5 Tutti Frutti (5 page)

She was standing alongside her
bed holding onto one of the carved bedposts for a bit of balance as she kicked off her heels. When I turned to look at her she unzipped her outfit, slowly lowering the zipper from the end of her cleavage down to below her waist.

“How old do you think I am?”
she asked looking up at me.

“
Oh no, that’s right up there with “is this gun loaded?” I’m not touching that line.”

“I probably babysa
t you when I was in high school,” she said then twisted her arms out of the tight sleeves and pulled the upper half of her outfit down around her waist.

“No, believe me
, I would have remembered,” I said staring.

“Oh much better, much better. I always forget how good it feels to
get out of these things until I start to pull them off. What?” she said, looking at me staring back at her.

“Wow!”

“Yeah, right. Really, how old do you think I am?”

“Oh no you don’t. L
ike I said before, I never go near that line.”

Chapter Nine

“Let me get this
straight. You’re telling me this woman you never met buys you beers all night, saves you from getting the shit kicked out of you, brings you home, cooks you breakfast, shares a Jacuzzi bubble bath with you, and then forces you to have fantastic, wild sex with her until after sunrise?”

“Yeah
, that about sums it up; other than you left the part out where she gave me a backrub until I fell asleep. No wonder I’m dragging. It’s all part of my ongoing investigation.”

“And I’m paying you
for this? You should be paying me. You learn anything other than she had a great body?” Louie asked.

“Actually she sort of doesn’t
.”

“Hunh?”

“She’s maybe got a few extra pounds; I guess you’d say she has a little flab. She’s older than me. I don’t know, I’m guessing ten years, maybe more. Tell you the truth, I don’t really care. Definitely not the sort of woman I’m usually attracted to, but there’s something there, Louie. I mean in her own way she is hot. Scalding. I couldn’t keep up.”

“You’re nuts.”

“No I’m serious. All this time I’ve been chasing after the perfect 10’s. You know what? She beats them hands down. And God, the sex drive in that woman! I barely made it out of her place alive.”

“She did
n’t want to beat you with a riding crop or a baseball bat?”

“Louie, I’m telling you she
is the sexist woman I’ve ever been with.”

“Hotter than that woman who sold cars?”

“No contest.”

“How about that
attorney, the one from Chicago?”

“Much better
.”

“W
hat about that lounge singer, the church woman, or that kinky one that worked for the state?”

“Beats ‘em all hands down.”

“You better watch it, man. I’ve never seen you like this. You’re scaring me. You’re not falling in love are you?”

“Jesus, I honestly don’t know?”

“What’s her name?”

“
Candi, Candi Slaughter.”

“
Candi… God, are you kidding?”

“
Hey look, Louie, I only just met her last night.”

Louie
picked up a pen and scribbled something on a legal pad. I guessed it was Candi’s name. He stared for a moment, shook his head then snorted, “You got more action last night than I’ve seen in years.”

I let that last remark slid
e. I love Louie, but at best he’s mildly drunk by four o’clock on just about any afternoon, at worst he’s totally hammered. He’s grossly overweight. His personal hygiene leaves a lot to be desired. He usually wears one of three suits, all wrinkled from sleeping in them. A remnant of whatever he last ate is usually dribbled across his untucked shirt. His idea of a balanced meal is beer and bourbon. And those are his good points, none of which seemed to be a ringing endorsement in a woman’s quest for a life partner.

“
Candi,” Louie said, gazing up at the bare light bulb in the ceiling lost in his thoughts.

“Just lucky
I guess.”

“You didn’t happen to see your friends the D’Ang
elo brothers or anyone doing something suspicious like rolling a roulette wheel out a side door, did you?”

“No, far as I could tell
Gino and Tommy never showed.”

“
Gino and Tommy, you’re on a first name basis now?”

I shrugged.

“This Candi Slaughter know anything?”

“Actually
, the subject never came up. I’m working on it Louie, relax. If there’s something there I’ll find it.”

“Sounds to me like you already have.”

Chapter Ten

10:30 on a sunny
Sunday morning and I was sipping coffee at Nina’s. The place was filled with people. All of them looked like they were in no hurry to be anywhere. I was waiting for Aaron LaZelle to show up. He was my pal from the police department, currently a Lieutenant in Vice, although it was rumored he was on the move up the ladder again.

He came in through the back door and was behind me with a hand on my shoulder before I knew he was in the place.

“Need a refill?”

I hal
f jumped out of my chair. “Damn it, Aaron, don’t do that, God, I’ll drop over from a heart attack.”

“Sorry
, Mister Touchy, I thought you private investigator types were supposed to have eyes in the back of your head?”

“I do, but they were closed.”

“Need a refill?” he asked again.

“Yeah, black.”

“I’m gonna get some pastry, you want something?”

I was going to tell him I’d already had a caramel roll
, but the last one was so good I said, “Yeah sure. I think maybe I’ll try one of those caramel rolls.”

“Good, give me ten bucks will you?”

“What?”

“
Hey look, you called me. I’m here. I know you plan to pump me for some sort of information. The least you can do is buy me coffee and a pastry. What’s the problem? I’m the guy bringing it all to the table.”

I gave him a twenty and made a mental note to list it on my expense rep
ort to Louie.

I went
back to checking the crowd while Aaron worked his way forward in line. I was studying two women who I would have rated 9’s or 10’s before I’d met Candi. Now I was thinking they probably had pain-in-the-ass personalities.

Aaron set the coffees down
then slid a hubcap-sized caramel roll toward me. “See anything worthwhile?” he asked.

“Actually no, I’m guessing they’re probably a pain in the ass.”

“The blonde and the Asian woman?”

“Yeah, you checked them out?”

“Hello.”

“God, they’re doing the little piece thing. You know
, where they pull a crumb off so it doesn’t look like they’re really eating a lot. I’ve had dates eat their meal and half of mine like that.”

“Yeah, it’s the kiss of death when they just want a
little bite of your dessert.”

We chatted on for a few minutes until Aaron got tired of me wasting his time.

“So, what do you want?”

“Want? Wh
y do I have to want anything? Can’t I just want to see you, hang with my pal? Apparently buy him breakfast.”

“Possibly, but that’s not the way you
usually work. You want something, so what is it?”

“What can you tell me about the D’Angelo brothers?”

“Hmm-mmm, moving up from cheating spouses to major bastards, are we? How can I put it? I guess if they were eliminated by their competition it would only make the city a little better place to live.”

“
Just background for a client. I know the one brother, Gino, has a hearing coming up in the next week or so. My client doesn’t want to get blindsided. All I’m after is strictly background information.”

“
Okay,” he said then took a large bite of his caramel roll. “Well, they’re your typical idiot criminals only maybe a little smarter. Have they murdered people? Possibly. Other than Gino getting nailed on a frankly questionable gambling thing, I don’t think they’ve ever been prosecuted, at least not successfully. And by the way, word is Gino’s going to win his appeal.”

“He’ll get
off?”

“He’s got t
he perfect alibi; short term memory loss, and it seems legit. The guy can’t honestly remember anything. He certainly can’t take care of himself. Frankly, there isn’t a jury in town that’ll convict the guy. And if for some reason we were able to catch him red-handed, the worse that would happen is he’d get sent to a state hospital and take it easy for a few months. Talk about a waste of taxpayer money. With all the austerity measures coming down I think we’d all just as soon see his brother Tommy picking up the tab for the guy’s maintenance.”

“
So he’s getting off?”

“I’d say there’s about a ninety percent certai
nty. Look, he served six months of a six year sentence and the state taxpayers picked up the tab. Nice if it would make a difference, he learned his lesson, but I’m not sure he even knows he was locked up.”

“And the gambling?”

“If it’s going on it’s nothing we’ve been able to substantiate. To tell the truth, with all the cutbacks and the crime lab problems, we got a lot bigger fish to fry than those two clowns taking bets on the Super Bowl or whatever. You know who you should try, Manning in homicide.”

“
Manning? Detective Norris Manning, that by-the-book whack job?”

“He calls them like he sees them.”

“That guy is nuts and has never really been a fan of mine.”

“He’s a straight shooter
I’ll give you that, but he has his hand on a lot of different pulses out on the street.”

“Yeah, well the only place he’d like his hands is around my neck. Maybe you could touch base with him for me and…”

“No.”

“You want to think about it?
I mean I did just buy you coffee and enough calories to last both of us until Wednesday.”

“Yeah
, thanks for that, but my answer is still no.”

“I’ll figure something else out. On a more pleasant note, I’m picking up some rumors you may once again be anointed.”

“How’s that?” Aaron asked.

“Moving over to head up the homicide unit.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Maybe like your pal Manning, I just have my hand on the pulse of the street.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Thanks
, Aaron, you just confirmed it.”

He sat back and looked at me for a moment then smiled and changed the subject. “How’s the love life? Whoever she is
, has she dumped you yet? ”

“Very fu
nny. For your information I’ve met a very nice woman that I find myself smitten with.”

“Umm-hmm, and let me guess
, she’s drop-dead gorgeous, you’ve had wild sex with her, and this will be great for about three weeks until she all of a sudden comes to her senses. At which point you’ll call her by the wrong name in bed, smash up her car, or do something equally stupid, and she’ll probably file a restraining order. Sound familiar?”

“That may have been the old m
e, I grant you. But, no kidding, this one seems to be different.”

“Has anyone told her?”

“She’s got a good head on her shoulders.”

“
Really? You recognize women can think beyond choosing a different position? This is new. In that case I wish you all the luck in the world. How long have you been seeing her?”

“Oh, well
, actually, we’ve only been going out a short while. I…”

“
Oh don’t tell me, let me guess. She was drunk in a bar; you picked her up some night and brought her home, right?”

“No, she wasn’t drunk at all. In fact
, she wasn’t even drinking. We just met one night and sort of started chatting. That sort of turned into an opportunity for some further conversation, and anyway, it’s been going pretty well.”

“Humpf,
conversation, what do you know? Maybe you can change. Hope it works out, Dev.”

“Thanks, me too.”

Chapter Eleven

I didn’t have Candi’s
phone number so I called and left a message for her at the Tutti Frutti Club. She phoned me back later that night.

“Dev
, hi. I was wondering if I was ever going to hear from you again, or did you just want to grope me for that one night?”

“Sorry.
I didn’t have your phone number and I couldn’t find you in the phone book.”