Cement Stilettos Read online

  I grabbed Eddie’s arm and pulled him away from the sunglasses counter toward the exit. I forgot that I was wearing the sunglasses and an alarm, triggered by the magnetic security device hanging from the glasses, sounded. Several associates looked at me and I whisked off the glasses and tossed them onto the counter.

  “Shhhhhh,” I said. “Nick and I—Nick and I might not be destined for happily ever after. I’ve learned some things, and I’ve seen some things—”

  “You’re just going to walk away from him after all this?”

  “Last night, I said some things that he might not want to forgive. And maybe it’s for the best if I focus on my job. I think he’s in trouble and don’t think he knows how to ask for help. If I go forward with the photo shoot, I can check things out from the inside. There will be plenty of people around so I’ll be safe. Besides, I have a plan.”

  “You’re going to make Vito an offer he can’t refuse?”

  “I’m going to make these people think I’m one of them. You’ve heard of dressing the part, right?”

  Eddie shook his head at me. “This is not going to turn out well.”

  “Trust me. I know what’s at stake and I’m not going to do anything stupid.”

  “Famous last words.” He tipped his head backward and jutted out his jaw, and then flicked his fingers under his chin like Marlon Brando. “Look what they did to my boy,” he said in the worst Godfather impersonation I’d ever heard.

  “Nobody talks like that,” I said. I turned back to the accessories counter and Eddie went off to deal with the visual travesty in the candy department.

  The change of scenery from my office to the store provided a safe zone. I admit that I milked my time, but not for the reasons Eddie implied. While the accessory manager filled out the paperwork to expense and loan out the samples that I needed, I wandered the different departments. As soon as I went back to my office, I’d return to the problems that Nick had been having. But wandering the store was like cleansing my palette. Until the scent of tomatoes and cheese caught my attention. Like Toucan Sam, I followed my nose, which led me to the shoe department.

  A delivery boy held a stack of flat pizza boxes with a large aluminum tray on top. The clear plastic lid indicated the tray held something green—salad, I assumed. The flat box was a no-brainer. And considering Tradava was in the same strip mall as Brother’s Pizza, the provider of the pizza was a no-brainer, too. It took me a moment to realize why the delivery boy looked familiar. He was the boy who’d tried to scam me at the fire hall.

  The department was mostly empty, but a sign next to a round marble table announced that a trunk show was taking place. Trunk shows, the practice of designers sending a trunk of their samples ahead of production so customers could reserve their choices before the merchandise shipped—was a time-honored yet increasingly irrelevant practice in fashion. In the past, designers would travel with their collection, hoping that customers would respond to the possibility of getting to rub shoulders with them, but social media and the inconvenience of travel had changed things. Now, sales reps were responsible for the in-store presence. In a few cases, the trunks were sent without vendor representation and the store staff executed the event on their own.

  Today, the disconnect between the January temperature and the sample collection of cotton sandals in front of me told the story of why the department was so empty. The world of fashion had gradually been shifting to more of a buy-now-wear-now practice, and pre-season trunk shows were having less and less success. The pizza delivery was probably the sales rep’s way of acknowledging the interruption to daily business and saying thanks to the staff. Very little bought sales associate loyalty like free food.

  Eddie had said something about me helping Nick, and that’s exactly what I thought I’d been doing. But there was another way I could help him, not related to the murder investigation. If Tradava agreed to a last-minute trunk show using the sample collection Nick had given me for Christmas, Nick could send those orders to Italy to produce and not have to take a total loss on the season. And if I went straight to Pam with the idea, then the rest of the store would have to fall in line.

  I pretended to inspect the samples on the table while the delivery boy collected money and made change for the department manager. When he left, I set down the pink gingham sandal in my hand and hurried after him. He had enough of a lead on me that I didn’t think I would catch up to him.

  “Hey!” I yelled. “Stop that kid!”

  Carmen, a petite but powerful woman from Loss Prevention stepped out from behind the counter and blocked his path. “Hold up,” she said. She looked at me. “What’d he do?”

  “I didn’t do nothin’!” he said. He turned around and looked at me. “Oh, crap. You’re bad luck, you know that?”

  “Thanks, Carmen,” I said. “The kid forgot his tip.” I put my hand on his shoulder and turned him around, leading him back into the store. “We need to talk.”

  He shrugged off my hand. “I don’t squeal,” he said.

  “Interesting. If you didn’t know anything, I think you would have said you didn’t know anything. But squealing, that implies that you do know something. Let’s cut to the chase. I want to know what you know about the bomb that blew up my car yesterday.”

  He held out his hand. “First, where’s my money?”

  “What money?”

  “You just said I forgot my tip.”

  “Yeah, sorry. I lied.” I crossed my arms. “Do you want to talk to me or do you want me to call the police to take you to the station so you can talk to them there? Because I have their number right here on my phone.”

  The kid looked like he was fully prepared to outwait me. The scent of pizza floated out of the stockroom and I got angry.

  “That pizza you just delivered—that’s from Brother’s, isn’t it?”

  He shrugged.

  “Is Jimmy your dad?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  I grabbed the front of his coat and pulled it close to me. “Listen, kid. The way I see it, there’s a very good chance you put the bomb in my car. You were mad because I didn’t give you five dollars. How do I know you didn’t rig it yourself? Why else would you start the car and then leave it?”

  “It’s like I told you. I wanted to make sure I got my money.”

  “You weren’t entitled to any money and you know it.”

  The kid looked past me, a vacant stare that seemed to have no expiration date. Unfortunately for me, whoever had taught this kid how to clam up had done a good job. And on top of that, he seemed to be impervious to the scent of pizza, which, after four days, was turning out to be my Kryptonite.

  I heard my name and looked to the side. The manager from accessories approached me with a red plastic bin. “I filled out the paperwork and put everything you wanted in here. I can take it to your office if you want.”

  I put my hand on the kid’s shoulder so he wouldn’t try to leave while I was distracted. “Actually, can you take it to Loss Prevention? I’m going to have everything couriered to Vito’s factory at the same time so that’ll make it easier to organize when we set up.”

  “Sure.” He passed us and went to Loss Prevention, barely acknowledging the kid I held in place with my best Vulcan nerve pinch.

  The kid watched him walk away, and then looked back at me. “You know Vito Cantone?” he asked, squinting his eyes as if this was a significant question.

  “Yeah, we’re old friends. Now are you going to talk, or what?”

  “You can’t be that good of friends. Vito’s the one who blew up your car.”

  22

  Thursday evening

  “Did you see him do it?” I asked

  “Vito’s smarter than that. But he warned me to stay away from your car. Said somethin’ bad was gonna happen. He wouldn’t know that unless he was the one who done somethin’ bad.”

  The kid took advantage of my temporary confusion to spin out from under my Vulcan grip. He took off
down the hall of the employee entrance, pausing by the door to turn around and give me the finger.

  Kids today.

  I made my way back to my office, my mind swimming in thoughts. Vito? Vito warned the kid to stay away from my car? That did make it sound like Vito knew about the bomb, and the only reason I could think of for him to know was if he was responsible for it. He was an obvious suspect because of his rumored mafia affiliations.

  Up to now, everything had been directed at Nick. Angela, murdered in his showroom and left in his sample closet. The broken window that shut his business down temporarily. Even the threat on the other end of the phone: your boyfriend is not a nice man.

  See, that still didn’t sit well with me. Vito had made a show of congratulating Nick and me on our engagement. He’d offered me the use of his factory for free as an engagement present. And Nick’s decline wasn’t personal, it was professional. He hadn’t wanted to move production from Italy mid-season. Businessman to businessman, that would have made sense. So again, what would have Vito so charged against Nick that he’d kill his ex-girlfriend and leave her in Nick’s showroom?

  The other thing that bothered me was that Angela di Sotti was the victim here, and nobody was mourning her death. When my friend Cat’s husband had been killed, she’d been surrounded by people who wanted to pay their respects. It had been an eye-opening moment for me, to see what life is like for someone who opens herself up to the kindness of strangers. It had made me rethink the way I lived. It had been the impetus for buying the frozen lasagna and taking it to Angela’s family’s house.

  And what had I found when I’d arrived? Not a grieving family. The only person to show any kind of anger about what had happened had been Mama Blum. What had she said? That Angela was never a part of the family. Did she mean the family, or The Family?

  I had to talk to Mama Blum.

  The problem there was that I didn’t fit in with that crowd. Every time I was around them, I’d been the odd person out. The first time I showed up, I’d hoped to be seen as one of them but I was so far from that I might as well have landed from outer space. And Mama was old school. She wasn’t going to break bread with me because I offered her a frozen lasagna. I was going to have to do better than that.

  But first things first. Work. As in, the photo shoot.

  The photo shoot was scheduled for Friday and there were enough last minute details to keep me too busy to think about Angela’s murder. I arrived back at my office prepared to push all thoughts of Vito and bombs and Nick out of my mind so I could do my job.

  It was a good plan. It might have even worked if Nick hadn’t been sitting in the chair in front of my desk.

  He stood up and smoothed down his tie. “Samantha.”

  I could count on one hand the times he’d called me by my first name. Well, now that we’d become consenting adults, I’d need both hands, but still.

  “Taylor,” I said. I set my laptop bag on the floor next to the door and stared at him. There was about five feet of nothing but carpet between us but I felt like I was being held away from him by an invisible barrier. I could smell his cologne, a combination of cedar and sandalwood and something else that now lingered on my sheets at home.

  I unbuttoned my coat and hung it on the rack by the door, and then picked up my bag. In order to do my job, I was going to have to go to my desk. And in order to get to my desk, I was going to have to walk right past him. And in order to walk right past him, I was going to have to infiltrate the imaginary barrier and ignore the way his dark hair curled, his brown eyes crinkled, and his masculine scent that rendered me slightly helpless.

  “I talked to your dad last night,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “I know.”

  It was the most unimaginative conversation we could have had after what I’d learned last night. Nick put his hands into the pockets of his coat and looked down for a moment, and then back up at me. “I came here to tell you that I’m not going to have the samples sent from Italy. I know you need them for your shoot, but I thought it would be worse to have them here and then not be able to produce them for your customers.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “You would have the next four months to produce the order.”

  “Not if I close the company.” His eyes, that he’d kept diverted from mine originally, were now focused on me in a direct stare, their clear, root-beer-barrel shade of brown tinted with hopelessness. “It’s better for Tradava if you advertise shoes you’ll be able to sell. Otherwise there will be angry customers, and they’ll shop elsewhere. That’s the worst thing for a retailer.”

  I wanted to cross the room, take his hand, and convince him there was another way, but the tension between us was too great.

  “You can’t close the company. It’s your dream, your life. I can help you with this.”

  “If you have another idea, I’m listening. But right now, all I can see is that Angela was murdered and they’re after me for a debt I didn’t know I carried. I can start a new company when this is over. I might have to take a job designing in-house for another company first. Maybe it won’t be shoes. Maybe it’ll be leather goods, or handbags, or designer dog leashes. I can consult or look into teaching at I-FAD.”

  “You can’t stop being a shoe designer. It’s what you love.”

  “I wouldn’t be the first designer to file for bankruptcy and then reorganize. It happens all the time.”

  I knew he was right. In my experience as a shoe designer at Bentley’s New York before moving to Ribbon, I’d seen it several times. Designers who were often the darlings of the media were one step away from bankruptcy court. Fashion was a weird business, one where success wasn’t defined by bank statements but by popularity on the pages of magazines and mentions on red carpets.

  “There has to be something we can do. These people aren’t going to take that away from you.”

  He bent his head down and rested his forehead against mine. “Too many people are getting hurt,” he said quietly. “I won’t risk them getting to you.” He lifted his head and kissed my forehead, squeezed my hand, and left.

  In terms of life problems, this one was big. But inside the very big problem was a tiny ray of light: Nick wasn’t a bad guy. He didn’t tell me to mind my own business, or to let the cops do their thing. He said if I had an idea, he’d listen.

  I was going to come up with an idea if it killed me.

  After Nick left, I spent the next hour boxing up the samples for the photo shoot, and then called Ragu and arranged for delivery to pick them up and courier them to the factory the next day. Fortunately, the store’s schedule was light and the last-minute arrangements were overlooked. It was closing in on six and by the time Eddie came to give me a ride home, I had a plan.

  “Do you own anything pinstriped?” I asked.

  “I know how your mind works and that question cannot lead anywhere good.” Eddie took a swig from a plastic water bottle.

  “I’ve been thinking. I need to talk to someone who knew Angela, and not the women who were here the other day. They think I’m a joke. Do you know they asked me to go shopping with them? Said they could help me with a new look?”

  Eddie spit out his water. “I would have paid good money to see the look on your face.”

  “That’s just the thing. I know how to dress. I know how to fit in. Yes, I tend to like clothes that make me stand out but that’s because somebody has to inspire the rest of the world to step away from the yoga pants. But it wasn’t like that. It was like they look at me and they see a schoolmarm.”

  “And this leads to my ownership of pinstripe how?”

  “Well, I was thinking if I want them to trust me, I need them to see me as one of them. And all things considered, I can’t march in there with Nick, and I’d rather not march in there alone.”

  I told him what I had in mind and we spent the next hour shopping for mobster clothes.

  Eddie, who had
gotten bored during his lunch break and painted the tips of his peroxide-dyed hair a disturbingly pretty shade of aqua, needed a shower more than I did. He carried his garment bags upstairs and locked the door behind him.

  I took advantage of the Nick-less night and ordered a pizza from Brother’s. My recent making-friends-with-the-neighbors initiative—part of Samantha 2.0—had me delivering pizzas to the wrong houses so I had a built-in excuse for knocking on said neighbor’s doors.

  Tonight, I had the pizza delivered to Mrs. Iova across the street. She’d lived there my whole life, but I barely knew her. Judging from how often I saw her watching me from behind the curtains, she’d shown an interest in getting to know me too.

  Unlike the neighbors who had already been through this routine, Mrs. Iova didn’t have a stash of petty cash from me to cover such situations. I had about twenty minutes before the pizza was scheduled to arrive and therefore had to change fast.

  It took ten minutes to trade my pantsuit for the blue leopard printed skirt suit I’d bought at Tradava. It would have taken less, but the skirt was so tight I needed two pair of Spanx.

  After changing, I used half a can of hairspray to volumize my hair and dabbed myself with a sample of Dolce & Gabbana perfume. I added oversized gold hoop earrings and black platform pumps from the sample collection Nick had given me for Christmas. I snipped the tags off a large black and white zebra-printed fake fur stole. The amount of animal print in my outfit would have sent off hostile vibrations in any jungle. I colored my lips in a dark berry shade and slipped on a pair of gold sunglasses with blue frames. The overall effect was a bit frightening in its accuracy.

  I slipped an emergency twenty into my padded bra, not because I thought I’d need it, but because hiding money in my unmentionables felt a bit risky in an I-know-something-you-don’t way, and considering I didn’t really think I knew anything, I couldn’t see how this would hurt.

  I checked on Logan, gave him a solid fifteen minutes of chase-the-laser exercise, and then peeked out the windows. It felt strangely fulfilling to be the one to spy on Mrs. Iova for once. Unfortunately, I’d timed my peeping Tom routine a little too late and found Mrs. Iova standing on her doorstep with a pizza deliveryman, pointing directly at my house.