after Slavica lost her clams in the ladies' room at Vicino.

The town's top realtor emerged from the chic white restroom after twenty-­two minutes of solid (well, uninterrupted) barfing, supported by Bootsie, who wasn't about to miss such a gossip-­worthy event no matter how messy, and Jessica, to whom Slavica muttered dire threats.

While diners and Vicino's bar crowd watched, agape at the sight of the Chanel-­clad Slavica stumbling toward the front doors, the realtor's brother implored her to let him drive her to the ER, but Slavica merely whispered that she needed to get home—­to her own bathroom—­ASAP.

Channing, pale beneath his tan, gallantly assisted Bootsie and Jessica in helping Slavica down Vicino's front steps while Harry brought the car around. But even Channing's charm and genuinely kind nature failed to smooth over the society broker's rage and embarrassment over having a puke-­a-­thon in a public setting.

“This is the last you'll see of me at your restaurant,” Slavica hissed to Jessica and Channing as Harry assisted her into the backseat of his Porsche Cayenne. “But not the last you've heard of me.”

H
OLLY GOT A
call from Channing at 8:45 the next morning, asking her to stop over at Vicino, where he thought he'd made some discoveries that explained the Slavica situation. She promised him we'd be over ASAP but that we had a previous appointment with a computer hacker friend.

“G
ERDA!” SHRIEKED
S
OPHIE
as the Pilates pro walked into Adelia's living room thirty minutes later. She popped up from her seat to give Gerda a huge hug, while Gerda gave her an awkward shoulder pat. I could tell that Gerda was touched, though, since she looked simultaneously pleased and uncomfortable with Sophie's display of affection.

I couldn't really understand Sophie's devotion to Gerda, who's not exactly warm and fuzzy, and also has told me repeatedly that Waffles is, well, portly. I never asked her for this input, either. (Her exact words were “He is fat load.”) But then again, Gerda and Sophie have been through a lot together, and Gerda lived with Sophie when she and Barclay first split up. I guess they'd formed their own weird bond.

“Mrs. Earle, may I present our, uh, acquaintance, Gerda,” Joe told Mrs. Earle. “Gerda . . . what's your last name again, Gerda?”

“I don't use a last name,” Gerda told him.

“Anyway, Gerda works for Mr. Shields, and she has some information we need about that new restaurant I was telling you about, Gianni Mare. At least, we think she does,” Joe said.

“Wonderful! I love gossip, especially if I can get it right in my own living room. Sit down and have a margarita, dear,” Adelia told Gerda, gesturing to a green and white chintz armchair.

Gerda gingerly took a seat, taking in the charming surroundings and the gorgeous pool just outside the French doors, as well as the little china bowl of Stokes cigarettes. She'd arrived in her usual track suit with the jacket off in deference to the warm weather and a Lycra workout top underneath. Gerda is usually stridently anti-­alcohol, anti-­smoking, and anti-­junk food—­basically, she's against anything fun—­ and I feared she would blast Adelia about the evils of drinking, especially at this hour of the morning, but she didn't. Gerda was in an oddly pleasant mood. Something close to a smile actually seemed to be fighting for space on her face. Well, not a smile, but she didn't seem quite as pissy as usual.

“I don't drink,” she told Adelia. “But thanks.”

“You don't know what you're missing, dear!” hooted Adelia. “Have some lemonade then. Ozzy will bring it.” Her assistant disappeared toward the kitchen, while Gerda nodded approvingly toward the pool.

“This is nice place,” Gerda said. “Lot of nature and plants.”

“Thank you,” Adelia said. “I understand you're from Austria? Beautiful country. I had my second face-­lift done there.”

“From the Alps,” nodded Gerda. “Lot of top plastic surgeons near my hometown. In the clinics. Also, the spas where one gets the colon cleaned out with the hose. Very healthy.”

“I've done it all, darling!” Adelia hooted. “Left me as empty as this tequila bottle,” she added, indicating a drained flacon of Patrón Silver, “and limp as a stale Triscuit.”

“Gerda was telling us about some e-­mails she happened to see on Barclay's computer,” I said, hoping to avoid the finer details of colonic procedures. “Were you able to bring them, Gerda? Thank you, by the way.”

“I have,” Gerda confirmed, opening her black nylon knapsack and pulling out a slim sheaf of papers. Joe, Holly, and I all sat on the sofa and passed them back and forth, scanning them quickly for mentions of Channing, Jessica, Vicino, or Sophie's investment therein. Meanwhile, Gerda and Sophie caught up a little.

“Are you drinking the kale smoothies?” Gerda was asking Sophie disapprovingly. “I can see in your skin, you been eating a lot of meat, and not exercising.”

“I did a ­couple of classes with Holly at The Breakers,” Sophie told her nervously. “Maybe I haven't been working out quite as much as I used to.”

“News flash! Barclay has sunk a ton of cash into Gianni Mare,” Holly announced excitedly, brandishing one of the e-­mails. “This e-­mail copies Gianni and Barclay's lawyer about a transfer made into Gianni's account. He's into that place for over four hundred thousand dollars.”

“I knew that place was too expensive for HGTV!” screamed Joe. “When I auditioned for my own show, they told me no project would go over fifty grand. Can you believe they said they thought I'd have trouble sticking to a budget?”

“You do have trouble sticking to a budget, Honey Bunny,” Sophie told him. Luckily, Adelia, whose budget Joe was currently exceeding, seemed to miss Sophie's comment. “But that's okay, I do, too!”

“HGTV picked up the first fifty thousand for the renovation of Gianni Mare,” nodded Holly, continuing to scan the papers in front of us. “After that, Barclay financed the rest of the restaurant with a ­couple of other minor investors.” She paused for a moment to read.

“Barclay e-­mailed Gianni back in December to make sure that Gianni Mare ‘puts Vicino out of business within a month so that bitch Sophie loses every dime she put into it.' And I quote.”

“What an asshole!” shrieked Sophie. “Oh, sorry, Mrs. Earle,” she added. “I'm from Jersey. Sometimes my language gets kinda dicey.”

“Please, dear, I'm from Virginia. I can curse the hair off a dog,” Adelia said, waving a languid hand as she sipped her drink.

“And it's not just me he's screwing,” Sophie said. “Channing and Jessica can't afford to lose Vicino.”

“By the way,” Adelia said, “I don't like what's happening to your friends at Vicino. Slavica already called me to tell me about getting sick, along with everyone else she knows. So tell this Channing person that I'm going to move my annual Reptile Preservation Foundation to his restaurant. It's next week! I'll have Ozzy tell all the ladies that it's going to be at Vicino.”

“That's real sweet of you, Mrs. E.,” said Sophie. “Cause Channing and Jessica are poor, like Kristin and my Honey Bunny here. I mean, for me, the two hundred grand ain't a big deal. Not to brag or anything,” she added. “And wait a minute. Won't Barclay want to be at the opening of Gianni Mare tonight?”

Gerda shook her head firmly. “Barclay talk to me a lot when he's drunk,” she told us. “Which is pretty often.

“He said his lawyers tell him not to go to Gianni's opening. He's trying to keep quiet about investing in this restaurant. Lawyers told him it open up a big can of worms if you”—­she indicated Sophie—­“try to get half of that place.”

“Well, I'm going to. And he better not go after my stake in Vicino!” Sophie fumed.

Gerda shook her head. “Mr. Shields heard last night about someone getting sick at that place. He was drunk and tells me Vicino going to be out of business soon,” she said grimly. “Bad clams, plus he said he heard through grapevine about someone getting almost run over in alley behind it. He doesn't care about getting half of it. He says it will be half of nothing.”

Bootsie, Holly, Joe, and I exchanged glances.

“How does Barclay know that Vicino's going to be out of business?” Holly asked. “Is
Barclay
the one who's behind all the problems?”

“I
CAN'T FIND
any e-­mails in which Barclay mentions bad clams or the Death Chevy,” Joe told us, taking a look for himself through the stack of printouts.

“But it looks like Barclay's cc'd someone else on some of these e-­mails about Gianni Mare,” Joe told us. “He's e-­mailed an S. Simmons a bunch of times about whether Vicino violates any Magnolia Beach zoning laws, which he's hoping it does. And he's got Simmons working on setting up some surprise health code inspections.”

“Scooter Simmons, most likely,” snorted Adelia, a bit tipsily. Her snort was somehow refined, but extremely derisive. “My next-­door neighbor. Has a part-­time position advising the town zoning board. He'd steal cookies from a Girl Scout.”

“We met him last night at Tiki Joe's,” Bootsie told Adelia. “Scooter! What a dumb nickname!” Joe rolled his eyes at this, since Bootsie never seems to realize that the name Bootsie, is, well, somewhat debatable in itself.

“Well, Scooter e-­mailed back that he'd look into it, but that as far as he knew, Vicino's up to code, but he'd definitely set up something,” Holly told us, still reading. “But here's something weird. This e-­mail's from last week, and Scooter wrote that when Barclay got into town, they'd sit down and take care of business. Listen to this, he even listed an agenda for their meeting: Point 1. Hotties. Point 2: Condos.”

“Hotties?” Sophie repeated, jumping up and grabbing the page from Holly. “What the heck does that mean?”

Gerda looked uncomfortable and stage-­whispered to Sophie, “I think I know. But I don't want to say in front of this lady.” She made a not-­so-­subtle gesture in the direction of Mrs. Earle.

“Don't hold back on my account,” Adelia told her. “If there's dirt for diggin', hand me a shovel!”

“The hotties are, well, paid ladies,” said Gerda, looking embarrassed. “They come over yesterday while I was at tennis match. I see two of them leaving when I come back. They don't spend the afternoon with Barclay for free, trust me on this one.”

“Hookers!” Sophie shrieked, throwing down the page she'd grabbed from Holly. “Again with the hookers! I gotta call my lawyer.” She snatched up her phone and was heading out toward the pool when Joe stopped her.

“Sophie, the e-­mail also mentions condos,” he said, reading over the page she'd tossed aside. “Is Barclay buying a condo down here? You might want to mention that to your lawyer.”

“You bet,” she said. “If Barclay's getting a condo down here, I'll own half of it by the time my attorney's done with him.”

W
ITH
G
ERDA, YOU
never knew what was going to happen next, and once again, she surprised us all by striking up an unlikely bond with the tipsy Mrs. Earle. While Sophie made the call to her lawyers, Gerda and Mrs. Earle wandered over to admire Adelia's display of vintage framed magazine stills and Stokes cigarette ads. Gerda seemed intrigued, though I'd have thought that learning that tobacco money was the source of all the splendor of Adelia's home would have set Gerda's health-­nut radar off. Instead, Gerda looked impressed.

“This style, I like,” Gerda told Mrs. Earle approvingly, looking at her debutante photos. “Classic. Not like the flashy clothes ­people wear today.”

She nodded in the direction of Sophie, who was storming back into the living room in a yellow silk Versace sundress and teetery gold sandals. “This is what I mean. Too flashy.”

“Henry said he'd check around and call me back in a few minutes,” Sophie told us, ignoring Gerda. “He thinks there's no way Barclay would buy a condo right now, though, since it would technically be community property until we sign off on the divorce.”

“That's Divorce Law 101,” Holly said, looking up from the sofa, where she was still scanning the stack of printed e-­mails. “When Howard and I got our almost-­divorce, you wouldn't believe the stink my lawyers made over me buying a house. I'm sure Barclay knows that though.

“Wait a minute!” Holly added. “Right here, at the end of the e-­mail trail, there's another mention of condos,” she said, holding the last page aloft. “Barclay's going to
build
condos, not buy one. Scooter wrote to Barclay that he has a meeting planned for them today with a guy named J. D. Alvarez, and that the three of them are just about ready to break ground on the condos.”

Holly looked up, eyes wide with surprise. We all remembered J. D. Alvarez from the tiki place, since, as mentioned, he'd looked and smelled extremely good.

“We met Mr. Alvarez at Tiki Joe's last night, too,” Joe informed Adelia and Gerda. “He sent us champagne. Well, he mostly sent it to Holly, but there was a lot of it.”

“This guy was hot!” Sophie told Gerda and Adelia. “If I wasn't dating Joe, Mr. Alvarez would be at the top of my to-­do list.”

“I wish I knew this town better. I'm not sure what Scooter's talking about,” mused Holly. “He says here that once they get a few details done with, they can get the schoolhouse torn down and start construction.”

“I know exactly what Scooter's talking about,” said Mrs. Earle, her face flushed pink with anger. “That little rat is making a run at putting up condos on the site of the old Magnolia Beach Schoolhouse.”

Adelia told us that Scooter's family had long owned real estate in South Florida, most of which had been sold and developed, making the Simmons clan a very wealthy one. One of the most sought-­after pieces of land they'd held onto for years was down past Palm Avenue: approximately seven acres of oceanfront land around a tumbledown former schoolhouse. It was worth millions, being the only undeveloped site of its kind on the island.