**********
“What?” she said breathlessly.
Blair tried to play his feelings down, letting her go and then leaning against the kitchen counter. “Nothing,” he said. It was hard to look at her.
“When can I see them?”
“See what?”
“The rubies,” she said.
“I don’t think you’ll be able to,” he said, not really sure why he said that.
“Are you saying that you don’t have them?”
“Would it matter if I didn’t?”
“Do you have them or not?” she said, taking a step back and sounding angry.
“Is that why you let me kiss you like that? Because you want a piece of my good fortune?”
“What I want is a straight answer.”
“How do you know so much about the rubies?”
“You’re such a lush,” she said as if she found him disgusting. “Just like my father.”
“Who told you about the rubies?” he asked again.
“You told me about them. Don’t you remember?” She shook her head. “The way you’re acting, you must be drunk right now.”
“Not drunk enough,” he said. “I can see you clearer than I’ve ever been able to in the past.”
“Get out!”
“I think you knew all about the rubies before this morning, or even before I called you, for that matter. I never said they were rubies, and I never told you they were red. Damn it, Mercedes!”
“You told me they were red over the telephone,” she insisted. When Horace stuck his head inside the kitchen, he took her by surprise. “Horace? What the hell are you doing in here?”
“Bein’ your conscience, miss,” Horace said, holding up a tablet with names and telephone numbers on it he’d obviously gotten from one of the rooms in her apartment. “Isn’t there something you’d be wantin’ to tell us?”
“What took you so long?” Blair asked, walking over to Horace and taking the tablet he was holding and reading it. There were initials by both entries: QL was by one, but the big surprise was finding the initials CM on the paper.
“CM,” Blair said, looking at Mercedes as she sat down in one of two kitchen chairs. “Do they stand for Calvin Maxwell?”
When she didn’t answer, he went to her and yanked her back up on her feet. “You’re already in trouble up to your ass, lady! I only told two people about those gemstones. I told you and I told Horace. You were the one who tipped off Latrice about what I had and where I’d be!”
Mercedes yanked her arm away from him. “I don’t know anyone named Latrice.”
“Bullshit.”
“I said I don’t know Latrice. Now you can both get the hell out of here before I call the police.”
“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Blair said. “You know Detective Smith as well as Latrice. The police are just as dirty as you are.”
“Go to hell.”
“Two people were killed this morning because of you,” Blair said, standing closer to her. “And I was supposed to be added to the count, wasn’t I?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she said, screaming right in his face.
Blair’s head was pounding and all of the shouting wasn’t easing the pain. Despite that, he knew he had to keep pressing. His being able to piece everything together depended on it. “The initials QL and CM are on this paper,” Blair told Horace, “and she doesn’t know Quentin Latrice.” Blair looked at her again. “Do you know the Maxwells?”
“Who?” she said stubbornly, refusing to yield.
“Well, I know Calvin Maxwell, and I also know his home phone number.” He held up the tablet for emphasis. “This is it.”
“I got that number from the telephone book.”
“It’s not listed.”
Mercedes looked scared for a moment, and then folded her arms and stood back as if thinking about making a run for it. She must’ve realized that she wouldn’t have gotten very far, so she stayed put.
“Now, if I call this number next to QL,” Blair continued, “will I get Latrice?”
She didn’t answer; she just looked at Horace and rolled her eyes away.
“What’s your involvement in all of this?” Blair asked her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, and then said nothing more. She even raised her chin defiantly.
“Oh yes, you do, miss,” Horace said, stepping into the kitchen. “I found this, too.”
Horace held up a snapshot of Mercedes standing between Cynthia and her mother Corinne. Cynthia was wearing a light blue lab coat and Blair recognized the background as being Calvin Maxwell’s office. What was most interesting was the fact that Mercedes was wearing a cleaning lady’s uniform.
Blair took the photograph and studied it closely. “Do you work for the Maxwells?”
“You know perfectly well where I work. I work at the pet shop downtown. I also volunteer to help feed the inner city poor three times a week.”
“Your job at the pet shop is only part-time, and ‘volunteer’ means no pay. You must have another part-time job to make ends meet.” He glanced around the room. “An apartment like this goes for at least four hundred dollars a month.”
“Think what you want,” she said, sitting down again and then turning her back on both of them.
“How well did you know Cynthia?”
Mercedes sighed. “Not well at all. We met through mutual friends.”
“What friends?”
“Felicity Carmichael, Jack Drummond…. People I’m sure you don’t know.”
“Jack Drummond…?” Blair said. The name was familiar but he couldn’t quite place it. “What does he do for a living?”
“His best, I assure you.”
Blair absorbed her terse remarks with a smile. “What I can’t understand is why you’ve pretended not to know Cynthia all this time.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“When I discussed her death with you, you said nothing. Surely you knew about what had happened to her.”
“I didn’t want to compound your sadness with my own,” she said, but Blair didn’t buy it.
“Friends are hard to come by,” Blair said, slipping the photograph into his pocket.
“You ain’t shittin’!” Horace interjected.
Mercedes shook her head and folded her arms again. “You’re going to get yourself killed, just like Cynthia did.” She paused, regarding him with a hate coming from places he never knew existed. “Soon there’ll be one less drunk prowling around this city. Somehow you managed to get away a few hours ago, but you won’t be able to run forever. One way or the other, they’ll find your sorry ass and finish what they started.”
Blair ripped the sheet of paper with the numbers and initials off the notepad and then stuffed it in his pocket. “Just give whoever you’re working for a message from me,” he told her. “Tell them that they’ll never get their stinking hands on those rocks regardless of whether I live or die.”
Again she didn’t answer; she just glared at him as if she had more at stake in all of this than she was letting on.
“And you,” he continued, addressing her personally, “don’t worry your pretty head over me. You’d better save some of that concern for yourself. This is a messy situation you’ve gotten yourself in to, and I’d bet the house that I’ll have a better chance of staying alive than you do.”