Free The Lovely Chocolate Mob by Richard J. Bennett

place was bigger than it looked on the outside, and had a homey, pleasant appeal, with lots of wood paneling, wood tables, wood chairs, a small stage, and a wide open middle wooden floor (for dancing, I presumed). There were a few pool tables at the far end of the place, but they weren’t being used at the moment. It was a little dark, but thank goodness it seemed to be clean. Someone put a quarter in the jukebox and an old but pleasant Beatles’ song played, “If I fell in love with you…,” a mournful tune.
    “We can talk freely in here,” said Walter. “The jukebox plays continually, and I’ve swept the place for bugs more than once.”
    “I assume you mean microphones,” I joked, hoping to make Walter laugh. I failed this time.
    “This is a clean establishment,” he said with a straight face. “You could eat off the floor here.”
    “I see. Well. Maybe I’ll do that sometime.”
    “I know the owners,” he said. “They’re good people, not riff-raff.”
    “It was just a joke,” I replied, beginning to understand Walter had emotional ties to this place.
    This was about all the small talk and chit-chat that Walter could handle; he wanted to get to the matter at hand, because that was his nature. He looked around the room, and seeing very few people and nobody within earshot, turned back to me and said, “Why did you need to see me?”
    I cleared my throat; I’d need that and a clear mind for this sales pitch. “Well, Walter, I have a problem, and I have a need for a man with special talents, you.”
    “Why don’t you tell me what this problem is all about, and then we can decide if I want to get involved in this or not?” he said.
    Fair enough. Without mentioning any names, I told Walter the story of an old friend who was having family troubles, who suspected her husband of having an affair with a younger, richer woman. I told him of what I’d found in a quick search on the internet, and mentioned that I wasn’t very deep into this problem yet, since I was still digging for information. I did mention that the girl in question’s name was Susan Lovely.
    “Susan Lovely?” Walter suddenly sat up. “Heir to the Lovely chocolate empire?”
    I was beginning to see that Susan Lovely would soon become a household name in Lovely; I was surprised that Walter knew of her; I probably shouldn’t have been. “Tell me what you know about her, Walter.”
    Walter dived in, “I don’t know much about her except that she’s a hot mama. Have you seen her in commercials? Man oh man, she’s built like a brick outhouse, and I’m cleaning up my language here for you, Randall-boy.”
    “How do you know all this?” I asked. “And is she really built as you say?”
    “She used to be a model, didn’t you know that? And that included bikini modeling, for the ‘Happy Hippy’ Swimwear Company, woo-wee! She made the products look good. ‘Happy Hippy’ sold more with her as their model than with any other girl before her! With her as their semi-spokeslady, tie-dyed bikinis made a come-back.”
    Well, I had seen that she was a pretty girl, but didn’t stop to think about her being a bikini-clad homewrecker.
    “But never mind that,” continued Walter. “That’s small potatoes compared to the Lovely chocolate empire.”
    I sat there, impressed with Walter’s knowledge on different subjects, so I decided to keep my mouth shut and let him tell me what he knew.
    “They’re what are known as the up-scale candies to millionaires,” he continued. “They sell on the global market, and make it into the Parliament, Kremlin, and palaces of the rich and powerful. They started it all here in east Texas, making it big in Nacogdoches, from there to Fort Worth and Dallas and then to Mexico and Canada and South America, Europe and Australia…” I sat there wondering how he knew all this stuff.
    “These chocolates are quickly becoming popular in China. Word has it that they’re being smuggled and used as currency