Four parties and a funer.., p.2
Four Parties and a Funeral, page 2
Mia met the evil eye with a raised eyebrow. “And you are recording exactly what?”
“A true-crime podcast based on the murders that involved Belle View,” Cammie said, jazzed about her latest venture. She gestured to the electronics taking up every inch of space on her desk. “I got Pete to pony up for top-of-the-line gear.”
Pete was Cammie’s ex-husband, Detective Pete Dianopolis. Pete wrote self-published thrillers under the pen name Steve Stianopolis. Assuming he’d immediately join the pantheon of hugely popular authors like Lee Child, he’d divorced Cammie to make room for the author groupies he expected to fall at his feet. Neither they nor the big paycheck he expected ever materialized, and he’d come crawling back to Cammie, to the benefit of her and Belle View. A cowed Pete would do anything to win Cammie back, including springing for pricey recording equipment or revealing the occasional clue in one of the murder investigations involving the catering facility.
Guadalupe stood up, her towering frame filling the room. “I got menus to plan.”
“No worries.” Cammie checked a piece of equipment. “I think we got a good take before Mia barged in.”
“You mean greeted you on the start of the workday,” Mia said, hitting the word “work” hard.
“This is work,” Cammie replied. “Everybody loves true-crime podcasts these days. It’s great free publicity for Belle View.”
Mia grimaced. “Not sure how ‘learn all about the murder victims found in or around Belle View Banquet Manor’ is great publicity.”
“Normally I’d be with you on that, ma’am,” Guadalupe said. “But thanks to a podcast I heard, I just booked a visit to a B&B that was the former hideout of a doomsday cult, so I’ll recuse myself from this conversation.” With this, Guadalupe departed, her chef’s toque grazing the top of the door frame.
Cammie pondered a document on her computer screen. “Which do you think is a better title, Catering Hall Killings or Killings at the Catering Hall?”
“Hmmm . . .” Mia thought for a moment. “I’d go with, forget the podcast because more important things are happening today, like Little Donny starting work here.”
“That’s a terrible title,” Cammie said with a pout. She placed high-end earbuds in her ears and pressed a button on a recorder to play back her interview.
With the Kiwanis Club breakfast in Shane’s perfectly shaped, capable hands, Mia focused her attention on Little Donny, who showed up close to lunchtime for his first day at Belle View looking like he’d slept in his clothes, which it turned out he had. “I got a serious overhang.” The Boldano firstborn rubbed his forehead. Little D, as he insisted Mia call him—“It’s my new handle, clever, huh?”—was good-looking in a swarthy way. But at the moment, his rumpled outfit and black beard stubble gave him the look of a shipwreck victim.
Mia silently prayed for patience dealing with “Little D.” “Everything okay?”
“If it was, would I be here?” he grumped. “My kid brother’s getting married, and I don’t even got a girlfriend. Which reminds me, I’m not working weddings. I can’t deal with some other couple’s happy time right now.”
“Fine. No weddings. Not a problem. We’ve got lots of graduation parties coming up. Tonight, there’s one for a bunch of kids from Queens College.”
Little D shook his head. “Jamie went to Queens College. I only got through high school because Dad got one of his goons to hack the school’s grading software and change my Fs to Bs. So, no working a graduation party for me. Too depressing.”
“Fine.” Mia said this through gritted teeth, her prayer for patience unanswered. “We’ve also got a birthday party for a four-year-old coming up. Not a graduation, I promise. They’re all still in preschool. Little kids. Adorable.”
Little D shook his head and whimpered. “The way things are going, I’ll never have children.”
God help me. Mia sucked in a breath and slowly released it. She summoned a sympathetic smile. “Donny, if you threw yourself into your work, it would distract you from your problems. You might even make some new friends.”
Donny sparked to this. “Like hot college girls?”
It was Mia’s turn to shake her head. “No dating the customers.”
Little D muttered an expletive and slumped in his chair. “What’s the point of all this anyway? Why should I help other people make happy memories?”
Mia leaned forward. “That’s the whole point—to know you helped someone create a memory that will live forever. And you’re part of that memory. Donny, that’s incredibly fulfilling.”
The recalcitrant new employee responded with a skeptical “Meh.”
No wonder his parents wanted this guy out of the house, Mia thought to herself. Despite being in his almost-mid-thirties, Little D still lived at home. This wasn’t unusual in Mia’s circle, where friends often lived at home until they married. Mia knew a woman who had three kids by three different boyfriends but had never married, so she still lived with her parents, as did her kids. Still, most had walked down the aisle at least once, if not twice, by Little D’s age. “Tell you what,” Mia said, “I’ll find something for you to do that won’t push your buttons. In the meantime, why don’t you check out your office?”
Little D followed her with little enthusiasm to the small office they’d carved out for him off the first-floor Marina Ballroom, where Flushing Marina could be seen shimmering through the room’s floor-to-ceiling windows, as could the LaGuardia Airport runway, where a 737 was coming in for a noisy landing. After depositing her charge, Mia scurried to her father’s office, catching him as he returned from his daily lunch at Roberto’s Trattoria. “I wanted to warn you, there may be another murder on Belle View property.”
Ravello responded with an understanding grin. “Little Donny?”
Mia nodded. “He’s Little D this week. He hasn’t even been here an hour, and he’s already making me pazzo.”
She detailed her frustrating conversation with the latest Belle View employee. As she spoke, Ravello used the back of his hand to wipe perspiration from his forehead. While her father was a large man, he was also preternaturally dry, plus he’d lost weight recently. It occurred to Mia that he was breathing heavier than usual, too. “You okay, Dad? You’re a little not yourself.”
“It’s all this diet and exercise Lin’s forcing on me,” Ravello said, referencing his girlfriend of about a year, a federal prosecutor turned florist who owned a charming shop in Manhattan’s East Village.
“That should make you healthier,” Mia pointed out.
“I’ve been ordering seafood salad instead of fettucine Alfredo.”
Mia’s eyes widened. “Wow. Your system may be rebelling against the switch from heavy cream to lettuce.”
“In more ways than one. I was in the restroom at Roberto’s, and—”
Mia held up a hand. “TMI. Even for a relative. Any tips on how to manage Little D so I don’t lose my mind?”
“Give him a little time to make himself feel comfortable here,” Ravello advised. “Meanwhile, keep checking out bookings. Something will come up he can deal with.”
After conferring with her father about a few other business details, Mia returned to her office and called up the Belle View calendar. She noticed Cammie had added a facilities tour to the schedule. Intrigued by the name of the potential future customer, she popped up from her desk and went to Cammie’s office. “I saw a tour for a Giles St. James Productions on the sked. What’s that about?”
“A production company is checking out Belle View’s catering facilities for an upcoming event.” Cammie checked her reflection via her computer screen, patting down a few errant strands of frosted blond hair. “I call giving the tour. I wanna pitch them my podcast.”
“You can have the tour on two conditions: no pitching, at least not yet. Let ’em book here first. And Little Donny shadows you.”
Cammie groaned. “I don’t care if you’re running a halfway house for mobster spawn, but spare me any extra work, like training them.”
“Extra work implies you do any work at all. And those are my conditions.”
“Fine,” Cammie grumped. “It’s a good thing this is the best job in the world, or I’d quit.”
Mia left Cammie to deliver what she hoped would be, if not good news to Little D, then at least news that didn’t send the lost soul spiraling further. She found him engrossed in an app on his phone. “I’ve got a task I think you’ll like. A production company is coming for a tour. Cammie is leading it, and you can shadow her so you learn how to give them yourself.”
“ ’Kay.” Little D held up his phone. “Whaddya think? Could this be the future Mrs. Little D?”
Mia glanced at the photo of an excessively made-up, half-naked woman lying prone on a bed. “What app is this?” She looked closer. “D, this isn’t a dating app; it’s a porn site.”
“Your point is?”
“No porn in the workplace.” She gave herself props for not screaming this in his face.
“Fine.” Little D sounded glum. “I just searched ‘Hot Chicks.’ I was too depressed to pay close attention.”
“Well, un-depress yourself. I’m walking you over to Cammie. She’ll give you a rundown on everything you need to know for the tour.”
Mia personally delivered her reluctant trainee to an equally reluctant Cammie and escaped to her office. Thrilled about the possibility of a production company using the Belle View facilities, she texted Shane the news. He responded with a bitmoji of himself giving a thumbs-up. Not for the first time, it struck Mia that even his avatar was gorgeous. She debated whether to go with a response involving hearts, then went with something a little more businesslike. She edited her avatar so it better reflected her coloring of dark hair, pale skin, and bright blue eyes, something she’d been meaning to do for a while, and sent Shane an image of the avatar holding a movie slate. To her delight, Shane hearted it.
Curious about why a production company was scouting an Astoria location, Mia typed “Giles St. James Productions” into the search bar on her computer, then clicked on the company’s website. The glamorous bio of company founder and president Giles St. James impressed her. Excited, Mia envisioned Belle View as the premiere Queens catering facility for a marquee Hollywood production company. She clicked on a tab marked “Projects,” and her enthusiasm lessened. Despite the tony website, Giles St. James Productions only produced cheesy reality shows, including the pilot for The Dons of Ditmars Boulevard.
Mia chided herself for being judgy. And then tamped down a sudden feeling of foreboding.
CHAPTER 3
On the way home from work that evening, Mia tried to dispel her concerns about the production company. She never knew if her instinct for trouble was the result of growing up as a mobster’s daughter or some form of PTSD based on the same reason. Either way, there was no cause for concern yet. The Belle View tour hadn’t happened and might not happen at all. Plenty of prospective clients canceled appointments at the last minute. Worry is paying interest on a debt you may not owe, she told herself. Mia couldn’t remember where she’d heard this saying and considered it a little complicated to unpack, but it did come in handy sometimes. She shelved all thoughts of Giles St. James Productions, replacing them with daydreams about her upcoming evening with Shane.
Elisabetta waylaid her the minute she stepped inside their shared front vestibule. “Guarda.” She held up a large bag stuffed with fiber skeins in a glaring cacophony of colors. “The crafts shop is selling grab bags for a buck. You should see my haul.”
Mia followed her grandmother into the living room, where every surface except for the floor was covered with a hideous array of yarns. The crafts shop had clearly found a way to foist unsellable merchandise onto their senior clientele—shove it into plastic bags, label them a “surprise collection,” and sell the bags for a dollar, offering a deal knitters and crocheters like Elisabetta would be unable to resist. The yarns were so homely that even her grandmother’s little rescue terrier mutt, Hero, ignored them, choosing to hunker down in a corner of the room far away from the offending fibers. “I been crocheting all day. I made you a little something.” Elisabetta proudly held up a tank top in a shade of brown that reminded Mia of the bark on a dying tree, with shoulder straps crocheted in a bright—and clashing—fire-engine red. “Pretty, huh? Try it on.”
Mia responded with an impulsive wince she quickly hid. “Sure.”
She pulled off her silky lavender top and thrust her arms into the tank top. Within ten seconds, she’d broken a sweat. The fibers were nothing known to nature and breathed about as much as a rubber wetsuit. Elisabetta glanced up and down approvingly. “Now you got something special to wear on your next date with Shane.”
“Right,” Mia said, wondering if it was too late to plead a migraine and cancel her plans with him. A text pinged with the message I’m outside, answering her question. “Oh, goody. He’s here.”
Elisabetta gave her a gentle push down the hallway toward the front door. “Vai. Go. Enjoy. I got more crocheting to do. Or knitting. Whatevs.”
Elisabetta watched her granddaughter make a slow death march to Shane’s car. Shane’s welcoming smile turned into a jaw drop as he took in her top. “What are you wearing?” he asked as she climbed into the front seat. “You look like you’re playing the part of a tree in a kindergarten play. A very sick tree.”
“Long story, but”—Mia cast a sly grin his way—“I’m hoping I won’t be wearing this for too much longer.”
Shane matched her grin with a sexy smolder. “You won’t. I give you my word as a gentleman.”
* * *
Shane kept his promise, with Mia’s hideous tank top quickly shed post-dinner at his place. He brought her home in the morning so she could arrive at work separately from him, maintaining the clumsy ruse of hiding their relationship from coworkers who knew exactly what was going on but humored them. Mia fed Doorstop and Pizzazz food and kisses, then steeled herself for another workday with Downer Donny.
But over the next few days, Little D confounded expectations by not being the worst employee ever to work at Belle View. His mob-adjacent muscle scored Belle View some great deals, although he had to be constantly redirected onto the straight and narrow path. “We don’t steal it off a truck, we buy it off a truck,” Mia gently reminded him.
“Bor-ing,” Little D said, blowing a raspberry. “But . . . it ain’t bad ‘negotiating’ with suppliers . . . in my own way.”
“As long as you’re using words, not actions, to make deals,” Mia said, nervous about what exactly the Mob boss’s son meant by “in my own way.”
She caught a break when the Giles St. James Productions reps showed up for their tour and she could foist Little D on Cammie for the innocuous activity. First, Mia welcomed them to Belle View in her position of second-in-command to her father, who had taken the day off to do a healthy-cooking workshop with girlfriend Lin. “We love the idea of hosting a production company and know we have the means to meet your every need,” she told Ariadne St. James, who’d introduced herself as the company’s vice president and executive producer.
St. James was an attractive, elegant Brit in her mid-forties whose cool reserve pushed Mia’s too-Noo-Yawk-for-her-own-good buttons. When the producer spoke, it was with the dulcet tones of a Masterpiece Theater host. “You have excellent parking facilities, something we’re in need of. I assume any charge for that is baked into the overall fee.”
“Absolutely.” Mia cursed herself for how the word came out in her own accent, a nasal Queens honk.
To her relief, Cammie came tapping down the hall in her bright pink, circa mid-1980s heels with Little D in tow. Cammie exchanged greetings with Ms. St. James and introduced her charge. “Donny is a recent employee here. He’ll be shadowing me to learn the ropes on leading a tour.”
Donny gave a slight bow and offered his hand to the woman. “Donato Boldano Junior at your service.”
Upon hearing his name, Ariadne’s reserve melted. She took his hand and favored him with a warm smile. “Well, Donato Boldano Junior, I look forward to taking full advantage of your services.”
The gleam in her eye set off an alarm bell for Mia.
“We’ll start in the Marina Ballroom,” Cammie said, herding Little D and Ariadne, whose eyes were locked on each other, toward the space.
Mia waited until they were out of sight, then ran to Shane’s office. “We have a problem. Or maybe we don’t. I don’t know.”
“Okay,” Shane said, understandably confused.
Mia detailed the sparks she saw fly between the Boldano offspring and the producer. “It was his name that made her light up. Not his looks, although he’s plenty good-looking. But so not my type. And he’s like a brother to me.” Shane’s glower motivated the sidebar. “The pilot the company’s producing is called The Dons of Ditmars Boulevard. What if she wants to put Donny on the show?”
“She’d be a terrible producer if she didn’t think that the minute she met him,” Shane said, not making Mia feel better. “But even if Donny wanted to be on the show, you know Donny Senior would say no. Has Little D ever gone up against his father?”
“Never,” Mia said, calming down. “He idolizes him. He’d never do anything against his dad’s wishes. I feel better. Thanks.” She took a step toward Shane and then backed up. “I feel an urge to kiss you that I’m not gonna act on.”
Shane gave an approving nod. “I feel exactly the same urge. But it would be inappropriate in the workplace.”
Feeling assuaged, Mia returned to her office, where she focused on ordering favors requested by clients for their upcoming events. An hour or so later, Cammie poked her head in. “I booked the production company. You’re welcome. I’m clocking out.”
“Great, thank you. And it’s noon. You’ve been here, what a couple of hours?”
“Considering I just filled three slow, mid-week blocks of time with a little Hollywood action, I’d say my day was well spent. Off to edit my podcast. If I can figure out how. Bye-yee.”
