was glad Coleman was nowhere to be seen when she left the office. She got back in her car and headed home. As she drove, she thought of what Luke had told her about the price on her head.
As dope dealers went, Perry Mundy had been small change, but he’d considered himself a bad-ass gangsta and had surrounded himself with a couple of meatheads who he called his boys.
She supposed it was possible Mundy had gotten word to his old friends on the street that he wanted her dead and was willing to pay for the pleasure. She just wasn’t sure she was willing to take Luke’s word on the situation.
On impulse, instead of going directly home, she headed downtown. The smart thing to do was to check out the rumor and there was only one person she knew who might have heard this latest news about a threat to her life.
Christopher Carson, Chubby Cheeks, lived on the streets near a homeless shelter in the blighted downtown district. Chantal had met him six months before when she’d been looking for a friend of his who had skipped out on bail.
She’d discovered Chubby to be an invaluable source of information about all kinds of things, in particular street crimes and people. He seemed to have his ear to the ground when it came to information.
She drove slowly down Twelfth Street and pulled to the curb in front of the Italian Pizza Place. The business had changed locations years ago, but the sign still hung in the window of the abandoned building.
Chubby sat in the alcove of the doorway and when he saw her familiar red sports car he stood, walked to the car and got in the passenger side.
He was a big man of an indeterminable age, and he brought with him the smell of the streets, the odor of unwashed clothing and sweat and filth. “Been waiting for you,” he said as she pulled away from the curb.
“You got something for me?” she asked.
“You got a price on your head, baby girl.”
So, Luke had told her the truth. For the first time a whisper of apprehension swept through her. “And what’s the price?”
“Five thousand,” he replied.
Five thousand? If she wasn’t so worried she’d be offended. “I spend more than that in a year on hair products.”
“You ain’t careful you won’t be needing any hair goop,” Chubby said. “That punk-ass kid you put away seems to think he’s some sort of a godfather.”
Chantal slowly digested this information. Still, even though it was disturbing, she had another case to think about as well. “You know anybody in the city who provides false identification and passports?” Willowby would probably need false identification if he intended to get out of the country.
Chubby shook his head. “I know a guy works out of his car over on Grand, mostly does fake ID for kids. I don’t think he’s good enough to do passports or nothing like that.”
Chantal rounded the block and pulled back up in front of his alcove. “You doing okay, Chubby?”
“You know me. I get by.”
She pulled a twenty-dollar bill from her purse and handed it to him. “Get yourself a decent meal.” She gave him a twenty anytime she talked to him, whether he had information or not. She didn’t know whether he used the money to buy food or to purchase a bottle or two of cheap wine, which he told her he had a fondness for.
He took the bill and flashed her a bright smile. “And you watch your back.” He got out of the car and disappeared back into the shadows of the doorway.
Five thousand dollars was definitely insulting. But, whether the bounty was five or five hundred thousand dollars, dead was dead.
She tried to tell herself that the young men who had been friends with Mundy didn’t have the intelligence to pull off a hit on her, but she knew that wasn’t true. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to point a gun and pull the trigger.
The only comfort she could find in the entire situation was that they would be looking for Carol Worth. This was one of the reasons Chantal had decided to use a fake name in this line of work.
Her mother was a wealthy woman all alone and Chantal’s main reason for not using her real name was to protect her mother from any form of revenge that might happen because of Chantal’s work.
Chantal would be a fool not to take this threat seriously. She recognized that the first thing she needed to do was stay away from Big Joey’s, which wouldn’t be a problem since she intended to spend the bulk of her time hunting for Marcus Willowby. He certainly wasn’t going to be found at Big Joey’s Bail Bonds.
A smug smile curved her lips. She had a feeling all of Luke’s contacts would be of no use to him when it came to locating Willowby. The “social soirees” he’d mentioned earlier would be her ticket to the information she needed.
Willowby wasn’t a common criminal and he was a creature accustomed to certain comforts. He wouldn’t be found in a hole or a hovel. He wouldn’t take to the streets to evade capture. She would eventually talk to somebody, one of her social peers, who would have a clue as to Willowby’s whereabouts. All she had to do was identify who that peer might be.
Harrah met her at the front door of Chantal’s house, notebook in hand. “Enrique called. He wants to go over the menu with you for Saturday night. Your mother called and wants you to call her. Belinda called and said they’re releasing her from the hospital around noon so she’s planning on being here by one or two at the latest.”
Chantal had insisted that Belinda come stay with her for several days when she was released from the hospital. Chantal hadn’t wanted her friend to go home and be alone while she was so emotionally vulnerable.
“Call Enrique back and tell him I trust him with the menu,” Chantal said as she walked through the living room toward her office. Harrah followed behind her and stopped in the doorway as Chantal sank down at her desk. “Then call Sarah Birmington and see if it’s too late for me to get a ticket to the fund-raiser tomorrow night.”
Harrah raised an eyebrow. “I thought you’d decided not to go.”
“I’ve changed my mind,” Chantal replied. “It might be the perfect place for me to hear some snippet of news about Willowby. Would you check to see if my red Gaultier is back from the cleaners?” Chantal picked up the phone to call her mother while Harrah disappeared from the doorway.
Her mother’s housekeeper, Edna, answered the phone and connected Chantal. “Darling,” Katherine said. “I called earlier to see if maybe you were free for lunch today.”
“No way. I’ve got tons of work to do. You heard Willowby skipped out?”
“I spoke with Rebecca this morning. The poor woman is beside herself. You know she absolutely dotes on that boy, both she and Roger do.”
“Does she know where he might be? Is it possible she’d help him get away?”
Katherine paused thoughtfully. “I don’t think so. She has certainly been eager for the trial to be over with and didn’t believe he was guilty of the charges, but I don’t think she’d encourage him to run. Rebecca isn’t that kind of a woman.”
Chantal frowned. She wasn’t so sure. Rebecca’s devotion to her only son was legendary, which Chantal suspected was part of Marcus’s problem. He’d been spoiled and indulged from the moment he been born.
Rumor had it that Roger and Rebecca had suffered infertility issues and that at the age of thirty-seven, Rebecca had finally gotten pregnant with Marcus. She and Roger had considered the boy a gift from God.
“She’s distraught over the fact that reporters have camped out in front of her house,” Katherine continued.
Chantal had suspected as much. The odds were minimal that Willowby had gone to his parents’ house. But the moment he’d missed his check-in, cops and reporters would have descended not only on his condo, but also