“Widowed,” Perry replied. “Twice. Two very nice insurance settlements.”
“Susan’s married,” I said, thinking out loud.
That made Perry Stiles smile. “I wouldn’t call what Susan and Liam have a marriage. More like an arrangement.”
I didn’t know which stunned me more-Perry’s revelations or the casualness with which he shared them. Now I wondered why Susan tolerated Kori at all, let alone trained her to handle dogs, if she didn’t care about pleasing Liam. Unless her goal was getting back at him. Maybe the whole Kori-as-Bad Example maneuver was just another way for Susan to piss off her husband.
But why was Perry, who had no investment in pleasing me, so eager to share club gossip? Was he trying to build his own ego, or did he simply love dishing dirt?
Perry’s gaze moved restlessly around the room; as event chairperson, he no doubt needed to keep moving and schmoozing.
“Listen,” I said. “I’ll put you in touch with the person who has Yoda-I mean, Boomgarden-but first I need more info about Susan and Liam. Will you share?”
Perry’s eyes danced. “Why? Planning to blackmail somebody?”
“No. But I work with Liam, and I feel like Susan’s playing me.”
“Of course, she’s playing you! That’s what Susan does.”
“Does Liam know Susan cheats?” I asked.
Perry chuckled. “Everybody knows.”
“Does Liam care?”
“Care that she cheats, or care that everybody knows?”
“Either.”
“Not much. Liam cheats, too. Between you and me, I think Susan tries to embarrass him with her affairs because he embarrasses her with his. I assume you know about his… um… taste?”
“I haven’t met him yet. My company just signed on to rep his new real estate development.”
“Ah.” Perry checked to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “I’m going out on a limb here: Is the person who did the deal for you with Liam an extremely attractive woman of color?”
“How do you know Odette Mutombo?”
“I don’t. I know Liam Davies… well enough to know he loves exotic dark-skinned women. They’re the only women he’ll do business with.”
“It’s my company,” I protested.
“At the risk of sounding crude,” Perry said, “what I mean is they’re the only women Liam will sleep with before he does business. And he has a reputation for doing business only with women who sleep with him.”
“No way!”
I made my voice sound firm, but my head swam. Odette Mutumbo was a real-estate-selling, contract-negotiating force of nature. She was also long-married to Reginald, the only psychiatrist in Magnet Springs. While I often wondered how those two busy and ambitious people made time to make their marriage work, I never doubted that they did. In cynical moments, I suspected that they got along well because they were too self-involved to demand much from each other. Yet I never for a single moment imagined that Odette would cheat on Reginald. Let alone use her considerable sex appeal to make a sale!
Odette was consistently excellent at her job for three reasons: She (1) knew all about real estate, (2) had mastered the art of the deal, and (3) worked her tight round ass off. Period.
Before I could sum that up for Perry, a breeder I recognized from the breakfast meeting intervened to request a moment of the chairperson’s time. Excusing himself, Perry reminded me that we still needed to discuss Boomgarden, a.k.a. Yoda. As far as I was concerned, we still needed to discuss all kinds of things, including Liam Davies and Mitchell Slater. Perry promised to meet me near the concession stand after my Walk of Shame, which he generously referred to as my “Spotlight Moment.”
I didn’t know quite what to make of Perry Stiles. Clearly, he was a leader, an organizer, and a gossipmonger. Although his inference about Liam and Odette upset me, he managed to bolster my sagging self-esteem with the reminder that I didn’t have to let Susan or her committee humiliate me. Hell, they hadn’t got the best of Kori, had they?
I needed to correct Perry’s Liam-Odette confusion before he could spread that misunderstanding like oil across water. Odette was my friend as well as my star sales agent. I had a duty to defend her.
But first I had a more pressing duty: to handle my own dog. Susan Davies waved to me from across the arena. At her side, on a leash, Abra was poised to bring me down.
Chapter Twenty
Susan must have taken the time to reapply lipstick after her side-door kissing session. She flashed a glossy smile as I crossed the arena to reclaim my canine.
“Are you ready, Whiskey? Abra is.”
My dog ignored me, as usual. Instead she fixed her soulful eyes on Susan and thumped her tail.
I eyed Abra warily. We hadn’t seen each other in eighteen hours. Her coat was as tangled as it had been the day before. But something had changed. She gazed at Susan with what appeared to be profound devotion. Then I got it: Abra wasn’t calm; she was waiting. Yes, that was it. The hairy beast was coiled and ready to spring into crazy mode the moment Susan handed me her lead.
“Here’s what we’ll do,” Susan said cheerily. “Ramona will make a brief announcement. Then you’ll hear a prerecorded drum roll and some marching music. That’s your cue to walk clockwise all the way around the arena, starting from the side door, over there.”
She pointed, but I didn’t play along.
“I know where the side door is. I went out that way. Right past you.”
Susan didn’t blink. “Then you know exactly where to go, don’t you?”
With that, she passed the leash. I held my breath as the leather loop slipped into my hand and around my wrist. Abra’s head rotated in my direction; we locked eyes. I willed the Afghan hound to read my thoughts: We will walk. Together. You will not drag me. You will not disgrace me. You will not dislocate my shoulder.
I wasn’t thinking about the march around the arena; I just wanted to make it to our starting position at the side door. Once we got that far, I would pray for the next miracle.
But something else happened first. Abra and I were turning toward the side exit when a cry went up from somewhere behind us. I heard Susan’s voice shouting, “Drop! Silverado, drop! Somebody stop that dog!”
The next few moments were a mad blur of Afghan hound and human commotion. I whirled around in time to see Silverado, the big blue dog that Kori had shown. He was now bearing down on me. I don’t mean that in a scary way. After all, this was the dog who had better manners than I did. Standing still, Silverado is a large, gorgeous dog, a picture postcard of male Afghan hound glory. In motion, coming straight at me, he was all churning legs and flying fur-an apparently airborne canine on a mission. And that mission, as it turned out, was making contact with Abra.
My bimbo bitch had attracted a brand new hunk. A champion, no less. And this time, the hunk was the chaser rather than the chased. Usually Abra instigated and controlled all things sexual. She saw, she chased, she conquered. In human terms, my dog was a dominatrix. But not today. As Silverado flew at her, she dropped into a submissive posture. And I accidentally dropped the leash. I don’t know what made me do it, the sight of Silverado charging or of Abra playing the coquette.
One brief instant of complete human detachment was all those two required. Abra bounced straight up as only an Afghan can, executed a spectacular mid-air twirl, and zoomed out the open side door, followed closely by her excited beau. Being an un-neutered male, his excitement was obvious to all.
Susan was still calling for her boy to “drop” even as his silver self vanished from the arena. Matt Koniger bounded valiantly after the dogs. If he’d asked my advice, I could have saved him some sweat. Been there, done that, got nothing for it. Nobody but nobody can catch Abra and partner in medias res.
I realized then that Susan had switched from calling Silverado to cursing Kori. Fleetingly I wondered if the other Bad Example was once again kissing the invisible bodyguard. I hoped so for her sake. That way even if Kori got nailed by her aunt for screwing up big-time, she would have the satisfaction of a face well kissed.