Dirty Secrets (13 page)

If it was a treat Lucio wanted, it was a treat Lucio would get.  Adele would make sure of it.  Her plan was simple:  seduce the love-struck bodyguard into slackening her leash.  Enough slack, she hoped, to enable her to inform the police of the attempt on her life, enough still to pay Ambrogio back for leaving the way he did. 

Adele spent the car ride to the airport sandwiched between Lucio and his pissed off brother.  With the ease of a cat, she slipped her hand level with her outer thigh—a prime position for seduction.  She gently stroked the seam of Lucio’s thigh, while glancing emotionless into the distance.

Face flushed, smile broadened, Lucio could barely contain himself.  Adele gathered his dress pant covered flesh between her fingers (a task which had proved difficult due to the lack of meat there) and pinched to ensure he wouldn’t give them away.

Through her peripheral vision, she watched him nibble his bottom lip: an action which Adele was sure muted a groan.  She played him like the keys of a piano, purposefully but delicately, hoping to win his assistance. 

Unfortunately, Adele had tuned Lucio up for nothing.  They avoided the terminal altogether, driving right onto the tarmac, guided by black suit wearing, rigid-faced guards.  Further curtailing her plans, Lucio faced an instant demotion. 

“Call Mr. Argentero and let him know Ms. Jaspers will be boarding the plane in less than five minutes.  When you’re done, wait in the car.” 

“Niccolo, I can handle Adele.”  Lucio all but kicked his feet in response to his brother’s command. 

Now that Adele knew of the familial relationship between Lucio and Niccolo, she  started seeing a resemblance.  They shared the same broad forehead, beak-like nose and hazel eyes.  They were each other’s mirror images, except one was skinny and one was a hulking mountain of muscle. 

“She was the one handling you.  You think I didn’t see her hand stroking you.  You’re as malleable as silly putty and just as lightweight.”

Lucio hung his shoulders. “You always take Niccolo’s side, Francino.” 

“Speaking of sides, what about the side of justice.  Maurizio has gotten away with attempted murder?  What about my side, the side of the victim?”  Adele interrupted the fight brewing between her bickering guards.

“Mr. Argentero will see to Maurizio himself.”  Niccolo led Adele up the staircase of the awaiting plane. 

“What do you mean?”  Adele stopped halfway up the stairs; however, Francino’s urging proved a bit more tenacious than Adele’s obstinate will. 

“You ask too many questions.”  Francino reinforced what Adele already knew, which was nothing.  He handed control fully over to Niccolo before disappearing into the cockpit. 

“Why did Maurizio target me?”  Adele asked.

“Why strike against Ambrogio when a blow against the person he loves would be more debilitating?” 

“You think he loves me?  We’ve only known each other for a little under a week.” 

“Women!  You focus on one meaningless word—love—when I implicitly stated  someone means to do you harm because of your association with Mr. Argentero?  You’re a distraction—a dimly lit one.  I think it’s best you go back to New York and forget about the Argentero family.”

  With his diatribe over, Niccolo gave the cockpit door three abrupt knocks, summoning Francino from its depths.

After not so much as a backward glance, Adele’s protectors by proxy de-boarded the plane, their charge left in a virtual prison.   A prison decorated with the finest accoutrements: a master suite rivaling a Park Avenue penthouse (at least the ones Adele was privy to in the New York Times style section), an in-flight chef, but most importantly, a fully stocked bar complete with expensive bottles of champagne.  She swallowed down her anger, elegant champagne flute in hand, and settled in for the long flight. 

Chapter 20

After three bottles of bubbly—and a valiant attempt at a third—nearly in a coma, a tablespoon away from alcohol poisoning, Adele landed in New York.  Newly arrived and positively shit-faced, she found herself hoisted up and hauled around by a fleshy man who smelled like Buttercream frosting. 

The smell so strangely comforting to Adele, she pressed her nose into the tiered flesh on the man’s neck, finding a respite there against an ever present nausea. 

Whisked out of a tropical country in a private plane owned by corporate raider/potential mobster millionaire had its advantages---the customs agents came to you.  Smell therapy interrupted, Adele answered a few pointed questions from a rather unfortunate looking man.

Then her chaperone whisked her out of the airport, the destination...her apartment.  Carried to her door, wrapped up in a purple blanket like a bottle of Crowne Royal and just as potent, Adele finally arrived home:  a very special drunken package for Robynne.

“Are you Robynne?” 

“Yes, and who are you?”

“It’s not important.”  He said. 

“What happened to her?” 

“I was tasked with making sure Ms. Jaspers arrived home safely,”  he said.

“Is she alright?” 

“She’s fine.  She’s just drunk,”  he said.

“I’m not drunk.”  Adele said.

“Then you’ve been gargling rubbing alcohol?”  Robynne moved out of his way.

“No, some champagne and maybe some vodka, although I can’t remember at the present moment.”

“You can put her down on the couch,”  Robynne said.

“Yes, Ma’am.”  The guard carried Adele over to the couch, careful not to step on Ebony and Ivory. 

“Don’t call me Ma’am.  I’m twenty-three if I were a day.”  Generous with the decorative pillows, Robynne quickly cleared them off the couch to make room for Adele.

“No she’s not, she’s almost thirty.”  Adele covered her mouth to prevent vomit and more of Robynne’s vital secrets from spilling out. 

“Did she go through customs like this?”  Robynne asked.

He rolled his eyes as he placed Adele, who was busy flopping around like a freshly caught fish, down on the couch. “Yes, she did.”

“Fun for all involved,”  Robynne said.

“It wasn’t.” 

“She had an accident.”  Robynne pointed to the stain on the guards shirt. 

“One of several I am afraid.”  He straightened his suit. 

“Who do I thank for bringing my friend home?”  Robynne asked.

“There is no need for thanks.  I shall be going now,”  he said.

Ambrogio Argentero is the man I would like to punch, not thank for abducting me.”  Adele said with most of her words were disguised under a slur.

Robynne placed a pillow over Adele’s head to shut her up.  “Since you didn’t tell me your name, I think I’ll call you Bruno.”

“If it pleases you to do so, go ahead.”

Robynne walked Bruno to the door.  “It does.  Goodnight Bruno.” 

Later on, Robynne dressed in a sleep shirt, approached Adele’s now slumbering form with a compact she had pulled out of her purse.  Ebony and Ivory purred in chorus as if to ask Robynne what she was doing. 

With a first year med student’s awkwardness, Robynne tilted her friend’s head, placing the compact under her nose.  She sighed in relief when a puff of breath clouded the mirror.   Robynne swaddled Adele in her blanket, an impromptu remedy Roybnne hoped would help Adele sweat herself sober. 

The next morning Adele emerged from the bathroom to find Robynne leaning out of their fifth story window.  At first she was just peering out the window, seconds later, when her search became more frantic, her friend’s entire upper body hung out of the outside.

“What are you doing?”

A startled Robynne nearly lost her balance.  “You scared me shitless.  I came looking for you and when I didn’t see you, I followed the water bottle trail to the window where I saw your blanket laying on the floor.

“Why would I jump out window?  Adele worked hard to suppress a smile.  Any movement from her eyebrows down intensified her violent headache. 

“You drank three times your body weight. The decision making part of your brain is fermenting in alcohol.”

Adele held her head.  “Are you punishing me by yelling, if so, it’s working.”

“Stop being so dramatic, I’m not yelling.”

Ebony and Ivory meandered between Adele’s legs, stopping only to scratch their backs against her ankles before wondering off again. 

“Can you tell your cats to stop using me as their scratching post?”

“It’s how they say I love you.”  Robynne said.

“Can you bring me an aspirin or a shot gun please?”

“I’m all out of shotguns, but I do have some aspirin for my drunk little bestie.”

“I’m hung over, not drunk.”

“Speaking of being drunk, why did you get liquored-up on the plane?”

A faucet turned all the way up, Adele spilled the sordid details.  The flow sputtered only on two occasions, once when Adele laid down to stop the room from spinning and once more when a delivery truck rolled by. 

Robynne stood, sat, and then stood again.  When Adele finished her story, Robynne had interspersed every lapse in conversation with “Get the fuck out of here,” “Oh my God,” “Asshole,” and “I should have been there.”  It was the “I think trying to involve the police when you were specifically told not to was stupid on your part” that sent Adele flapping her arms into the bathroom. 

Adele found Robynne typing away on her laptop when she finally dragged her gray and puffy self back into the living room.  Robynne had been searching for information on the elusive Argentero family. 

Much like the contents of Adele’s stomach, the search came up with nothing.  No blurb.  No blog.  No anonymous whistle blower.  In the cyber world, the Argenteros did not exist. 

All speculation ended when Robynne’s phone rang. 

“You look happy.”  Adele noticed the tension in her friend’s face rise when she hung up from the call. 

“Mindy just fired me.”

“She can’t fire you.  Remember the top secret squirrel information you refused to tell your best friend.  According to you, her ovaries are in a vice, so she can’t fire you.” Adele said.

“It’s Mindy.  She’s not known for her business savvy, good manners, tact or intelligence.”

“Don’t forget gratitude and fashion sense.  I still don’t understand how she can fire you.  Isn’t she afraid of you revealing your information?”

“I don’t know, but I’m about to find out.”  Robynne said.

“So, are you going to finally tell me what it is you have on her?”

“No.” Robynne said.

Still 120-proof, Adele tagged along to make sure Robynne stayed out of jail.  On an audition for the Indy 500, Robynne tailed an ambulance, swerving, and speeding while staying in league with the screaming vehicle.  Adele played the part of an ailing passenger to perfection just in case they were pulled over by the NYPD. 

 
A tepid towel spread over her face, sans bra, dressed in oversized workout sweats (a parting gift from an old boyfriend), Adele opted out of watching the carnage unfold in front of her.

Thirty-five minutes later, they blew into Corentini—a raging hurricane and a bumbling tumbleweed.  Adele felt more than a little ridiculous staring into the eyes of her former coworkers, their perplexed glances ping-ponging off of Adele and Robynne, jobs all but forgotten.

Madeline, the intern waived.  A beaming Stephen, on the crack sales team responsible for Corentini’s presence in every supermarket and 99 cent store in the tri-state area, winked flirtatiously at Adele. 

Refocused on the task at hand, Adele caught up with Hurricane Robynne.  Before she posed some pertinent questions regarding her intent, her friend flung Mindy’s door wide open
. 
Neither Robynne nor Adele were prepared to lay eyes on the unspeakable horror concealed behind Mindy’s door.

The fetid smell of rubber and sweat permeated the air.  
A pair of red thongs, the crotch up, spoke volumes on the floor.   At stage left, with her legs crossed at the knees, the C.E.O. of Corentini had Robynne’s boyfriend of three months, CT, trapped in a sexual strong-hold against her crotch.   For her curtain call, Mindy’s wire-lipped smile broaden at least ten city blocks when she realized she had an audience. 

CT, school boyishly handsome, levitated at least three feet after Robynne cleared her throat.  He made quick business of covering up his manhood--a move which entailed cupping his penis with both hands, whereas Mindy made no effort to shield herself from the spotlight produced by Adele and Robynne’s glare. 

Robynne’s voice trembled with uncontrolled rage when she spoke. 

“This is why you wouldn’t answer your phone last night?  This is the reason you couldn’t come over?  How long have you been fucking this bitch behind my back?”

“I can explain this Robynne.  It’s not what it looks like,”  CT said.

CT’s voice did not match his appearance.  His voice, manly and self-assured, seemed dubbed.   A more debonair man, a man with more sense than to cross Robynne had to be speaking for CT from behind a glass somewhere.  That very same man, the one whose thick voice spread over Adele like whipped apple butter on bread wouldn’t have dared to cheat on Robynne.