Like Pizza and Beer Page 2

  he said, caressing my cock, “you don’t really want to walk home like this, do you?”

  I licked my lips and swallowed hard, shaking my head. “No, not really.”

  The air was cool on my skin and his fingers were warm. He wrapped them loosely around me and stroked lightly, teasing me. I was already halfway there. In spite of my protests, watching him get off like that had me wildly turned on, and I wanted to come so bad I could taste it.

  “Come on, don’t be a jerk,” I said, thrusting up into his hand.

  He raised an eyebrow, but closed his hand tight and picked up the pace. I hummed with pleasure and sat up enough to kiss him, bracing myself on my hands. All I could think about was his hot mouth on my neck and the grip of his hand, working me steadily. The crashing of the waves drowned out everything else.

  Seth grinned and licked my ear. “Look at you, all wild and exposed on the beach.”

  “Don’t remind me,” I panted. It didn’t actually matter anymore, though. Being lightheaded and on the verge of orgasm goes a long way toward lowering my inhibitions.

  I rocked my hips and pushed up into Seth’s hand, moaning with pleasure. It felt so good I was shaking. The salt breeze and the surf heightened every sensation to a fever pitch, and I bit my lip as Seth sped up. The outdoor thing definitely tripped a few triggers for me, but unlike most people, I did not enjoy the ever present threat of getting caught.

  “More,” I said. “Come on, please.” I reached to plant a kiss on the side of his neck.

  He squeezed tighter and I was there, coming hard and trying to keep my voice down as I groaned with relief. I damn near knocked him off the chair. When the last of it was over, I slid down to my back and lay there panting, staring up at the stars. It was a beautiful night.

  Seth cleaned us up and buttoned my pants for me, then dropped onto my stomach, peering close enough to see my face in the dark. “I told you no one would see.”

  “You don’t actually know that,” I pointed out.

  He shook his head and kissed me long and slow.

  * * * *

  The walk back to the garage was nice, and I had to admit I was glad not to be doing it horny and hard. Once I was no longer half naked on the beach, I would also say I’d probably remember that dinner fondly in my old age. “I still get to come home with you, right?” Seth asked.

  I cast a sideways glance at him. “There’s no way I’m sleeping in your bed.”

  Elle Parker

  7

  To say Seth’s apartment was generally a mess was seriously underestimating the situation, and while I was trying to influence his habits, safe sleeping there usually required a Hazmat suit.

  My place, on the other hand, is clean, and usually smells like pot roast or cinnamon buns due to the old ladies who live in the other two apartments in my building.

  We climbed into Matilda and headed for my apartment. It’s only a short way, but I’d rather move the car at night than have to make that walk in the morning.

  I live in the upstairs front apartment over an old hardware store, which shares the street with a plumbing outfit, a mini-golf course, and the CVS. The hardware store’s been closed for years, and I had recently gotten the go ahead to renovate it into an office for myself. Finding the time to do it was another story.

  When I pulled up to the building, there was an unfamiliar black Mazda parked in my usual spot. I didn’t recognize the car, but I sure as hell knew the woman who climbed out of it. Ten years ago, she’d been the love of my life.

  Chapter 2

  Seth and I climbed out of the car, and he looked quizzically from her to me and back. She was a tall, attractive woman, mid-fortyish with straight brown hair that fell past her shoulders. She pulled her scarf tighter across her shoulders and came around the front end of her car with a nervous smile. My heart was in my throat and memories, both good and bad, came flooding back.

  “Hello, Dino,” she said, searching my face for a reaction.

  “Gigi.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Seth stop short. “It’s been a long time.”

  “Yes, I know. How are you?”

  “I can’t complain. Things are pretty good lately. You?” Seth cleared his throat meaningfully and I caught myself. “Oh, ah, Gigi, this is Seth Donnelly. He’s a good friend of mine. Seth, Gigi Sapora, also an old friend.”

  She smiled ruefully and nodded at Seth. “Hello.” She turned to me and said, “I’m not so good. I came here because I need your help. As a detective. You’re not easy to find, I had to call Ernie to find out where you’re living now.”

  Ernie’s a used car dealer I do repo work for, and we were all friends back in the day.

  “Yeah, I just moved about a month ago. I still have the same phone number though.”

  “Well.” She looked awkward. “I thought it might be better if I just came in person.”

  “Okay, sure. Let’s head inside and you can tell me what’s going on.”

  She looked relieved and said, “Thank you, Dino. I didn’t know who else to ask.”

  I nodded and led the way to the front door, passing Seth who had an inscrutable look on his face. I had an uneasy feeling this would go badly for me one way or another. The three of us went in and climbed the stairs in awkward silence.

  Behind us, I heard two of my neighbors, Della and Ruth, come in the front door chatting, and I realized they must have been sitting out on the patio the whole time. I ushered Seth and Gigi down the hall, because I was no shape to make another round of introductions and small talk.

  I unlocked my door and held it open for them. Inside, the mood was even more awkward if that was possible. I turned on the stereo to cut the silence. The oldies station came on, and Gigi smiled. “You still like that old music.”

  “Can’t beat the classics,” I said, pulling a chair away from the table for her.

  Seth yanked open the fridge and brought two bottles of Corona to the table. He looked at Gigi. “You want a beer or a drink? I make a great Sex on the Beach.”

  His tone was a little blunt, and she looked startled. “No, thank you.”

  “I have amaretto,” I told her. I gave Seth a hard look.

  She smiled. “I’d love some, thanks.”

  8

  Elle Parker

  9

  Seth scowled and dropped into the chair across from her, while I went to pour her drink. I hoped like hell he was planning to behave himself. Seth and I didn’t become good friends until about a year after Gigi and I split up, but he knew who she was, and had heard some of the stories.

  I could only imagine what was running through his head at the moment.

  I set Gigi’s glass on the table and sat down with them. “So, tell me what’s goin’ on. You don’t look so good.”

  “I’m not, Dino.” She took a sip of her drink and shook her head. “The problem is, I don’t really know what’s going on. I might just be paranoid, but something’s not right.”

  Seth sighed, and I have him a sharp look. “Come on, Gigi, what’s up? If it’s nothing then we find out it’s nothing, but if it’s not and you ignore it...”

  “Right,” she said. “Well, I think someone’s sabotaging the restaurant.”

  “How so?” Seth asked.

  “It’s a lot of little things. We’ve been having a few problems lately, and at first I just thought it was a run of bad luck, but we’ve never had this much trouble before. It started with a couple of very bad reviews, which were unfair and not at all accurate. Then we found out there were rumors going around about us. They were saying our chef was unsanitary, or that he was crazy and might do something horrible to the food.” She paused to collect her thoughts and ran a hand through her hair. “This all sounds so silly, Dino.”

  The restaurant was an Italian bistro she owned and ran, located down the coast in Pass-a-Grille. It sits right on the edge of the Intracoastal Waterway, and you can park your car in front or dock your boat in back. It was called Salvatore’s in honor of her grandfather who built the place.

  I’d eaten my fair share of fine meals there, but not in many years.

  “Is there more?”

  “Oh, yes.” She nodded and took another sip of her drink. “We’ve been reported three times for health code violations we didn’t have, someone challenged our liquor license, and one night several dishes were ruined because cayenne pepper was put in place of paprika. It’s like someone’s been playing pranks. It’s a lot of little things that can be explained away.”

  “But you don’t think these are just pranks?” I asked. Under her annoyance, I thought I detected something deeper. Something more like fear.

  She shook her head. “No. It’s starting to affect business, and I’m afraid our reputation will be ruined. And, Dino...” She paused, and she looked almost embarrassed. “I think I’m being followed sometimes.”

  That got my hackles up. “By who? Is someone threatening you?”

  “No, no threats. I don’t even know for sure. It’s just a feeling I have, like someone’s watching me. I think I keep seeing the same dark green car a lot. I don’t know, like I said, maybe I’m just being paranoid because things are going so badly right now.”

  “Do you have a lot of enemies?” Seth asked. I narrowed my eyes at him, and he blinked.

  “What? It’s a fair question. One you would generally ask.”

  10

  Like Pizza and Beer

  “None that I know of,” Gigi said.

  “How about the employees?” I asked. “Anyone been acting suspicious? When’s the last time you hired people?”

  “We hired three new servers over the summer, but one has already quit and the other two are marvelous, I can’t imagine they have anything to do with it. Everyone else has been around fo
r nearly a year or more, long before any of this trouble started.”

  “Fire anyone recently?”

  She shook her head.

  “What about the server who quit?” I asked. “What’s the story there?”

  “It’s not Kevin,” she said with a smile. “He was awarded a scholarship he wasn’t expecting and quit to go to school in Miami.”

  “How about pissed off customers?” Seth asked.

  Gigi sighed. “Yes, we’ve had a few of those, but they all seem to be as a result of the problems. I’ve tried to think if there was anyone who might have had a reason to do this before all the trouble started, but I haven’t come up with anything yet.”

  “You keep workin’ on it,” I told her.

  “Do you think you can help, Dino?” She took a sip of her amaretto.

  “Yeah, I do. I don’t think you’re paranoid, either. Someone is definitely screwing with you.

  I want you to be careful, all right?”

  She nodded. “What do we do now?”

  I slid a card out of my wallet and handed it to her. “Here’s my number, if you need it. I’m gonna stop by tomorrow, and then I’ll start digging around.”

  “Thank you, Dino. I really appreciate this.”

  “Hey, I’m always willing to help out a friend.”

  She smiled and stood up. “It’s late, and I should be going. I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

  I got up too, and said, “Yep. I’ll walk you down to your car.”

  I led her to the door, while Seth took care of the bottles and Gigi’s glass.

  Outside on the street, she stood by her car and turned to me. “It’s good to know I still can count on you, Dino. It means a lot to me.”

  I shrugged and grinned at her. “I’m just that kind of guy.”

  Then she stepped forward and slipped her arms around my neck, giving me a warm hug. I squeezed her back. She wore different perfume than she used to, and I wondered what else had changed about her. Ten years was a long time.

  She kissed me on the cheek and smiled with relief. “I feel better already,” she said. “At least I know I’m not just imagining things.”

  “You’re not,” I assured her. “I’ll figure it out, I promise. Are you going straight home?”

  She nodded. “Marco is closing the restaurant tonight, so it should be fine. I hope.”

  Elle Parker

  11

  “Okay, then, drive safe.” I held the door for her while she climbed into her car and watched as she drove off. When she turned the corner, I waited a few more minutes and went back inside.

  Upstairs, Seth was standing by the front windows. He turned as I shut the door. “So that was the infamous Gigi.”

  “Ah, yes it was. And you could have been a little nicer, for the record.”

  “Hey, I was fine. I was not about to fawn all over your ex the way you were.”

  I rolled my eyes. “By no stretch of the imagination was I fawning over her. I was polite, like I always am to ladies.”

  Seth pushed away from the windowsill and looked down his nose at me. “I saw you playing kissy face out there.”

  He had slipped into what he calls his “extremely gay” persona, which I was glad to see, because he’s incapable of being very serious when he does. I was willing to cut him some slack, because I supposed being face-to-face with your boyfriend’s ex when she’s playing the damsel in distress could be a little unnerving.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” I said. “Come here, I’ll show you what playing kissy face looks like.”

  I reached out to grab the collar of his t-shirt and pulled him into as hot a kiss as I could muster. He moaned and melted against me, so I figured I had it right.

  When we broke, I asked, “You didn’t happen to notice if it looked like anyone followed her, did you?”

  “I did notice,” he said, “and I didn’t see anyone. If there was, they were too crafty for me, because I was watching for that.”

  “So was I. That’s good, I’ll tell her tomorrow.”

  “You think she’s in danger?”

  I shook my head. “I have no idea. None of the stuff sounds physically threatening, but I do think someone’s messing with her, and it could escalate.”

  “Well, man, you know I’ll do anything I can to help, right?”

  “I appreciate that,” I said.

  “Damn straight. Now let’s go to bed and play kissy face.”

  Chapter 3

  When I finally chased Seth out of my apartment the next morning, it was ten past eight. He was late for work, but it was too early for me to get started. I fixed coffee, showered and dressed, and ate a quick breakfast. That used up an hour, and I still had a few more to kill before Salvatore’s would be open and I would be able to get to work on Gigi’s case.

  In the meantime, I could get a start on Seth’s. I poured another cup of coffee, sat down at my desk and switched on the laptop. My commute was still the length of my living room because progress on the office downstairs was slow, and I had to fit his job in between paying work.

  I ran a few basic background checks on Frank. I have some software and a couple of internet services I subscribe to, because they all have slightly different areas of effectiveness, and I can usually save a lot of time running several searches at once.

  Not surprisingly, his credit was trashed. He had way too many credit cards, all maxed out, and the bulk of those had missing payments. One of them had already filed an order to garnish his wages. Not like that would do them a hell of a lot of good. The guy bounced from job to job. He was currently listed as a part-time employee of a remodeling company, but I knew for a fact he did a lot of his work for cash under the table. Just to round things out, he also owed back taxes.

  Frank didn’t have too much of a police record. Mostly it was traffic violations, including a decent number of speeding tickets. Maturity must have seasoned him, though, because those were several years ago.

  To get a really accurate picture of just how bad things were, I also ran a credit report on Molly. Her rating was starting to show signs of decline as well, and I figured Seth had good cause to be concerned. It was my experience, however, that cause or no cause, women didn’t typically give up a man until they were good and ready to. I didn’t bother with police records on her, because I knew damn well they would be squeaky clean.

  I took out my notebook and wrote down the address where Frank worked, his truck’s license plate and description, since Seth had only ever referred to it as “that cheap-ass piece of shit,” and a few other pertinent details I thought might come in handy.

  This was one of the more delicate cases I’d handled. Mostly because I knew Seth and Molly, and they were like family to me, but also because Molly stood a good chance of getting hurt. For whatever reason, she loved this guy, and making her see him for what he really was wouldn’t be fun for her. Personally, I thought he’d been using her since day one, but it wasn’t my place to say.

  We would have to tread lightly.

  Gigi’s case beckoned, and either way, it was time to hit the streets. I was still a little early, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to do some of the preliminary leg work, so I grabbed my phone and keys and went downstairs to the car.

  12

  Elle Parker

  13

  The ladies were out on their patio, so I went around the corner of the building to say hello.

  “Good mornin’, sugar,” Della purred with a broader smile than usual. Which is saying something, because Della Vinson Owen is a Southern belle who learned her craft well and has never once said anything to me that didn’t have at least a hint of innuendo in it. “Don’t you look all chipper and satisfied this morning.”

  Ruth gave her a stern look and turned to me. “Dino, good morning. Wonderful day, isn’t it?”

  “Ah, yes it is,” I said, watching the silent, but not entirely subtle battle of wills between the two. Ruth Fletcher is Della’s roommate, and they live upstairs next to me. She is ordinarily as down-to-earth and practical as you can get.

  The other two women at the table were Adele Triggs and Fern Quigley, her sister-in-law, who shared the ground floor apartment. Adele owned the building and ultimately ruled the roost over all of us. She took a deep drag of her cigarette and blew out smoke. When I turned to her, she said, “Della wants to know who that woman was last night, and Ruth thinks she should mind her own God damned business.”