Hell on Heels

“You didn’t save my ass, you stole my collar.” She tried to keep her tone cool and calm even though she wasn’t in the mood for him, especially if he intended to gloat. “I’d staked out that bar for four nights to get Wesley Baker.”

“You’re handcuff-challenged and you made a lot of mistakes,” he returned, “but that’s not what I need to discuss with you.”

“And I told you we have nothing to discuss.” She walked past him and headed for the door.

“Chantal, we need to talk.”

She froze at the sound of her real name and whirled back around to face him in horror. “How do you know my real name?” She’d been so careful to make sure nobody here knew her as anything but Carol Worth. How long had he known her real identity? How in the devil had he found out?

He stepped closer to her, close enough that she could smell the scent of minty soap and his spicy cologne. That’s one thing she’d noticed about him, no matter how disreputable he looked, he always smelled clean and good.

“I knew who you were the day after you started working for Joey. I make it my business to know the kind of people I work with.”

“I don’t work with you and you need to forget anything you think you know about me.” She wasn’t sure why, but the idea that Crazy Luke Coleman knew her real identity made her feel vulnerable.

“Don’t worry, your little secret is safe with me. I’m not worried about where you live or what’s in your bank account. I’m more worried about the fact that according to my sources you now have a price on your head.”

“What are you talking about?” How she wished she’d gotten more than three hours sleep the night before. How she wished she’d taken the time to put on mascara before leaving the house that morning. The utter irrationality of this thought let her know she was beyond sleep-deprived. She was positively delusional.

“Remember Perry Mundy?”

“Of course,” she replied. Perry Mundy was a two-bit dope-dealing punk who had skipped bail and taken to the streets. Chantal had brought him in and she’d heard that only a week earlier he’d been sentenced to five years in prison. “What about him?”

“My street sources tell me he’s put out the word that he wants you dead and he’s willing to pay for the job. I’d say the best thing for you to do is to take a little vacation, get out of town until Mundy cools off and calls off his dogs.”

She stared at him with a mixture of disbelief and horror. A price on her head? Was that possible? Disbelief quickly won over horror.

“What’s the matter, Coleman? Can’t handle a little competition?”

He frowned, eyes narrowed to mere dark slits. “What are you talking about?”

She shrugged. “I just find it interesting that yesterday Marcus Willowby jumped bail and this morning you’re telling me to take a vacation because some punk has put out a hit on me. The timing is just a tad suspicious to me.”

Once again she turned to go inside, but squeaked in surprise as he grabbed her by the upper arm and spun her around to face him once again.

Her heart thumped wildly as his gaze bored into hers. All trace of amusement had fled from his black eyes and his mouth was nothing more than a grim slash. “Don’t be stupid,” he said. “This isn’t one of your little society soirees, this is a very real threat that you’d better take seriously.”

She jerked away from his grip and stumbled two steps backward. “Fine. You’ve delivered the information. I’ll take it under consideration.”

She breathed a sigh of relief when he didn’t stop her from going inside. It took her only ten minutes to find out that Big Joey knew nothing more about Willowby’s disappearance than she’d managed to glean from the news.

However, there was an intensity vibrating in the air inside the office. Big Joey had put up the bond for Willowby and he was beside himself with rage. When Big Joey wasn’t happy, nobody in the office was happy.

When she discovered he didn’t have any information that she could use to find Willowby, she left, realizing she was going to have to use every resource at her disposal in an attempt to figure out where he might be.

Chantal 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.