More Muffia (The Muffia Book 2) (19 page)

Maybe I should have been upset about Frank probing my data but, with all the online spying these days, it was hardly a surprise. I’ve Googled myself, of course, and been less than impressed with what came back. But I was actually very interested to learn what a skilled hacker might find; all that stuff I might want to keep private if I had the choice. I still didn’t think there’d be much of interest. What would anyone do with my Zappos shoe order history other than determine I like shoes? They’d send me targeted shoe ads, which are annoying and probably result in my never going to their websites. Did they care I had 764 friends on Facebook? Maybe if one of them was on the terrorist watch list, which I hoped wasn’t the case. I realized, to my chagrin, that Frank must have also found out about
NowLove.
Ugh
.
Well, I thought, hopefully he can’t read the direct messages. That would be embarrassing.

I smiled, sipping my Saki, which was going down very easily. “Find anything interesting?”

“There was nothing in your dossier that suggested you could be the target of unwanted surveillance.”

“I have a
dossier
?”

“File, dossier—the terms are interchangeable.”

“I prefer having a dossier. It makes me feel like I’m in a John Le Carré novel,” I said, feeling wistful.

“Good writer,” said Frank, revealing a sliver of personality.

“So they say. These days, my reading material is limited to talent contracts and whatever we’re reading in book club. The Muffs aren’t much for thrillers.”

“The Muffs?” his eyebrows shot up.

“Our book club is called The Muffia, and hence, we members are the Muffs. Lauren—George’s wife—is a Muff. I’m surprised she didn’t tell you.”

Frank’s face, though tanned, turned a shade of pink. Straight-laced as he was, he was starting to grow on me. If I got him to blush, I wondered if I might get him to smile.

“Anyway, we don’t usually read thrillers, but I did just pick a police procedural for our next meeting. It’s Scottish, though, and pretty literary as police procedurals go.”

He was assessing, constantly assessing—me and everything else. But what was he getting from all that assessing?
Probably make a helluva TSA agent.

I decided to shift gears. “Is your real name Frank?”

The expression didn’t change. “Yes.”

“But if it were really John or Kevin, would you tell me?”

“My name is unimportant,” he said laconically.

Well, that shut that down, I thought.
Okay, I’ll just sit here.

After a couple of seconds, Frank cleared his throat. “Now—I’m familiar with your position as a talent agent, which we’ll come back to, but I’d like to ask about your hobbies outside of work. Pole dancing, for example. It does not fit with the rest of your profile.”

He glanced up and our eyes met. I felt a little jolt.
What was that?

“Funny you say that, Frank. That’s kind of why I started taking class. I needed to get out of my rut.” He jotted something down. “Do you know what it’s like to be stuck in a rut, Frank?”

I had the growing awareness that I wanted to flirt with the guy. But it was probably just the Saki, I told myself. And maybe the pole dancing. I looked around the restaurant, thinking
Yankees
might have appeared. I didn’t see him.

“Ms. Cunningham, this will go faster if you allow me to ask the questions. I am here at the request of the Busch family, with whom I have been working for several years. I know my job, and I want to help find out who might be trying to sabotage you so you can retain your position and go on living your life.”

That stream of words left me speechless. Beyond that, however, the content of what he’d said made me feel safe. I felt like I had my very own someone to watch over me, short-lived as it would be. It might even be better than a boyfriend, I thought. In light of this, I decided to go along with his program.

So I put down my Saki cup and began filling in the details. I probed the minutia on the guy in the Yankees cap—when I’d first seen him and where. I told him about Jamie and Titania and the picture button I’d found, as well as my suspicions that Titania wasn’t gay. I admitted to him that I’d been having an affair with a married man, and that I’d broken it off for good after a few failed attempts. It was important to me that Frank knew how I’d gotten involved with Steven in the first place—that he hadn’t told me he was married and, by the time I found out, he had me hooked. I told him about Steven’s promises, which all turned out to be idle, and other sordid details. I wanted him to know I was repentant. Meanwhile, I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. His eyes were focused on his little pad as he took it all down, his face unmoving.

At last he asked me about the pictures on Jamie’s phone. He took me back to that day at Narita—a day I’d thought about many times since Jamie first confronted me. Soon I was painting the scene for him: I was calling Madelyn, listening to her reaction, then running for the plane, falling, the heel of my shoe breaking off, the
Hello Kitty
girls’ terrified faces, the freckled guy handing me my—

Suddenly, I realized. “Freckles is
Yankees
!” I exclaimed.

“What are you saying?” Frank said.

“That’s where I’d seen him before—the guy who’s been following me. Now I know he
is
following me. It’s the same guy—the freckled man who handed me my shoe is
Yankees
.”
But wait—that would mean he followed me from Japan?!

Excited about what all this might mean, I was disappointed to see Frank was unfazed by these revelations. He just continued jotting notes. No matter what I said, he accepted everything with no change in reaction.

“What do you think this means?” I asked before clarifying. “And what I mean by ‘this’ is: what do you think this sequence of events means, given that the man I’ve been seeing all over L.A. is also the man I saw at Narita and is probably also the one who took those ridiculous compromising pictures?”

“I don’t think anything at this juncture, Ms. Cunningham.” Frank glanced up at me, his face still arranged in a serious expression. “But you have given me a lot to work with.” He almost smiled, but not quite.

He stood, placing the perfectly-sized note pad back in his shirt pocket and tossing a couple of folded bills on the table. “I’ll be in touch.”

“When will that be?” I asked. “And can you call me Quinn? You know there’s not much time to figure out what’s happening before… ”

He held up his hand, presumably to silence me. “When you see me again, you don’t know me, understand? Wait until I approach you.”

“But what if I need to talk to you?”

“Trust that I’m doing my job.” He took a last scan of Katsu-ya. “And wait five minutes before leaving.”

So much for that someone-to-watch-over-me thing.

If my failed date with John had proved anything, it was that I was lacking certain key bits of information necessary for achieving online dating success. Clearly, there was something I’d overlooked.

So, with that virgin online dating experience under my belt, and a glass of wine in my hand, I logged on for my free instructional webinar put on by
NowLove
, which promised to answer questions on topics ranging from: “Mistakes Made in Your Dating Profile” to “The Pitfalls of Taking Your Online Relationship Offline.” Having made mistakes, and fallen in pits on my first date with John, taking the webinar would presumably keep such a thing from happening again. The only aspect of
that
date I cared to repeat was the quality of the meal.

Signing in late for the appointed start, I could see from the number of names listed on the left side of my computer screen that there were twenty of us in attendance, though more could be watching or simply listening without declaring themselves. The webinar format was notorious for encouraging voyeurism.

The leader of the webinar, someone named Wilder whose image moved in a pixilated fashion in the center of the screen, appeared to be in his late thirties. By the time I logged in, he was already giving tips on how to make sure one’s online profile grabs the attention of a future mate—an inexact science, to be sure.

On the bottom right of the screen, there was a box with the prompt: “Type a question for Wilder,” which presumably he would answer. But what seemed to be happening in that box, while Wilder was yammering on, was that several webinar participants were having their own sideline chat without any input from the webinar leader.

“So when you compose your profile,” Wilder was saying, “if you want people to know
you
—and, of course, that is what you want—and you’re not the type who likes going down blind alleys—
who does?
—it’s best to be clear about who you are and what you want to find in a mate.”

Well, my profile’s good there, I mused. If anything, I’d been altogether too honest about what I wouldn’t put up with and what I wanted in a man. In fact, I’d been so honest, it was shocking that anyone had responded at all, though as Vicki pointed out, most guys just see a decent looking picture and wink. They don’t read lest they learn something they might have to pretend they didn’t know.

“I recommend spending some time going through the profiles we’ve posted for suggestions,” Wilder yammered on. “You can find those by going up to the menu bar under ‘Frequently Asked Questions.’ Scroll down to ‘Profiles’; then go to ‘Sample Profiles – Do’s and Don’t’s.’ ”

Noting where to find the profiles, should I later need to consult them, I continued to read the posts coming in from the other participants as they appeared in the message box.

Someone was typing a question.
Ding
, the message appeared:

Message from Ospiritus12
: Is there any way to tell if someone is a waste of space before you agree to meet them? Are there clues in the profile?

Good question, Ospiritus
—I would have liked to have the answer to that one
before
my failed date with John. Though it would probably depend on what one was looking for. In my case, a guy who copped to playing Roxy Music and R.E.M. daily, thirty years after their 80s heyday, was a huge indicator that dating him wasn’t going to work. Bryan Ferry, okay fine, in moderation, but daily Michael Stipe listening was a sure-fire romance killer.

Other people were now typing into the box, and my computer dinged twice in succession:

Message from Sunny10Summer
: Yeah, it’s really hard to tell with some profiles what you’re going to get, and so many people lie.

Message from ChemEng$!
: I have precisely stated I am looking for a woman with at least a Master’s Degree, and my box is filled with bimbos.

Struck a nerve with that one, Ospiritus.
And yeah,
Sunny10Summer
, people
do
lie, incredible as that is to believe. Sorry
ChemEng$!
, but with that handle, you asked for it. Even the bimbos can tell you’re a,
duh
, chemical engineer who wants people—read:
women
—to think you have money, exclamation mark. Who’s the bimbo now? A scientist who completely disregards predictability!

Several minutes went by with Wilder seemingly ignoring the posts, but finally he responded.

“All right,” he said, his lips moving completely out of synch with the audio output. “It sounds like some of you may be frustrated with profiles not accurately reflecting the members who write them, and that the members you’re getting matched up with by
NowLove
don’t fit with what you are looking for. And I’m sorry about that. We do our best at
NowLove
to take everyone’s wishes into account, but sometimes… ”

Wilder’s saccharine sympathy for all of us sad daters bordered on irritating.

“It
can
be a frustrating process, I realize that,” he went on cheerily. “But don’t let the frustration ruin what is actually a really fun exploration. After all, you are looking for your
perfect
match; there’s only one, and it probably isn’t going to happen right away, so have fun while you search!”

Ha! Name something fun about it.

“
Ospiritus
, and I suspect many others, would like to know if there’s a way to spot clues in a profile so as not to waste time pursuing someone who’s not suitable. The answer is ‘yes,’ there is!”

I listened as he droned on, not saying much in the way of useable information—
“send a message asking a question about something a potential match says in his profile,” and “see how much your potential match knows about a topic that interests you.”

Meanwhile, things were getting interesting in the blogversation.

Ding—

Message from Toweloneon:
This site has to many chiks lookin for a free meal.

Spelling really is so important. Ding—

Message from SittinPretty:
Seems like most guys just want to get in your pants.

Nothing new there, people. Ding—

Message from RocknRack:
Why don’t you use computer algorithms to expose people who aren’t telling the truth?

Whoa, where did that come from—truth detecting algorithms? That would sure cut down on the blind alleys.

I waited for somebody to type a response in the message box, but the cursor didn’t move. Was there no mathematician to cream over on this webinar who could provide this algorithmic solution? Surely if the technology existed,
NowLove
should use it. Meanwhile, Wilder was still not offering anything very helpful.

Rocknrack
was typing again.

Ding—

Message from Rocknrack
: The technology exists, so why aren’t you using it? Maybe the Department of Homeland Security should put up a dating site. They’d be able to delete anything that was a lie.

Wow, wouldn’t that be cool—a positive use for all that personal surveillance data—one that helps the little guy find love without getting ripped off or murdered.

Wilder suddenly stopped spewing pablum. Apparently,
RocknRack
had his attention. “I’ll come back to this topic,” he said quickly. “
Rocknrack
has posted an interesting question, but I’m sorry to say,
NowLove
does not have the technology to delete sections of customers’ profiles that are factually inaccurate. We allow our members to put their best foot forward and present themselves as the person they wish… ”