Romano and Albright 01 - Catch Me If You Can (MM) (3 page)

I caught Dan Green’s dark stare from across the room. He leaned against the far wall, his brawny arms folded across his equally brawny chest. His coat was gone, and in his left hand he held a colorless cocktail garnished with olives. His sole focus was on me—not Jean and his ass-hugging undershorts, not the shirtless guests or the equally bare waiters, and certainly not on the pumping bass or the free food. He was watching me with sharp-eyed intensity. His brow lifted and heat crawled up my neck. I’d have to wear this blazer more often.

“Ce. How are you?” Shep’s hand came out to shake mine, and I smacked it away. I broke the cop’s gaze and gave my full attention to the writhing crowd. I brushed past my ex-lover and threaded my way into the room.

“Shit,” I muttered.

Jean Luc Pappineau hopped on top of the bar, swinging his hips obscenely. Andre the hand model gazed rapturously at that wagging package—Jean was hung, no doubt about it. The room was pulsing with grinding, half-naked art collectors. I scanned the room for Mallory Albright. She stood by the front window, clapping rhythmically along with the music, her head bobbing awkwardly. She smiled and watched Jean Luc with newfound interest. Thank heavens; at least she was enjoying my worst nightmare.

I’d tell her it was a happening.

“Caesar.” An orange hand gripped my shoulder. I shrugged Shep off. His alcohol-soaked breath hit my face and my eyes watered. “Holy shit. He wasn’t naked two minutes ago. Woo! Take it off, Papp.”

“Shut up.”

“Hey, you really know how to throw a party, Ce. You’ve changed. You look good.”

I blinked. “You mean I’ve changed enough to look good?”

“No! No!” He gulped from his glass. How much had he drunk? “I mean, you’re obviously in charge of this party, and it’s wild and sort of out of character.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be wild, Sheppard. It was supposed to be a gallery opening. Pretty cut and dry. Hobnob—sell art.”

“Well, I haven’t seen this much gin since your Uncle Tino opened that liquor store and supplied your cousin Tina’s wedding. Remember that? That was a night.”

Tino and Vito were my well-connected uncles. For them, family always came first.

“My Uncle Tino got this gin for me at cost. If you’ll excuse me? I need to get Jean Luc down from the table before he shows us all his Prince Albert.”

Shep laughed as if I’d made a joke. I should find my boss to see if we’d made any sales and calm everyone down and get these people the fuck out of here before we had a…a…
rave
or something. I didn’t wait for Shep to say another word. I located Peter and made a beeline for his silver hair and half-naked groupies.

Shep disappeared into the crowd and when I looked back, he was gone—as was the mysterious Detective Green.

I took the subway to West 4
^th
Street, stopping first at the bakery for a bear claw and a triple shot latte. I’d need all the chemical assistance I could get today. At ten a.m. on Saturday, I was slightly worse for wear. I could feel the gin leaching from my pores into my one and only cashmere sweater. It was fifty-nine degrees in New York, and the fog had risen, leaving the sidewalks damp. On Cornelia Street the trees were fuzzy, tipped with fresh red buds, and the morning seemed somewhat cheery. Spring, making its fashionably late appearance in New York, was almost in sight. It was about time.

I climbed the stone steps to the gallery and peered through the elegant leaded-glass door. Peter’s building was a real gem. A former row house, the building was alive with tourist-attracting details: the curlicued wrought iron with pineapple-newel posts, the peaked roof and blond brickwork, and out front, of course, our discreet gilded sign—
Peter Stuhlmann Gallery
. Through the warped glass the hallway was dim, but any evidence of the insane revelry from the opening last night had been neatly cleared. Poppy and her stable of able-bodied, cash-poor, washed-up male models had done well.

I unlocked the locks and went inside. The salons were silent, everything in place, though the entire gallery felt hung over and exhausted. Naturally, it smelled like a distillery. At least we’d sold twelve busts. Some lucky orthodontist in Wilton would be paid, and it had only taken a few cases of discount gin. God willing, no one would reconsider in the light of day.

My finger hovered above the keypad of the alarm—the raised red light was disturbingly dark. Damn Peter. He’d left it disarmed again. I looked over my shoulder down the empty hall where the hardwood floors were a bit scuffed this morning. Peter was the last one to leave, sometime near midnight, and the moron had failed to keep his own property secure. I should call him and bitch, but he was at La Guardia catching a flight to Santa Fe. I bet he was still smashed.

I locked the door behind me. The building seemed safe enough, and I had plenty to do before eleven. I needed to call the delivery service and get these busts crated; I had paperwork to attend to and a resume to update. My boss was out of town for the next couple of days, schmoozing on his grandmother’s dime. I was free to wrap up with Jean and get the gallery back in order.

A creak from overhead startled me. What the heck? I stared at the ceiling.

After we’d coaxed everyone back into their clothing and poured them into cabs, I’d checked the building, but…maybe Peter hadn’t. He’d been fairly drunk, wavering in the hall telling me to go home.

“You’ve done your work, now go home.”

He had Rachel clinging to his arm in her stretched red polka-dot dress and those towering Mary Janes. Her cleavage strained against the confines of her bra, her lipstick was freshly applied, and I knew she was about to make another bad call. “Rachel, you wanna split a cab?” I threw her a lifeline.

“Nah. I’m good, Ce.” She clutched Peter’s arm and batted her lashes.

Ever the gentleman, my slick boss smiled at her chest. “I’ll have a cab bring you home, dear. Are you on the Upper East Side?”

She shook her head, curls bouncing around her pale face. “Staten Island.”

As if he had to ask?

So I left. And my boss hadn’t set the alarm in his rush to sexually harass the help.

In the gallery, the silence was absolute. Maybe the wood flooring had expanded and made a pop. It was probably nothing.

I shrugged out of my jacket, charmed to see the back covered with white cat hair. If it had gotten on my sweater, I was going to have words with Nana. I picked at the hair and considered calling the alarm company, just in case Peter had set it, but…that was ridiculous. I was the only other person with the code and the gallery was fine. I stuck my jacket into the hall closet, and brushed away my concern with the lint and the cat dander.

The cavernous gallery was eerily gray. I flipped the lights and headed to my tiny office between the bathroom and the kitchen. First thing on my to-do list was to make more coffee.

I hadn’t even turned the knob before another thump rattled the ceiling directly above my head. That was not my imagination. Could there really be an intruder? There wasn’t much to steal. One would think they’d be more…covert…or selective. Maybe it was a mouse. “Hello?”

Screw it. I knew how to deal with this. My father taught me a thing or two. I marched back, grabbed an umbrella from the cloak closet—not as good as a Louisville Slugger but I could make do—and crept up the stairs on the balls of my feet, retrieving my cell phone from the back pocket of my khakis.

I stopped on the landing and cocked my head, listening. It was ghostly quiet and overly warm. I let my eyes grow accustomed to the shadows. The décor upstairs featured sleek white walls and glossy blond wood. It was laid out more or less like the first floor. Where the kitchen was downstairs, Peter’s office stood above, locked tight for the weekend.

I searched the hall. Halfway down, something shifted on the floor. Rat? Not possible. Maybe someone in the building had lost a cat? There were apartments on the two floors above us. Peter stored his private collection on the fifth floor, but that was only accessible through his office. I hoisted the umbrella and slunk forward, my sight narrowed on the moving mass.

The mass turned out to be feet. Big-toed, bare, square-knuckled feet. They stuck out from the bathroom doorway. They hadn’t been there last night. I crept forward, umbrella raised. The toes wiggled, and this time a groan warbled from the men’s room floor.

The foul scent of digested gin met me at the door. “Oh shit.”

It was Shep, moaning and twitching. He lay sprawled naked across the white tile of the tiny powder room. I flipped the light switch, and he recoiled like some kind of night-dwelling rodent. He had a watchband wrapped around his dick and a morning beard covering his chin. That was it.

“Shep, what in the hell are you doing here?”

“Gah. Turn it off, man.”

His skin was prickled with gooseflesh. I poked a toe into his thigh. “Wake up. You need to go.”

He rolled his head toward the toilet, looking ill, though still more orange than anything else. Served him right. He’d passed out. Was this the life he led now? How the hell had he gotten in here? And where were his pants? “Shep. Get
up
.”

I shook him, and he opened a bloodshot eye.

“No. Turn the light off. You’re burning my retinas.”

I hit the switch and put down the umbrella. I flipped the hall lights and soft beams filled the narrow space. In the front rooms, weak sunshine filtered in from the street. “Are you hurt?”

Shep mumbled, “Just my head.”

Reluctant concern crept under my disgust. “Did you hit it?”

He moved his head and groaned again. I gave in and knelt down, ignoring his super spray-on tan and his rock-hard body long enough to see if he had a bump or a gash or a knock on his noggin. I’m sure that Mallory would have had a morbid tale of death by toilet to share, but I kept my mouth zipped.

Shep’s hair trickled through my fingers, soft and a pure blond as pale as Poppy’s. His breath was like a sewer. I backed away, sitting on my heels, and stared at his dick. What the hell had he done? “You’re fine. Or close enough. You have a watchband on your penis. New form of play, Shep? I could call the cops, you know. I almost did.”

“You would.” He blinked a couple times and finally opened his eyes enough to focus. Then my words registered and he stared down at his limp cock. “How the hell did that get there?”

“Where are your clothes?” I refused to further examine the only thing he was wearing.

He slapped both hands over his crotch. “Jesus. Where are my clothes?”

He was still drunk. “Just wait here. I’ll go see if I can find them.” I soaked a paper towel and handed it to him. “Here. Wipe your face. You’re green. And orange.”

Shep tried to sit. He flopped to the floor almost immediately, saying with an audible swallow, “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Lovely.” I left him to deal with his own discomfort and searched the second floor for his clothing.

The sound of my guest upchucking accompanied me as I went along my business. He puked in one of those deep-from-the-toes vomits that I well recalled from our nights in the dorm. Although he hadn’t been known for excess. Not usually. He’d been all about keeping secrets and not losing control.

What the hell had he been thinking? And where had he hidden when Peter locked up? I peeked in the salons and the supply closet, as well as the lady’s powder room, hoping to find his jeans—or at the very least, his underwear. Nada. I went downstairs and poked around, and finding nothing, I grabbed a tablecloth from the kitchen and headed back. Shep sat on the toilet lid with his head in his hands. His knees were pressed together, and a paper towel covered his privates. His new haircut was still unreasonably attractive.

“Ce?”

“Here. It’s all I can find.” I draped him in sixty inches of hemmed muslin. “Is there someone you can call to bring you some pants and…shoes?”

“I don’t know. My agent maybe, but no one can know I’m here.” He lifted his chin. His eyes were round, his version of imploring. I looked away. He was an actor and I’d seen this particular show before. My gaze fell on the watch he’d placed on the sink. Shep used his everyman voice, pleading with me. “I’m telling you. No one can know I’m here. I signed a huge contract and…I can’t have any bad press or…any scandal.”

“Mm-hm. Scandal? What do you mean?” That watch was familiar. “Is this yours?” I scooped it up. It was broken, obviously. The band was stiff with tiny pubic hairs…no…they were strands of dried glue.

“What? No. I don’t know where that thing came from.”

“Did you screw someone here in my place of work? Boy or girl?”

Silence.

“Or both?”

“I don’t think so. I’m still…you know…I’m not doing that.”

“Doing what? Boys? Girls?”

He cringed. “I’m seeing women.” He lied to me with ease. I knew better. Also Poppy had told me otherwise. “Was there a chick here with nipple rings?” His expression turned hopeful. As if last night he’d become the straight man he pretended to be. He was an idiot. “I swear, I don’t remember. I think I was with…a guy. Tall, no shirt? He had on a bow tie? What were you wearing?”

I gave him a frosty stare. “It wasn’t me. You’ve just described every waiter here last night. And most of the guests. And Jean. You can’t miss those things. What color hair?”

“She… He…” Shep looked pained, “…had…I don’t know. It’s all sort of fuzzy.”

I clenched my teeth. “The hair or the memory? You know,
Sheppard
, for someone who needs to be
‘careful’
…” I made exaggerated quotation marks with my fingers, “…you’re missing the mark. There were photographers everywhere.”

He buried his head in his hands. “I don’t know what happened. I was celebrating. It’s a fuck of a lot of money when a pilot gets picked up. Things got out of hand.”

“Yes. Your being here at all is testament enough. And this conversation isn’t getting you any clothing.” I dialed Poppy. “Does Poppy have a key to your place?” Her phone rang and went straight to voice mail. “Call me right now,” I barked into the phone.

“Yeah. But I don’t want to deal with her.”