Cleo Coyle - Espresso Shot

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sure you have stories to tell.” He leaned toward me, lowered his voice. “You know, secrets. Things you’ve uncovered while you were hanging around with the likes of Chef Keitel, David Mintzer, and his society cronies. Even Ms. Summour. The Journal is willing to pay for the smut you dig up. We have a number of people, just like you, all over this town.”

I decided Knox was worse than Hitler’s propaganda minister, he was more like the head of the Gestapo, with secret agents ensconced all over the city. I had no intention of becoming one of Randall Knox’s goose-stepping stool pigeons, but pretending I might take the offer would certainly get me farther with him.

“What you’re proposing is… intriguing,” I finally replied.

“So you’ll consider it?”

“Yes, Mr. Knox, I will consider it-”

“Clare! How could you?!” Madame turned on me, looking appropriately outraged, but I could tell from the sparkle in her eye that she was in on it, too.

“Don’t worry, Madame,” I said, patting her arm. “I’d never, ever reveal a thing about you or our family.”

“Oh, well, I guess it will be all right then. There are a few people in my social circles I wouldn’t mind seeing taken down a peg or two.”

Knox laughed-genuinely this time. “Sounds like I’m getting two, two muck diggers for the price of one!”

I pretended to laugh and elbowed Madame to chuckle right along with him.

“But, first, Mr. Knox, I’d really like to know more about the woman marrying my child’s father. You understand? Why don’t you tell me about New York Trends. Breanne’s ex-husband mentioned that she started out there. And she also saw to it that the magazine was closed down. Is that true?”

“Not only is it true, you may be surprised to know that I gave Breanne Summour her first big break when I put her on the staff of my magazine.”

“Your magazine?”

“Aha! Something else you don’t know. Yes, New York Trends was mine. I started it. I built my own staff up from scratch. It took ten hard years.”

Knox slid his bottom drawer open and pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He splashed a shot into an empty paper coffee cup. Held the bottle up as an offering. Madame and I both shook it off.

“For a while Breanne worked out fine. Then one day she asked for a short leave of absence. ‘Just a few weeks to get my head together,’ she said. I gave her the time off.”

Knox lifted the cup to his lips, paused. “The next thing I knew, Breanne had started Trend by stealing most of my staff out from under me.” He knocked back the whiskey. “Breanne became a raving success, the talk of the town. I was not so fortunate. New York Trends tanked soon after she pillaged my staff.”

“You must have been enraged.” Maybe even homicidal.

“I was pissed, all right, Ms. Cosi. And I was out of work. I wrote freelance for a long time, spent some time working in Florida, and then I landed this very glamorous position.” He smirked. “The digs are sleazy, I grant you, but the pay is sweet. And you know what’s even sweeter? I’ll bet you can guess.”

“Yes, Mr. Knox, I can guess: the chance to have a little revenge.”

“Just look at it from my point of view. Breanne humiliated me, and now it’s her turn.”

“See, now you’re making me wonder…” I leaned forward. “Is that why you hired her look-alike to strip for you at your birthday party? To humiliate Breanne, if only by proxy?”

Knox shifted in his desk chair. “Honestly, Ms. Cosi. I don’t know if you’re serious about working for me, but you should be. It can be quite lucrative. As I said, I have feelers everywhere-”

“Monica Purcell was one of your feelers, wasn’t she? What do you know about her death?”

“Nothing.” Knox met my eyes. “It was a tragedy what happened. But I certainly can’t shed any light on that matter.”

“But you were paying her-to give you dirt on Breanne?”

“My arrangement with the late Monica Purcell is a private matter. Just as our arrangement would be, should you decide to work for me.”

“Tell me about the stripper then, because she ended up dead, too.”

“Hazel Boggs wasn’t the only celebrity look-alike at my birthday party-although I have to admit she was certainly the most interesting. She was also willing to learn a thing or two from me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I gave her a few pointers for her act, that’s all, ways to improve her impression of the grand dame of New York fashion. After all, I’d known Breanne for years. Ms. Boggs was quite sharp, a quick study.”

Randall Knox’s obsession with Breanne had to be partly sexual, I decided. The whole stripper scenario only underlined that, and it made me wonder something else.

“So, how well did you get to know Ms. Boggs?”

“Very well. I treated her to a few shots of some very good scotch, and I discovered that the late exotic dancer and the fashionista actually shared more than a physical resemblance.”

The man met my eyes, his eyebrow arching suggestively, and I thought immediately about my philandering ex-husband.

Oh, God, Matt… what did you do?

My mind raced back to that night on Hudson Street. I never got the impression that he and Hazel had met before, but then she was a professional, and Matt was well-practiced in denial where one-night stands were concerned.

I stood up, placed my hands on his desk. “I’m getting tired of this game, Mr. Knox. What exactly are you trying to say? Put your cards on the table.”

“I intend to-in Monday’s edition of the Journal. Two days after Breanne’s society wedding, you’ll have all the answers you like in headlines, photos, and newsprint. Until then, this file stays closed.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“Hardly. And feel free to pass that on to Ms. Summour. Tell that designer-draped python that a near-fatal mugging is a walk in the park compared to what I have in store for her.” Knox stood, too, held my eyes. “I promise you, Ms. Cosi, when the Journal goes to press in the wee hours of Monday morning, Breanne Summour will wish she were dead.”

The intercom buzzed, cutting the tension in the room. Knox punched the button. “Yes!”

“Your five o’clock appointment’s arrived.”

Knox straightened his bright-red tie, and I blanched, thinking of the fresh blood I’d seen dripping down Breanne’s ivory shoulder.

“Duty calls,” Knox said. “You can find your own way out.”

Dismissed, we left the man’s office. But the visit wasn’t over yet. As we walked toward the reception area, I noticed a heavyset, middle-aged woman approaching from the opposite direction. She had a rosy complexion, wore attractive auburn highlights in her short cocoa-brown hair, and was stylishly dressed in a loose black pantsuit.

Her mood seemed buoyant, but when she spied Madame, her face fell. As the two women passed each other, they nodded a curt greeting. Then the heavier woman hastily moved on.

“Madame, do you know that woman?” I whispered. “Because she sure seems to know you.”

Madame nodded. “That’s Miriam Perry of Perry Realty.”

“Chef Neville Perry’s mother? The woman who lost a small fortune when Breanne published an exposé on Neville’s restaurant?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, spill. How do you know her?”

“Miriam set her sights on the Blend a few years ago. She was trying to broker a deal in the name of a corporate giant who coveted our Hudson Street address.”

“She was trying to buy the Blend out from under you?”

Madame nodded. “She wanted to turn my beloved coffeehouse into a fast-food franchise.”