The Misfortune Cookie: An Esther Diamond Novel by Laura Resnick Read Free Book Online Page B

legendary status among the hookers, crack addicts, and shoplifters sharing this illustrious space with me in the wee hours of New Year’s morning.
    Also, I don’t think any of them had the faintest idea what money laundering
was
, and Stella and I were both too agitated to explain it well.
    I settled into my demoralizing situation—starting off the New Year in jail—by trying to distract myself and use the time productively. In pursuit of my craft, I attempted to study my fellow prisoners, who represented diverse conditions of human existence.
    I was initially interested in the prostitutes, since I had played one recently—a guest role on the cable TV cult hit,
The Dirty Thirty
—and might play one again someday. But apart from their enthusiasm over my having hit a cop, they just seemed sleepy and bored, providing me with very little material.
    Still trying to be conscientious—and still trying not to think about my immediate future, which I wasn’t ready to face—I focused next on three Ivy League coeds who were also locked up in here tonight. I didn’t know what they were charged with, but the extent of their inebriation suggested several possibilities. They were obviously from wealthy backgrounds, and just as obviously not used to surroundings like this. I decided to observe how these three young women reacted to the gravity of their situation and to being in close quarters with streetwalkers, thieves, addicts, and a furious restaurateur.
    But this was pretty dull, too. One of the girls promptly fell asleep and was snoring away peacefully. Another had vomited twice and was rocking back and forth now with her arms folded over her stomach. And the third one kept hitting on me. As a waitress who’d clobbered a cop in a mob joint, I evidently represented exciting erotic possibilities for a bisexual society girl who was briefly enthralled with the idea of rough trade. After I got tired of telling her to leave me alone, which didn’t work, I yanked so hard on her hair that she retreated sulkily to a corner, glaring at me in resentful silence thereafter.
    Stella was pacing back and forth, muttering to herself, still dressed in her sequined, leopard-print outfit. I thought any random stranger who passed this area would assume she was the hookers’ boss, rather than mine. Compared to all my companions here, I almost looked like a nun in my server’s outfit of white blouse, knee-length black skirt, support hose, and sensible shoes.
    By now, I was sitting hunched over on a wooden bench, my chin in my hands. It had been a couple of hours since I’d been locked up in here with the scum of the earth (I refer, of course, to the privileged young drunks who’d never had to look for work or worry about rent money), and I stared at the floor as I morosely forced myself to confront my situation.
    On the plus side, I would have legal representation. True, my attorney would be a notorious mouthpiece for the mob, but he was very experienced and I wouldn’t have to pay for him. Since I was a friend of the family and had been scooped up in a sweep of the Gambellos, Stella assured me that “the boss” was going to take care of me—which included securing and paying for my counsel. Although I realized that requesting a public defender might better demonstrate law-abiding propriety on my part, I decided I’d prefer to stick with the Shy Don’s lawyer. He routinely kept killers and extortionists out of prison, after all, so I hoped my case would be a cakewalk for him.
    But even with my legal fees covered by Victor Gambello, I was really worried about money. The cops had raided Stella’s at the height of the evening, before the customers, many of whom had been camped at their tables all night, had paid their checks and left. So I had only collected tips from the early crowd, the people who ate dinner and then left Bella Stella to attend festivities elsewhere. Which meant that when Lopez—that
bastard!
—arrested me and put me in