Binding Arbitration (22 page)

She batted my hands away. “Don’t you need to go home?”

“We need to talk about a couple of things.”

She looked at me from the corner of her eye. “Like?”

“Cass told me that you are going to get a nanny for him.”

“Chemo can be very draining. There’s a lot of running around involved, and we need the extra help.”

“I’ll do it, and you won’t have to waste your time going through all these resumes.”

“You don’t have any experience taking care of kids.”

“Cass has been happy all weekend, and I want to spend time with him. This is the perfect solution. Plus, I work cheap.” I waggled my eyebrows.

“Somehow, I don’t think I can afford you.”

“You can, but I’m live-in help.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Come on, I’ll be a good boy.” My dimple was aching.

She cocked her head to one side. “No deal, baseball boy.”

“Come on, Libby, don’t be so stubborn. You need the help, and I want to spend time with Cass. This is just what the doctor ordered. You can go to work, and not have to worry. You know you can trust me, and I work for free.”

“If you want me to trust you, you’ll have to promise me no hanky-panky.”

I prefer hanky-spanky.

Shut up. Get out of my head.
“If you don’t want me to touch you, don’t put me in serious lip locks in public, then pretend it never happened.”

“I killed two birds with one stone; I distracted the reporters and settled my profanity debt.” She thought that made all the sense in the world until another thought washed her face. “Are you trying to exchange DNA for a roll in the sack?”

“I’m not dignifying that.” I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to find a whisper to grab onto, so I wouldn’t wrap my hands around her neck. “You used my celebrity for your own purposes, so you don’t get to count that toward your debt.”

“You know, Palowski, I don’t like the world where you get to make all the rules. I didn’t make it through three years of law school to be steam-rolled by a jock. If you want to participate in Cass’s care for awhile, then you’re going to have to do it on my terms.”

“No.”

“Fine, I’ll hire someone. Until then, Steve will help me. Thanks for your offer.” She rose in her stocking clad feet and extended her hand. “It’s been nice seeing you again. Good luck next season.”

It was just the kind of dismissal that drove me crazy. She was the only person who could rub words together to start an eruption the fire department might not be able to contain. I grabbed her hand and pulled her into my lap, moving her defiant chin around until I was looking her in the eye. “Who’s Steve?”

“Steve’s daughter goes to school with Cass.”

“Madi Dubrowski, whose father doesn’t have a wife?”

“Did you pump my entire life story out of Cass?”

“No just anything he remembers about men in your life.”

“You know what? I’m tired. It’s Sunday night, and I have to be at work early, so why don’t you go home and leave me to take care of my own problems just the way I always have—alone!”

“You’re not alone anymore; and you’re going to let me help. What time do you leave for work?”

She crossed her arms and gave me a decent stare down.

“You’re acting like a prissy brat.”

“Alpha males are so hard to reach sometimes that you have to knock them over their heads with a sledgehammer.”

She could knock you over with a feather most of the time.

I gave her a pinch on the derriere.

She yelped.

“I’ll kiss it for you, and make it all better.” I leered toward her. “What time you leave for work?”

“Usually around six.” She rubbed her backside, twisting in such a way that her chest was on serious display.

I stood abruptly, almost dropping her before steadying her. “I’ll be here. What time does Cass have to be at school?”

“8:15. Are you sure you want to do this?”

What he really wants to do is take you into extra innings.

“I’ll be here at six.”

She followed me to the door. When I stopped on the landing to say goodbye, she honed in on my pants. “I’ve heard ice works wonders for that.” Before I could reply through my clenched teeth, I was staring at the closed door. I’d heard of guys going oh-for-five or oh-for-ten—-but I was going oh-for-Libby.

You are so out of your league, and I’m not referencing the kid, here.
The ump’s gravelly voice spliced through my lust.
You got about as much chance of making her biddable as I have of watching you close out the final game of the World Series.

I jogged down the stairs. “You really work my nerves.”

Nerves won’t get you anywhere in this game—this series is all about heart.

18

CELEBUTANTE

A sign of celebrity is often that their name is worth more than their services.
Daniel J. Boorstin

Libby

I opened the Gutierrez case file, after researching some case histories last night, my best shot was with supplying information. I dialed over to the local FBI office. I knew a field officer, and I wanted to get her take on what the bureau would need on Espinoza in order to make all of Ms. Gutierrez’s immigration problems go away.

“Libby, you always go for the gusto.” Gwen Foley laughed and said, “Can I throw in immediate citizenship for the woman?”

“Is that a possibility?”

“If you can get me names, dates, and locations, I can see what I can do.” Her voice dropped to a caustic level. “This is one dangerous guy. The Espinoza cartel usurped the Medallion cartel that was formed in the early seventies. As the Espinoza family rose alongside them, they posed as legitimate businessmen. They were into counterfeiting and kidnapping before they expanded into smuggling cocaine from Columbia to Bolivia.”

“The acceleration of crimes is common in most organized crime families,” I said.

“Yeah, but the Espinoza’s weren’t just any syndicate. The father was known as the ‘Lord of the Skies’, he was worth twenty-five-billion, when he overtook the Medallions.”

“How’d he do that?”

“Bribery and assassination. He wiped out the entire Medallion family, the women and children, too.”

I felt the urge to panic breathe, but Evita needed help and it was something I could be proud of buried amongst the heaps of garbage I usually dealt with.

“The son is worse than the father,” Gwen continued. “If he gets his hands on your client, she’ll go missing, and there won’t be DNA evidence to prove she ever existed.”

“Is there any good side of this for us?”

“We’d love to make him the next poster child for the war on drugs. You get us info that can help with that, and I can get your client a whole new identity.”

“Thanks, Gwen. I’ll be in touch.”

My anxiety manifested itself as a migraine. I was about to call Vicki for some Imitrex, when I heard earsplitting bickering in the outer office. I teetered behind my cherry desk, trying to retrieve my stiletto from the shoe sucking abyss. I bent under the desk to retrieve it as my office door slammed open.

I could hear Vicki’s raised tone. The other woman’s voice was pinched in a high, nasally sort of way, somewhat cultured in intonation but lacking something. I retrieved the runaway shoe, stumbling to my feet.

Vanessa Vanderhoff towered over my desk. She looked better in pictures than in person. But a predator’s reflection lurked behind her glassy smile.

Vicki waited to pounce, protruding belly and all.

Vanessa took me in and squeezed her upper lip and her nose much the way a butcher would look at bad meat.

I stood to my entire five-feet-seven-inches, plus three inch heels, yet she loomed over the room, like a bloodcurdling, blonde Amazon searching for boy scouts to dismember. Her ice-cold blue eyes made me want to pick up a weapon in defense.

“Would you like me to call security?” Vicki asked. “I swear to Buddha, I tried to put a kibosh on her.”

Suddenly, the intruder’s large Marc Jacobs bag, which was hanging off her skeletal shoulder, started to move and yelp. It continued its yip, yip, yipping. A minuscule head pushed out so that two black beady eyes bored into me. The dog scrunched up his nose and mouth just as its master had.

“We exterminate rats in this building.” The skinned rodent had a Don King hair pouf on the front of his head.

“Do you use poison, or traps?” The celebutante turned on Vicki, shooing her fingertips toward the door, but instead of being dismissed Vicki, moved closer to the desk.

“Should I bring coffee, Ms. Tucker?”

“Yes, cream and equal for me, and a large soy latté laced with arsenic for Vanessa.” I took my seat gesturing for Vanessa to do the same across from me.

Vanessa poised her size two Heine on the edge if the chair. “As we have never been introduced, I would prefer Ms. Vanderhoff.” The voice registered the practiced precision of someone who learned diction from a computer generated voice.

When Vicki heard that, she turned back toward me with a raised finger. “Climb it, Tarzan.”

I chuckled. Vicki knew a bit about monkey business.

“Snitty if you will, Ms. Tucker, because when I’m through you, won’t have many laughs left.”

Did she mean snicker?
If Vanessa hadn’t been born into one of the wealthiest families in the world, God knew, she’d be a small-town-lifer bumping any trucker with a Slim Jim.

Vanessa pulled out a European cigarette and a sterling silver embossed lighter. The cigarette teetered on her bottom lip finding it’s grove in her lip lines.

“You light that and the sprinklers will go off. Unless you like the Gucci wet-dog look, I’d save that.” I took off my glasses to clean them, wondering if Vicki would be able to locate arsenic. Could you sprinkle it over the foam, like they did with cinnamon at Starbucks? Or would I have to cram it down her skinny latté neck?

“Aidan must have been attracted to your brains in college. You don’t seem to be his type.”

“I’m not a type.” I readjusted my gleaming glasses.

“You’re flawed in so many categories it’s hard to pinpoint where exactly you fit. But it all boils down to you being the smart girl who wears description glasses?”

I rolled my eyes at her. “Prescription?”

“Don’t try to sideline me.”

“Sidetrack?” I squinted at her.

“I can hardly find what else he would find attractive.”

“It’s the boobs. Unlike yours, ‘plastic’ did not make these possible.”

“Does he enjoy the sarcasm?”

“He did all weekend.” I paused. “What can I do for you?”

“I want you to stop seeing Aidan.”

“I’m not.” I extended my hand. “So you’ve wasted a trip.”

“I came here to make you an offer you can’t refuse.” Vanessa reclined deeper into her chair and smiled a viper-like smile. “I understand why someone like you would be infatuated with a man like Aidan. But I assure you, he belongs to me.”

She stood and made a short circuit of the room looking at the various photos of me and other noteworthy Chicagoans. She stopped directly in front of my framed diploma from law school. “You’re ordinary. You went to college, you have a mundane job, and you’ll never make the kind of money I make.”

“That’s because I make my living in front of a court room, not on my back in a hotel room.”

“You come from different piers.” Vanessa’s eyes wandered over me as she approached my desk. “Give him up now, before I move toward measures that will hurt you. I want him back, and I want you to be the one to deliver my special message.”

Vanessa rifled through her cavernous bag and pulled out a manila envelope accompanied by chorus of yips. She reclined into her chair. Her facial expressions were stiff, or maybe that was just Botox.

“I doubt he’ll listen. I don’t know why you think someone so ordinary could sway his
sphere
Ms. Vanderdumb.”

Every ounce of facial color drained, and even Estee Lauder wouldn’t be able to put the glow back in her chiseled cheeks. Her eyes became as murky as a river overflowing its banks and the blue contacts couldn’t conceal the deepening brown of her eyes. “Well, Libby,” she said it in a long drawn out LIBBEEEEE.

I cringed. “It’s Elizabeth to you.”

“See what you think of this.” She extended the manila envelope in my direction but not quite far enough for me to reach it.

Instead of leaning over I walked around my desk and grabbed my stainless steel letter opener, with which I could’ve gouged her swamp water eyes out.

“How’s baseball’s golden mitten going to look, when this hits the tabloids?”

I slid the photo from the envelope in slow motion—a nude man kneeled behind bare white buttocks that rose from a rumpled bed. The woman’s face was hidden between long streaks of blond hair and dark linen. The man was anchored onto the woman’s hips, and in the throes of passion, but he was easily identified as Band-Aid Palowski.

“With my money, pictures can be altered to show just about anything. What if we put a man in that photo in my place? What would the world think then? You know how he feels about his career. I don’t believe any baseball players have come out yet.”

“He isn’t gay.” I stifled a laugh. He wasn’t the pliable kind of man; he had the kind of will a steelworker would find difficult to bend with an industrial strength blow torch and soldering iron.

“If it’s photo-shopped, I could make you a believer.”

“Anyone who knows Aidan knows he is the most testosterone-driven male around.” Not that there’s anything wrong with men who like other men, but no one will believe it. “He’s slept with half the girls in Chicago, and they’ll all crawl out from under his bench to get their fifteen seconds of fame.”

Vicki hurried into the office with a huge vase of peach colored roses. I directed her to the coffee table by the sofa, but snatched the card, squeezing it into my palm.

“They just arrived, Ms. Tucker, sorry I haven’t located the arsenic yet. You’ve had several urgent calls from Mr. Palowski. Should I patch him through the next time he calls?”

“Yes, Vicki. Ms. Vanderdeaf and I are done.” I whispered conspiratorially, “The arsenic wouldn’t work; you actually have to have a beating heart to succumb to poison.”