In Firm Pursuit (13 page)

I
tossed and turned for most of the night, worried and upset because Jefferson had not returned my call.

Early the next morning, I was about to call Jefferson again, when the phone rang. My hotheaded husband and I spent the next twenty-five minutes apologizing to each other.

My second day back at work after the Micronics fiasco was uneventful and I actually got quite a bit of work done. I left the office around five and had just slid a Lean Cuisine dinner into the microwave and poured a bottle of piña colada mix into my blender when the doorbell rang.

“I hope you don't think you can buy me off that cheap,” Special said when I opened the front door. She was wearing bright orange pedal pushers and bronze sandals with a platinum toe ring on the second toe of each foot. A head full of auburn straw curls had replaced her short pageboy.

I reached out and gave her a big hug. I knew the Mahogany greeting card, the purple tulips and the Ellen Tracy blouse I'd had delivered to her office would do the trick. “You can give me as much flack as you want and I'm taking it,” I said, smiling at the sight of her. “I'm so glad to see you.”

“Tell me something I don't know,” Special said as I pulled her inside.

I threw an arm across her shoulders and led her into the kitchen. “Look, I'm sorry. I never should've asked you those questions.”

“Let's just forget about it,” she said. “How you doing, girl?”

“I'm alive,” I said, “but just barely.”

Special pointed at the bottle of piña colada mix on the counter. “Ms. Goody Two-shoes is drinking at home alone on a weeknight? It must be serious. What exactly went on down at the plantation?”

“They took me off the Randle case.”

“Why?”

“Said I had a conflict of interest because of you and your boyfriend, Hamilton.”

“They took you off the case just because I went out with Hamilton?”

“Not exactly.” I stuck a wooden spoon into the blender to sample my brew. “Basically, they implied that
I
was the one going out with him.”

“Are you serious?” Special sat down at the kitchen table.

“They had some photographs of me and Hamilton that night we ran into him at Little J's. Remember when he walked me out?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, somebody with a camera must've been hiding in the bushes snapping away.”

“They had somebody following you?”

“Not me. They were supposedly following Hamilton.
I was just lucky enough to be caught in a few of the shots.”

“What the hell were they following him for? And if they took any pictures of me, I'm suing their asses for invasion of privacy.”

Taking that cue, I decided not to mention the one picture of Special.

“So what was the big deal with the pictures?” she asked.

“One of them showed me and Hamilton…kissing.”

Special shot up from the chair, hands on hips.

“Excuse you?”

“Girl, don't worry, I don't want your man.” I recounted Hamilton's stupid little stunt and described the photo that caught him in the act. “And then that idiot, Reggie, got on TV and started talking about some information that just happened to be in a privileged memo. Of course, they assumed I was his Deep Throat.”

“Oh, so that's why you called me up with them crazy ass questions.”

“Uh, let's just forget about that part.”

“This is some hella serious undercover stuff,” Special said. “Who's handling the case now?”

“That little overachieving, second-year associate, Haley Prescott. The partner on the case thinks she walks on water. They didn't even assign another senior associate to supervise her.”

“Oh, girl, I know that pisses you off.” Special laughed.

“That's an understatement. How are things between you and Mr. Ellis?” I asked.

Special rolled her eyes. “I had to cut that brother loose.
This world is much too small. Can you believe he was seeing one of the hairdressers where I get my hair done? And she ain't even cute.”

“How'd you find out?”

“She had a picture of him and her up in her booth.”

“Special, I know you couldn't possibly think you were the only woman Hamilton was seeing.”

“No, but I didn't think he'd be bold enough to take us both out on the same night. How tacky is that? He told me we had to have dinner at six because he had to get back to the office to prepare for a deposition. He only dropped my ass off at eight-thirty because he was picking her up at nine. I guess I got dumped off first because I wasn't giving it up. I'm so glad I didn't give his ass none.”

I tried not to show how relieved I was.

Special looked me up and down and turned up her nose. “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you look whipped.”

“I've been so stressed out over this stuff with the Randle case. I know they're going to use it as an excuse not to make me a partner.”

“They better not or they're gonna have to deal with me.”

“This case is turning out to be so bizarre.” I paused. “I want to tell you something,” I said, “but you have to swear not to mention it to a soul.”

Special raised her right hand as if she were taking an oath.

“You know that woman Hamilton's client supposedly harassed?” I said.

She nodded.

“She died in a car accident a few days ago.”

Special was quiet for a moment, then her jaw dropped. “You think it was really an accident?”

“I'm beginning to think not. According to the
Times,
the same Micronics program Henry Randle had been complaining about may have been responsible for the crash of an Air Force plane over in Baghdad.”

“Dang! You think your case is tied to the war in Iraq?”

“I don't know,” I said, handing her a drink.

She took a sip and scrunched up her face. “There ain't enough alcohol in here to fill up a thimble.” She got up and grabbed the Bacardi bottle from the counter and doused her glass with more rum. “Girl, Hamilton may've done you a favor getting you kicked off that case.”

“Maybe so,” I said.

Special's face turned pensive. “I have an idea,” she said.

“And before you reject it, just hear me out.”

“I'm listening,” I said warily.

“Remember I told you I was thinking about starting my own investigations firm? Bust-A-Brother. Well, why don't we conduct an investigation and find out what really happened to that woman?”

“Excuse me?”

“It would be fun. We could call ourselves Randle's Angels. Get it?
Charlie's Angels
…Randle's Angels.”

“Special, Karen Carruthers is dead, Henry Randle doesn't have a job and if I do what you're proposing, I won't have one either.”

“C'mon, girl, maybe that brother really was set up like he said.”

“You're crazy. Forget it.”

“It would be easy. There's this LAPD detective I know with this serious foot fetish. He was always trying to polish my toenails. He could get us a copy of the police report and I could—”

“Special, forget it.” This time my tone was razor sharp.

“C'mon, a police report is a public record, ain't it?”

“I said forget it, Special. Besides, once you tell that detective what you're up to, he'll think you're as crazy as I do.”

“Girl, please. If that brother thought he
might
get a chance to touch my feet, I could convince his old ass to run butt naked down Crenshaw Boulevard in rush hour traffic.”

“You're talking crazy, so count me out.”

“Okay, fine,” Special said.

But I knew my best friend. She rarely gave up on one of her harebrained ideas that easily. I pointed a chiding finger at her. “I'm not playing, Special. Forget about this. You're not even supposed to know about the woman's death.”

“Okay, okay. I'll let it go,” she replied. “But I'm telling you, something is up. I can feel it.”

N
inety minutes after walking out of Vernetta's front door, Special was sitting across from Detective Mason Coleman in a back booth at the Ladera Flats Supper Club on La Tijera. It had been a while since she'd had to pour it on this strong, but Special knew how to use her womanly ways to get what she wanted.

“C'mon, sweetie,” Special pleaded, “why can't you let me make a copy of these documents?” She picked up a large manila envelope from the table.

The detective grabbed the envelope back. “I already gave you a copy of the police report, and I let you read these papers. But I can't let you copy 'em. I had no business even showing 'em to you.”

Detective Coleman was a bear of a man, with a short, thinning Afro. The edge of the table sliced into his large belly, forcing him to shift positions every few seconds. He reached out across the table and took Special's fingers into his massive, liver-spotted hands.

Special liked hanging out at Ladera Flats because she could always count on picking up an older man willing to blow his money on her without her having to actually put out. She could appease men in the fifty-five-and-up
range in all kinds of creative ways that did not involve actual sex. Ways a younger man would never accept. She had hooked up with Detective Coleman at the club over a year ago.

“C'mon, sweetie,” she begged. “I just wanna show my friend, Vernetta, what they found in Carruthers's car. I'm trying to find out who murdered her.”

“Special, I've told you a thousand times,” he said, exasperated, “there's no evidence that the woman was murdered. And I just can't let you copy these papers.”

Special puckered her lips into a childish pout. When she noticed the detective eyeing her chest, she leaned over the table to give him a better view. She had intentionally worn one of his favorites. Her leopard-skin minidress. But Detective Coleman refused to relent.

“Okay, never mind then,” Special said, pretending to be mad. “Excuse me for a minute.” She slid out of the booth and headed toward the rear of the darkened club. When she spotted the club's owner, a thin, caramel-colored man in leather pants, she walked up to him and whispered in his ear.

“Special, that man's a cop,” the club owner said. “What are you trying to get me mixed up in?”

“Just do me this one favor, C.J.” She threw an arm around his shoulders and gave him a sad puppy-dog face.

“Pretty please with sugar on top?”

He surrendered within seconds and she hurried back to the table.

“How about one of my
special
massages?” she said to Detective Coleman.

He smiled a wide, toothy grin and started to laugh. “Hee, hee, hee, hee, hee. Girl, you're something else.”

Special reached underneath the table and slipped off her right shoe. She then stretched out her leg and began rubbing her toes up and down the detective's hairy leg.

“Hee, hee, hee, hee, hee.” He sounded like a hiccupping bullhorn. “Girl, you've got the prettiest, softest toes in the world.”

Special began inching her foot higher and higher up the detective's pant leg. She could tell by the way his lower lip began to quiver that he was getting aroused.

“All right now, girl!” the detective sputtered. He glanced around the restaurant. Wednesday was not a very busy night for the club. They shared the room with only three other couples, all of them a good distance away. Confident that no one was paying attention to their little game, Detective Coleman relaxed.

When Special's toes had climbed as far as they could go, she shook her foot free and began a new trek up the outside of his pants. The detective closed his eyes and smiled. When Special's toes reached his crotch, he began to breathe low and heavy. “Hee, hee, hee, hee, hee.”

While Detective Coleman concentrated on his
special
massage, Special slid the envelope from the table and quietly dropped it to the floor alongside the booth. Within seconds, C.J. walked over and retrieved it.

Detective Coleman, totally preoccupied with his massage, noticed nothing. His eyes remained tightly shut as Special continued to maneuver her toes to his apparent satisfaction. His breathing became louder and more
labored and tiny beads of perspiration dotted his forehead. Special slowed her pace, not wanting to get him too excited.

“You okay over there, sweetie?” she asked. Her toes were beginning to cramp up from the workout. What had initially felt like a lumpy pillow had turned into a mound of clay. She figured he could not get any harder without taking one of his Viagra pills.

“I'm just fine,” Detective Coleman said in a husky, contented voice. He had yet to open his eyes.

The club owner abruptly interrupted the detective's special massage. “Does this envelope belong to one of you?”

Special happily dropped her cramped foot to the floor. The detective seemed dazed when his eyes finally popped open. He searched the table and realized that the club owner was holding his envelope.

“Yeah, that's mine,” Detective Coleman said, reaching for it. “How'd you get it?”

“Found it on the floor.” The club owner gave Special a knowing smile and left.

“How in the hell did it fall on the floor?” the detective asked. “It was way over here.”

Special wondered how the man kept his job. “Sweetie, I'll be right back.” She snatched her purse from the table. “I have to go touch up my makeup.”

“Aw, baby girl, your makeup looks fine. Let's get back to my special massage,” he said, grinning.

Special opened her purse and pulled out a bottle of fluorescent pink nail polish. She reached across the table
and placed it in front of the detective. “Maybe I'll let you touch up my toenails tonight,” she teased.

Detective Coleman stared at the nail polish and a smile stretched from ear to ear. “I don't deserve you,” he said, breathlessly taking a sip of his drink.

Special slid out of the booth and scurried past the ladies' room and into a tiny office. She found the club owner sitting behind a cluttered desk watching a battered-looking portable TV. A small copy machine sat on a coffee table next to a plaid love seat.

“Here're the copies.” The club owner handed the papers to Special. “And this better not come back on me.”

Special folded the six pages into quarters and stuffed them into her purse. “Thanks, C.J.,” she said, giving him a big hug. “I owe you.”