Susan Phillips - Glitter Baby

Four of them worked each shift, and they had the place sealed up tighter than a drum. Willie sat just inside the front door of the old Astoria factory, while his partner, Andy, was at the back and two of the younger men were outside the workshop doors on the second floor where the dresses were locked up. In the morning, the boys on the day shift would accompany the big dress racks on the drive to the hotel. By evening, the job would be over.

A couple of years back, Willie had guarded Reggie Jackson. That was the kind of job he liked. When him and his brother-in-law were sitting around watching the Giants, he wanted to shoot the bull about guarding Reggie Jackson, not a bunch of dresses. Willie picked up the Daily News. As he turned to the sports section, a battered orange van with BULLDOG ELECTRONICS painted on the side drove past the front entrance. Willie didn’t notice.

The man driving the van turned into an alley across the street without even glancing at the factory. He didn’t have to. He’d driven by every night for the past week, each time in a different vehicle, and he knew exactly what he’d see. He knew about Willie, although he didn’t know his name, and he knew about the guard at the back entrance and the locked room on the second floor with the guards stationed outside. He knew about the day shift that would arrive in a few hours, and the dim interior lights kept on in the factory at night. Only the lights were important to him.

The warehouse across the street from the factory had been abandoned for years, and the rusty padlock at the back gave easily beneath the jaws of the bolt cutters. He pulled an equipment case from the van. It was heavy, but the weight didn’t bother him. When he was safely inside the warehouse, he switched on his flashlight and shone it at the floor as he walked toward the front of the building. The flashlight annoyed him. Its beam of light spread out in a smear-no clear boundaries, no precision. It was sloppy light.

Light was his specialty. Pure beams of pencil-slim light. Coherent light that didn’t spread out in undisciplined pools like a flashlight beam.

He spent nearly an hour setting up. Normally it didn’t take so long, but he’d been forced to modify his equipment with a high-powered telescope, and the mounting was difficult. He didn’t mind, though, because he liked challenges, especially ones that paid so well.

When he’d finished setting up, he cleaned his hands on the rag he carried with him and then wiped a circle in the dirty glass of the warehouse window. He took his time sighting and focusing the telescope, making certain everything was exactly the way he wanted it. He could pick out each of the tiny lead plug centers without any difficulty. They were clearer to him than if he’d been standing in the middle of that second-story room.

When he was ready, he gently pulled the switch on the laser, directing the pure beam of ruby-red light right at the lead plug that was farthest away. The plug needed only a hundred and sixty-five degrees of heat to melt, and within seconds he could see that the hot ruby light of the laser had done its work. He picked out the next plug, and it, too, dissolved under the force of the pencil-thin beam of light. In a matter of minutes, all the lead plugs had melted, and the heads of the automatic fire sprinkler system were spraying water over the racks of dresses.

Satisfied, the man packed up his equipment and left the warehouse.

The phone call from the security company woke Fleur at four in the morning. She listened to the lengthy explanation from the man on the other end of the line. “Don’t wake my brother,” she said just before she hung up. And then she pulled the covers over her head and went back to sleep.

The doorbell woke her. She squinted at her clock and wondered if florists delivered white roses at six in the morning but decided she wasn’t getting up to find out. She stuck her head under the pillow and dozed off. Out of nowhere, someone jerked the pillow away. She screamed and bolted upright in bed.

Jake towered above her in jeans and a zippered sweatshirt that he’d thrown on over his bare chest. His hair was shaggy, his jaw unshaven, and his eyes had an empty, haunted look. “What’s wrong with you? Why didn’t you answer the door?”

Fleur grabbed the pillow out of his hands and hit him in the stomach. “It’s six-thirty in the morning!”

“You run at six o’clock! Where were you?”

“In bed!”

He shoved his hands into his pockets and looked sulky. “How was I supposed to know you were sleeping? When I didn’t see you from my window, I thought something was wrong.”

She couldn’t postpone this day any longer, and she kicked away the covers. He didn’t even pretend not to notice that her gown was bunched around her thighs. She stretched out to switch on the bedside light and deliberately rearranged her legs like a girl in a mattress ad, with her toes pointed and her arches delicately curved. Considering all the problems lying ahead of her today, it wasn’t the greatest reflection on her character that she needed to make sure Jake Koranda got a great view of her legs.

“I’ll make breakfast,” he said abruptly.

She took a quick shower, then slipped into jeans and an old ski sweater. Jake glanced up at her from the eggs he was cracking into a skillet. Standing over her stove, he looked taller than ever, with his shoulders straining the seams of his sweatshirt in a way that was aggressively and indisputably male. It took a moment for her head to semi-clear. “How did you get in? I double-checked the doors before I went to bed last night.”

“You want your eggs scrambled or fried?”

“Jake…”

“I can’t chitchat and make breakfast at the same time. You could help, you know, instead of standing there like the Queen of England. Although you’re a lot better-looking.”

A typically male evasive action, but she let him get away with it because she was hungry. She pitched in with toast and orange juice, then poured the coffee. Once they settled at the table, however, she attacked. “You got to my office manager again. Riata made you a duplicate of her key.”

He loaded up his fork.

“Admit it,” she said. “There’s no other way you could have gotten in.”

“How come you put more butter on your toast than mine?”

“Riata has a key. I have a key. Michel has a key. That’s it. If I fire her, it’ll be on your conscience.”

“You’re not firing her.” He traded his toast for hers. “Your brother gave me a duplicate key a few nights after the dinner party. He told me what your father’s been up to. Michel is worried about you, and I can’t say I’m exactly happy knowing that bastard has you in his crosshairs. When you didn’t go out to run this morning, I was afraid he’d gotten to you.”

She was touched, so she glared at him. “Alexi won’t hurt me physically. Michel should know that. He wants me alive and suffering. Don’t you have enough of your own problems right now?”

“I don’t like what he’s doing.”

She retrieved her toast. “I’m not exactly crazy about it myself.”

They ate in silence for a while. Jake took a sip of coffee. “You don’t usually wear jeans and sneakers to work. What’s up?”

“I’m riding with the dress racks over to the hotel. The men aren’t due here for an hour, and it’s going to be a long day.” She regarded him pointedly. “That’s why I wanted to sleep in this morning. Besides, I couldn’t leave while all this was in the house.” She made a vague gesture toward her living room.

Jake had already spotted the rows of metal racks bearing garments draped in black plastic. “Do you want to tell me about it or should I guess?”

“You know Michel’s showing his collection today.”

“And those are the pieces?”

She nodded and told him about the factory in Astoria and the phone call she’d received at four that morning. “The security people aren’t exactly sure how the sprinkler system was set off, but all the dresses hanging on the racks in the workroom were waterlogged.”

He lifted an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Everything in the workroom was thrift shop stuff,” she said. “Kissy, Simon, Charlie, and I made the switch last night after Michel and all the seamstresses went home.” She tried to feel some sense of satisfaction for having outwitted Alexi, but she’d only have to start worrying again as soon as this was over. She rose and walked toward the phone. “I have to call Michel so he doesn’t have a heart attack if he stops at the factory this morning.”

He came up out of his chair. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me Michel doesn’t know you moved his dresses over here?”

“It’s not his problem. I’m the one who chopped up the Bugatti, and I’m the one Alexi’s after. Michel has enough to worry about.”

Jake shot out from behind the table. “Suppose Alexi sent one of his thugs here? What would you have done then?”

“The factory was crawling with guards. Alexi had no reason to suspect the samples were here.”

“You know what your problem is? You don’t think!” As he came toward her, the pocket of his sweatshirt hit the edge of the counter, and she heard a loud thunk. For the first time she noticed that one side of the garment hung down farther than the other. He immediately shoved his hand in the pocket.

She set the receiver back on its hook. “What do you have?”

“What do you mean?”

Something prickled at the base of her spine. “In your pocket. What is it?”

“Pocket? My keys.”

“What else?”

He shrugged. “A twenty-two automatic.”

She looked at him blankly. “A what?”

“A gun.”

“Are you crazy?” She charged toward him. “You brought a gun in here! In my house? Do you think this is one of your movies?”