5 Tutti Frutti (6 page)

“You actually have on
e, a phone book?’

“
Just for old time sake. You interested in getting together sometime?” The background noise sounded like she might be working.

“Actually
, I’m just finishing up here.”

“You got time for
dinner?”

“Tonight? Yeah, matter of fact that sounds great. I need maybe an hour to get home, hose the club off me
, and get dolled up. How ‘bout I meet you somewhere?”

“You know Charlie’s, about Larpenteur and
Lexington, a low key burgers and jeans sort of place?”

“See you
there in an hour, and I’m known to not be on time,” she said.

“I’ll be waiting.”

Apparently, forty minutes late was still considered to be in the realm of acceptability. Who knew? There were maybe a half dozen people in the place. I was seated in a booth just beneath the plastic, faux-stain-glass lamp shade advertising Old Style Beer. When she entered, Candi was the only woman in the place. She quickly looked around and I waved. A couple of heads turned, but no one stared as she made her way around the pool table to the booth I was sitting in.

“Hey, how’s it going? Sorry I was running a little behind,” she said. She planted a kiss on the top of my head, waved me into the corner of the booth then slid in next to me.

“Actually, I was going to go to the bar and get us a drink. There’s no waitress here, not classy like the Tutti Frutti. What can I get you?”

“Relax, I’ll
get it. You want another beer?” She nodded at my half-empty glass.

“No
, I’m okay for now. Put it on my tab. That’s Charlie behind the bar.”

She nodded and went to the bar.
At first I thought she was chatting with one of the patrons at the bar, but then it looked like she might be exchanging words with him. I was going to go up and make sure everything was all right when she returned smiling and carrying a frosted martini glass with two large olives.

“Everything okay?” I looked over toward the bar.

“Just some jerk that has a problem with sexy women. Don’t worry about it. I deal with a dozen guys a night like that. I think I may have seen that idiot at the club a couple of times. Come on this looks good,” she smiled and grabbed her glass.

“That your drink of choice?”

“Yep, double vodka martini, two olives. I found gin changes my personality.”

“Well
, here’s to you,” I said and raised my glass.

“No, to us,” she smiled and
we clinked glasses. As she gulped, she stared at me over the frosted rim of her glass with those gorgeous brown eyes.

“Any trouble finding this place?”

“No, I’ve been passed it a million times just never made it inside. Didn’t it used to have a different name?”

“Yeah, really clever, Ted’s. I think Charlie w
as in here so much he decided to just buy the place and here we are.”

We talked for a while.
Candi finished her martini, ate the two olives in one bite then looked longingly at her empty glass.

“Want another?”

“You mind?” she asked.

“God no, except that we’re going to switch places so I can run
to the bar and fetch the drinks. You’re supposed to be off work and relaxing. The menu is posted behind us, that chalk board on the wall,” I said then followed her out of the booth.

She took a step or two toward the chalk board to read it. Not that there was much to read
; a half dozen versions of cheese burgers, and for an additional buck and a half you could substitute onion rings for fries.

“I think I’ll have that bleu
cheese burger. You feel like splitting some onion rings?”

“Instead of the fries? Charlie has great fries?”

“No, as a side. I like fries, too,” she said.

“Back in a minute,” I smiled.

I gave our order to Charlie. He poured my beer and was getting a frosted glass for Candi’s martini when the guy Candi had words with glanced over at me. I could tell he was drunk, not falling down drunk, but definitely not sober. Probably the resident barfly. He gave me a stupid grin and sort of wobbled his head.

“You must like
‘em big,” he said. There was a familiar sort of twang to his voice, but I couldn’t place it.

“Excuse me?”

“Your gal there, looks like she knows her way round the dinner table, and probably ain’t seen her feet in twenty-five years.” He chuckled then looked at the two guys within ear shot. The one closest half turned his back.

I looked at him for a moment trying to place the voice thinking maybe he knew me and was just
making a really bad joke. He was sort of big, sort of out of shape, in a purple Vikings jersey with a baseball cap pushed back on his head. The cap was embroidered
Local 120
, St. Paul’s teamsters union. I thought about dropping him right there; knocking him off his stool. I thought about slamming his forehead against the bar; maybe breaking a glass over that baseball cap perched on his fat head. The old Dev would have done it in a heart beat.

Charlie
placed Candi’s martini on the bar. “Everything okay here, Dev?” he asked then stared at the barfly.

“Yeah,
Charlie, no problem. Enjoy your night, pal,” I said then picked up our drinks and walked back to the booth.

“You okay?”
Candi asked.

“Hmmm-mmm, yeah sure,” I said and raised my glass.

“You sure? Your face looks kind of red,” she said then glanced over my shoulder toward the bar.

“
No, I’m fine. To us,” I said and we clinked glasses.

“It was that drunk with the baseball cap, right?”

“You’re right; he’s a drunk and an idiot.”

“Bastard called me fat.”

“What?”

“Relax, I’ll deal with it
.”

“I’ll have Charlie toss him out.”

“No don’t, please, let’s just enjoy the night.”

Our burgers came, along with a heaping
basket of onion rings. Charlie told me the onion rings were on the house. We devoured the entire basket in just a few minutes.

“I’m running t
o the can, you want another while I’m up?” I asked.

“I better not if I’m gonna drive. You got vodka at your place?”

“I do, along with chilled glasses and olives. Can I make you a night cap?”

“Thought you’d never ask,” she smiled. “Go on now
out, out, get going so I can get my hands wrapped around that martini you promised.”

I came out of the men’s room
and went to the bar to pay my tab. I handed the cash to Charlie, “Give yourself five out of that for the tip, Charlie.”

“Hey
, sorry, man, I was out of line, just the beer talking, I’m really sorry.” It was the barfly, and he looked like he was ready to cry.

“No harm no foul, thanks,” I said, taking my change from Charlie
.

“Buy you and the lady a drink? W
hat’s she like?”

“Naw, thanks,
we gotta get going, have a nice night,” I said and headed back to our booth.

Candi
had her back to the bar and was talking into her cell phone.

“…with
a Viking’s jersey. I want you to deal with it.”

I waited quietly at the edge of the booth. Candy seemed somehow to sense my presence, turned
, and looked surprised I was standing there.

“I expect you to handle it,” sh
e said then hung up and smiled at me. “That didn’t take long,” she said.

“Everything okay?”

“Just one of the girls at work, no big deal. Ready?”

“She like doing shots?”
barfly called.

“Give it a rest, Gary,” I heard Charlie say
.

I was still trying to place the voice as we
headed out the door.

“You want to follow me?” I asked
her out in the parking lot.

“I think I better, since I don’t know where
you live.” she said then clicked a button on her key ring. The lights flashed and an alarm chirped on a dark blue BMW 750. I was pretty sure it was the same car Candi had driven me home in the night we met, although my memory was a bit fuzzy. I did know this, the car retailed for close to a hundred grand and was way out of my price league. In fact, if you combined the other five or six cars in the lot, mine included, Candi’s car was worth about ten times the total amount.

“Nice wheels.”

“What are you driving?”

I pointed across the lot to the red
’95 Fleetwood. I knew it was mine because the rear door on the driver’s side was blue. There was an oil slick about the size of a dinner plate glistening underneath from the light of a distant street lamp, and you could still read the word “asshole” spray painted along the passenger side.

“That’s your car? God
, you could land fighter jets on the hood of that thing.”

“Yeah, I’m sort of in the process of restoring it,” I lied. “I’ll be easy to follow. My passenger side tail light is out.”

“Did someone spray paint your car?”

“Just evaluating some retouching techniques,” I said.

“Oh. Well, I’ll just look for the single tail light. Shouldn’t be much of a problem, that’ll be me right behind you,” she said.

It took all of fifteen minutes to cruse through
Como Park, down Lexington to Selby, and, a mile and a half later, into my driveway. Candi and her BMW remained right behind me the entire route.

“Any problem finding the place
?” I joked after she’d pulled into my driveway and climbed out of her car.

“No. H
ey, did you know both your tail lights are out?”

“They are?”

“Yeah, surprised you haven’t been ticketed yet. You better move that up to the top of your restore list.”

“
One more thing to do.”

She comfortably settled into the far end
of my couch, kicked off her shoes, and looked completely at home by the time I came out of the kitchen with her martini.

“You know if I
drink this I’ll probably be unable to drive home tonight,” she said then smiled wickedly and took a very big sip.

“Counting on it,” I smiled back
.

Chapter Twelve

I waved good-bye
to her as she backed out of my driveway. She’d just finished mauling me for fifteen minutes inside my front door. It was a little before noon, and I debated about going back to bed. I’d cooked her a breakfast of French toast and whatever syrup I’d found in the back of the cupboard. Fortunately, I was able to scrape up a couple of eggs and some Wonder Bread I’d had for a few weeks.

Amazingly
, even with her hangover, Candi still had an appetite. Then again, if last night was any indication, she had an awful lot of energy that seemed to build up quickly and needed to be released.

I made it into the of
fice feeling like I’d been ridden hard and put away wet. Louie looked like he’d arrived all of ten minutes before me.

“Hey
, Dev, want some coffee? It’s just about ready.”

“No thanks, I’m all coffee’d out, just coming from a breakfast meeting.”

“Really? Pardon me for being cynical, but you sort of smell like someone’s perfume, unless you’ve started wearing the stuff yourself.”

“What? I can’t tell. Really?
”

“Yeah
, it floated in here with you. Actually seems a lot more pleasant than what this place usually smells like.”

My cell rang at that moment, “Haskell Investigations.”

“Hi, Dev? Aaron, where are you?”

“In my office.” Aaron might have been a good friend, but when a cop asks me where I am I immediately get defensive.

“Hold on a minute, someone here wants to speak with you.”

“Who’s …”

“Haskell? Detective Norris Manning. Thanks for taking my call.”

“Actually
, Detective Manning, I didn’t. I was talking to Lieutenant LaZelle and all of a sudden…”

“Say, I’ve a couple of questions I’d like
to ask you, just routine stuff. Wonder if I could swing by, oh say in the next ten minutes?”

“The next ten minutes?
What’s this about?”

“Just some routine questions so we can
clear up a couple of things.”

I was racking my brain trying to remember if I’d done something I should be worried about.
Oddly, I couldn’t come up with anything.

“Yeah, I suppose th
at would work. I’ve got a two-fifteen appointment so it would have to be quick, course I’ll have my attorney present.” I glanced over at Louie in the process of dribbling coffee down the front of his shirt.