Latte Trouble

Fourteen

With Madame on his arm, Tad Benedict led us across the packed ballroom. He threaded through the crowd so fast I had trouble keeping up. Fortunately, Clipboard Lady stopped him near the busy bar.

“Should I start the presentations?” she asked.

Tad looked around, nodded impatiently. “Yeah, let’s get the show on the road. Bring out one presenter at a time—and hold everyone to a five-minute limit. We’re due back at the pier in a little over an hour.”

Clipboard Lady’s brow wrinkled with concern. When she spoke, her whisper was loud enough to reach my ears. “There’s kind of an issue backstage about who gets to go on first. Two men are arguing…It’s getting out of hand.”

He waved the woman aside. “Do the job I pay you for.”

“But—”

“Send them out alphabetically, the way their names are printed on the roster. Who can argue with that?”

For a moment the pair huddled in conversation. I managed to pull Madame aside.

“This is so thrilling. What do we do next?” she asked.

“Press him,” I whispered. “We need to find out how many shares of Lottie Harmon stocks he’s willing to part with. If it’s more than the twenty-five percent I know he owns, then there’s something fishy going on.”

Suddenly the Clipboard Lady hurried away and Tad reached for Madame’s arm once more.

“I must apologize for the interruption. There’s just so much to do, and I only have a few associates here to take care of things.”

Tad said this over his shoulder as he hustled us through a door, and into a wood paneled hallway. We passed three other doors, one obviously a bulkhead that led outside to the deck. Tad opened a door at the end of the narrow hall. On the other side there was a small stateroom with a wall-sized window that offered a spectacular view of Manhattan’s towering lights, bordered by dark water and black sky.

Tad directed us to chairs, and when we were both settled he sat down across a narrow table from Madame and I. Behind him, a computer rested on a small desk. On its monitor, a screen saver with the stylized logo of TB Investments flickered. Tad smiled at us both and leaned forward.

“So, Mrs. Dubois, you’re interested in purchasing a large block of Lottie Harmon shares?”

“That’s right, Mr. Benedict,” Madame replied, quite convincingly I thought. “I own shares in several large concerns, most of which I patronize in my daily life. You see, I believe in that old adage—one should only invest in businesses and products one would patronize or understand. I do purchase high-end fashions, so when I heard the Lottie Harmon name…”

“Of course,” Tad said smoothly. “But I must warn you that this is a special offering. Shares in Lottie Harmon are in great demand.”

“I was not aware Lottie Harmon was a publicly traded label.”

Tad shifted in his seat. “TB Investments is the only firm authorized to trade Lottie Harmon shares, and only in limited amounts.”

Madame feigned excitement. “An exclusive offer! Now I am enthusiastic…I do hope the amounts are not too limited.”

“Well…”

“Oh, I don’t want to be selfish. I’m not interested in taking over controlling shares in the company. I just want to make a substantial investment in the concern—perhaps thirty percent…”

Tad didn’t even blink. “I’m sure that amount could be secured, unless some of the other investors have beaten you to the punch.”

Then Tad shifted his eyes to me.

“So, Ms. Gray? Has any facet of TB Investment’s prospectus piqued your interest?”

I adjusted my tinted, tortoiseshell, Jackie O glasses and sighed theatrically. Up to this point I’d kept my conversation to a minimum in front of Tad, fearing the sound or cadence of my voice would somehow reveal my identity. I knew my disguise had been effective so far—I didn’t even recognize myself in the reflection on the plate glass window. Behind the wig even the shape of my face was obscured, and no one could see my eyes because in anything less than a brilliantly lit room like this one, the tinted glasses rendered me nearly blind, so who could see in? But as much as I wanted to pump Tad Benedict for more information, I was forced to remain silent due to my fear of exposure. Instead, I sighed, shook my head solemnly as I waved my hand in a dismissive gesture.

Tad put his arms on the desk, leaned closer. “Surely there’s something here to entice even you, Ms. Gray?”

I felt him watching me, waiting for a reply. I cleared my throat, preparing to unleash the nasal drone I’d used on Clipboard Lady.

“Well—”

Suddenly the door burst open without a knock. Clipboard Lady was there, hair windblown, face flushed.

“You’ve got to come…” she stammered. “Trouble on the deck.”

We heard the voices a moment later. Loud, angry voices—one of them familiar—Matteo.

Tad was on his feet and out the door. This time he didn’t even excuse himself. I rose and followed him into the hall, Madame close behind. A blast of cool night air was streaming into the passageway, the dank river smell potent. I noticed another door was ajar. Through it I spied a large stateroom were several men and women milled around in various states of shock or surprise. All wore Wall Street attire, their pie charts, graphs and Power Point machines at the ready. In the middle of that room, a table had been upset. A chair, a broken laptop computer, and a shattered pitcher of water lay on the floor.

The draft was pouring in from the bulkhead door, now flung wide. From outside, on the deck, the angry voices continued.

“Don’t they teach you the alphabet in Europe?” Matteo was barking. “I thought your educational system was supposed to be better than ours. Or did they do the ABCs backwards, like everything else in the Old World?!”

As I hurried to the door, I could hear Tad Benedict trying to restore calm. “Listen, gentlemen, this can be resolved—”

“Perhaps after you toss this…this cowboy over the side.”

The voice that interrupted Tad was dripping with arrogance, sarcasm, and contempt—so much so that I recognized the speaker even before I stumbled onto the chilly deck.

Eduardo Lebreaux.

In his late fifties, Lebreaux was the kind of oily Continental who would have been at home in Casablanca, angling how to cheat at cards in Rick’s Café American. He had dark brown hair, thinning on the top and a little too long at the back, a mustache, and a pensive look to his pale green eyes. No wrinkles but the sort of blotchy skin acquired from drinking and smoking to excess. His evening clothes were well tailored, of course—what little I could see of them, because he was presently standing behind a wall of well-dressed, thick-necked flesh that was his bodyguard.

“I’d like to see you try and throw me off this boat,” replied Matt, fists balled. “With or without your rented thug.”

Matteo was referring to Thick Neck, of course, who stood impassively, eyes on Matt, hands raised but open. There were, I noted, a lot of muscles crammed into the guard’s open-necked white shirt and blue blazer. I wondered if Matteo could really take on the man standing between him and Lebreaux.

The amoral European importer-exporter used to work for Madame’s second husband, Pierre, and had been a thorn in Madame’s side since her husband’s death. Matteo had always had an instinctive negative reaction to Lebreaux, and he’d been right. Lebreaux wasn’t someone you could trust. In fact, some of his tactics bordered on the criminal.

Just then, I noticed a woman on Lebreaux’s arm—and recognized her. It was Violet Eyes, the tall, strikingly beautiful Asian woman who had accompanied Lloyd Newhaven to Lottie’s party. Her face appeared placid, impassive even in the face of this outrageous scene.

Before I had a chance even to consider the meaning of Violet Eyes’s presence, others instantly appeared on deck. Several of the presenters scrambled topside to watch the conclusion of the heated melodrama they’d seen ignited in their stateroom. To my shock, I spied another familiar face among them—the male model who’d attended Lottie’s party. His platinum blond Billy Idol crewcut was unmistakable, even through my tinted glasses.

My mind raced. While the presence of Violet Eyes might have been mere happenstance, meeting another person who’d attended that fatal party—and was near the coffee bar at the time of the poisoning—was at least one coincidence too many for me.

Matt glared at the bodyguard, then tried to step around the man and return to the stateroom. A ham-sized palm slapped the middle of Matt’s chest, stopping him. Matteo glared up at the man. When he spoke, his voice was surprisingly calm: “I’m going inside to make my presentation. Look, Eduardo…tell your hired help to get out of my face and out of my way.”

Lebreaux looked around and spied Madame standing next to me. His lips twisted into a cruel smile and he bowed in her direction. “I see you are not yet untangled from your dowager mother’s skirts, Matteo. Was franchising the Village Blend’s brand name Madame Dubois’s idea? Perhaps an act of financial desperation?”

At my side, I felt Madame stiffen.

I saw Tad’s expression, too. There was surprise at hearing that Mrs. Dubois was Matt’s mother.

Matteo exploded. “You son of a—”

He launched himself at Eduardo’s throat. The European fearfully stumbled backwards, almost knocking Violet Eyes overboard in his haste to escape. Matt didn’t get far before Thick Neck stopped him cold. There was a flurry of movement, loud grunts, and the sound of fists striking flesh.

“Wait! Wait!” Tad Benedict cried.

But events had gone too far. Everyone backed away and watched helplessly as Matt and Thick Neck grappled for a moment, stumbling across the deck. The struggle continued until both men tumbled over the rail, their fiery confrontation finally getting doused in the cold, churning waters of the Hudson River.