Блейз Клемент - Raining Cat Sitters And Dogs

I gave her a phony smile and she gave me one back. I had won this round, and we both knew it, but sports-womanship kept me from gloating. Thus do women communicate with one another, our little versions of power plays that remain largely invisible to men.

She went back to whatever she was doing on her computer, and I leaned against the doorjamb and waited. From where I stood, I could see the yellow light on her phone board, and when it went out I cleared my throat and pointed.

I got an evil glare, but she punched a button and spoke into an intercom. “Mr. Crane, you have a visitor. She says she’s a friend.”

It was clear from her tone that she didn’t believe he could have a friend like me. She didn’t seem to realize that since she hadn’t asked for my name, there wasn’t much he could do but see me. I wondered how long it would take Ethan to fire her.

In a few seconds, Ethan opened his office door. When he saw me, he looked pleased. I was sorry the pillow-mouthed woman couldn’t see his expression from her desk.

Ethan is tall and lean, with high cheekbones, smoldering dark eyes, and glossy black hair from Seminole ancestors. He had on lawyer clothes—dark pin-striped trousers, crisp white shirt with onyx cuff links, a dark rose-hued tie.

He said, “Dixie! What a nice surprise.”

He beckoned me into his office and stood aside as I entered. I thought about kissing his cheek and decided not to. He seemed to have the same internal debate, so there was a moment of eye contact at the door that asked questions for which neither of us had answers.

He shut the door and waved me to one of his grandfather’s old dark leather chairs. Sitting down behind his desk, he said, “Is something wrong?”

I flinched at the question, but it was fair. Every time I had reached out to Ethan, it had been because I needed help.

His suit coat was on a wooden hanger hooked over an arm of a mahogany hall tree, the kind you only see in antiques stores. The tree had an umbrella holder at its base. I imagined the countless times his grandfather had hung his own coats on that hall tree, imagined the hundreds of clients shaking out damp umbrellas and sliding them into the holder. All that solid tradition behind Ethan was part of what made me trust his advice. It was also part of what put distance between us.

I said, “Ethan, is it illegal to pay off kidnappers?”

His eyes widened. “Why do you ask?”

“A friend needs to know.”

One of his thick eyebrows lifted, and I felt my face grow hot. A friend needs to know has the same ring of truth as The dog ate my homework .

I said, “I have a friend whose husband has been kidnapped. She’s planning to pay the ransom. Is that against the law?”

“Not in this country. If she lived in Colombia, she’d be arrested if she paid.”

“What if the husband is from Colombia but lives here?”

“You have a friend whose husband is from Colombia, and he’s been kidnapped?”

“I’m not sure where he’s from. It could be Colombia.” I felt stupid saying it, like a receptionist who had failed to get a visitor’s name.

“Kidnapping is such big business in Colombia that the government has made it illegal to pay a ransom.”

I said, “But he lives here, and the kidnappers are here. My friend refuses to report it to the police because she can easily pay the ransom, and that’s what her husband has always told her to do if he’s kidnapped. She just wants to be sure it’s legal.”

My voice quavered a bit when I said that, because Maureen didn’t give a gnat’s ass whether it was legal.

Ethan said, “It’s dumb, but it’s not illegal.”

I said, “So I guess actually delivering the ransom money to the kidnappers, like putting it where they said to put it, is okay too?”

“I didn’t say it was okay. I said it wasn’t illegal.”

My lips squinched together to keep from asking what I wanted to know. Then I blurted, “Does it matter where the money came from? I mean, if the ransom money came from something illegal, does that change anything?”

“Let me be sure I understand this. You have a friend from Colombia, which just happens to be a huge exporter of illegal narcotics, and he’s been kidnapped. By a happy coincidence, his wife just happens to have a bunch of possibly illegally obtained money, and she’s going to use it for ransom. Have I got the facts right?”

I didn’t answer. The way he’d put it made it sound a lot worse than anything I’d been imagining.

Ethan sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Dixie, what the hell are you mixed up in?”

“I’m not mixed up in anything.”

“You’re going to help deliver ransom money. Possibly dirty ransom money.”

My chin jutted out. “I didn’t say that.”

“But that’s what you’re planning, isn’t it?”

“You just said it was legal.”

“I said paying ransom was legal. I also said it was dumb. Whether they get paid with clean money or dirty money, kidnappers aren’t nice people. Paying them ransom money isn’t like handing cash to somebody at the Taco Bell drive-through.”

I stood up. “Thanks, Ethan. I’ll pass the information along to my friend. I didn’t know anybody else I could ask.”

He stood too. “Don’t do it, Dixie.”

I said, “This is an attorney-client secret thing, right?”

“It’s a stupid thing to do.”

“It’s my friend’s husband. Her decision. I’m not really involved.”

“That’s what people say just before they get into deep shit. Don’t do it.”

This time I kissed his cheek as I left. His cheek was hard and smooth, with a clean, healthy, testosterone-laden scent laced with a musky aftershave. My hormones all stood up and cheered when my lips touched him. I was a fool to leave without throwing him to the floor and doing delicious things to him.

It was nearing sunset when I finished with all the four-legged pets. Big Bubba would be my last call, but first I swung by Hetty’s house to see if she’d heard from Jaz.

She was happy to say that Jaz had returned.

She said, “I was afraid she’d never come back, the way she ran out this morning, but she came back in an hour or two. We made cookies.”

Before I could ask if she’d got information for Guidry, she said, “I was afraid to push her, Dixie. She seems so scared . Any little thing spooks her. Something has traumatized that child.”

I said, “If she’s been involved with a gang, that would be enough to traumatize her.”

“She’s a sweet girl.”

“Something is weird about the whole situation, Hetty. Just be careful.”

She said, “It’s weird, all right. Her name is a secret. Where she lives is a secret. Why in the world would it be a secret?”

All the possible answers I could think of were too disturbing to voice.

I said, “Is she coming back tomorrow?”

Hetty looked guilty. “She may come back later today. She said she would try to.”

“Hetty, she knows gang members wanted for murder. Lieutenant Guidry really needs information about her.”

“I know. I’ll try, but I’ll have to wait until the time is right. If I push her, she’ll leave and I’ll never learn anything.”

I couldn’t argue with that. I also couldn’t argue with Guidry’s belief that Hetty was probably the only person who could get information from the girl. As a minor who had done nothing wrong, she was not somebody he could take in for questioning. All he had was the fact that she had behaved strangely when pressed for information about where she lived, and that gang members had asked for her by name.

At Big Bubba’s house, I put fresh water and a new millet sprig in his cage, along with some apple slices and half a banana. While I did that, he ran around on the lanai and squawked at the wild birds outside. Big Bubba is bilingual, which is more than I can say for myself. They squawked back, so I suspected he was saying rude things in bird language.