If Cooks Could Kill Part 11

Connie began to get up from the chair, but then gripped the seat, trying hard to appear nonchalant. Max gazed at her for what seemed like an eternity.

As he approached the table, though, he ignored her. "h.e.l.lo, Dennis."

Dennis stood, his expression serious. "Hey, Max. Good you could make it."

They shook hands and Dennis introduced him. "Ladies, this is an old friend, Max Squire. I just happened to run into him on the street yesterday. Max, this is Angie Amalfi, and...wait a minute, you two already met, didn't you?"

Max shook Angie's hand first, then turned to Connie. "Miss Rogers and I met briefly the other night."

Connie slowly lifted her hand to his. She wasn't sure who pulled his or her hand away faster.

"Is that so?" Angie's eyeb.a.l.l.s had quite a workout as they bounced from one to the other.

Connie tried to regard Max as Angie might. His clothes were crumpled and worn. Jeans and a once-navy blue pullover were washed one time too many. His shoes were scuffed on top. She hated to think of what the soles must look like. His dark, mysterious eyes held hers, and when he looked away, her face burned. Why did she react that way? d.a.m.n him!

"Have a seat," Dennis said warmly, oblivious to the tension between his friend and Connie.

"Thanks, but," Max continued standing, "I didn't mean to interrupt anything. I can come back when you're free, Dennis."

"No, no," Dennis said. He grabbed a chair from a nearby table and slid it between Connie and Angie. "Sit. I asked you here for a reason. We're discussing expanding the place, and that's where you come in."

Max did as told. He looked everywhere but at Connie, yet she could feel his nearness. She tried to concentrate on Dennis's bright smile, his hazel eyes. Looks, talent, money, she told herself. Looks, talent, money- "I do?" Max said, jarring her back to reality.

"Exactly." Dennis paused. "When the restaurant expands, we'll need more help."

Max folded his hands on the table and looked around. "It's a nice place."

"We'll have some work for you here. We'd hate it if someone as reliable as you went off and found work someplace else. We could use you, especially when the business starts to take off." Dennis was all sincerity and trust.

"Not me." Max shook his head.

"Definitely you, pal. Let me go get Butch." Dennis jumped up and headed for the kitchen.

Angie immediately faced Max. "So, you and Connie met when she was waiting for Dennis the other night?"

He gazed at Connie and didn't answer until she dropped her eyes to her lap. "That's right."

"You didn't tell me," Angie said to her friend.

Connie forced a laugh. "I don't tell you about everyone I meet in a day." She tried not to look back at Max, but failed miserably.

"Have you been in the city long, Max?" Angie asked.

"Not very," he said.

"Just pa.s.sing through?"

"Not sure yet," he replied.

"I see. But you're here looking for work?" she prodded.

"Not really."

She sat back, arms folded in exasperation. Connie stifled a smile.

Just then, Dennis appeared, a big hand on Butch's elbow as he guided his little uncle into the dining area. Butch's bibbed ap.r.o.n hung below his knees, and the sleeves of his blue shirt had been rolled up to reveal forearms with an anchor and the logo of the U.S. Navy tattooed on one, flowers and "~~MOM~~" on the other. The word "Mom" was a little jagged, as if it might have been adapted from some other name sometime in Butch's history. Connie heard that back in the days when he was a prizefighter in the bantamweight division, before he lost many fights and began to grow jangle-headed, Butch used to have a lot of women after him. At least one probably caught him a few times. "Mom" might have been the last in a whole string of names.

"Uncle Butch, you remember my old friend Max Squire, don't you?" Dennis said.

Butch frowned. "Yeah, Squire." He stuck out his hand. "How's it goin'?"

Max stood and they shook hands. "Not bad."

"Max is looking for work," Dennis said.

Butch eyed Max, then his nephew. "Yeah? I don't know n.o.body hirin' right now. Times is tough."

Vinnie and Earl came puffing up behind the others.

"What's goin' on?" Vinnie asked.

"Dennis's friend needs work," Butch said.

Vinnie rose up, almost on tiptoe, and stood before Dennis's chair. "We don't need no more help."

"You guys are going to need someone to work here with you when the business takes off. Earl is slow now; he'll be completely over his head in the future."

"Whaddya mean, slow?" Earl put his hands in fists and approached Dennis.

"The restaurant needs improvement." Dennis glanced at Angie for confirmation. When she didn't move an eyelash, he turned back to Vinnie. "Me, Max and Angie are the ones to do it."

"Leave me out of this!" Angie muttered.

"Are you bailing on me?" Dennis was shocked.

"We don't want no more help," Vinnie said, his jaw stuck out. "We don't need it. Business is great as is." Just then two customers came in and Earl left to take care of them. They were there to pick up a take-out order. "See, what'd I tell ya?"

"It can't be great," Dennis countered. "The place is too small. I'm surprised you three have held on this long. Don't you understand-"

"I understand you're gonna get a flat nose if you don't stop badgerin' me." Vinnie waved a fist. "We like things the way they are. Capisce?"

"Forget it, Dennis," Max said. "I don't want the job anyway."

"Sure you do!" Dennis insisted, whirling toward Max now.

"I don't like it either," Butch said. "Too many from the past showin' up, first her, now him. What's going on, Dennis?"

Max paled, staring first at Dennis, then Connie. He turned on his heel and walked out.

Connie stood. "Max!" she called.

Dennis rushed out the door after him.

"What in the world is going on?" Angie also jumped to her feet and gripped Connie's wrist. "Do you understand any of it?"

"Not at all." They sat back down, but Connie's eyes never left the window as she watched Dennis and Max outside.

Soon they parted, Max heading south and Dennis north.

"Excuse me." Connie stood. "I've got to get back to work. My helper couldn't stay all afternoon."

"But-" was all she heard Angie say before she dashed outside.

Max was about a block ahead of Connie, heading south on Columbus Avenue. Staying within the shadows of the buildings, she followed him. He turned onto Mason, a street lined with three-story flats and a couple of small apartment buildings. As he walked up three steep blocks, she followed, gasping for breath by the time she reached the third. At a corner, he turned onto Vallejo and halfway down the block entered a yellow building with brown trim. Expecting it to be a roominghouse, she hurried after him, stopping when she read the sign beside the door. It was a homeless shelter.

She reread the sign a couple of times, then pushed open the door. Max stood at the registration desk.

"What are you doing here?" He sounded furious.

"You have to know. I want my money." She lifted her chin.

The clerk handed him a ticket with a cot number and a folded gray cotton-flannel blanket. He tucked the blanket under his arm and faced her. "It's gone."

"Gone?" If he lived like this, how could he have spent a hundred-eighty dollars already? "You spent it all? On what?"

"It doesn't matter. It was wasted." With a sneer, he walked away. His dismissal of her stung worse than his words.

"You wasted my money! You rat! You thief!" She dogged his heels. Visions filled her-of slapping him, kicking him, grabbing him by the throat and shaking sense into him, anything to get him to react to her and the awful way he made her feel. "How dare you do that to me when I was just trying to help you?"

He spun on her, his mouth twisted with bitterness. "You saw what just happened at that restaurant. Would I have put up with that...humiliation...if I had money?"

Shocked, she stared at him.

He walked into the men's room. So angry she didn't hesitate, she followed and slammed the bathroom door shut behind her. "I need it back! Why don't you get a loan from your rich friend Dennis? You two are so chummy! Why take from me? How am I supposed to live? I should move into a place like this right beside you, maybe? That money was important to me!"

He leaned toward her. "Of course it was. You're a woman, aren't you? Why isn't love enough for you?" His voice dropped, and his words were addressed more within himself than to Connie.

"What are you talking about? I invited you to my house-"

His head snapped toward her. "That was as stupid a move as I've ever seen."

Beyond fury, she yelled at him. "You were sick, d.a.m.n you! That's what I get for caring!"

He bent over the sink and ran water onto his cupped hands. "You want money so much"-he splashed the water onto his face, then patted it dry with a paper towel-"put your money on Geostar Biotechnologies. It sells over-the-counter as GSBT. It'll make you back what I took and lots more."

"What kind of a smarmy line is that?" She yanked the paper towel from him, wadded it, and hurled it at the back of his head. "I'm supposed to take stock tips from a guy who lives like this? You're even crazier than I thought!"

An elderly man wearing a knit cap and layers of dirty, stained clothes, suddenly teetered around from the urinal, waved blithely at them, and stumbled out. He didn't seem to notice any necessity to zip up his sagging pants. She quickly lifted her eyes toward the ceiling. Max chuckled as he picked up the crumbled paper and put it into the trash receptacle.

His laughter was her undoing. "The h.e.l.l with you, Max Squire!" she yelled, then turned and ran out of the dreadful place and into the street. There, she stopped, half expecting him to follow her out, apologize, anything. The paint-chipped brown door stayed shut.

"To h.e.l.l with you!" she repeated, and stomped her way through the streets to her car.

Chapter 12.

"You'll know where Max is, okay?" Dennis needed every ounce of willpower he possessed to keep from shouting at Veronica. "I convinced my uncle and Vinnie-Earl's opinion doesn't matter-to let him do their federal income taxes. They're due soon, which means he'll be in the restaurant trying to make sense out of the papers and receipts they've got stashed all over the place. I don't think they've ever filed before, and if the business is legit, they have to."

"So little Dennis wants to run a sports bar," Veronica sneered. "A legitimate, tax-paying sports bar. What a loser you are!"

They sat at a small table in the Porcupine, one of the best new restaurants in the city. She took a sip of Moet champagne and smiled as the bubbles tickled her nose. Champagne and oysters Rockefeller were her dream when she was in the slammer. Now, she had both.

"You just don't know how to think big, do you?" Dennis glowered at her.

"Right. A sports bar in a dump is big thinking. I'm so impressed." She leaned forward. "Listen, you pig, I'm sick of waiting for you. I don't give a G.o.dd.a.m.n about Max Squire as long as he stays the h.e.l.l away from me. I want my cut now, and I want out. Do you understand?"

"The money I got isn't going to last forever, Veronica," Dennis said. "I got to think of the future-our future-and there's a lot a sweet little legitimate-looking operation like that can do."

"Don't give me that 'our future' c.r.a.p. I gave up listening to you years ago."

"Hey, you and me. It's always been about us."

"No. It's always been about you and football. And now it's dumped you. Just like I'm going to. You've got two days, then life won't be so easy for you, Dennis."

"You can't threaten me."

"I think I just did."

He crushed the napkin, his teeth clenched. "Without me, you'd have nothing."

She smiled wickedly. "You forgot about Max. It was his system I tapped into. He'll know how to get into it, with or without you."

The words spat from his mouth. "You really think Max would do anything to you other than put a bullet through your cold little heart?"

"I know he would." She laughed in his face. "And now that I know how to locate him..."

"I could kill you myself. You b.i.t.c.h!" he shouted.

"That's what you've always loved about me, sugar, and don't forget it." With a dismissive sneer at his sputtering outrage, she smugly returned to her champagne and oysters.

Angie shivered as another blast of cold air hit her. The Porcupine was crowded, and she and Stan were stuck right near the front door, which meant every time someone came in or went out, she felt it. She hadn't wanted to stay home tonight. Paavo was working, and Connie was still fuming over their aborted lunch. Stan was her last resort, and anyway, she owed him for dragging him across town to meet Helen. He'd barely escaped that encounter with his life; Angie expected to see him turned into a human pretzel.

The seating arrangement didn't say much for a restaurant that had the best buzz, at the moment, in town. Just to bypa.s.s the reservations, she'd had to use her father's name with the maitre d', something she didn't like to do routinely. Salvatore Amalfi had started as a shoe salesman and grown to become the owner of a chain of shoe stores and several buildings in San Francisco. He had more than a few friends in high places.