MR. WOLFE
by
A. J. LLEWELLYN
Amber Quill Press, LLC
http://www.amberquill.com
Mr. Wolfe
An Amber Quill Press Book
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author's imagination, or have been used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.
Amber Quill Press, LLC
http://www.AmberQuill.com
http://www.AmberHeat.com
http://www.AmberAllure.com
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.
Copyright © 2013 by A. J. Llewellyn
ISBN 978-1-61124-429-8
Cover Art © 2013 Trace Edward Zaber
Published in the United States of America
Also by A. J. Llewellyn
Abandoned Paradise
April Sun In Cuba
Balthazar Starblitz
The Book And The Rose
Bunyip
Cherish
Christmas In Flip Flops
The Cross
Cops And Rubbers
Deeper Blue
Eynhallow
He's Gone Home
Isle Of Capri
Kaleidoscope
Love For Sale
The Love God Of Indian Frybread
Naked In Hong Kong
Nightwalker
The "Tame" Series
Wait For Night
The "Xu" Series
And With D. J. Manly
Fawnskin, Books I & II
The House Of Driscoll, Books I & II
Island Heat
Dedication
To the memory of the late, great, Mr. Paul Zastupnevich, the most gifted and generous costume man I ever met. Visiting you was a thrill that lives in my heart and inspired this tale. I hope wherever you are, sequins and other sparkly things are involved. xxx
Chapter 1
He took his time observing the warehouse from across the street before approaching the young woman sitting at a white desk just inside the entrance--Ikea, how...gauche--surrounded by forty costume trunks. The sun shone brightly on that hot June morning.
The clothes. Oh, God. The sun is beaming right down on some of those costumes. Oh, the horror! The horror!
He began to fret, watching the woman who was supposedly working, but in fact appeared to be doing nothing more than updating her Facebook page.
Mr. Wolfe knew this because he had perfect vision. Everything about him was precise. His nose twitched. It always did when he sensed bad behavior. He knew the woman at the desk was about to take yet another photo and post it online, which was in violation of her contract.
From somewhere--Where? This is the industrial section of LAX!--he could detect the heavenly smell of barbecue. It was a delicious distraction, no more. He wanted to move across the road before the woman at the desk could take one more picture and do further damage.
"I've seen enough," he told the tense woman beside him. "Let's go."
He could feel her breathless trot at his heels. Virginia Campbell needed to give up smoking. She was a fairly attractive, middle-aged, African-American woman who'd already unburdened herself to him about her chronic boyfriend and health problems.
Mr. Wolfe would deal with helping her later.
As they reached the entrance, the recently hired alleged costume archivist for legendary diva, Zara Finley, stared up at them. Panic flashed across her eyes as she pushed her glasses toward the bridge of her nose.
"Virginia, gosh, this is a surprise." She glanced at Mr. Wolfe, who held her gaze for a brief moment before stepping aside to allow Virginia to handle Linda's firing. He tried to absorb as much as he could as he walked between the jammed rows of shelves. He'd been here before in the dead of night with Virginia and Miss Finley. In daylight it looked worse.
Dust.
Dust! All over these beautiful clothes! He swept up the three dresses he'd noticed piled on the chair sweltering under the full glare of the sun. He wished public floggings hadn't been outlawed.
This crime against fashion was one of the worst he'd ever encountered. He growled low in his throat, a distressed, strangling sound that was loud enough for Virginia to call out, "Everything okay back there, Mr. Wolfe?"
"Fine thank you," he muttered.
As he progressed through the gigantic space, he fumed. Every muscle and bone in his being twitched and pulsed with mounting fury.
Stylists.
Linda East was a stylist and they were the bane of the fashion industry. They couldn't sew, had no idea how to handle rare fabrics and fell apart when little things went haywire. What the hell was wrong with a seasoned pro like Zara Finley that would induce her to hire a damned stylist to archive her work? Didn't she know they were basically poor girls with a well-developed sense of style who adored spending other people's money?
He knew one stylist even had her own TV show. It made him mad. Shopping wasn't a lost art. It was the death of the costume industry. Shopping was something Mr. Wolfe did when he'd run out of all other ideas for creating amazing pieces for his clients.
Linda had been hired to begin the arduous process of archiving Miss Finley's substantial collection of costumes. Zara had chosen the woman herself when the two met on the road on the singer's most recent tour. Linda had complained about the condition of the costumes as they arrived in their badly packed trunks. She'd pointed out how some of the beading on the star's most famous gowns had become tarnished. Many of the garments were stained from makeup and sweat from previous tours.
Zara Finley had fallen apart when her most celebrated white-beaded dress, made by hand thirty-five years ago, and a big part of every performance, had turned gray thanks to bad wardrobe management. The singer had hired Linda to clean, repair and maintain her current touring outfits and to archive her enormous collection of trunks.
That had been three months ago.
Since then, Linda had made a career of racking up bills for everything from dry-cleaning to hangers, shelves, plastic storage containers, and other "mystery" charges. Zara had been anxious to see the results of Linda's efforts and after being
