Double Dog Dare

by Gretchen Archer

  He didn’t answer right away.

  “Bradley, you have a hangover.”

  “You think?”

  “How many drinks did you have?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Call the front desk. Have them bring you ice water, Gatorade, and Advil. Sleep a few hours, then if you don’t feel better, come home.”

  “You’ll get me soup?”

  “I’ll get you soup.”

  I’d barely ended the call when my name was bellowed from the terrace door. Or, rather, not exactly my name was bellowed from the terrace door.

  “DAVID!”

  Urleen the Idiot’s chair shot back and rocked on two legs, while he clutched his heart and ogled Bianca. “Davis! Do you have a defibrillator?”

  Fantasy shot out of her chair, offering it. “Bianca! Please join us. Meet Dr. Urleen.”

  “Doctor?” Bianca tossed her hair over her shoulder.

  * * *

  She stood in the open door and gave a ten-minute dissertation about my lack of consideration for her reputation and valuable time. I’d missed a dog-show judge’s meeting. Her first attempt to chew me out was a call to my cloned cellphone, sitting alone on the desk in my dark office. Then she tried the house phone, which was in the house, while I was on the terrace. I’d forgotten about the dog show entirely, including the meeting.

  When she finished, Urleen the Idiot tsk-tsked me, shaking his head. “David. How could you? It’s deplorable. You’re deplorable. It’s wretched. You’re wretched. It’s despicable—”

  “I get it, Urleen.”

  In the middle of all that, Fantasy took a call from No Hair, who asked her if she wouldn’t mind making an appearance at the Hot Dog slot tournament, well underway.

  Bianca looked at Vree, who she’d never met. “You. Buxom girl. I need a tall glass, and by glass, I mean barware, of sparkling water on three cubes of ice with one squeeze of lime. One.” Then she turned to Urleen. Bianca loved doctors, all doctors, any doctor. She asked if she might have a moment of his time.

  “I’ll oblige you anything.” He stood as she sat. “Everything.”

  Her head wobbled. “What is that foul odor?”

  Princess woofed.

  Bex and Quinn said, “Banka, Banka, Banka.”

  Bianca, dropping all pretenses and all posturing, turned to my daughters and said, “Hello, darling girls.”

  There was that side of her.

  Then she held an upturned hand above Urleen’s seersuckered lap. “Do you see this?”

  He cradled her hand in both of his and put his nose in it. “Yes, my dear. I do.”

  “The anomaly?”

  “A slight discoloration. Horrors.” Urleen licked his lips.

  “What should I do?”

  “Well, lovely lady—”

  I grabbed Bex, Fantasy grabbed Quinn, Vree grabbed Princess, and we ran.

  SEVENTEEN

  I nervously tapped an ink pen against the gold linen covering the judges’ table, waiting for the talent competition to start at noon. The other judges weren’t too impressed with me to begin with, I think it was the horse clothes, and they were outright irritated at me for missing the meeting. They already didn’t appreciate that I knew nothing about dogs, clearly didn’t want to be there, and since the first round of competition, after Bianca stopped badgering me about scores, had given every dog the highest score—five, as soon as the score screen was ready to accept it. What little love my fellow judges might have had for me left completely when the competition finally began, and I spent it head down, phone-in-lap, returning messages from the first talented dog until the last.

  I didn’t plan it that way.

  The first act was a French bulldog wearing sunglasses flipping around on a mini skateboard, and he hadn’t flipped twice before a message hit my phone from the preacher’s wife, Gina Gully. I couldn’t help but look. It said, Do you have a soul?

  I shot back, Of course I do.

  Do you have the joy, joy, joy, joy down in your heart?

  What do you want, Gina?

  He who giveth and taketh life has bestowed his almighty power on you. You are on the throne.

  I was on a banquet chair.

  Thou must accept the job our Lord, God, and Savior has given you, Davis.

  And what is that, Gina? To steal money for him?

  To save a life.

  I let that one sit there.

  Otherwise, it’s eternal damnation for you.

  I gave a white dog the size of a black bear five points for her yoga poses.

  Let me get this straight, Gina. You’re telling me God wants me to spend the rest of this life in prison so I can avoid hell in the next?

  To die is to gain, Davis.

  What’s that supposed to mean? Steal the money, then jump off a bridge?

  You were always a willful, insolent, disrespectful child.

  And she’d always been off her rocker.

  I delicately clapped for a Tibetan spaniel who finished a double jump rope routine. I had to relinquish my phone to clap. It buzzed on the judges’ table, and I got dirty looks from both sides. I dropped it in my lap to see what additional heavenly wisdom Gina had to impart, only to see it was a text from Baylor.

  Davis. I’m in the emergency room of Biloxi Regional.

  The Smuckers.

  Rather than wait to hear the news Baylor had to report, because he poked text messages slowly with his right index finger, I clicked the Facebook icon on my home screen to get it straight from the horse’s mouth. I found the worst selfie of Candy Smucker yet. She’d been awake and in the casino for forty-eight hours that I knew of, could have been seventy-two, and it showed. Behind her, Cleavon, in a hospital gown, was on a gurney, grinning from ear to ear and giving his wife, his pain pills, or his life in general two thumbs up. The caption: Who wants to come to my casino? Me and Cleves goin to get a lawyer and soo the stew out of the Bullshitsio casino. There DR tried to saw Cleves toe off his leg. Come to SMUCKERS casinos for FREE DRINKS!!!

  I had bad news for them. Urleen was not the Bullshitsio’s doctor.

  And why Baylor was (blaming) bothering me with it was anyone’s guess.

  He wasn’t.

  A woman drove herself here in a hotwired Bellissimo truck. She told the admitting nurse she’d been knocked over the head, then bound, gagged, and thrown in the bed of the truck. The truck has been parked behind a boarded-up Long John Silver’s on Bayview for three days. They’re keeping her. She’s dehydrated and has exposure exhaustion. Which I’ve never heard of. The truck was signed out to YOU. Come take care of this woman.

  Who is it? What’s her name?

  She’s talking gibberish. I couldn’t tell you.

  What does she look like?

  A witch.

  The rude judge beside me deliberately and dramatically cleared his throat in my direction. I looked up from the devastation in my lap to see the small screen in front of me waiting on my score. I pushed five, having not even looked up once to see who or what I was scoring, then went straight back to my phone. I texted Gina Gully. I’ll wire the money. I’ll get it there in time.

  She texted back, God’s blessings on you and yours.

  It was my fault.

  Everything was all my fault.

  I had to make it right.

  * * *

  Vree and I took the long way through the parking lot and lobby of Biloxi Regional Hospital. Neither of us complained about the painfully slow elevator. Our walk past the nurse’s station to Bootsy’s hospital room matched the pace of condemned prisoners being led to the gas chamber. The door to room three-sixteen was cracked.

  “Maybe she’s sleeping,” Vree said.

  “We shouldn’t bother her,” I said.

  “Vreeland? Is that you?�
�

  Vree’s neck turned beet red. The color crept up her face. She fanned herself with her hands. I took a deep breath and pushed through the door, dragging Vree with me. Bootsy’s bony arms flailed in our direction. “Vreeland.”

  Two fat witch tears rolled down her hollowed cheeks.

  * * *

  Then she fell asleep. A nurse stopped by fifteen minutes later. “Oh, good,” she whispered over Bootsy. “She said she wasn’t closing her eyes until her daughter-in-law got here. I’m glad you’re here. She needs rest. Which one of you is the daughter-in-law?”

  Vree raised her hand.

  We were on the other side of the bed, sitting side by side on a small plastic sofa under a window with a glorious view of the hospital’s heat and air system.

  “Boy, she’s a snorer,” the nurse said.

  “How long do you think she’ll have to stay in the hospital?” I asked.

  “That’s up to the doctor.” She flipped through Bootsy’s chart. “It says here she works for Jesus Water?” She looked up from the chart. “Jesus Water?”

  “You don’t want to know,” I said.

  “Well, she doesn’t have insurance,” the nurse said. “The doctor will probably let her go as fast as he can. Probably one more round of fluids, then he’ll release her when he makes rounds this evening. Her vitals are good. She’s a tough old bird, but she’ll need round-the-clock supervision for the next little bit.”

  “Has she said anything?” I asked.

  “What do you mean? Like what?”

  “Like what happened to her.”

  “She was hit upside the head then tied up in the back of a truck for three days is what happened,” the nurse said. “Any idea who did this to her?”

  I knew exactly who did it and wasn’t about to explain it to the nurse. “That’s why I asked if she said anything.”

  “She was waiting on her daughter-in-law.”

  “I’m not really her daughter-in-law,” Vree said. “You see—”

  I zoned out.

  Fifteen minutes later, when the nurse knew all she never wanted to know about Gooch Howard, and had backed up, inch by inch, all the way to the door, I interrupted Vree. “Did she have anything with her when she got here?”

  “If she did, it would be in the closet.”

  The nurse made a run for it.

  I pushed off the low sofa, walked to the closet, and opened the door. A large clear bag greeted me. In black marker, someone had written “Jane Doe” across a white panel. I carried it back and dumped it out beside Vree. She scooted out of the way. A witch boot and Bootsy’s bloomers fell to the floor. I shook out her witch dress. I stuck my hand in the deep pocket on the right. Nothing. I stuck my hand in the deep pocket on the left and pulled out a green-eyed skull nose ring.

  It hadn’t been given up willingly.

  Safe from the elements in the deep folds of Bootsy’s canvas witch dress, there was plenty of DNA left.

  Vree passed out.

  * * *

  Bex and Quinn watched me dress.

  They said, “Shiny, shiny, shiny.”

  I stopped, put down my can of B Blonde, and kissed four chubby cheeks and two pink noses. “Thank you. You’re shiny too and I love you.”

  They said, “Mama, Mama, Mama.”

  I wondered how their daddy, daddy, daddy was. Their daddy who needed to be home, home, home in his own bed, bed, bed. The last time we talked was at five as I was racing home from Biloxi Regional. He said he was catching a cat nap before Gaming Commission cocktails, of which he planned on having few to none. I told him I loved him, and told him if he wasn’t any better in the morning, he’d have to come home (there went my happy marriage), then I made cocktail plans of my own. I called Cork, the wine bar in the casino.

  “What’s the most expensive bottle of wine you have on hand?”

  “That would be Screaming Eagle Cabernet, Mrs. Cole.”

  “How much?”

  “Three thousand a bottle.”

  “That’ll work,” I said. “Send one up.”

  Then I called Fantasy. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m hiding from No Hair and Baylor until eight o’clock.”

  “What’s at eight?”

  “The next round of the Dogs Gone Wild slot tournament.”

  “Want to hide at my place for an hour?”

  “Sure,” she said. “What’s up?”

  “I need you to stay with Bex and Quinn. They’ve been with July since noon and I don’t want to ask her. I’ve played the dog show card as many times as I can.”

  “What about Vree?”

  “For one, she stayed at the hospital with Bootsy. For another, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Vree doesn’t do babies.”

  “You’re the one who hasn’t noticed, Davis. Vree gives it all to dogs because she doesn’t have babies to give it to.”

  The thought had never passed through my brain.

  “What about the witch?” Fantasy asked. “How’s she doing?”

  “They’re releasing her later.”

  “Why?”

  “She has no insurance,” I said.

  “Who’s going to take care of her?” Fantasy asked.

  I didn’t answer.

  I didn’t want to say Urleen’s name out loud one more time.

  “Oh, hell,” Fantasy said.

  “Can you stay with Bex and Quinn while I go next door for an hour or not?”

  “Sure,” she said. “But I don’t understand why you’re going next door. We need to find the housekeepers, Davis, if for no other reason, I want my car back, but I doubt they’re next door.”

  “We went over this earlier, Fantasy. The housekeepers found the Smucker job through the Atlanta Council for the Blind. There isn’t a doubt in my mind someone next door represents His Hiri on that council. We need to know who.”

  “Can’t you look it up?”

  “I tried,” I said. “I got nothing.”

  “And your plan is what, Davis? Knock on the door and ask His Hiri? He already knows you had his dog and probably suspects you know where the caregiver is. You need to find another way to connect the fake housekeepers to the Blind Center in Atlanta other than knocking on the sheik’s door.”

  “This is the fastest way, Fantasy. And besides, I’m going in undercover.”

  “Which is ridiculous,” she said. “It doesn’t matter how undercover you go in, he’ll smell you.”

  “No, he won’t. Can you stay with the girls or not?”

  “I can. But if Urleen shows up, I can’t promise I won’t kill him.”

  “Have at it,” I said.

  Then I called my neighbor. Hiriddhi Al Abbasov. Who said he’d be delighted to clink a glass with Mrs. Sanders. I told him I’d come to him and I’d bring the wine. At five ’til six, dressed and ready, I backed ten feet away from the girls and all but bathed myself in Guerlain Le Bouquet de la Mariée, Bianca’s signature fragrance. At a thousand dollars an ounce, I must have squirted nine hundred dollars on. I dared His Excellency to smell me through it. I checked Fantasy’s pink tranquilizer gun. It was locked, loaded, and tucked in my Chanel clutch. I told my babies to be good for Aunt Fantasy, and I’d be right back. I picked them up. They coughed, “Banka, Banka, Banka.”

  I might have gone a little overboard with the perfume.

  * * *

  The problem wasn’t His Excellency recognizing me. The problem was Harley. I didn’t fool the dog for a minute. And it took me ten minutes to figure out how to get His Excellency on the balcony. I wanted to speak to him outdoors because for one, we were choking on my perfume and for another, I wanted to talk to him privately. He answered the door himself, and I hadn’t seen anyone else, but that didn’t mean someone else wasn’t there. It was a big suite.

 
I stood as far away from my host as I could, in a living room as large as my own, eyeing the balcony. The last strains of sun setting over the Gulf meant nothing to him. The budding neon of casino row on Beach Boulevard at dusk, not a draw. The crescent moon that would soon appear? Didn’t do a thing for Hiriddhi Al Abbasov. I was at a loss as to how to get him outside, when he, reading my mind, said, “How about the balcony?”

  Too much perfume.

  As it turned out, I could have saved nine hundred dollars.

  His Hiri, in a golf shirt, slacks, and the Tom Ford sunglasses, expertly opened the wine at the bar, while I cased the place. Without moving his head, he said, “Who are you looking for, Mrs. Cole? And who are you hiding from?”

  Hiriddhi Al Abbasov saw through everything.

  He poured, not missing a drop. We followed Harley through the balcony doors. We settled, me downwind, his question and my perfume between us.

  “I’m waiting.” Not so patiently. His crossed leg was going a mile a minute. “What do you want? Why are you here?”

  Might as well get it out there. “I have children.”

  “Yes,” he said. “The daughters.”

  “I believe someone with you sent two dangerous men to my home, endangering my children. I, in turn, sent them to my friend’s home, where your dog’s caregiver died. If the men weren’t directly responsible for her death, they are certainly responsible for her missing body. Last straw, Your Excellency, they almost killed a woman I’ve known my whole life. It started here. In your suite. I want to know who in your party is responsible.”

  His Excellency adjusted his Tom Fords and mulled my question over a sip of excellent wine. “What makes you think someone with me is responsible?”

  “Because the men in question wouldn’t be at the Bellissimo had they not been led here by someone associated with the Atlanta Council for the Blind.”

  “So this is about me being blind.”

  “Not at all.”

  “But you just accused someone on the Council of endangering your children and hiding a body. Look around. I’m the only blind one.”