dollars for phony repairs to their Hialeah restaurant.
“He had a badge and official papers. He wore a uniform,” the husband said. “We were afraid he would close us down.”
“It is all our savings,” the wife wept.
The other interview was a seventy-year-old Davie widow who ran a doughnut shop.
“He came in here wearing a blue uniform with patches on it. How was I supposed to know?” the widow said, her chin trembling. “Now they tell me that Broward County fire marshals wear a different uniform. Well, it’s too darn late. I lost fifteen hundred dollars. He never even did the repairs.”
“Imagine picking on an old lady,” Margery said. Her red sponge curlers bobbed with indignation.
No one had the nerve to say the “old lady” was younger than Margery.
“Well, he’s a first-class con man,” Margery said. “He fooled me.”
“And me,” Peggy said. “And all those poor people.”
And me, Helen thought. “I think I’ll get dressed for work,” she said, and went sadly back to her apartment.
Handsome is as handsome does, Helen’s grandmother used to say. There was something small and mean and ugly about Daniel’s choice of victims. He went after the old and the poor, after people who did not speak English well, after people who were afraid of official papers.
How could I find a man like that attractive? Helen thought. What’s wrong with me? I’ve made one bad choice after another: first Rob, then Cal, now Daniel.
What had Margery said? Single men in South Florida were all “drunks, druggies, and deadbeats.” Except for Daniel, a petty crook who preyed on the old and the helpless.
No wonder Peggy was through with men forever. Peggy would rather play the Florida Lotto, where her chances of winning were one in twenty-three million. Peggy believed those were better odds than the dating game, where she saw no chance at all.
Helen opened her purse, took out the box of condoms, and tossed them in the trash. She wasn’t ever going to get lucky.
Chapter 26
“My life,” Helen said, “is in the toilet.”
She was staring at a blue toilet with a gnarled schefflera plant growing in the bowl. A bathtub was planted with a mass of spiky mother-in-law’s tongue.
“Then you’ve come to the right place,” Sarah said.
Bathtubs and commodes were the decor at Le Tub, one of Hollywood’s funkier restaurants. Some of the exiled porcelain were planters. Others were painted with slogans: “An inexpensive place for folks with money!” one tub said.
Le Tub’s weathered wood booths overlooked the silver water of the Intracoastal. A boy fed his french fries to the fish. Helen watched the sun set. It was hard to take her troubles seriously when she sat between a bathtub and a post-card view.
Sarah looked chic in a gauzy white outfit, and Helen remembered with shame that she was a Juliana’s reject. “Thanks for taking me here,” Helen said. “I feel better already.”
“Good,” Sarah said. Her charm bracelet jingled cheerfully, but her bright brown eyes were sympathetic. “I’m sorry about Daniel.”
“I feel like such a fool,” Helen said.
“Why? The guy was a scam artist who operated in three states. Florida breeds them like mosquitoes. If you got conned by him, you’ve got plenty of company. At least you didn’t give him your life savings.”
“I gave him my heart,” Helen said, then wished she’d never said something so ridiculous.
“Honey, at our age, that’s a gift we’ve given before. He didn’t get anything new.”
Helen giggled. A waiter came by, and both women ordered white wine and seafood salads.
“I’m trying to think of Daniel as a diversion,” Helen said. “When I was with him, I forgot my troubles.”
“But you still have them,” Sarah reminded her. “What’s happening with the investigation? Who are your candidates for Christina’s murder?”
“There are too many,” Helen said. “Christina was blackmailing at least five people, maybe more. It was nasty. She could ruin a lot of people.”
“Like who?” Sarah said.
“Tara, for starters. Christina had proof that she was a prostitute in Vegas.”
“This is South Florida. Would anyone care?” Sarah said.
“Tara’s boyfriend, Paulie. He’d dump her in a heartbeat, and he’s her meal ticket. Christina was bleeding Tara for two thousand a month, and she wanted more. Tara says she wouldn’t kill Christina because she couldn’t find the incriminating photos. I think she’s telling the truth. Of course, I believed Daniel was the perfect man.”
“Enough flagellation,” Sarah said. “You’re starting to enjoy it.”
“Christina also had compromising material on Sharmayne, the supermodel, and Tiffany with the bad eye job.”
“The woman was busy,” Sarah said.
“I think she may have been blackmailing her ex-boyfriend Joe, too. He’s been bugging me for a package he says Christina left him. The creep practically threatened me. The only problem is, I haven’t found any blackmail photos for Joe yet. But I still have to check the other CD tower.”
“What’s his song?”
“ ‘You Gotta Serve Somebody.’ ”
“Dylan,” Sarah said. “Christina had good taste. An ugly sense of humor, but good taste.”
“Oh, yeah?” Helen said. “Then why am I looking for Don Ho’s ‘Tiny Bubbles’?”
“I don’t know, why are you?”
“It might have something to do with the death of Brittney’s fiance, except she’s not acting like the others,” Helen said. “I don’t think Brittney was being blackmailed.”
The seafood salads were served in paper bowls, with forks sticking out of the top and a pile of paper napkins on the side. They were mounds of fresh calamari, salmon, crab, and shrimp.
“Oh, I forgot Venetia, the jittery drug customer,” Helen said. “Christina was blackmailing her, too. That woman is weird enough to flip out and kill Christina, but she’s too skinny to hurt anyone.”
“Don’t be too sure,” Sarah said. “I used to work in a hospital. The skinny druggies can get powerfully strong when they are desperate. It took four men to restrain one ninety-pound cokehead at our hospital.”
“Then I’ll keep Venetia on the list,” Helen said. “There’s also Niki. Christina knew she’d been a jewel thief. And there was the murder for hire. Except everything went right. Desiree died, and Niki got her man.”
“Maybe Christina was blackmailing her for it anyway,” Sarah said.
“Maybe. But Niki couldn’t have killed Christina. When the murder took place, she says was in Greece.”
“That’s what she says. I say we check her out,” Sarah said.
Their seafood salads were eaten, the sun had gone down, and Helen was shivering in the chill evening air. “Let’s go back to my place for coffee and Key lime pie and talk this over further,” Sarah said.
Helen had no problem discussing the blackmail business with Sarah. But she would not mention it to her landlady, Margery. Maybe she did not want Margery knowing too much. Her landlady already had Helen’s suitcase full of cash.
Helen and Sarah walked along Hollywood Beach until they reached Sarah’s condo. Kids pedaled by on low- slung yellow banana bikes, their rumps nearly touching the ground. Young couples kissed by the ocean. Old couples walked hand-in-hand on the boardwalk. Tired parents packed up their beach umbrellas and sunburned
