Romano and Albright 01 - Catch Me If You Can (MM) (9 page)

He dropped his cigarette, crushing it under his boot. “That’s a shame. Sure. Supplies. Maybe I can pick up a video game.”

I unlocked the truck. “Hop in.”

“Wait. Don’t you even see that there’s something on your windshield?” I looked and sure enough, there was a small white envelope tucked beneath the windshield wiper on the passenger side. It was rumpled.

I glared at him. “You put that there.”

“I didn’t. I followed you, but I was inside until five minutes ago.”

“Inside Rocco’s? Not possible. I would have seen you.” I yanked the envelope; the wiper hit the glass with a
snap.

“Yeah. In the bar. Your family seems nice. Paulie said that he and Donna are trying to have a family. You know, that thing could have been on the truck all day. Look at it.”

“You were speaking with my
family
? What the hell are you doing nosing into my life?” I climbed in and slammed the door. He climbed cautiously into the passenger seat. I took a deep breath and stuck the key in the ignition.

Then I wheezed. Realization hit. Could he be— “Oh my God. It’s you, isn’t it? You stole the bust. You’re the one who fucked Shep—”

He held his hands up in some mockery of innocence. “No. Calm down. No.”

“
You were in the clown room
.”

I’ll remember this part forever because, in my race toward the wrong conclusion, I turned to face him, both my hands flying with typical Romano flair. I let go of the clutch a hair quicker than I should have and the truck jerked. I fell abruptly off the seat, sideways. He must have gotten the wrong impression. He reacted as if I were on the attack. I mean, the man was about six-foot-four, and I’m five-ten in my best shoes. Why in the world would I attack? I swear it was an innocent move, but as I lurched over the seat, he grabbed my flailing fist, swinging me around and twisting my arm painfully behind my back. It must be a cop reflex—man, he was fast.

I thrashed. “Ow! What the hell? Let me go.” My leg came down on the gear shift, and like that I was tangled. I shook my pant leg, trying to get free. In the process, I knocked the shifter into neutral. The truck rocked briefly, and then it lurched down the sloped pavement. I was wrestling with the detective, all but sitting on his lap, when I noticed we were picking up speed.

“Would you just calm down, Romano?” He grappled with my wrist.

“Shit! Let me go. We’re moving.”

He looked out the window. “Why isn’t the parking brake on?”

“I don’t know. I’m not much of a driver. I’m a New Yorker.” I straddled his leg the wrong way and managed to grab the wheel as he let go of my arm. We coasted through the intersection. Cutting hard to the right, I scrambled to reach the brake, but my pant leg was caught and I couldn’t get back into my seat. I was sitting on his knee when we hit the curb, bumping onto the sidewalk.

“What the hell are you doing? Get off me.”

“I’m stuck.”

Poppy’s top-heavy milk truck bumbled down the tiny incline. Pedestrians jumped out of the way. I wailed on the horn. Dan pushed and prodded and finally squirmed out from under me, calling me rude names and swearing.

“My leg is trapped on the gearshift, asshole.” It was tunneled up my pant leg and I had somehow twisted around. My other cuff appeared to be trapped on a hook under the seat. I was too busy steering to free my damn pants.

Dan slammed on the brake, and I flew into the windshield. My temple slapped the glass. “Ow!”

“You are a fucking menace!” he screamed. “What the hell is the matter with you?”

“Me? You’re the one following me. Who are you? Did you have sex with Shep?”

“Shep? The actor? Newsflash—he’s straight.”

“And you call yourself a detective? Newsflash—he’s gay. He’s queer. He sucks dick in dark closets for sport.”

Oh my God. Dan sat gaping at me. I snapped my jaw shut. I quietly freed my pants and took a deep breath.

Someone rapped on the window and we both jumped. Dan glared out the window, mumbling, “Jesus fucking H. Christ on a goddamn fucking crutch.”

“Oh. That’s helpful,” I snipped. I rolled the window down. A police officer stared patiently into the vehicle.

“License and registration please.”

“Don’t ask me,” I said. “He’s driving.”

Dan gave me a look—both comical and terrifying—and I was glad there was law enforcement present. His gaze moved reluctantly to the cop. “Evening, Officer.”

I expected them to do some kind of secret handshake, but when Dan opened the door, the officer nailed him in the beam of his flashlight. “Remain in the vehicle.”

“He’s a police officer.” I read the man’s nametag. “Officer O’Brien.”

Dan groaned and slid down in his seat. His hat sank over his eyes. He covered his face with his hand. “No, Caesar. Not anymore.”

My temple throbbed as I whipped around. “What do you mean? Who are you?”

O’Brien said, “Is there a problem here?”

“Yes, there’s a problem here. A strange man is driving my best friend’s car.”

The cop’s stare intensified and Dan said to me, “Could you please just shut up? You’re making this worse.”

“Worse? How can I make this worse?”

“I need you to step out of the vehicle, sir.”

“Yes. Step out of my vehicle.” Who in God’s name was this guy? Why was he impersonating a police officer?

“You are not helping.” Dan climbed out of the truck while I riffled through Poppy’s glove compartment searching for her registration and insurance. Her papers were a mess. It took five minutes, but when Dan got back into the driver’s seat, he gave me a death glare. “Do not say a single word until we get off this sidewalk, you got that?”

“Doesn’t he need the paperwork?”

He clenched his jaw and then bounced over the curb; the truck lurched like a drunk. We eased into traffic and headed south, puttering along merrily. I left the radio off. I let Dan sit for a couple minutes, no doubt trying to regain his composure, and watched as the blocks swept by. He took the onramp to 278. We were leaving Brooklyn. I broke the silence. “So. What? You’re taking me to Staten Island to dump my body in a landfill?”

“No,” he grouched. “I’m going back home. I’ve only been watching you for two days and…you screwed things up by not taking the subway. I knew better. Serves me right.”

“That means you’re really following me?”

“Yeah.” I watched him in the yellow glow of the passing streetlights. He had a strong face. The bill of his ball cap hid his eyes, but his jaw was bold, his mouth firm, his nose straight. He was scruffy with his evening beard. All in all, he was far better looking than I’d given him credit for. I guess this meant his interest in me was purely professional. Why was I disappointed?

He slid a look at me, then his eyes went back to the road. “You want gum?” How weird was that? He found a pack in his pocket and offered me a piece. I took it and sniffed it first, which made him smile. “It’s fine. Eat it.”

“Thank you.” It was mint. Nice. I froze. “It’s not Nicorette, is it?”

He chuckled. Then he said, “I’m actually a private detective.”

“A dick? Why, yes, you are.” He didn’t laugh. Admittedly, it wasn’t funny. “So…what’s that mean?”

“It means someone hired me because they’re being blackmailed. They think the blackmailer is you. Among other things, I’m trying to retrieve some lost property. That’s why I was at the party.”

“Someone thinks that I am capable of extortion? Me?” I was flabbergasted. “Me? Extort? I can’t even cheat on a crossword puzzle. I’m the worst liar you’ve ever met. I stutter.”

“I don’t know about that, you seem pretty smooth.”

“Are you high? I’m not smooth.”

“You were last night. Very smooth, like a maître d’.”

I grimaced. That was too close to home. “I was working. You know, this makes four of us in some kind of trouble. All of us were at the gallery last night.”

“Four? You, the actor, my client and who?”

“Peter. My boss.”

“Him? He’s on my list as a person of interest.” He exited the highway, turning onto a busy street filled with restaurants and markets.

“You’re not a very good detective.”

He drove the truck easily, chomping away on his gum. Poppy would have crapped herself if she knew I let anyone commandeer her darling, but I was a better passenger than I was a driver.

I peeked at him again, chewing my own gum and mulling over the facts. “The ring? Last night?”

“Part of the disguise.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Yeah, well no one noticed me once at that damn party—I was just another guy. Except for you. No one. Not the waiters, the caterers, the artist, I was invisible to everyone except my client until you blocked my path and the door closed on my coat.”

“Blocked your path?” I nearly snorted. “You stopped in the doorway, as if you knew me. I thought…” I thought my new blazer had mesmerized him. “Well, you don’t want to know what I thought.”

“I did know you. I was following you.”

He put the blinker on and cut the wheel. We entered a sleepy tree-lined neighborhood. The houses were single family. The yards were tiny, but tidy. We were near Wagner College, the buildings lit on the hillside, and below us the Manhattan skyline was perfectly presented. It was stunning. Although it was still Staten Island. “This is nice.”

“Yeah. Thanks. I took my grandparents’ house after they went to Arizona a couple years back. My grandfather taught at the college.” He parked in the short driveway of a handsome red brick Cape. There was a motorcycle under a tarp, otherwise it was neat as a pin. A tree grew in the front yard. The porch light was on.

“Wow. This is like the country.”

He laughed. “Have you ever been to the country?”

“I went to Manhattanville.”

“Well, this isn’t the country, Romano. This is the burbs.” Dan shut the truck off and opened the door. “C’mon. Have a beer before you go. We need to talk.”

I shrugged. Like I had plans? I followed my new friend up the steps and into the house. “I guess I can have one.”

“One, huh? You’re a lightweight.”

I smoothed a hand down my flat stomach. “Thank you.”

He laughed again. “You’re kinda funny.”

“So they tell me.”

The house was even nicer when we stepped inside, probably because anything larger than the guest bedroom at my grandmother’s seemed palatial to me. The living room was to the right. There was a long sectional couch and a flat-screen TV and that was about all. I was relieved not to find pictures of dogs playing poker. Instead, there was a gorgeous Jasper Johns print hanging in a stark frame over the fireplace. Nice job, Detective Dan. Lots of controllers on the coffee table. I figured his grandparents had left some furnishings for him, and that he’d dovetailed the old things from his childhood with his own bachelor style. Bachelor? “So…uh…you live here alone?”

“Yeah. My office is here as well. You wouldn’t believe how much of this job is spent on the computer.”

He flung his leather jacket over the banister and so I flung my blazer there as well. I felt prissy. I should work on being less fussy.

We entered a well-stocked, homey kitchen through an arched doorway. Clean plates and glasses were piled on a smart wooden dish drain. A row of herbs grew on the windowsill in festive clay pots: spiky dill, thick-leafed basil and fragrant rosemary. I was impressed by the array of sharp, excellent knives stuck to a magnetic strip. The counter was butcher block, the walls a faded creamy yellow. A Viking refrigerator loomed in the corner. He even had a little braided throw rug in front of the back door. It was nice in a my-God-I’d-kill-for-my-own-place kind of way.

“Herbs? You cook.”

“Yup. I want to open a restaurant some day.” He nodded, handing me a Long Trail.

That had to be a joke, so I got right to the point. “Are you going to tell me who hired you?”

For a second, I thought he was going to stall. Instead, he bent. “Mallory Albright.”

I choked and spat beer directly into his face.

“Jesus!” He jumped back, wiping his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. “Man. What is your deal? You’ve got to be the most volatile—”

I held up a hand. “I’m sorry. I just can’t believe that Mallory,”
my savior
, “that she thinks…she actually thinks…she would…”

It was inconceivable. Mallory? Not Mallory. She was always so
nice
.

I kept sputtering like a child. “She…I…I…Mallory? She… I gotta go.” I slammed the bottle down on the counter and made tracks for the front door, but Dan grabbed me by my sleeve with his wide, scarred hand.

He turned me around, saying, “God. You are such a feisty little motherfucker. I had no idea.”

I clenched my fists, and my eyes bulged. “Say that again.”

“
I had no idea.
” He had the balls to laugh. “Look. She and I both thought you seemed suspicious. You’re in debt. You’ve got forty bucks in the bank. You’re almost done paying off student loans. Peter gives you nothing. You live with your granny. And you’re in and out of the galleries—you and the caterer. I think it’s the blonde or one of her group, so that’s where I’m looking next. But you look desperate enough on paper to commit a crime.”

“Thank you.” I burned with the shame of having my financial secrets laid bare. Mallory knew? I tore his hand from my shoulder. “Poppy isn’t a crook.”

“If you say so. Who do you think it is?”

“One of the waiters, or Brandon, or even Rachel. Jean Luc’s in everyone’s business. Shep remembers nipple rings.”

He squinted at me, his face scrunching as he tried to follow. “Is that supposed to make sense?”

“Yes. If you were up to speed, you’d get it. What kind of detective did you say you were?”

“A good one.”

I could hardly believe that. “What’s Mallory missing?”

“That’s strictly need-to-know,” he said firmly. Dan didn’t look like he could be moved on that. Actually, he looked like a smug bastard.

“I need to know.” I couldn’t believe Mallory would suspect me. That she hired someone to follow me. Disenchanted, I stood my full five foot ten, in these shoes, and said stiffly, “This changes everything. I could care less what happens now.” She could take Justin Timberlake’s goddamn head and stuff it right up her tight waspish—