Love on the Boardwalk (10 page)

* * *

Trina paid the cashier at Ripley’s Odditorium, and carefully tucked the receipt into her purse. She might not have a paying client for this potential case, but the entry tickets might be tax deductible, depending on how it turned out. Joe had taught her to save all paper. If she was still with him in March, he’d promised to show her how to legitimately deduct everything from hair dye to chocolate-covered pretzels (a necessity for Joe on stakeouts—Trina far preferred the idea of fluffernutter sandwiches).

“I’m hot. And this wig itches.” Darcy scratched at her waist-length blond wig.

It had looked a lot more realistic in the dark dressing room of Club Eden than it did in the harsh afternoon sun. Trina didn’t want to think about what specifically might be causing the itch. “Stop complaining. You chose that wig.”

“My choice was no wig at all. When you forced me to pick, I took the long one. You almost broke a leg tripping over the long wig the last time we did this.”

True. Which is why today she sported a white-blond pixie cut of a wig. Very
Peter Pan does rocker chic
. No possible way to kneel on it and accidentally get tangled and be unable to run away from an angry Russian criminal. Trina always learned from her mistakes. “Wigs are an integral part of a good disguise. The first thing people describe is hair color.”

Darcy tugged at the pleats of her tennis skirt. “Really? ’Cause I feel like there’s a better chance they’d notice my entire ass is sticking out for the whole world to see.”

It was. Enough that Trina tugged at the bottom of her identical skirt. The ruffled panties kept them modest, but were darn embarrassing. That’s what she got for pulling together disguises from a strip club’s costume closet. But without a paying client, her options were limited. She walked under the giant white shark hanging from the ceiling and through the entrance gate. “Look at this. A five-hundred-pound Chinese good luck coin made out of jade. Bodes well that we get to walk by it, right?”

“It’s at the entrance to the museum—everybody walks by it,” Darcy grumbled. She hurried inside, but came to a stop at the very first exhibit. “Four-legged birds and a three-legged horse. Eww. This is the weirdest place ever.”

Trina agreed on the ick factor. So she skipped that case entirely to peer inside an ornately painted burgundy and gold Gypsy wagon. “That’s the whole point of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. A collection of the weird, the wacky and the wonderful. A total tourist trap, and very kid-friendly. Which is what makes it such a great meeting place. Nobody would pull anything dangerous with kids around.”

“If there’s that many kids around, maybe we shouldn’t be flashing our asses in these ridiculous getups.” Another downward tug at her skirt as she sailed right past the life-sized Chinese woman carved entirely from bone.

Trina had forgotten how cranky Darcy got when undercover. Her best friend didn’t share her joy of disguises and adventure. “If I’d wanted to bring along someone with a bad attitude as a partner, I would’ve brought Brad.”

“Ouch.” Darcy bit her lip, then resettled her visor before giving Trina a quick hug. “Message received, loud and clear. I’ll be a perkier sidekick than Mary Jane was to Spider-Man. More staunch than Agent 99 to Maxwell Smart. And sweeter than that littlest Who kid was to the Grinch. So what did Brad do to piss you off?”

Trina checked her watch. They had a couple of minutes to kill with male-bashing a certain detective who’d poked at her one too many times. Especially since Darcy was bound to be righteously furious on her behalf. “He told me that P.I. work is dangerous.”

“Well, you didn’t take that self-defense course just to get limber. And we’re about to secretly meet with a genuine member of the Mob. I think he’s got a point.”

And you could choke on a breath mint while crossing the street. Danger was everywhere. Maybe she’d led off with the wrong point. Trina knew Darcy, with her freshly minted PhD and love of all things book related, would take her side on the next one. “He says I shouldn’t do that college program unless it’ll be fun.”

“Another excellent point. Sounds like Brad wants to keep you safe and keep you happy.” Darcy screwed her face into an exaggerated frown. “I can see why you’re so mad at him.”

“You don’t understand. He accused me of being scared. Of not having enough faith in myself to stick with Joe, to do the program and get my license.”

“Was he right?”

Not the point. Trina resettled her visor more securely on her wig. “I can’t be with a man who doesn’t believe in me.”

With a gentle pat on the arm, Darcy said, “You’ve gotta do it first, hon.”

“Oh, you’re piling on, too?”

“No piling. I told you I’m behind you no matter what you choose.” She pulled Trina in for a quick hug. “But have you ever asked yourself if you zip from job to job not just because you find everything interesting, but because you’re scared to commit to one?”

The great thing about having a lifelong best friend was that they really knew you. It was also the bad thing about having a lifelong best friend. “Are you going to charge me for this therapy session?”

“I’m serious. Don’t be mad at Brad for making you think. He cares enough to push you. To turn around and push him away isn’t the right response.”

A family complete with two full strollers, two running toddlers and a bored-looking tween pushed by them. The mom gave them a long, hard stare. Huh. Maybe their disguise made them stick out more than blend in at the museum. Trina wasn’t at all sad about the built-in pause to the conversation. It was hard to tell Darcy how she felt about Brad when she hadn’t entirely figured it out for herself. “This is supposed to be just a fun fling.”

“Isn’t it fun?” Darcy tugged at the back of her skirt again. For a woman who’d worn her cheerleading uniform every week in high school, she suddenly seemed to have an inordinate fear of flashing her under-ass.

“Yes.” Trina sucked in a deep breath. Sooo much fun. “But we’ve definitely rocketed right past just basic fun.” She’d been pissy with him last night. Underneath that pissiness, though, she’d been touched that he cared enough to fight with her. “I really like him, Darcy. I really like kissing him, too.”

“Is that all you’ve done?”

“Mostly. Ask me again tomorrow, and you might get a different answer.” Giggling, they walked through the West African room, full of shrunken heads, straight to the impalement room.

Darcy planted her feet and shook her head. “I don’t think we should wait for him here. All these objects of violent death give me a bad feeling.”

Right. Because people were tortured all the time in museum exhibits. Her partner-for-the-day was a bit of a scaredy-cat. “You think he’s going to get angry and lock us up in an Iron Maiden?”

“Humor me, okay? It’s dark and spooky. There are two coffins over there. Can we do this in a more cheerful room?”

Trina thought a spooky vibe fit perfectly with a secret meetup with a wiseguy. If her life was a television show, they’d meet in the darkened room and have a scary soundtrack. But she was relieved that Darcy had agreed to come along, so she could bend on this point. “Let’s go to the miniatures room.”

They backtracked past a section of the Berlin Wall, spray-painted in fluorescent orange, pink and green. A velvet-lined hallway led to teeny, tiny reproductions of rooms behind glass in exquisite detail, from miniscule books to elaborate buffets laid out for the miniature people in elaborate period clothes. Trina leaned closer to the wall to read the description. “This miniature chateau took thirty years and one hundred thousand dollars to make. Geez, if I had a hundred thousand dollars, I’d build a full-sized house.”

“Yes, but you couldn’t build a chateau for that price. This is really cool. There’s a music room and a throne room, even a barber shop.”

“Back in those days, the town barber didn’t just cut hair. He used his razor for other...things,” said a menacing voice, thick with a Jersey accent.

A man with a comb-over in a striped, mint green polo shirt and slacks tight around his large gut stood off to the side. He looked ready to hit the golf course. The gold pinkie ring and thick chain around his neck made Trina assume this was Pearl’s gentleman friend she was here to meet. There was enough of a stereotypical wiseguy about his look to give her a thrill. This wasn’t sitting in an office, scrolling through ancient paperwork (which Joe foisted on her all the time). She was mingling with the criminal element. Trina wanted to hop up and down with excitement. It felt like she’d stepped into a television show.

“Big Nicky?”

“That’s me,” he said with a double-handed tap of his belly. “Who do I have the pleasure of addressing?”

“I’m Trina, and this is Darcy.”

Darcy pinched her inner arm. Hard. Whoops. She’d had fake names all prepared, as an added level of security. Tracy and Diana—close enough to the real thing so as not to trip them up. At least she’d remembered in the nick of time not to disclose their last names!

Big Nicky shook both their hands with a meaty paw. “Pearl vouched for you, said you were a good kid. So I’ll help you out this once, but if you need anything after this, you’ll owe me.”

Okay, that was just how the mobsters threatened in the movies, but a million times more ominous when the words were leveled at her. Trina’s excitement amped down, replaced by apprehension. He sounded scary serious. Then her nerves steadied. She could do this. All in a day’s work, after all. With a brisk head bob, she said, “Understood.”

“What can I do for you ladies?”

Trina turned in a circle. The low-lit room was blocked at both exits by long velvet curtains. They appeared to be the only people in there. Still, she leaned in close enough to smell his cologne—which wasn’t that close, since Big Nicky seemed to have bathed in the stuff—and spoke in a near-whisper. “I think there’s something going on at Club Eden.”

“The one over on St. Charles Place? Sweetheart, there’s always something going on at a strip joint.”

“No, I mean something illegal.”

He barked out a laugh. “Like I said. We all gotta make money one way or another. I’m not bothering you, so you shouldn’t concern yourself with how I do it.”

Pearl had warned her to tread carefully. She’d also given Trina a basic overview of what extracurricular businesses Big Nicky operated out of Club Eden. None of them meshed with the shady dealing she suspected Ralph of doing. “I’m not interested in how you make your money. Pearl told me Club Eden is in your territory, and that you’d be unhappy to learn of someone, um, working without your knowledge there.”

His face sharpened. “We’re off the record here, ’cause of your being Pearl’s friend.”

Trina nodded. Elbowed Darcy until she nodded, too.

“Yeah, I run girls out of there. And I make book, take some bets. But the girls are treated right and we don’t allow any drugs. If there’s anything else going on in there, I want to know about it and I want it shut down. One of the bartenders hinted at dirty business the other day, but he couldn’t pinpoint it. You’ve got a line?”

“I’m not sure what’s going on, but I know it doesn’t fall under your purview.”

“Ha! Purview.” A deep laugh rumbled out of him. “I like that. Sounds very legit.”

She tingled from the compliment. “There’s this guy. Ralph.”

He cut her off with a wave of his hand. The light glinted off his pinkie ring. “Short, bad toupee?”

“That’s him.” Although Trina thought that described at least a dozen men she’d seen since coming to Atlantic City.

“Ralph DiNunzio. He’s been tiptoeing around the edge of our territory for a while. He’s a snake. Too yellow-bellied to work with us outright.”

“Why don’t you just, you know,” Darcy leaned forward and dropped her voice to a stage whisper, “lean on him?”

Another wave of his hand like Big Nicky was swatting away a fly. “He’s connected. Family of a capo from Miami. We don’t want to start a war. We just want him out of our business. If you really lock down this case and get the police to clear him out of the club, we’d be grateful.”

Interesting. This blew a door for her investigation wide open. “You wouldn’t object to police in Club Eden?”

“Nah. We’ve got our regulars. Like I said, we run a clean operation. Stop this rat from taking profits out of my hands in my own fucking club, pardon the language, and I’d owe you.”

Okay, the fear was gone again, and the thrill was back. Trina Trimble, being owed a favor by the Mafia. Not that she’d ever take him up on it. But the idea was, well, fun.

“I appreciate it, Big Nicky. I just need a tiny bit of help. Can I have access to the club for a few days, without having to work my shift anymore?”

Another rumbling laugh. It made his whole belly jiggle like Santa’s. If Santa ran a crew of hit men, drug thugs and prostitutes. “Don’t like schlepping those sticky drink trays? I don’t blame you. Just be sure when you go back in to wear the uniform. I’ll tell the manager your deal.”

“Thank you.” Trina shook his hand, and Darcy did the same.

“Anything for Pearl. She’s one in a million.”

Trina could start repaying Big Nicky’s favor right now. Because what was better than the gift of love? With a sly smile, she said, “Maybe you should marry her, then.”

“You trying to tell me my business?” His thick eyebrows drew together in an intimidating line, but Trina wasn’t fooled for a minute. Even big, bad mobsters were scared of female rejection. And she could ease that fear for him.

“Yep. She’s crazy about you, too.”

A smile broke across his face just before he turned to walk away. “You’ve got spunk, kid. I like you.”

Darcy waited until he cleared the velvet curtains to the exit of the miniature room before drawing the back of her hand across her forehead with an exaggerated sigh. “Let’s see—no guns, no knives, no yelling, no running for our lives. I like this case of yours way better than the last one I helped with.”

“See? And we haven’t even gotten to the room with the Frisbee made out of the ashes of the inventor yet. I promised you a fun-filled day, and I delivered.”

“You and I have very different definitions of fun. Big Nicky was nice for a member of the violent criminal underworld, but I’m glad you didn’t do this alone.”