Death, Taxes, and Hot Pink Leg Warmers (21 page)

He pulled a manila folder from his drawer and tossed it onto my desktop. “Since you’re such an overachiever, how about you pay some of the bills?”

I took Merle’s request as a good sign. He was beginning to trust me, to give me access to more of the financial information. Of course, he had no idea I’d already used his password to access the invoices.

Merle pecked away at his keyboard for a moment. “You’re now authorized to access all of the accounting records.”

He stepped over to my desk and showed me how to process the invoices and issue payment. “Don’t forget to scan a copy of the invoice into the system before you shred it.”

“Got it.”

I set to work paying the invoices. On top was one from Stillwater Spirits for today’s delivery. Like the earlier bills I’d downloaded, this statement reflected both a bulk discount and a rebate. The second bill in the stack was for an upcoming shipment of fruits and vegetables from Valley Produce. As before, this bill seemed horribly inflated. The club was paying an arm and a leg for each head of lettuce and ear of corn. Of course the bill had
CASH PAYMENT ONLY
noted in all capital letters across the top. There was also a statement for the upcoming meat and seafood delivery from Michelson’s. Their statement likewise indicated cash payment was required.

After scanning the bills, I decided to seize the opportunity to fish for information, to gauge Merle, see if he seemed to know anything. I held up the produce bill. “Is it just me or is the produce company charging excessive prices? Look here.” I pointed at the line for tomatoes. “They’ve charged the club $4.25 a pound for tomatoes. I only paid $1.89 a pound last time I bought them at the grocery store.”

“Really?” Merle appeared genuinely surprised, rolling his chair over to take a look. “I never paid much attention before. Guys like me, living alone, we tend to eat mostly frozen dinners or pick up takeout. I can’t even recall the last time I bought a fresh vegetable.” He took the paper from my hand and looked it over.

“Maybe you should mention this to Mr. Geils,” I said. “If you save him some money, he might give you a raise.”

“That’ll be the day.”

He stepped out of the cash office and across the hall to Don Geils’s digs. I heard the
rap-rap-rap
of his knuckles on Geils’s door as the cash office door swung closed. There was a murmur of voices for a few seconds, followed by Geils’s barking, “I make the decisions around here. If I want to pay more to get high-quality vegetables, that’s my choice. You got that, gimpy?”

I peeked through the window in the cash office door just in time to see Geils thump Merle on the forehead before slamming the door in his face. Merle stood there, his back to me, staring at Geils’s door. His hand, which still held the invoice, shook.

Guilt sliced through me. I’d been the one who’d put Merle up to confronting Geils. But at least I knew for certain now that if the drugs were, in fact, coming from Valley Produce, Merle knew nothing about it.

After a few seconds, Merle turned around. His eyes met mine through the glass and held for a moment before he turned and raised a middle finger at Geils’s door.

I quietly opened the door to the cash office. “That goes double for me!” I whispered.

Merle stormed in, moving fast for a guy with a bum leg. “I try to do the boss a favor and that’s the thanks I get?” He flung the bill aside and fell into his chair. “If I had any hair left, I’d rip it out.”

He poured himself a full glass of scotch and downed it in five seconds flat. I hoped his aged liver was up to the challenge.

Sighing, Merle looked out into the club. “One day you’re a young guy, fresh out of high school, full of dreams, your whole life ahead of you. You’re going to be the next big playwright, maybe even win a Tony for your production. Next thing you know you’re slaving away for some pig-nosed jackass in stacked heels and your best years are long behind you.” He poured himself another full glass of scotch. “Sometimes I wonder why I bother getting out of bed in the morning.”

Wow. That was harsh. I wasn’t sure what to say, but I should at least try to cheer the guy up, right? “Your life’s not so bad, Merle. You’ve got your health.” For now at least. I had some serious concerns about his liver. “You’re a decorated war hero. You’ve had a steady job, never been out of work. You own a home.”

Shit! I’d slipped up on that last one. Merle had never mentioned owning a house. The only way I knew about it was because I’d looked over his tax returns and noted he’d taken a mortgage interest deduction. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to notice my blunder.

He drained his second glass. “None of that means anything without someone to share it with.”

There was really nothing I could say to that, was there? It was true.

By closing time, Merle had been asleep in his chair for an hour. Luckily, he sat relatively upright and I’d turned his chair so that his back was to the security camera. If anyone was monitoring the feed from the camera aimed at his desk, they’d only see the back of his bald head.

I’d finished the payroll tax reports for him. I’d also picked up Merle’s cell phone from his desk and scrolled through his contacts until I found Bernice’s number, summoning her to help me with Merle. He wasn’t a big man, but I’d never get him into my car by myself and I didn’t trust any of my other coworkers to be discreet about his condition. If Geils learned that Merle was stone-cold drunk and hadn’t done a lick of work for the past three hours, he’d probably fire the guy on the spot.

I’d taken advantage of Merle’s unconscious state to search the computer, looking for any information that might be relevant to our drug/prostitution/tax evasion case. Unfortunately, while I found drafts of several half-completed scripts, including a remarkably heartfelt story called
Boot Camp Blues
starring an eighteen-year-old boy who’d been drafted into the army, I found no smoking guns. I supposed it was too much to ask for a list of Geils’s drug mules and VIP customers with their names and contact information.

Shortly after midnight, while Bernice did her best to pour some coffee into Merle, the dancers, waitresses, and bartenders brought me their final take for the night. I processed the dancers’ and waitresses’ tips first, saving Theo’s register receipts for last. As usual, I tallied up the credit card slips, then divided the bills into separate stacks by denomination. Singles. Fives. Tens. Twenties.

After counting the twenties, I turned them over to make a quick inspection of the back of the bills, pretending to be verifying my count as I laid each bill on the desk.

Twenty. Nothing.

Forty. Nothing.

Sixty. Nothing.

Eighty.
Bingo.

In the middle of the stack was a bill with a stick-figure birdie flying over the White House and a slash through the 2 in the upper left corner.

One of the marked bills.

Christina had made a buy.

I laid the bill out on my desk and snapped a photo of it before adding it back to the stack.

Merle turned my way, spilling lukewarm coffee onto his shirt, his slurred speech coming out as one word. “Iseverythingokay?”

He didn’t wait for an answer before dropping his paper cup of coffee into the trash, closing his eyes, and settling back into his chair.

I shoved the money into the bank bag, trying to be subtle in case the security camera was being monitored. I ventured a look at Bernice and spoke as softly as I could. “Christina made a buy tonight.”

Bernice stayed cool, her body language not reflecting the hopeful look in her eyes. Clearly she wanted Geils nailed as much as we federal agents did. “That’s good, right? That means things will start moving along?”

“Yep. With any luck we’ll have Geils in the klink by Thanksgiving.” Taking that bastard off the street would definitely be something to be thankful for.

While I stashed the cash in the safe and closed it, Bernice roused Merle. I peeked through the window in the cash office door and was glad to see the door to Geils’s office was closed. Bernice and I draped one of Merle’s arms over each of our shoulders and half carried, half dragged him into the club.

“What’s wrong with him?” Tarzan asked as we shuffled Merle out the front doors.

“His leg’s acting up,” Bernice said. “Every time it rains it gives him fits.”

Had he given Merle a closer look, Tarzan would have realized Merle was sloshed. Sauced. Shitfaced. Fortunately, Tarzan’s attention was quickly diverted when one of the dancers exited behind us.

The bouncer gave her a whistle. “Looking good out there tonight, Heather. I wouldn’t mind getting me a piece of that.”

She stopped and gave him a peck on the check. “You’re so sweet to say so.”

Guys & Dolls had to be the only place where sexual harassment was considered a compliment. Still, a part of me could relate. I knew Nick’s primary attraction to me was mental, but it was nice to know he found me physically desirable, too, a complete package.

Bernice and I decided to put Merle in his own car, one of the last remaining Gremlins still on the road, a ’74 model with gold paint and a black racing stripe. As if a Gremlin had ever won a race. Bernice fished his car keys out of his pocket. We reclined the passenger seat as far as it would go and unloaded him into the car.

As she buckled Merle in, he looked up at her. “When are you going to be my girl, Bernice?”

She put a hand on his cheek. “Someday soon, Merle. Someday soon.”

His dull eyes brightened, a glimmer of hope shining in them for what I suspected was the first time in decades.

Bernice climbed into the driver’s seat of the Gremlin, while I climbed into the Mini Cooper. I followed the two of them to Merle’s house, a Craftsman bungalow-style home five or so miles away. Once we’d managed to move Merle from his car to his bed, Bernice climbed into my car and we drove back to the club so she could retrieve her Cadillac.

“I’ll go back and stay with Merle tonight,” she told me. “He looks like he needs someone.”

My eyes met hers. “He needs
you,
Bernice.”

She gave me a soft, sad smile. “You know why I never took him up on his offer all these years? Because I was too wrapped up in myself, in my career. I never wanted to have kids because they would have ruined my figure, gotten in my way. I suppose that makes me a selfish person, doesn’t it?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I knew Merle wanted a wife and family and I didn’t want to keep him from that.” She looked down at her lap, her eyes growing wet with unshed tears. “I figured he deserved more than me.”

“That doesn’t sound selfish, Bernice.” She’d left him free to pursue other women, to pursue a different life for himself. But she’d meant more to him. He’d been willing to forgo those things for her. What is life if not a series of compromises? “Did you know he’s written some scripts?”

Her head snapped up in surprise. “Way back he used to talk about becoming a playwright, but I thought he’d given up on it.”

“Apparently not. I found several drafts on the computer tonight.”

Her eyes took on a faraway look now. “What do you know. I suppose it’s never too late to pursue your dreams, is it?”

chapter twenty-five

The Trial Begins

I stuck my head into Josh’s office first thing Wednesday morning. “Any luck with the security cameras at Guys and Dolls?”

“Yes and no,” he said. “I was able to hack into the system and stream the video feed, but I didn’t see anything suspicious.”

“So the janitors aren’t bringing drugs to Geils?”

“We can’t know for sure,” he said. “There are three rooms in the club that don’t have security cameras. The VIP room, the storage closet, and Geils’s office.”

“Meaning the janitors could have left drugs in the club after all.”

“Right.”

I stepped into his office. “Can you show me some of the footage?”

I’d never seen anyone from the cleaning crew. They came in the mornings, long before I arrived at work. I was curious whether they looked like drug dealers. Then again, I had no idea what a drug dealer looked like. I’d only met one in my lifetime, and he’d been an acne-faced, mullet-wearing ice cream man in too-tight jeans. Surely they didn’t all look as sleazy as him.

Josh pulled up yesterday’s footage. On the screen, a man and woman came into the club. Both appeared to be in their late fifties. The woman had rail-straight dark hair styled in a blunt cut, while the man had silver hair slicked back over his head. Both wore loose-fitting cleaning smocks that allowed for a wide range of movement. The roomy smock could also allow a large stash of drugs to be hidden under it.

Josh increased the video speed. On the screen, the man and woman went to a cleaning closet, pulled out a vacuum and mop, and rolled them out onto the floor. They each grabbed a bucket of cleaning supplies and set to work dusting the light fixtures and wiping fingerprints off the mirrors and poles. When they finished, they cleaned the floors, the woman handling the vacuuming while the man mopped the kitchen, the storage rooms, and the area behind the bar. The next thing I knew, the man rolled his mop into the ladies’ restroom.

“Geils put the bathrooms on camera?” I said. “Ew.”

“Only the sink areas,” Josh said. “Good thing, too, or he would’ve seen me in the stall hacking his system.”

Josh quickly forwarded through the feed. He was right. Nothing suspicious occurred.

“Keep monitoring it,” I said. “Something might show up.”

*   *   *

Eddie and I headed to the courthouse for the first day of the Tennis Racketeers trial.

As we made our way up the center aisle, we noted several reporters lounging in the rows of the gallery, chatting amiably, their legal pads and pens poised to take notes. Given that the defendants had ripped off dozens of people and banks in the Dallas area, the trial would be big news.

Among the reporters was Trish LeGrande, a woman with a big chest, a big ego, and butterscotch-colored hair. Trish and I had an on-again off-again relationship. She’d come on to both Brett and Nick, and each time I’d wanted to off her.