Exit Strategy (Nadia Stafford 1)

"Will there be a problem getting in to see him?" I asked. "They'll have him under security still, won't they?"

Frances shook her head. "When the family puts someone out to pasture, he's persona non grata. They'll visit him, keep up appearances but, as far as they're concerned, he's out of the business. They won't tell him anything, so there's nothing he can tell anyone else. On current events, that is. The past? Well, no one cares much about the past these days."

Frances searched the Internet for private rest homes in the Detroit suburbs until she found the one that tweaked her memory. Then we took our leave and prepared for a trip to Michigan.

"He's an old man," Evelyn said as she pulled into a mall parking lot. "Flash him some T and A, and he'll tell us everything we want to know."

"Great," I said. "We'll find you a push-up bra and miniskirt."

She pinned me with a look. "After a certain age, all the push-up bras in the world don't help, as you'll discover. With a man like Little Joe, the horseflesh has to be young and it has to be firm."

"Did I mention I don't do Mata Hari?"

"Dee..."

"I'm not pulling some feminist bullshit. I can't play the seduction card--I don't have the look for it. When I was on the force, Vice nabbed me once for undercover, stuck me in a microskirt and halter top, put me on the street corner. I looked like the world's only crack ho with a personal trainer."

"We can skip the microskirt."

"And the halter top?"

A sigh. "And the halter top. Let's see what we can find."

I folded my sandwich wrapper into quarters, tucked it into the take-out bag and folded that into a neat square. Then I leaned forward to shake the crumbs from my cleavage. Amazing what they can do with bras these days. Slap together some elastic and some underwire, toss in a couple of gel-filled "contouring pads" and I felt like I should be ticketed for false advertising.

Evelyn had picked out my sweater--a low-cut job that was 50 percent Lycra, 20 percent angora and 100 percent skanky. She'd completed the ensemble with skintight jeans, ankle boots, red press-on nails and jewelry that clanked when I walked.

Back at her place I'd finished up with hair and makeup. I'd considered Jack's platinum wig choice, but it tweaked the outfit over the line to street whore. So I'd kept on Evelyn's long brown one, borrowed a curling iron and hair-spray, and teased the wig until it looked like what I'd worn for my eighth-grade yearbook photo--a shellacked ode to the era of big hair and heavy metal. Mafia bait. All I needed was a wad of bubble gum and a Jersey accent.

We'd taken turns driving, picked up lunch and arrived at Glory Acres just past three-thirty. The place had once been a home--a real one--occupied, undoubtedly, by a real family. It appeared to have begun life as a two-story Victorian but, like most of us, had spread with age. There was an addition here, a wing there, none of it the same style as the original building. Two skeletons of porch swings were propped against the house, seats and cushions gone. Burlap covered the shrubs and rosebushes. Birdbaths had been emptied and turned upside-down. A house in hibernation.

"I'll talk to him alone first," Evelyn said as we walked up the front steps. "I need to refresh his memory on some...past deeds of mine. So he knows I'm not conning him."

"Maybe you can get him to talk to you, skip my role altogether."

She said nothing, and I had the feeling it wouldn't matter if she could get Little Joe to talk--she'd still bring me in. Testing me. Or showing me who was boss. Probably both. Typical "new partner" bullshit. One reason I liked working with Jack--he never pulled this crap.

"It might take ten, fifteen minutes, so use the washroom, freshen up." She gave me a once-over. "Put on more lipstick. And pull the sweater down."

"If I pull it down anymor

e, I'll fall out."

"All the better."

"So what's my story?" I said as I pulled open the front door. "Your niece? Nurse? Tax accountant?"

"For occupation, we'll stick with the truth."

I stopped, the door half open. "Seriously? Dressed like this?"

"He'll love it."

* * *

FIFTEEN

I waited in the atrium. The nurse had said there was a sitting room, but I preferred to stick close to the door, where escape was within sight. The smell is what did it to me, that unforgettable mix of disinfectant, overcooked vegetables and mortality that hits you in the gut and screams "run, while you still can!"