Della said, clasping her hands.
I opened the wine while Ruth plopped butter on top of a bowl of steaming green beans, and Fern poured dressing over the salad, tossing it before passing it to Della. There was a Key Lime pie on the counter next to the sink.
Adele put out wine glasses, and I went to pour, but Della stepped into my path. She fondled the lapels of my suit jacket. “Don’t you just look sharp as a tack,” she purred. “You’ll dress up this little party very nicely.”
Adele rolled her eyes. “Wipe the drool off your chin and sit down.”
Della shot a look over her shoulder. “God made men good lookin’ so we could appreciate them. It would be rude not to.” She turned back to me and gave my jacket a little tug. “Would you like me to hang this up for you?”
“Thanks,” I said and let her slip it off me, switching hands with the wine to get my arms out of the sleeves.
I filled the glasses while Adele and Ruth went to the table, then I held a chair for Della who smiled and sat down like a queen. Fern came shuffling out of the kitchen with a big platter of sliced pot roast, which I offered to take for her. She scowled, but she let me, so I figured I was making progress. When I held a chair for her too, I’m sure I saw her flick a suspicious glance at me.
Dinner itself was a marvelous affair, with swinging music, good conversation, and amazing home cooked food. I made a silent toast to the guy who tore down my old place and thought maybe he’d done me a favor.
I learned a lot about the quartet. Adele was originally from Jersey, and Fern was her sister-in-law. Adele and her husband had moved to Florida for his health shortly after they married, and opened the hardware store. When Adele’s brother Walt died, Fern came to live with them, and when Adele’s Henry passed away, they closed up the shop and rented out apartments.
Ruth had been an Economics professor in Pennsylvania, but was now retired and spent a lot of her time traveling. Like the others, her husband was long gone, but she’d divorced him in her forties.
Della was born and raised in South Carolina and had also come to Florida with her husband when he retired. She didn’t say so, but I gathered they had come from money, and living in an apartment above an old hardware store was most definitely not the style to which she’d become accustomed. To her credit, that didn’t seem to squash her spirit in the slightest.
After dinner, Fern served pie. I got up to pour myself a glass of amaretto and offered some to the ladies.
“My, how elegant,” Della said, coyly holding out a glass of ice.
Ruth looked amused. “You are an interesting man, Mr. Martini,” she said, but accepted a glass as well.
“You can call me Dino,” I said.
She smiled and nodded.
Adele passed in favor of bourbon and water, and we all sat down again.
Then Ruth asked the thousand dollar question. “So, Della says you’re a consultant? What kind of work do you do?”
“Yeah, interesting story there.” I studied the ice in my glass and figured it was time to come clean. “That is the truth, but not the whole truth. What I am is a private eye.”
“Oh, go on,” said Della waving a hand at me.
I grinned and took out my wallet to show her my P.I.’s license.
She looked it over and said, “Very sexy!”
Yeah, okay, it wouldn’t be the first time I got a kick out of impressing someone with it, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Sue me.
Adele, on the other hand, looked a little ticked off, and she pointed at me with the two fingers clutching her latest cigarette. “That’s what you want to use the storefront for,” she said, “and have a bunch of thugs running in and out of here like a Mickey Spillane movie?”
I tried my very best placating smile on her. “It’s not like that, I swear. It’s mostly very run of the mill stuff,” I said, and I told her about the lawyers and the insurance agents and the sweet, elderly ladies who just wanted little Jimmy from the old neighborhood to have something to remember them by.
“You can really lay the crap on thick, can’t you?” she said.
“Yes, ma’am. Comes with the job. I got top marks in my crap spreading class.” I grinned, because she was, and added, “But I’m serious when I tell you I have almost never had an incident at home I would call at all dangerous. Mostly it’s just pissed off husbands who want to take a piece out of me for telling their wives they’re cheaters.”
“My goodness,” said Della, fanning herself with her napkin.
“And what do you do about that?” Ruth asked.
I leaned back in my chair and smiled. “I’m a charming guy. I just explain to them how it’s all better off this way, and she was gonna find out anyway, and that really I’ve done them a favor.”
She leveled her gaze on me and said, “And if that doesn’t work?”
“I knock ’em on their asses and threaten them with police action or blackmail, whichever I think will scare them the most. That usually does the trick.”
Fern looked positively scandalized, but the rest of these ladies had been around the block a few times, and I got a sense that while on the one hand they were concerned about safety and the sanctity of their homes, on the other, they were all thinking that having a resident P.I. would be a kick.
“Ladies, please, you won’t even know I’m here unless I get hungry and come looking for more pot roast.”
Della giggled, and Adele said, “All right. You can set up shop, but you piss me off and you’re out of here.”
“I already assumed that was a given, ma’am.”
“And cut the ma’am bullshit.” She got up and poured herself another drink, and offered me one, which I accepted.
“I’ll try,” I said, “but where I was raised, ladies hurt you if you don’t show them the proper respect.”
They all laughed, and we sat around the table trading stories while Adele and I smoked and Della and Ruth polished off the wine. Fern didn’t say all that much, but she sat and enjoyed her coffee and listened. Around eleven o’clock, I secured myself in their good graces by rolling up my sleeves and offering to help with the dishes. I know what side my bread is buttered on, and even Fern seemed to appreciate me as she snapped instructions on how she wanted her china washed and I followed them to the letter.
Chapter 4
I was up early the next day, feeling antsy and ready to get back into the regular swing of work. I’d been neglecting things for the past few days and needed to catch up.
Since I currently had no office, we’d set up my desk and chair in the corner of the living room, with the filing cabinets next to it. I got myself a cup of coffee, turned on the stereo, and sat down, pulling a box full of assorted desk crap to my feet. I stuck the pen cup and stapler
