Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You (v1.2) (15 page)

She called all the older ladies “ma’am,” the children “sweetheart,” and the regulars, a gang of crusty, middle-aged men who seemed to live in the corner booth, “the regulars.” And the old ladies smiled, the children giggled, and the regulars blushed and dipped their heads to her.

Because, if she couldn’t remember their names, she could remember what they ate and what they drank, and the denizens of East Wapaneken were nothing if not creatures of habit. She could already float from table to table, a pot of regular coffee in one hand, a pot of decaffeinated in the other, and pour refills correctly for everyone in the restaurant. And all with a smile and a personal comment, and an air of efficiency that still had the power to unnerve Quinn.

He sat in his corner and ate. And scribbled useless notes in his notebook. And drank gallons of coffee. And ate. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

And he watched Shelby.

She breezed in just before noon that Saturday, her cheeks flushed, her hair loose and flying, and with a smile in her eyes that bordered on wicked. She saw him as soon as she entered, as if her eyes had been drawn to him, and gave a quick wave before setting straight in on her job.

Her job. Quinn still couldn’t quite get over that one. The heiress, if not slinging hash, was coming pretty damn close to it. And seeming to love every minute of her workday. One by one, she was blowing his every conception of the Rich and Repulsive straight to hell and back. He didn’t know whether he liked that or not. He only knew he was still fascinated, watching her.

She wasn’t giving up. She wasn’t crying “uncle,” or “brother,” or anything like that She’d just rolled up her designer sleeves and dived in to Tony’s, a very alien world, and was already in the process of bringing the whole place to its knees, or around her thumb, or whatever the hell you wanted to call it.

“Hello, sweetheart,” she said now as she snagged two glass coffeepots and brushed past a little blond cherub who was lunching with her harassed-looking grandmother. “Don’t you look pretty today? And even prettier, too, if you were to sit up straight and tuck your napkin onto your lap.”

The little cherub, who had just been giving her grand mother fits with her fidgeting and whining, sat up straight and reached for her napkin. The grandmother beamed. And Shelby moved on. Quinn half expected her to leave shiny fairy dust in her wake.

Tabby breezed by her, muttering under her breath.

“Good afternoon, Tabby,” Shelby said. “How are you today?”

“Compared to what?” the waitress answered automatically, and headed for the kitchen, her head leading her body by a good two feet, to put in another order.

Shelby shook her head and smiled at Tabby’s back.

“Ladies,” she said to Mrs. Brobst and Mrs. Fink. “Aren’t you looking well. I must say, I simply
adore
your hats. So wonderfully flattering. It’s such a shame more people don’t wear them, as they’re the very finest sign of a real lady. Decaffeinated, am I correct?”

“Such a dear,” Mrs. Brobst bellowed as Shelby walked away, earning her a frantic bit of hand gesturing from Mrs. Fink as the latter told her to “for God’s sake, Amelia, turn up your hearing aid so you can hear yourself bellow!”

Shelby glided between tables until she came to the corner booth. Six men sat there, a collection of frizzled, graying hair, leather jackets with skulls on them, beer bellies, and hands and fingernails that could never be entirely clean again. Family men, every one of them; two of them already grandfathers. They’d all worked every day until the local steel plant in Bethlehem closed down, and were living on unemployment, Tony’s coffee, and their memories. They were, in Quinn’s opinion, as harmless as kittens, although most strangers wouldn’t get close enough to discover that for themselves.

Shelby seemed oblivious to their appearance, the grinning skulls, the tattoos. “Ah, my regulars. How are you fine gentlemen today?” she asked as they all held out their coffee cups to her for refills.

“Hot. Too damn hot for June,” one of them said conversationally.

“Yeah. Takes me back to Da Nang. Too damn hot,” a second man—Quinn knew his name was George—agreed.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Shelby scolded, shaking her head. “Please, your language. I thought we had this discussion yesterday. There are children and ladies present, remember? Now, what do you say to me?”

Quinn watched, openmouthed, as the two huge, still heavily muscled men ducked their heads and murmured garbled apologies.

Shelby moved on, blissfully unaware that she had just admonished two of six ex-Green Berets who had, Quinn had learned from Gary, about three dozen medals for bravery among them. Not the sort of men who watched their language. Definitely the sort of men, middle-age paunches aside, who probably still knew how to kill people twelve different ways without breaking a sweat.

They laughed and joked with the waitresses. Never missed an opportunity to pat the gum-chewing Tabby’s backside when she walked by. Roared loudly at their own jokes and more than once in the past days had fallen into rather loud arguments among themselves. But they were pussycats when Shelby walked in, smiled at them.

Twilight zone. Quinn felt that his move to East Wapaneken had definitely moved him a step or two into the twilight zone.

He watched as Shelby finished her circuit of the room, then brought the two coffeepots with her as she stopped at his table, politely waiting for him to stand up and pull out a chair for her. She didn’t say anything. She just had that
way
of making men want to risk life and limb in order to open a car door for her, pull a chair out for her, throw their body on a grenade for her.

“How are you?” she asked, refilling his coffee cup, then sitting back in her chair, smiling at him. “I had a very nice time last night. Thank you again.”

So prim, so proper, even sitting in the middle of Tony’s. A lady of white gloves and bread-and-butter notes written on the finest monogrammed linen stock. “No need for thanks, Shelley. I had a good time, too. Did Brandy tell you about our plans for tonight? If you’re not too tired, that is. Miniature golf. Have you ever played?”

Shelby smiled, for he had framed his question in such a way that she didn’t have to lie to him. “No. I’ve never played miniature golf. Is that a problem? I know I wasn’t much help to you last night, bowling. As a matter of fact, I’ve already told Brandy that it would be the men against the ladies tonight, as you’d been such a good sport about losing so badly last night.”

Quinn smelled a rat, but he only returned Shelby’s smile. “Okay. If you don’t mind?”

“I don’t mind at all, honestly,” she said, then lost her smile, looked to her left, toward the corner booth, and leaned forward, speaking quietly. “I don’t know if I should say anything, but…”

Her voice trailed off and he leaned forward, too, waiting for her to go on.

She drew in a breath, let it out in a rush. She had thought about telling Brandy, but since Brandy couldn’t do anything about it, that had seemed pointless. She didn’t know why she thought Quinn could help her. She just did. He just seemed to be the sort of person who could handle, well, nearly everything. If nothing else, he could tell her to stop worrying. “I’m probably wrong, and nobody ever hears correctly when they only hear
part
of something, but…”

“Shelley,” he said. “Out with it”

She went to look over at the corner booth again, then stopped herself, quickly ducked her head, pretended an interest in the salt shaker. “All right, but just remember it’s probably nothing. Nothing at all. They’re very sweet, if you just take the time to notice. Probably completely harmless. You know—like Tony? And you can’t say anything to anyone. It’s just too silly.”

“Cross my heart,” he promised, drawing a hand over his chest “Now, spill it.”

“I heard them talking. Yesterday afternoon, when they were all here for coffee and that marvelous chocolate cake that sweet little girl bakes at home and delivers here three times a week. I mean, I’ve tasted some of the best chocolate desserts in the—well, lots of chocolate desserts, and that has to be the best… I’m rambling, aren’t I?”

“You’ve left the road a time or two, but you’re back on it now,” Quinn said, smiling. “Let me help, okay? You overheard George and the others yesterday, right?”

Her forehead crinkled. “George? Who’s George?”

“Never mind. Go on. Please.”

“Well, it’s the regulars. I guess you’ve already figured that out. I overheard them yesterday, talking about”—she leaned even closer, so that he could smell her perfume—
“killing
the mayor.”

Shelby sat back, took another deep breath, and waited for Quinn to speak. She felt much better having told him, as now it wasn’t only her problem but his as well. It was the least she could do for him, seeing that he’d actually allowed her to go Dutch last night

Quinn sat for a moment, considering Shelby’s words, then crooked a finger in her direction, motioning for her to come closer once more. “Kill the mayor? Shelley, Amelia Brobst is the mayor.”

Her smooth forehead crinkled again. “Who?”

He sighed, trying very hard not to laugh. “Amelia Brobst. Eighty-five if she’s a day, and admitted murderer of local squirrels.”

“No.”

“Yes. Do it slowly, not to draw attention to yourself, but turn around. She’s the five-foot, eighty-pound Genghis Khan in the straw hat covered in pink roses.”

Shelby counted to three under her breath, then dropped a napkin onto the floor, bent to retrieve it, and looked behind her.

“No,”
she said, looking at Quinn, her lovely brown eyes wide as saucers.

“Yes,
Shelley,” Quinn promised, remembering yet again that he’d already metaphorically shelved Shelby’s cloak-and-dagger expertise next to his Secret Squirrel videos. “Mrs. Brobst has been mayor of East Wapaneken for six years, ever since her husband died. He was the mayor for thirty-seven years, by the way.”

“How do you know that?”

Quinn smiled, pleased with himself and his ready-made lie. “I’m here to write about the local color, remember? All it took was one quick visit to the library. So tell me, why are the regulars going to snuff her? What did she do— drive that tank of hers over their motorcycles?”

Shelby sneaked another look at Amelia Brobst, who was having some real difficulty getting her heavy brown coffee mug to her lips without spilling its contents. She’d meant to have a talk with Tony about that. The mugs were all well and good for the gentlemen, but the ladies really should have regular cups, with saucers. Thin china ones, perhaps with flowers on them. It was just a little thing, but the little things added up, especially when one was trying to run a successful restaurant

Obviously Shelby still hadn’t seen Tony’s account books…

She shook herself back to attention. Smiled at the old ladies, turned back to Quinn. “They’re going to kill
her?”
She all but hissed her next words: “That’s ridiculous!”

“Hey,” Quinn said, raising his hands. “Don’t look at me. It was you who said it.”

Her shoulders slumped. “Oh, yes. It was, wasn’t it?” She sat up once more. “It has something to do with a war memorial, and how the mayor refuses to put one up in the town park. I believe, if I heard correctly—I was really,
really
trying
not
to hear—that the mayor believes the memorial that’s there is enough to cover every war. The regulars don’t think so.”

Quinn nodded. “Okay. Now you’re making sense. Sort of. The regulars, as you call them, are all Vietnam vets. They probably do want a special memorial. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to kill little Amelia. They’re just talking, that’s all. Men do that. They talk.”

“Do they all talk about cutting brake lines?” Shelby asked, raising one eyebrow, waiting for Quinn’s response.

He was silent for a few moments, considering this. He’d been a cop. He’d been a bodyguard. Now he was a desk jockey, out of the field for over a year. Part of him wanted to laugh off Shelby’s concerns, but another part of him wasn’t so sure. “That is pretty definite for a daydream,” he admitted.

“Then you
do
think they might try to hurt her?”

“Let me get back to you on that, all right? I’ll do a little investigating of my own.”

“You’ll be careful, won’t you?”

Quinn’s grin split his face. “Why, Shelley, you
do
care, don’t you? I’m touched, really I am. That you confided in me. That you’re worried about me.”

Shelby felt her cheeks reddening. “Now you’re just being mean,” she said, wishing his smile didn’t do such unexpected things to her, make her think such unladylike thoughts—thoughts no engaged woman should be thinking.

She pushed back her chair, motioning for him to remain seated. She needed to get away from him before she reached out and brushed his black hair back from his forehead. Before she betrayed herself in any way. “I’d better go write tonight’s specials on the board before Tony does it himself. I keep trying to tell him, two
Ls
in
fillet
if it’s fish, only one if it’s filet mignon.”

Quinn deliberately pushed away thoughts of pulling Shelby into his lap and kissing her senseless and, in turn, got a mental picture of the tall yet stooped, shuffling man in the always dirty apron. “I don’t think he cares,” he said.

Shelby picked up the coffeepots and stood very straight “Well, he should,” she said. “But you’re right. He told me yesterday that as long as he knows how to cook it, his customers don’t care if he can’t spell it.”

There was a bellow from the other side of the room. “Ah, the master’s voice,” she said, pretending to wince as the not-so-dulcet tones of her employer began a crescendo having a lot to do with Tabby and an incorrectly added-up check. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I have to pull yet another thorn out of the king’s paw.”

“Certainly.” Quinn half rose from his seat. Purely a reflex action, he told himself as she walked away. He watched her for a moment, then realized the regulars had gone silent. They also were watching Shelby’s progress across the restaurant. Not leering, not poking each other with their elbows and making quiet comments. Just watching. One of them actually took his paper napkin out of its tucked-in place in the vee of his shirt, smoothed it, and placed it in his lap.