Chapter 9
Heart hammering, I glared up at the mountain of business-suited gorilla attached to my arm and spoke just below a pitch that would attract instant attention in the hum of polite conversation. “Total screaming meltdown launching in three… two…”
He unhanded me, scowling, and spoke into his comm link. “Mr. Harchman? She says she’s going to make a scene.”
“Give me that.” I snatched the link, stretching the curly cord behind his ear to its limit as I stood on tiptoe to snarl into it. “Larry, you slimy little bastard, get your ass out here before I tell all your fancy friends about your porn empire and how you’re screwing me-”
The gorilla recoiled, jerking the link out of my grasp and staring open-mouthed.
“…out of my share of the profits,” I finished for his benefit, and added, “Trust me, I wouldn’t screw that pencil-dicked little shitbag if he was the last man on earth.”
“Uh… okay…” His gaze darted sideways as though he’d just discovered a scorpion and was deciding whether to flee or crush it.
Apparently the intellectual challenge was too great, and he spoke into the link again. “Uh, Mr. Harchman, what do you want me to…? Okay, I’ll tell her.”
He returned his attention to me. “He said, don’t make a scene, he’s coming.”
“He’d better not be,” I growled. “I’ve seen him do that, and it nearly made me puke.”
“Uh…” The gorilla’s prominent brow ridge furrowed. “But you just finished telling him to c- …Oh.” A tide of red surged up his cheeks all the way to the tip of his nose. “Gross! I mean, uh…” He pulled himself together, giving me a curt nod. “He’ll be right with you.” He turned on his heel and strode away.
“Is everything okay?” Lois’s voice penetrated my adrenaline rush. “What was that all about?”
“Uh…” Rapidly shifting gears, I put on a smile and turned to face her and her companion. “Yes, everything’s fine. He was just making sure I was all right after my fall.”
“Oh, good.” Lois’s smile returned. “Aydan, this is Gwendolyn Kennedy. She’s the owner and CEO of…”
I glimpsed Lawrence Harchman hurrying into the ballroom, his tubby little body straining upright as if attempting to add a few inches to his inadequate height. He stalled momentarily beside a group of well-dressed men, offering handshakes and backslaps that seemed more tolerated than welcome, and I refocused on Lois in time to hear her name the second-largest petroleum company in Calgary.
Gwendolyn offered me a gracious smile that made her look like an older and happier Princess Diana, complete with a gown and jewellery worthy of royalty. Feeling inferior, I plastered on a smile of my own and accepted her handshake just as Lois continued, “Oh, and there’s Miles. Miles!” She waved, and a distinguished-looking man strolled over, smiling. His immaculately-tailored suit and classic tie probably cost more than my car.
“Lois, nice to see you again.” He gave her a warm handshake.
“You, too,” Lois agreed. “Aydan, this is Gwendolyn’s husband, Miles. He’s the ‘Kennedy’ in Kennedy, Quade, and Harkness.”
I managed not to choke. Holy shit, the biggest law firm in Calgary. And his wife was a petroleum magnate. High-rollers indeed.
“And Miles, this is Aydan Kelly,” Lois said just as Lawrence Harchman arrived, his obviously-expensive tux and ostentatious diamond shirt studs looking déclassé beside Miles and Gwendolyn’s understated elegance. Lois went on, “Aydan owns a bookkeeping firm.”
I gave her a grateful smile. She’d made it sound more prestigious than it really was, and better still, she’d cued Harchman to the name I was currently using.
“Nice to meet you, Miles,” I said with my best smile and handshake. Harchman was eyeing me with barely-concealed hostility, and I included him in my smile with an effort. “I suppose everyone here knows Lawrence, our host?”
“Don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure,” Miles said, triggering a fresh round of introductions.
A few minutes of chitchat ensued, with Harchman alternately fawning and backslapping after learning the identities of our companions. The Kennedys were far too well-bred to show any obvious distaste, but I could read their aversion in the subtle pinching around their eyes.
“And how do you and Lawrence know each other?” Miles asked me, seizing a momentary break in Harchman’s latest self-aggrandizing story.
I gave Harchman a pointy-toothed smile that made him stutter to a halt. “Lawrence and I share some business interests.”
“Yes,” Harchman interrupted hurriedly, paling. “And we won’t bore you with them, but Ar-” He bit off the name and substituted, “…Aydan and I do have some business to discuss tonight, so we’ll have to excuse ourselves. It was very nice to meet you, Gwendolyn, my dear…”
He took her hand and kissed it, and I marvelled at her self-control. When he’d bestowed his moist grip and slimy kiss on my hand last year, I’d nearly gagged. Gwendolyn’s pleasant smile didn’t even waver; but then again, maybe he hadn’t slipped her the tongue.
I nearly gagged all over again at the memory.
Apparently concluding that Lois wasn’t of sufficient social standing to merit his attention, Harchman excluded her from the hand-kissing. Considering the dangerous glint in her eye, that decision probably saved him some discomfort.
“Miles…” Harchman offered him a handshake combined with a chummy squeeze of Miles’s upper arm that caused a miniscule twitch in the other man’s eyelid.
Oblivious, Harchman released him with a hearty backslap. “So nice to meet you.” He turned to include Gwendolyn in his smarmy smile. “Please have another drink, both of you. Have lots! Mi casa es tu casa,” he gushed, using the overly-familiar pronoun either out of ignorance of Spanish or complete disregard for courtesy. Babbling on, he racked up even more boor-demerits. “And make sure you try that Almas caviar. I imported it straight from Iran. It costs over thirty thousand dollars a kilo, but nothing’s too good for my guests, and after all, what good is money if you don’t spread it around? You can’t take it with you, ha, ha…”
He linked his arm through mine in a show of friendship and I leaned down and hissed, “Off!” in his ear.
He released me as if my arm was red-hot. “Well, it was nice to meet you all,” he repeated nervously. “Please excuse us…”
I took my time with the parting pleasantries to my new friends.
When we drifted away from the threesome at last, Harchman shot me a venomous look. “What the hell are you doing here? How did you get in?”
“Why so rude, Larry? Aren’t you glad you see me?”
He drew himself up to his full unimpressive height, nearly half a foot shorter than me in my heels.
“You know I prefer Lawrence,” he said stiffly.
I gave him a sorrowing look and rested my hand fondly on his shoulder, close to his throat. He flinched, sweat dewing his upper lip.
“Larry,” I repeated. “Larry, Larry, Larry. My old buddy. My honest and dependable business partner.” I leaned down to look him in the eye, smiling, and dug my thumb into the sensitive spot above his collarbone. “You can pay thirty grand for stinking fish eggs, but you can’t pay me on time? Where the fuck is my cheque?”
He twitched and squeaked, casting a panicked glance around the room.
The gorilla who had accosted me earlier moved in our direction, but Harchman waved him off, apparently still trying to maintain the appearance of a powerful man in control of his own destiny. Little did he know he’d been Fuzzy Bunny’s puppet for the past decade or so.
Speaking of which…
My heart sank at the sight of Tawny Harchman giggling and wiggling through the crowd. Her bottle-blonde hair cascaded down her back in a rat’s nest of artful tangles that had probably taken hours to achieve, and her freakishly overinflated lips were painted brilliant scarlet. The resemblance to a baboon’s ass was striking, and if I hadn’t feared for both Nichele’s life and my own, I would have choked on a snicker.
But I didn’t feel much like laughing as she squirmed sensuously up to us in her skintight dress, batting thick false eyelashes at every male within range.
“Hi, Pookie-Poo,” she cooed at Harchman. “Remember me?”
“Of course, my darling. How could I forget?” He leaned in and they rubbed noses, making ‘ootsie-cootsie’ noises at each other.
“Hi, Tawny,” I said, hoping to make them stop.
Harchman wrapped an arm around her and shot me a triumphant ‘see what you’re missing’ look, as though I should be properly chagrined by my inability to land a man of his obvious attractiveness.
Tawny gave me a blank stare, her vapid baby-blues wide. “Have we met?”
“Just once before,” I assured her. “And only for a few seconds.”
“Oh.” She batted her eyelashes at me. “Wow, you’ve got a good memory! I don’t remember you at all. But…” She giggled and wiggled some more. “I’ve had a little too much champagne and it always makes me…” She tilted her head and assumed a little-girl lisp. “A wittle silly.”
“But I love you anyway, sweetums.” Harchman patted her bottom indulgently, utterly blind to the calculating manipulation behind her bubble-head act.
“Awww, I wuv you too, Pookie-Poo!” She wrapped herself around him, squashing silicone-enhanced boobs that looked in imminent danger of exploding.
Her boobs; not his. Though his man-boobs did seem even rounder and fuller than the last time I’d seen him…
Tawny interrupted my distasteful reverie with a breathy giggle. “Pookie, where are your manners? Aren’t you going to introduce me?” She extended a scarlet-taloned hand. “I’m Tawny. Pookie-Poo’s wife.”
I didn’t bother to point out that I’d just finished addressing her by name. “Nice to meet you, Tawny. I’m Aydan.”
“Aiding? That’s a funny name. Do you help people a lot?”
“Uh-huh,” I said straight-faced. “All the time. Right, Larry?”
Harchman gave me a stiff smile and an even stiffer nod.
“As a matter of fact,” I went on, “I was just aiding Pookie-Poo here with his memory. He must’ve had a bit too much champagne tonight, too.”
“Oh, Pookie.” Tawny made a sad face. “Did you forget something important?”
“Nothing important at all, my dear,” Harchman said, sending a quelling glance my way. “Arlene and I were just finishing up.”
“Arlene?” The bimbo-blues narrowed for just an instant before clouding over in her ingenuous act again. “But I thought your name was Aiding.”
“Arlene is Pookie’s pet name for me,” I explained with a vindictive glance at Harchman. “We were very close… before he married you. But even now he still calls me by my pet name, just for old time’s sake. Don’t you, Pookie-Poo?”
Red suffused Harchman’s face and a vein bulged in his forehead. “Tawny, sweetums, why don’t you go and get another glass of champagne?” he asked in a strangled voice. “Aydan and I are just finishing up our business. We’ll only be a minute, and then she’s leaving.”
“But Pookie…” Tawny went into her little-girl act again, eyes wide and lower lip sticking out like some grotesque scarlet tumour. “You pwomised I could sit in on your business deals. You pwomised you wuvved me for my mind as well as my body.”
Aha, so she had wormed her way into his business deals. Clever girl. I kept my expression bland while Harchman attempted to extricate himself.
“And I do love you for your mind, Sweetums, I do!” The vein in his forehead throbbed in a rapid rhythm. “But you already heard what nasty lies Aydan tells, and I don’t want you to hear such unpleasantness. You can sit in on my next business deal as usual, I promise. Okay, Sweetums?”
She blew out a breath, lower lip still protruding like a disappointed little girl, but something sharp and ugly glittered in the look she shot me from under her false eyelashes. “Okay, Pookie,” she cooed. “I know you’re always right. I just wish I could be as smart as you!”
Harchman puffed up his repulsive chest with a triumphant glance my way, and the two parted with another exaggerated show of affection.
As soon as Tawny was out of earshot, Harchman turned to me with a huffy expression that didn’t quite mask the twitchy nervousness in his eyes. “How dare you trespass on my private function? These people are my dear friends and valued business associates…”
“And I’m sure they’d all be very interested to find out how we know each other,” I agreed. “Wouldn’t they be shocked to find out how you faked porn videos of an innocent woman and then sold them for your own profit…”
“Innocent!” he interrupted. “That’s a laugh, after you and your accomplice tried to steal the last app I released! You’re just a common criminal-”
“Just like you,” I snapped. “You’re lucky I decided to share the profits instead of calling the cops and pressing charges. Now where’s my cheque? And where’s Nichele?”
“Nichele?” He sniffed. “I have no idea who you’re talking about. I certainly wouldn’t have anything to do with any of your… associates.”
I threw a friendly arm over his shoulders and leaned close, slowly tightening my grip as I ground out, “Listen, you disgusting little blob of scum on the cesspool of humanity, one more crack like that and I’m going to pop your head off your shoulders like the pus-filled zit it is. Now where’s Nichele?”
He let out a squeak, his sweaty neck disgustingly slippery against the bare skin of my arm. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I honestly don’t know who you’re talking about!”
I sighed and eased my grip. He wasn’t smart enough to fake that kind of confusion. Damn. Maybe I should lean on Tawny. But she wouldn’t be nearly as easy to bully…
Harchman was still babbling. “…and I’m sorry about your cheque, I’ll write it out right away; it’s just that when the videos went viral, I made… I mean, you and I… we… made a lot of money but they aren’t very popular anymore so I’m… we’re not making that much off them…”
“Right, whatever,” I growled. “Cheque. Now. And then I’m going to go and socialize, so don’t piss me off or I’ll make a big scene.”
“I rue the day I set eyes on you,” he muttered, slipping a chequebook out of the inside pocket of his tuxedo jacket to scribble out a cheque.
“Trust me, the feeling is mutual.” Tucking the cheque into my purse, I turned to survey the thinning crowd in the ballroom and added, “You’re just lucky I’ve never decided to audit your books to see if you’re cheating me.”
He went sheet-white. “Of… of course I’m not,” he stammered, dabbing at fresh beads of perspiration that dotted his brow. “I would never…”
“Of course you would,” I said tiredly. “You’d screw your own mother out of her last penny. Hell, never mind that; you’d screw your own mother, period. You make me want to puke.”
As I turned away from him, I spotted a tuxedoed Benoit Riel coming through one of the french doors, laughing over his shoulder at an unseen companion as he slipped a cell phone into his pocket.
A metallic red cell phone with a pattern of rhinestone-studded high-heeled shoes.
Nichele’s phone.