“Objective remains the same as when the Flashing Fashion Queen hired us.” I took a sip of the latte Dylan had brought. Heavenly. “We have to find Ned Weatherby’s mistress.”
“Our boy Ned was pretty clean this week, wasn’t he? Kind of makes you wonder….”
I swallowed a syrupy, buttery bite and refrained from licking my fork. Somehow, when someone else unwraps the fast food, it doesn’t seem so bad. “I know what you mean. Ned was practically — no, he was literally — a choir boy this week. It was almost as if he knew he was being watched.”
“You think Jennifer told him she’d hired us?”
“I doubt that very much.” The logic behind a wife telling her husband he was being tailed was, well, non-existent. That would negate the whole purpose of the exercise. I couldn’t see it happening, especially considering how much dough Jennifer Weatherby was paying me. “However, if I blew cover while I was trailing him, then Ned would certainly modify his behavior.”
Even as I offered that possibility, I knew it wasn’t very likely. I’d never been made by a mark before. At least, not to my knowledge. The one and only benefit of being so ordinary, so average, so nondescript, was that I could blend in practically anywhere. But what other explanation was there?
“Maybe Jennifer told someone she hired you,” he offered. “And they told Ned. Women often have close friends they confide in.”
“That’s good.” I nodded. “That’s very good. Can you check on that?”
“I’m on it. I’ll check with some of the neighbors. At times like these, neighbors are often ready to share what they know.”
Certainly any female friends of Jennifer Weatherby would be more than willing to share some time and information with the young, handsome Dylan Foreman.
“While you’re at it, ask if she belonged to any health clubs. Or charities or anything like that. Might find something out there.”
“You bet.”
Dylan stood, grabbed his jacket and headed for the door. He never dawdled, but the speed with which he wanted to attack this particular assignment moved me. I knew he was worried about me. I stood, tossed the plastic breakfast trays and utensils in the trash and grabbed my own jacket from the coat tree in the corner.
“Where are you off to?” Dylan shrugged into his leather jacket.
“The Underhill Motel.”
He hesitated but knew better than to question me, or try to stop me. The Underhill was in a rough part of town, but we both knew I could handle myself.
We locked the office, and headed our respective ways. Whereas I always parked at the far end of the lot, Dylan parked his bike as close to the building as he could get it. He gave me a mock salute before starting the bike and roaring off.
I reminded myself to get him a set of motorcycle chaps for Christmas. Surely that would be an acceptable employer-employee gift? Not too formal. Not too personal. Not too expensive. Not too cheap. And I could just picture them on him — protecting his legs should he fall on the pavement. Keeping him warm when he drove at night. Perfectly framing his denim-covered….
Gawd, I’d better knit him a sweater. Something loose fitting and long-sleeved.
I just hoped I wouldn’t be sending it to him from a federal prison.
Chapter 5
Believe it or not, things got stranger.
A person learns a lot in this business — the kind of stuff that could never be found in any academic textbook. You won’t find Lying Jerks 101 among the possible course selections at your local university; they offer no degree in Psychology of Cheaters. I’ve yet to come across anyone with a Masters in Bullshit Busting, or a PhD in Intuition. But all of these and more are available to your average PI, if you’ve got the knack for reading people and are prepared to study their behavior.
Curse or gift? Damned if I know. Maybe a bit of both.
For example, I’ve learned that insecure men often laugh a lot, especially if they’re insecure businessmen, and they’ll watch you the whole time you’re laughing back to see if you really think that they’re funny. People who say they want to be left alone, often really do just want to be left the hell alone. Men with small dogs in the park are looking to get laid, especially if they put a ribbon in the dog’s hair. And oh, by the way, the pinker the ribbon, the hornier they are. (The men not the dogs). Yeah, if you watch closely you’ll learn a hell of a lot about people, but you’ll learn even more if you watch with sideways glances.
But here’s the trick of it. Sometimes it’s just as important to not let first impressions fool you. At least not when it comes to the way people look.
Because I’ve also learned that people come in all shapes and sizes, and in the long run, that means diddlysquat about their character. That is to say, we judge people by their external appearance at our peril. The most doe-eyed of women are often the strongest. The most macho seeming of men can be brought to their knees with a good solid kick to the … whoops, I mean with the right words. Although that foot-to-gonads thing does come in handy sometimes. So, okay, though I may mentally dub a person on first sight (e.g., Jennifer Weatherby as the Flashing Fashion Queen), I don’t judge on first sight. Maybe that’s why I’m rarely surprised.
Rarely, but Mrs. Jane Presley, the owner/caretaker of the Underhill was one of those people who managed to surprise me. Because on first sight — God, it was years ago now, when I was first running errands for Jones and Associates — I’d pegged her as a pushover. A sweet little old lady who probably had cookies baking out back and rescued kitties on the weekend.
Not.
To this point in my career, I’d probably been to the Underhill Motel a few dozen times. Posing as a hooker, running surveillance, chasing leads, following up on suspicions that so often proved true. That’s where I learned a lot of what I wanted to know, and the one thing I didn’t the first night I drove by here, so long ago. But hey, we all have our heartaches.
Where was I? Oh, yeah. I’d been to the Underhill so often, Mrs. Presley was on my Christmas card list.
She was a tiny woman, all of four feet ten and maybe ninety pounds with a brick in each pocket. When you entered the Underhill, it was she you encountered — standing under a sign that read, “No I don’t know Elvis”. She always wore flower-patterned, short-sleeved blouses with a pencil-pen-pencil combination tucked into the front pocket. Her skirts flowed from her hips nearly to the floor. I’d never seen her don the glasses that hung from the chain around her neck, but their granny style fit her image perfectly. Her make-up was understated, and her smile was wide and genuine. Friendly. Easy. Geez, you just wanted to give her a hug.
Unless you pissed her off. Because despite first impressions, Mrs. Presley was as tough as freakin’ nails.
She had a no-nonsense reputation, and her two hulking sons — Cal and Craig — each of them six feet tall, helped her keep the Underhill no nonsense. She had rules and they were ironclad. Once you were barred from her place, you stayed barred. No exceptions. No second chances. A person could come to the Underhill Motel, take care of business and pleasure, but keep it clean. The cops knew it was a local hooker hangout, but as long as things didn’t get out of hand, then they left it pretty much alone. Better to have things under one roof on the outskirts than under many near the ‘better’ parts of town. Plus, Mrs. Presley had been known to help the police out on occasion.