Bad To The Bone by Katy Munger

satisfaction from my mistake.
    "I'll take care of it." I went to work
dialing all of Tawny's phone numbers. No luck at any of them. Well,
she'd have to surface sooner or later. I could wait. I couldn't
forget, but I could wait.
    I did a quick accounting and figured out
that we had spent a couple grand of our time tracking down her kid.
We'd been burned for more than that before, but I wasn't in the
mood to cut the little lady any slack. Not after seeing her cheer
her Neanderthal boyfriend on to violence in front of her own
daughter.
    The rest of the week was a madhouse and
Tawny Bledsoe got put on the back burner. I didn't hear from Jeff
again and figured he had given up and gone back to Florida for his
own funeral. I didn't much care. More important matters replaced
him. First, the Garner cops asked me to go undercover for a drug
buy and there's nothing I love better than dressing up as a biker
slut. Thanks to my spectacular cleavage—which could conceal a video
camera, much less a microphone—they were able to bring down a
280-pound drug-dealing speed freak who was cooking batches of
highly volatile methamphetamine on his trailer stove with the help
of his spaced-out wife and two young children. I think everyone
involved felt better after that disaster-in-the-making was
diffused.
    Next, a prominent local businesswoman asked
us to investigate her wealthy fiancé. I did her one better. Not
only did we discover that he was in hock up to his toupee, I nailed
him as a sleazeball. I tailed him to a topless bar and watched him
tip the dancers twenty-dollar bills as payment for lap dances (a
euphemism if ever I've heard one). He spent hundreds of dollars of
my client's money on static cling while I took photos. Then the
dunce tried to pick me up at the bar. I got him on tape insisting
he was single, unattached, hot to trot and willing to swing with
the best of them. I figured we saved our client a whole lot of
money with that extra effort on my part. She agreed and insisted on
a bonus, then promised to steer some corporate work our way. Music
to Bobby D.'s ears.
    This last client was so nice, in fact, that
she almost made me forget about Tawny Bledsoe and the dozen useless
phone calls I made trying to track her down for payment. But on
Saturday morning, something happened to remind me that I had been
taken in by a 105-pound blond dressed in pink cashmere.
    I was sitting at my desk, savoring the smug
feeling of accomplishment that a busy week gives me and wondering
if Burly's mood had improved any in the few days since I'd last
heard from him. My diet had gone belly-up (and out) and there was a
box of warm Krispy Kremes and two double lattes at my elbow. I was
reading a tabloid and laughing over a photo of Rod Stewart being
tongue-lashed in public by his soon-to-be ex-wife when Bobby came
into my office, puffing from the exertion of walking the thirty
feet from his car to my desk.
    “Touch those doughnuts and you draw back a
bloody stump," I warned him.
    "Relax. I got my own box on the way in."
    More like his own truckload, I suspected.
"What brings you in on the weekend?" I asked. "Fanny give you the
bum's rush?" Fanny was Bobby's wealthy girlfriend. She spent most
of her time in Florida, but had been in town for an extended
holiday celebration.
    "She's headed back to Lauderdale. I'm
joining her next week so we can try that new crab joint everyone's
talking about."
    Fanny and Bobby were on a personal journey
to eat at every restaurant in America, without regard to quality or
location. A roach coach in San Diego was every bit as desirable as
the Four Seasons in New York. Eating was their hobby, eating
together was their passion. It was a match made in the kitchens of
heaven.
    "So, you're in the office because you're
bored?" I asked. "Does this mean you're actually going to do some
work for a change?"
    "No, I'm in the office
because of this." He tossed a copy of that morning's News & Observer on
my desk, narrowly missing my