The Collectors

boys over there?” She nodded at the five suits that sat staring at the man hostilely. One of them cracked his knuckles. Another slid his hand inside his suit jacket and kept it there.

Annabelle said smoothly, “I’m sure you saw me talking to them, since you’ve been staring at me all night. They’re the Moscarelli family. And the one on the end there is my ex, Joey Junior. Now, even though I’m no longer technically in the family, you never really leave the Moscarelli clan.”

“Moscarelli?” the man said defiantly. “Who the hell are they?”

“They were the number three organized crime family in Vegas before the FBI ran them and everybody else out. Now they’ve gone back to doing what they do best: controlling the garbage unions in the Big Apple and Newark.” She squeezed his arm. “So if you have a problem with your wet pants, I’m sure Joey will take care of it.”

“You think I’m buying that crap?” the guy shot back.

“Well, if you don’t believe me, go over there and talk to him about it.”

The man looked over at the table again. Joey Junior was holding a steak knife in his beefy hand while one of the other men was attempting to keep him in his seat.

Annabelle gripped the man’s arm tighter. “Or do you want me to have Joey come over here with some of his friends? Don’t worry; he’s out on parole right now, so he can’t bust you up really bad without ticking off the feds.”

“No. No!” the alarmed man said as he tore his gaze from murderous Joey Junior and his steak knife. He added quietly, “I mean, it’s no big deal. Just a little water.” He sat back down and dabbed at his soaked crotch with a napkin.

Annabelle turned to his date. The woman was trying and failing to hold back her giggles. “You think it’s funny, sweetie?” Annabelle said. “This is a case of where we’re all laughing at you, not with you. So why don’t you try finding some self-respect, or little shits like him are the only slime you’ll be waking up next to until you’re so old nobody will give a crap anymore. Including you.”

The lady stopped laughing.

On the way out of the restaurant Leo said, “Wow, and here I was wasting my time reading Dale Carnegie when all I needed to do was hang around you.”

“Give it a rest, Leo.”

“Okay, okay, but the Moscarelli family? Come on. Who were they really?”

“Five accountants from Cincinnati probably looking to get laid tonight.”

“You’re lucky they seemed pretty tough.”

“It wasn’t luck. I said I was practicing a scene from a movie with a friend of mine in public. I told them it happens all the time in L.A. I asked them to help out, that they were to look like the mob; you know, to give us the right atmosphere to deliver our lines. I told them if they did well enough, they might even get a part in the film. It’s probably the most excitement they’ve ever had.”

“Yeah, but how’d you know that jerk would collar you on the way out?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Leo, maybe it was that tent pole in his pants. Or did you think I just threw the water in his crotch for the hell of it?”

The next day Annabelle and Leo cruised down Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills in a rented dark blue Lincoln. Leo intently eyed the shops they were passing. “How’d you get a lead on him?”

“Usual sources. He’s young and doesn’t have much street experience, but his specialty is why I’m here.”

Annabelle pulled into a parking place and pointed to a storefront up ahead. “Okay, that’s where gadget boy screws the retail consumer.”

“What’s he like?”

“Very metrosexual.”

Leo looked at her quizzically. “Metrosexual? What the hell’s that? New kind of gay freak?”

“You really need to get out more, Leo, and work on your PC skills.”

A minute later Annabelle led Leo into a high-end clothing boutique. Inside the store, they were greeted by a lean, good-looking young man dressed all in chic black with slicked-back blond hair and a day’s worth of fashionable stubble on his face.

“You here all by yourself today?” she asked him, looking around at the other well-heeled customers in the store. They’d have to be wealthy, she knew, since the shoes here started at a thousand bucks a pair, entitling the lucky owner to stumble around on four-inch golf tees until her Achilles snapped.

He nodded. “But I enjoy working the store. I’m very service-oriented.”

“I’m sure you are,” Annabelle said under her breath.

After waiting until the other customers had left the shop, Annabelle put the Closed sign on the front door. Leo brought a woman’s blouse to the cash register while Annabelle wandered around behind the checkout area. Leo handed over his credit card, but it slipped out of the clerk’s hand and the man bent down to retrieve it. When he straightened up, he found Annabelle standing right behind him.

“That’s a really neat toy you have there,” she said, eyeing the tiny machine the clerk had just swiped Leo’s card through.

“Ma’am, you’re not allowed behind the counter,” he said, frowning.

Annabelle ignored this comment. “Did you build it yourself?”

The clerk said firmly, “It’s an antifraud machine. It confirms that the card is valid. It checks encryption codes embedded in the plastic. We’ve had a lot of stolen credit cards come in here, so the owner instructed us to start