his boiled-broccoli dinners.
“What about you and Fred?” Margery asked Ethel.
“We were otherwise occupied,” she said primly.
“What’s that mean?” Margery’s purple leopard spots quivered impatiently.
“We were getting a little afternoon delight.” Fred grinned and stuck out his gourdlike gut proudly. Helen wondered if another body part stuck out further.
Ethel simpered.
Margery looked disgusted. “Thanks for that information.
I better take Helen back to my place and feed her some dinner.”
When they were safely in Margery’s kitchen, she said, “I was afraid lover boy would start pounding his chest like a gorilla. Let me fix you a drink. I don’t know which is worse—Fred and Ethel in the throes of connubial bliss, or your place tossed and robbed.”
“How about having my underwear pawed by thieving pervs?”
Margery filled a water glass with about six ounces of gin, then added a shot of orange juice. “Drink that.”
She did. Helen felt a pleasant buzz. Three gulps and the Fred and Ethel X-rated movie vanished. The Debbie horror show still played in her head, but it was safely in the background.
Margery handed her a big glass of water next. “Now, drink this. It’s a chaser to clear the palate.” She pulled a brown box from the freezer.
“DoveBars,” Helen said. “Dark chocolate. Yum.”
The bar was richly rotund. Helen ate it in greedy bites, cracking the thick chocolate coat.
“Have you had dinner?” Margery said.
“No.” Helen deftly caught a chunk of cracked-off chocolate with her tongue.
“I’ll get you a sandwich,” Margery said.
This struck Helen as funny. After six ounces of gin, lots of things were funny. “You gave me dessert first.”
“Of course. Life is short. Turkey OK?”
“For life?” Helen was confused.
“For dinner. I can fix you turkey on whole wheat and salt-and-vinegar chips.”
“Hold the chips,” Helen said virtuously, then hiccupped.
She’d already held four bags that week—and eaten them all.
About halfway through her sandwich, Helen’s eyelids began to droop. “Let’s get you home. You’ve had a bad day, Margery said.
“You have no idea.” But Helen wasn’t drunk enough to tell Margery exactly how bad.
Her landlady disappeared down the hall. While she was gone, Helen pawed through her purse until she found her pay envelope. Finally, something good happened today. She hadn’t had time to put it with her stash, thank goodness. She quickly counted her money. Four hundred fifty dollars. Vito had stiffed her an extra fifty. She was too tired to care.
Margery came back with an armload of lavender sheets, a purple blanket and two white pillows. “Ready? Let’s fix up your place,” she said.
As they passed Phil’s apartment, Helen breathed in the sticky perfume of burning weed. “Do you think Phil saw anything?”
“Phil probably saw lots of things, but nothing that can help you,” Margery said.
“I don’t believe he exists,” Helen said.
“Of course he does. I see him when he pays his rent every month, and he’s never been late.” This was Margery’s highest character reference.
“Is he married or single?”
“Don’t you have enough problems?” Margery snapped.
She examined Helen’s jimmied door. “I’ll get you a new door and lock tomorrow.”
It took almost an hour to put the place in order. They righted the coffee table. Helen swept up the broken lamp and carried the pieces out to the Dumpster. She put her things back in the dresser drawers while Margery vacuumed up the feathers and Thumbs chased them around the room.
Then they made the bed while Thumbs tunneled under the covers.
“He’s having a good time,” Helen said.
Margery patted the new pillows into place and shooed Thumbs off the bed. She was not a cat lover. “I’ll get you a couple of couch pillows. Sorry I can’t replace your stuffing.”
Helen examined the reconstructed room. “Something’s missing.”
“That broken lamp leaves a big hole,” Margery said.
“No, it’s in here.” Helen stared hard at the bed. “It’s Chocolate.”
“I can get you more chocolate. I have some Godiva.”
“Chocolate, my bear. My stuffed bear is gone.”
Helen checked under the bed, but she knew he wasn’t there. “He had almost a thousand dollars in him. They could have just taken the money, but they didn’t.
“They got my teddy bear,” Helen said. “Now it’s personal.”
Chapter 13
They stole her money. They pawed her panties. They took her teddy bear.
A vengeful rage flamed up in Helen. She’d lost almost thirty-two hundred dollars, hidden in her couch pillows and her bear. She thought of all the things she could have done with that money. A few more bucks and she could have bought a decent used car. No more buses and begged rides.
A good car was an impossible luxury for someone who worked dead-end jobs. She’d been so close.
It was gone now.
So was her button-eyed bear with the jaunty purple bow.
For some reason, that made her angrier than the money. No, she knew why. The bear was one of the few good things salvaged from her old life.
Then she saw Debbie’s long hair, the silken weapon she’d used to ensnare men, twisted into a murderous rope. Helen’s mind scrabbled away from that and crept back to something safer—her lost money.
Helen thought about what she’d endured to get that thirty-two hundred dollars. She relived every insult, every indignity, every leering pep talk from Vito. She wanted to weep.
No, she would not give in to tears. Her anger had burned away soft feelings.
Revenge. She wanted hot, hateful revenge on the man who ruined her peaceful life. She wanted to strip him naked.
Take away his money, his honor, his dignity.
She knew who did this: Hank Asporth—or his hired help.
She would get him if was the last thing she did.
But it wouldn’t be easy. Hank was powerful and protected. He ordered around high-priced lawyers like pinstriped lackeys. There was no way she could get near him.
She was a minimum-wage slave. She was invisible. No, worse than invisible. She’d been branded a crazy woman.
She’d called the police about a nonexistent murder. She’d wasted the cops’ valuable time. She had no credibility.
Helen had to find the mysterious Kristi, the woman who knew about the Six Feet Unders. What was their deadly secret: Murder? Necrophilia? Snuff movies? In South Florida, anything was possible. Kristi worked in that back room with the Six Feet Unders. At least, that’s what Debbie had said, but she was now six feet under herself. The only way to find Kristi was to work topless at Steve’s next party.
Going undercover was one thing. Going naked was another.
Helen would rather work smart than topless. She knew how to get what she wanted and keep her clothes on.
