The Collectors Read Free Page B

cheek. They all laughed at something else Annabelle said. Then she sat down and talked with them for a few minutes. Leo looked at her curiously as Annabelle left the table and walked past him toward the exit.
    As she passed the talent agent’s table, he said, “Hey, baby, call me. I mean it. You are so hot, I’m on fire!”
    Annabelle swiped a glass of water off the tray of a passing waiter and said, “Well, then let’s cool you off, stud.” She dumped the water in the guy’s lap. He jumped up.
    “Damn it! You’re gonna pay for that, you crazy bitch.”
    His date covered her mouth to hide her laughter.
    Before the man could reach out to grab her, Annabelle shot out a hand and clutched his wrist. “You see those boys over there?” She nodded at the five suits that sat staring at the man hostilely. One of them cracked his knuckles. Another slid his hand inside his suit jacket and kept it there.
    Annabelle said smoothly, “I’m sure you saw me talking to them, since you’ve been staring at me all night. They’re the Moscarelli family. And the one on the end there is my ex, Joey Junior. Now, even though I’m no longer technically in the family, you never really leave the Moscarelli clan.”
    “Moscarelli?” the man said defiantly. “Who the hell are they?”
    “They were the number three organized crime family in Vegas before the FBI ran them and everybody else out. Now they’ve gone back to doing what they do best: controlling the garbage unions in the Big Apple and Newark.” She squeezed his arm. “So if you have a problem with your wet pants, I’m sure Joey will take care of it.”
    “You think I’m buying that crap?” the guy shot back.
    “Well, if you don’t believe me, go over there and talk to him about it.”
    The man looked over at the table again. Joey Junior was holding a steak knife in his beefy hand while one of the other men was attempting to keep him in his seat.
    Annabelle gripped the man’s arm tighter. “Or do you want me to have Joey come over here with some of his friends? Don’t worry; he’s out on parole right now, so he can’t bust you up really bad without ticking off the feds.”
    “No. No!” the alarmed man said as he tore his gaze from murderous Joey Junior and his steak knife. He added quietly, “I mean, it’s no big deal. Just a little water.” He sat back down and dabbed at his soaked crotch with a napkin.
    Annabelle turned to his date. The woman was trying and failing to hold back her giggles. “You think it’s funny, sweetie?” Annabelle said. “This is a case of where we’re all laughing
at
you, not with you. So why don’t you try finding some self-respect, or little shits like him are the only slime you’ll be waking up next to until you’re so old nobody will give a crap anymore. Including you.”
    The lady stopped laughing.
    On the way out of the restaurant Leo said, “Wow, and here I was wasting my time reading Dale Carnegie when all I needed to do was hang around you.”
    “Give it a rest, Leo.”
    “Okay, okay, but the Moscarelli family? Come on. Who were they really?”
    “Five accountants from Cincinnati probably looking to get laid tonight.”
    “You’re lucky they seemed pretty tough.”
    “It wasn’t luck. I said I was practicing a scene from a movie with a friend of mine in public. I told them it happens all the time in L.A. I asked them to help out, that they were to look like the mob; you know, to give us the right atmosphere to deliver our lines. I told them if they did well enough, they might even get a part in the film. It’s probably the most excitement they’ve ever had.”
    “Yeah, but how’d you know that jerk would collar you on the way out?”
    “Oh, I don’t know, Leo, maybe it was that
tent pole
in his pants. Or did you think I just threw the water in his crotch for the hell of it?”
    The next day Annabelle and Leo cruised down Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills in a rented dark blue Lincoln. Leo intently eyed