Lady Killer

“I don’t wear mascara, it’s eyelash extensions. T has ’em, too.” Giulia drew an airy circle around her eyes. “Plus, see, my eyeliner ain’t ru

“Tattooed on your eyes?” Judy interrupted, incredulous, and Giulia nodded.

“Yeah, sure. You never have to reapply, and your eyeliner always looks good, even when you wake up.”

“My lipliner’s permanent,” Missy added, and Yolanda nodded.

“So’s my eyebrows.”

Judy looked, dumbstruck, from Giulia with her tattooed eyes, to Missy with her tattooed lips, and finally to Yolanda with her tattooed eyebrows. Mary was too upset to care. She put down the Kleenex box.

“Didn’t it hurt?” Judy asked, astounded, and Giulia shrugged.

“No more than a Brazilian.”

Mary couldn’t hear anymore. Catholics shouldn’t get Brazilians. In fact, the words Catholic and Brazilian should never appear in the same sentence, except for: Brazilians are very good Catholics.

“Anyways, I’m not like some very negative people.” Giulia jerked a spiked thumb toward Yolanda. “I’m not saying he killed her. I can’t go there, not yet. Alls I know is she never woulda gone away without tellin’ us. That means she’s in trouble, real trouble.”

Mary felt it, too. It was too coincidental to be otherwise. “Has anyone seen him?”

“No, he’s gone, too. They’re both gone.”

“Does he go to work?” Judy interjected.

“Whaddaya think, blondie?” Giulia looked at her like she was crazy. “He packs a peanut-butter-and-jelly in a paper bag?”

“There’s no call for that,” Mary said. “She’s only asking if he has a regular job, on the side. A front or whatever you call it.”

“No, he doesn’t.” Giulia leaned forward in the chair, her eyes meeting Mary’s directly. “You gotta help us find T.”

“I’m in,” Mary said, her chest tight.

“Great.” Giulia smiled briefly, and Missy sniffled.

“Preciate it, Mare.”

“Me, too,” Yolanda said, grim.

Judy touched Mary’s elbow. “Can I talk to you a minute?” she asked, then turned to the Mean Girls. “Would you wait for us in the reception area, please?”

“We get the message.” Giulia rose with a smirk, pushing out her chair, and so did the others.

“Thanks,” Mary said, and both she and Judy waited while the Mean Girls left the conference room. In the next minute, low laughter came from down the hall. Judy cringed, then turned to her.

“Mary, don’t let them guilt you into this. This isn’t your problem, and it could be dangerous. He’s in the Mob.”

“I can’t not.” Mary felt a tug in her chest. She had a full day of work, including calls for Dhiren and another for Dean Martin, but Trish was out there somewhere. She couldn’t help but feel responsible. “I have to help, this time.”

“Why? They’re using you, don’t you see that?” Judy gestured outside the door. “They’re laughing at us, right now. Didn’t you hear?”

“It’s not for them, it’s for Trish.”

“What do you owe her? She was horrible to you.”

“This is life and death, Jude. You saw them. They need help. They’re…”

“Dumb?”

“A little.”

“Rude?”

“Okay.”

“Bitchy?”

“All of the above.” Mary met Judy’s eye, so blue and clear, and she could see the love there, and the loyalty. “I have a deposition to defend at ten today. It should take an hour, tops. It’s a contracts case, a roof that leaks. The client’s a sweet old guy, Roberto Nunez. Will you go for me?”

“This is crazy.”

“I prepared him last week. I even gave him a list of questions, so he’s good to go.”

“Mary, they tattoo their faces.”

“And you pierced your you-know-what.”

“Touché.” Judy smiled. “Anyway I let it close.”

“The point remains.”

Judy rolled her eyes. “Okay, get me the file, you loser.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

“K eep the change.” Mary handed the aged cabdriver a ten, and he accepted it without taking his rheumy eyes from the butts of the Mean Girls piling out of the backseat. She climbed out of the cab while they took their first drags on their cigarettes, and she surveyed the block. It was typical South Philly, a little grimy even in full sun, with identical brick rowhouses differentiated by their stoops, awnings, and bumper-sticker front windows. The Korean grocery store Trish had mentioned was to the left of the house, a dingy stuccoed affair with its windows covered by painted plywood and a faded Dietz amp; Watson sign that read HOAGIES CHEESE FRIES PLATTERS.

Next to the grocery, Trish’s house was well maintained, of newly painted brick with shiny black bars over the glass door and a black-framed bay window. Nothing was in the windowsill. Mary eyed the cars parked in front, a dusty lineup of older American cars, except for a shiny white Miata with a vanity plate that read DYE JOB. She pointed at the Miata. “Is that Trish’s?”

“Ya think?” Giulia laughed, emitting an acrid puff of smoke, and the others joined her.

“What’s he drive?” Mary asked, trying not to breathe.

“A BMW, what else?”

“Where’s he park it?”

“Anywhere he wants to,” Giulia answered, and they all laughed again. She pointed at an empty slot behind the Miata. “That’s his spot. You wa

“What color and year is his car?”

“Black. New.”

“Does he have a vanity plate, too, like DYE JOB?”

“Yeah, WHACK JOB,” Giulia answered.

“BLOW JOB,” Missy said.

“HAND JOB,” Yolanda added, and they all started laughing again except Mary, whose exasperation got the best of her.

“You ladies want to help or not? Because when Trish shows up, I’ll be happy to tell her how fu

“Okay, whatever,” Giulia said defensively. “I don’t know his license plate. It wasn’t a vanity plate. It was normal.”

“Thank you.” Mary cleared her throat. “Okay, so obviously, wherever he and Trish went, they took his car. So she probably went with him voluntarily, because he couldn’t have forced her into the car and driven it at the same time.”

Giulia stopped smiling, and so did the others. She squinted through the cigarette smoke, or maybe her tattooed eyeliner made it look that way.

“He coulda drugged her,” Missy said.

“He coulda killed her and put her in the trunk,” Yolanda said, and Giulia turned on her, red-and-black curls flying like a blurry checkerboard.

“Shut up with that, Yo. It’s like you want T to be dead.”

“I don’t want her to be dead,” Yolanda shot back. “Ga’ forbid!”

Mary sensed another catfight. “While you guys mix it up, I’m going inside and look around. Can I have her house key?”

“Here.” Giulia clamped her Marlboro between her lips, dug in her black purse, and produced a key ring that held a red Barbie pump, a Taj Mahal ersatz-gold horseshoe, two red plastic dice, and a St. Christopher medal. Mary took the key ring without bringing up what had happened to St. Christopher, then walked up the two-step stoop, unlocked the door, and pushed it open, surprised by the sight.

In contrast to the house’s mundane exterior, inside it was glistening, modern, and expensive, with warm white walls, a shaggy white area rug, and white marble flooring. It had been remodeled to make one large room out of the first floor, with the entrance hall, living and dining room divided by frosted white screens, like a high-end Winter Wonderland.

Would this have been my life?

Mary walked through the contemporary entrance area, where a fake ficus provided a splotch of color, passing a white laminated side table and a louvered closet. Light shone from a white Murano-glass chandelier, and when she walked around the divider, the focal point of the living room was an oversized, colorized photograph of the couple, he in a wide-lapel tux and she in a low-cut, melon-hued dress. Mary’s gaze shot to the boyfriend, who had once been her boyfriend, at least for a time. His face hadn’t changed; the same eyes, the strong, wide nose, and a smile just this side of I-don’t-care. He had prominent cheekbones and a strong chin, and Mary used to imagine it on an ancient gold coin, but she was always too into Latin Club.