Death, Taxes, and a Chocolate Cannoli (A Tara Holloway Novel) (10 page)

“Bored you already, have I?”

She chuckled but eyed me intently. “A sense of humor. Always a good thing in a waitress. Now how about that wine?”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. Was this some type of test? Should I decline in order to maintain my professionalism? Or should I show an interest in the bistro’s wine selections?

I decided to go with, “I’d love to sample your favorite selection.” That way, it sounded as if I were trying the wine as a way to familiarize myself with her tastes.

“Nice try.” Benedetta tilted her head and offered me a playful smile. “My favorite wine is sixty dollars a bottle. You’ll get the house red.”

I offered her a smile right back. “I’m sure it will be delightful.”

Her eyes narrowed now. “Would you tell me if it wasn’t?”

Again, I felt as if she were testing me. Did she want a waitress who was always upbeat and positive? Or did she want one who was honest? I went with, “If it wasn’t, I’d find a polite way to tell you. But only if you asked for my opinion.”

She chuckled again. “Such diplomacy. You should go to work for the United Nations.”

She stood, went to the bar, and poured two glasses of wine from the same bottle, returning with them a moment later. She placed one glass in front of me and resumed her seat on the other side of the booth. She held her glass in her left hand, a diamond the size of an olive glittering on her ring finger. I wondered if the oversized gem had been bought with extorted funds.

I took a sip of the wine. “It’s lovely.” Actually, it was a bit too dry for my taste, which tended more toward fruity and sweet, but I wasn’t about to insult her by telling her that. Besides, I still wasn’t sure where she fell on the upbeat-versus-honesty thing.

“Isn’t it, though?” Benedetta took a sip herself and tossed her head in the direction of the kitchen. “When you called the other day, you told Stella you have experience in restaurants. Tell me about it.”

“What I meant is that I have experience in preparing and serving food. I worked for several years as a nanny for a family with two children.”

The woman frowned. “So you made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Cookies. Scooped ice cream into bowls.”

“Sometimes,” I said, “but I also helped out with the family’s meals, and I assisted with the cooking and serving when the family threw parties, which was quite often.”

She leaned her head one way then the other, as if considering my words. “Why are you no longer working for this family?”

“The father works for an oil company,” I told her. “He accepted a position in Dubai. They asked me to move there with them, but I’m not ready to be so far from home.”

“You’re close to your family?”

“I am,” I said. “I’m an only child and it didn’t seem right to go off and leave my parents.”

“Good girl.” She reached across the table and patted my hand before taking another sip of her wine. “Nice girls stay near their mothers. Tell me, Tori, what are your plans for the future? Surely you do not intend to work as a waitress forever.”

“No,” I said. “I’m a business major at Dallas Baptist University, but—”

“A Baptist?” She motioned to my glass. “Drinking wine?”

I leaned over the table and whispered. “Don’t tell anyone, but I sometimes go dancing, too.”

She arched a dark brow. “That red hair, too. So wild!” She raised her glass. “To sinners like us.”

I clinked my glass against hers.
This seems to be going well.

“Someday,” I continued, “I hope to own my business. Maybe a restaurant like this. Or a shop of some sort. Maybe a salon or spa. I’m not sure yet.”

“Ah.” She swirled the wine in her glass. “You’re a girl with ambitions.”

“Definitely.”

She smiled knowingly. “I was once like you. A girl with big dreams and”—she lowered her voice to a whisper and cupped a hand around her mouth—“her grandmother’s secret recipes.”

We shared a laugh as she took another sip from her glass. “You’re good at business?”

“I like to think so. I’ve taken several accounting and finance classes. And I’m taking a marketing class right now.”

Her eyes gleamed. “Prove it.” She angled her head to indicate the thin woman sitting on the other side of the restaurant. “That woman comes in twice a week and only orders a salad and water,” she said, keeping her voice low. “We can’t make a living on salads and water. Sell that skinny lady a dessert.”

Uh-oh.
I could take down tax evaders, sure, but I’d never been much of a salesman. Even when I’d worked at Big Bob’s Bait Bucket in high school he quickly realized I was better at stocking the shelves and manning the cash register than convincing a fisherman to add a bottle of off-brand sunscreen to his purchases. “She’s never ordered a dessert before?”

“Not once,” Benedetta replied.

chapter eleven

U
sing My Noodle

Ugh.
This interview was going south fast, and I didn’t appreciate being manipulated. I knew Benedetta’s restaurant was making money hand over fist. A customer ordering only a salad wasn’t going to bankrupt the place. I felt an urge to tell her as much. Of course I suspected that a hefty portion of the restaurant’s reported income was Tino’s dirty extortion money, but I couldn’t tell her that, either. I had no choice but to play along.

“Anything in particular you want me to push?” I asked, trying to buy myself time to come up with a strategy.

“The cannoli,” she said, “or maybe the bomboloni. We’ve got plenty of those.”

“Bomboloni,” I said. “Is that the thing that looks like a jelly doughnut?”

“But tastes so much better,” Benedetta said. “Yes, that’s the bomboloni.”

I stood, racking my brain, trying to remember what I’d learned in my marketing classes back in college. Given that I’d been out of school for years now and hadn’t used the information, nothing came to mind.
Dammit!
What could I say to convince her?
Hmm …
I decided a few choice adjectives couldn’t hurt.

I walked over to the woman and offered a pleasant smile. “Did you enjoy your salad?”

“I did,” she said. “The dressing was fabulous, as usual.”

“Wonderful. How about a dessert to top things off?” I turned my charm up as high as it would go. “We have a delicious Italian cream cake that melts in your mouth, a decadent tiramisu that will make you close your eyes in pure bliss, a scrumptious bomboloni with fresh raspberry filling, and a chocolate cannoli so rich and creamy the pope declared it a mortal sin to eat it.”
There. That ought to do it.

“Hmm. I don’t know…” The woman’s eyes went to the refrigerator case at the back of the room and I would swear she drooled. But still she resisted. How, I had no idea. If I were in her shoes I’d have chocolate and jelly all over my chin by now.

An idea popped into my head. If a picture is worth a thousand words, the real thing would be worth much more, right? It was easy enough to resist a theoretical dessert, but when one was right in front of you it was a different story. That’s why wait staff often brought a tray of the desserts to the table, to show people what they’d be missing if they didn’t order one for themselves.

I scampered to the case and snatched a bomboloni and a cannoli. If I had to force-feed this woman like a factory-farm turkey she was going to eat a dessert. I returned to the table and held the plates in front of her face where she could see and smell how yummy they were. “Does this help you make up your mind?”

She eyed the desserts and I could see her resolve melting a little.

Just pick one!
I mentally willed her.
I won’t get the waitress job unless you do!
Unfortunately, my attempts at mental telepathy failed and she held strong.

“I can’t,” she said, pulling her eyes from the desserts. “I’ll go over my lunch budget.”

Aha!
She wasn’t watching her waistline as much as her wallet. That was something I could work with.

I lowered my voice to a whisper. “I was told you’re a regular here. I’m interviewing for a waitress position and the boss said she’ll give me the job if I can convince you to buy a dessert. Order one today and your next lunch will be on me.”

She smiled. “Well, I can’t turn an offer like that down, can I? I’ll have the cannoli.”

I’d have to pay for the woman’s next meal out of my own pocket, but I couldn’t risk not getting this job. It would be much easier for me to keep an eye on the cash flowing in and out of the restaurant if I were actually
in
the restaurant.

I turned to find Benedetta standing behind the refrigerator case. I walked over, looked her in the eye, and lied through my teeth. “Told you I was good at marketing. I convinced her to try the chocolate cannoli.”

“And you,” Benedetta said, a coy smile playing about her lips, “have convinced
me
to hire you.”

*   *   *

I’d landed the job.
Thank God.
We arranged for me to start the following day.

When I was done at the bistro, I returned to my apartment, heeding Hohenwald’s warning and watching carefully for a tail.
Nope.
Nobody was following me. Good.

I packed the spirals and the textbooks in the backpack, and drove to Dallas Baptist University. Better familiarize myself with the school I purportedly attended, right?

With just over five thousand students, DBU was a small university by Texas standards, but nonetheless offered a good range of majors. The campus was situated on nearly three hundred acres in southwest Dallas, overlooking Mountain Creek Lake. The beautiful campus, which was made up primarily of traditional red-brick buildings, was lorded over by the enormous, white Pilgrim Chapel, its tall steeple visible from all over the space.

I parked in a designated student spot and consulted the campus map that had been included in the packet sent over by the FBI office. The agent had circled the buildings in which my classes were held so that I could find them easily.

Given that it was early May already, there were only a few classes left before finals. Students streamed into the student center, either heading in for an early lunch or to hook up with study partners. I found my classrooms and turned to head back to my car. A cute guy with black hair and green eyes did a double take and continued to look my way, offering me a flirtatious smile when my eyes met his. I found myself smiling back, a giddy feeling bubbling up in me.

Jeez, Tara,
I told myself.
Chill. You’re here to work, not chase boys. Besides, he’s no Nick.
It was true. The kid who’d looked my way was a cute college boy, but Nick was a man.
My
man. And I had no intention of trading him in for a different model. Still, it was nice to know I could hold my own with all of these pretty young women around. Then again, maybe Joe College was simply intrigued by my fiery red hair, wondering if the rumors about redheads were true.
There’s fires in hell, boy,
I thought.
And lust is a sin that can take you there.

I’d done all I could on the Fabrizio case for now, so I decided to do some digging into Triple 7 Adventures. On my way to the IRS office, I drove through a fast-food Chinese takeout and ordered a couple of vegetable egg rolls with sweet and sour sauce. I ate them on the way, situating the plastic sauce container in the cup holder for easy dipping
.
When I finished the egg rolls, I cracked open the fortune cookie as I sat at a stoplight downtown. I took a quick peek at the fortune.

A trapped cat becomes a lion.

Hmm. The fortune cookie was food for thought. Literally. I shoved the cookie into my mouth and chewed.
Crunch-crunch-crunch.

When I arrived on my floor, Lu looked up from her desk and called me into her office. As I stepped in, she gestured to my chest. “What’s that on your shirt?”

I glanced down. An orange blob sat atop my left boob.
Oops.
“Sweet and sour sauce.” I swiped it with my finger and, having nowhere to dispose of the blob, licked it off.

Lu made a face but said nothing. I’d once seen her stir a diet shake with a Slim Jim. Who was she to cast aspersions?

She sat back in her seat. “What have you found out about that vacation scam?”

Sheesh.
What a slave driver. Wasn’t it enough that I’d spent all last night packing and had both moved to my new apartment and interviewed for a job this morning to move the mobster case forward?

“Nothing yet. I’ve been busting my butt getting ready for the Fabrizio investigation.” Well, busting
my
butt and cupping Nick’s. But hadn’t I deserved a final boink before going indefinitely undercover? “But I’m planning to take a look right now.”

“Let me know what you find out. I’ll call Harold back with your report. Might as well let the taxpayers know the IRS is on their side.”

I fought a smile. I lost.

Lu scowled at me. “What are you grinning at?”

“Someone’s got a crush,” I said in a singsong voice.

She turned and looked away, a sure sign I’d hit the nail on the head.
Eek. Nails.
Why did my mind keep going there?

She turned back to me. “I don’t have a crush,” she snapped. “It was just nice to get some attention, that’s all.”

I couldn’t fault her, especially when I’d gotten all warm and fuzzy this morning as that green-eyed guy had looked my way.

She flapped her hand, shooing me out of her office. “Get busy.”

I grabbed a quick mug of coffee in the office kitchen and took it to my office.

First, I tried the phone number listed for Triple 7 on the postcard and receipt. All my efforts got me was a recorded voice telling me the number was not in service. No surprise there. More digging told me the number had belonged to a prepaid cell phone.

Unfortunately, the provider’s service representative would give me no information. She was, however, generous with the attitude. “People buy prepaid phones for a reason, you know. They don’t want the government listening in on their phone calls.”