“Goddamn right I did. You want to keep your cushy lifestyle?”
“I think ‘cushy’ might be a stretch.”
“Get your ass to Denver tonight!”
“Can I use the Gulfstream?”
“Lear 60.”
“Nice equipment,” I said. “What’s with the Cosmo?”
“Cosmo Burlap. The name you’re flying under in first class.”
“That your idea of a joke?” I said.
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Pretty sad, you ask me.”
“Hey, you want to switch jobs? Any fucking day, my friend. How about this:
“Uh huh.”
“This a bad time for you? Interferes with your love life? Prevents you from making an extra million bucks? Gee, that’s too bad. Fuck
It was a bad time. Callie was counting on me to track down Tara Siegel in Boston, something I’d planned to do tomorrow after getting a good night’s sleep. I’d had a long day, what with the funeral, Kimberly, the rainstorm, the flights, the late dinner with Kathleen. Last thing I felt like doing tonight was pulling a four-hour flight to Denver with a turn-around to Dallas.
I said, “What do you mean, ‘fuck the accountant’?”
Chapter 26
The girl sitting next to me kept glancing at my jewelry. We’d just gotten settled into our seats when—there, she did it again.
“Business or pleasure?” I said.
The corners of her mouth turned slightly upward. Not a smile, exactly, but not a frown either.
“Business, I’m afraid. You?”
“The same. By the way, I’m Cosmo.”
She gave up a quick laugh that made her eyelids crinkle at the corners. Then looked up and saw me not laughing. “Oh,” she said. “You’re serious.”
I showed her a wan smile. “I curse my parents daily. How about you?”
She giggled. “I don’t even know your parents,” she said.
I shared the smile. “Good one.”
“Thanks. I’m Alison. Alison Cilice.”
“Cilice with an “S?”
“With a C,” she said, and spelled it for me.
It never ceases to amaze me how much personal information total strangers reveal about themselves in casual conversations on an airplane. In less than three minutes I can get almost anyone to tell me where, when and how to kill them.
“Nice to meet you, Alison. What sort of work do you do?”
“Oh, Gawd. It’s so boring!”
I laughed. “Try me!”
“Okay. You know the Park ‘N Fly’s?”
“The parking lots by the airports? That’s you?”
She laughed. “How old do I look? No, I don’t own them. I’m their internal auditor.”
Alison was about thirty, had an easy manner with men. Darwin probably had all the sexual details in a file on his desk.
“You must travel a lot,” I said.
“Every other week.”
“How many locations?”
“We’ve got nineteen lots across the country,” she said, “so I stay pretty busy.”
“I bet a lot of managers hate to see you coming.”
“Serves them right if they do,” she said.
“Do you always find irregularities?”
“Always.”
“That means you’re good at what you do.”
She smiled.
I looked away a moment and stretched my hands in front of me so she could get a closer look at my sparkles.
“Nice jewelry,” she said.
I looked back and watched her eyes take it all in: the Presidential Rolex on my left wrist, the four-carat diamond ring on my right hand, the lack of jewelry on my left ring finger.
I said, “Let me guess: the company parks you at one of the airport hotels, and expects you to stay put the whole week.”
She looked surprised. “How’d you guess?”
“We’re living the same life. This is my first trip to Dallas, so naturally they’ve stuck me at the Airport Marriott.”
“For real? Me too!” she said.
“Not such a huge coincidence. The pilots and flight attendants will probably be there too, along with half the salesmen on the plane.”
She thought a minute. “Now that you mention it, I have seen a lot of the same people where I stay.”
Alison had great hair, a pretty face, and a flirtatious personality. She dressed well enough to hide most of the extra thirty pounds she carried, though her use of jewelry was a bit over-the-top. She wore rings on her fingers, numerous bracelets on each wrist, diamond studs in her ears—and probably elsewhere. I wondered how long it took to get all that shit off before going through the metal detector.
Neither of us spoke until we were wheels-up and had to answer the flight attendant about our drink orders. I asked for a cabernet, Alison wanted a Diet Coke.
“You ever get to see much of the cities you visit?” I said.
“I’m usually too tired for night life,” she said. “But I might hit the hotel bar for a quick drink once in awhile.”
“Let me guess: mojito?”
She laughed. “Yuk, no. I’m a cosmo girl all the way.”
I gave her a look. “Are you making fun of me?”
She put it together. “Oh, Gawd no!” she said, giggling. “But your name and my favorite drink: now
