Stella, Get Your Man

I started down the driveway. “No. We have to stop.”

“But we’ll be late. You told her four and she’s paying a thousand dollars a day.”

“She’ll wait.”

“This is so totally why you need a mission statement,” she muttered.

I failed to see the connection between stopping to put oil in my car and a corporate mission statement, but I kept my mouth shut. I drove to Sheeler’s Garage, ran inside to grab two quarts of oil, and figured at most, we’d be five minutes late.

That was before Joey Smack’s representatives, in the form of a long, black sedan with dark, tinted windows saw fit to stop by Sheeler’s and give me a personal season’s greeting from their boss, aka Santa Claus, aka The Man Voted Most Pissed Off About Having His Sled Repo’ed.

I had the hood popped and was about to insert the funnel, when the car rolled to a stop beside us. The right-side passenger window slowly slid down, just far enough for an arm and a hand to emerge. The arm was wearing a charcoal-gray suit jacket and a light blue cotton shirt with cuff links. The hand was holding a gun.

“Merry Christmas!” the arm’s owner called, and started shooting.

Nina screamed and ducked down in her seat. I hopped behind the car, wedged between the pumps and the Camaro and wished like hell I’d worn a holster instead of leaving the Glock wedged down beneath the driver’s seat.

The bullets hit the right front tire, the right rear tire and the back window, before the driver of the sedan hit the accelerator and tore off out of the lot.

I heard the squeal of tires and cautiously popped my head up over the open hood and watched the getaway.

“Nina, you all right?” I called.

Nina slowly rose up from the front passenger-side floorboards and gave me a nasty look.

“We could’ve been killed!” she stormed. “Don’t you take precautions? Why didn’t you shoot them?”

“My gun was in the car,” I said.

Nina nodded an I-told-you-so nod. “See? No planning. No mission statement. That’s how you wind up in situations like this. You need to be prepared!”

“I’m sorry, honey,” I said, realizing how scared she was.

Nina shook her head. “It’s not just that they shot at us,” she said softly. “I’m used to that by now, I mean, ever since you started chasing bad guys and all, but we could’ve been better prepared, Stella, that’s all.”

Of course, that wasn’t all. Nina was right, as usual. I hadn’t been prepared. I hadn’t figured Joey Smack would go so far, but he had and we hadn’t been ready.

“You ladies okay?” The shaken garage attendant popped his head out of the door. “I called the cops, they’re on the way.”

Needless to say, we were late for the client meeting.

We pulled into the parking lot at 4:20 p.m. Nina practically flew out of the car in her rush to unlock the front door and open up the office. “Office” is a euphemistic term here. Our temporary quarters were over a print shop in what had been a long-vacant apartment in major need of renovation and cosmetic improvement.

When Nina slid her key into the door leading to the steps up to the second floor, she turned, her eyes widening.

“It’s not locked,” she whispered. “I think somebody’s up there!”

I walked back to the car, stuck my hand through the now-missing back window and pulled my Glock out from its resting place beneath my seat.

“Wait here,” I told her. “I’ll go check.”

“But what if he shoots you?”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, you could start by calling 911. If I’m dead, bury me in my jeans. I don’t see the sense in getting all dressed up and uncomfortable just to be buried.”

“Stella!”

“Okay, okay! Just call 911 if you hear gunshots, and stay out of the way!”

I handed her my cell phone, gently pushed open the front door and started up the stairs. I kept the gun low by my side, careful to step on the outside edges of the old stairs, and slowly moved toward the second-floor office.

I hated coming in this way. Approaching a possible bad situation from the ground floor was potential cop suicide and I knew it. If someone heard me, if they were waiting for me, I was a sitting duck.

I crawled the steps, flattened against the wall, and reached the landing. So far, so good. I paused, listening, and was rewarded with the sound of muffled voices, male and female, coming from the upstairs office.

You’d think burglars would be quieter. I snuck up three more steps, my head rising just above the hall floor. I peeked around. Nothing. I trained my gun on every possible hiding place and still saw no sign of illegal entry or Joey Smack’s people. As I listened, I heard the impossible.

Jake Carpenter’s unmistakable rumble echoed out into the hallway. He laughed and I knew for certain he was inside. When a woman’s high-pitched giggle erupted, I knew the score. Jake had beaten us to the punch. He was sitting in my office, in my high-backed desk chair, talking to our client as if I didn’t exist. Damn him!

Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I jumped, spinning around to face Nina, who’d managed to sneak up the steps behind me.

“What are you doing?”

“I thought I told you to wait!” I whispered loudly.

Nina grinned and brandished the Camaro’s tire iron. “Yeah,” she replied, “you did, but now I’m armed. I can help.”

Nina cocked her head and listened intently for a moment. “Besides,” she said, brushing past me, “it’s only Jake anyhow.”

Leaving me to follow in her wake, Nina sailed through the office waiting room and on into the inner sanctum where Jake held court with our new client.

“Maybe we do need a mission statement,” I muttered. “Maybe a few people need to know who’s in charge around here.”

I stiffened my shoulders and walked behind Nina into the office. The new client sat with her back to me. She was so unconcerned with our arrival that she didn’t even turn to look over her shoulder as Nina made her entrance.

For some unknown reason this was all about Jake. I knew that much from our brief telephone conversation. She probably assumed, wrongly, that since he was the man, he would handle her investigative matter better than any mere girl. I sighed inwardly, funny how some women were like that.

Jake finally broke his contact with our new client and looked up.

“Well,” he said, smiling, “finally. We were beginning to wonder about you.”

He rose and indicated the woman sitting across from him. “Stella Valocchi, may I introduce you to Mia Lange?”

Our new client stood and for the first time I got a good look at her. A few inches shorter than my five-eight, closely cropped straight black hair, black leather jacket, short skirt, black stockings, high heels. Dressed to impress, or rather, dressed to seduce. Deep, dark eyes, small, perfect mouth, but the pout said she was not a happy woman.

I noticed something else about her, too. When she turned to me the light went out of her eyes, but when she looked at Jake she lit up like a Christmas tree. She was as phony as they came and I disliked her instantly.

I extended my hand and smiled, figuring two could play this game. “I’m sorry we’re late. We got held up.”