Hot Stuff

by Flo Fitzpatrick

  Chapter 16

  “I’m hungry.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. I said I’m hungry. Yes, this is not a great thing at this point of our journey. And yes, while I hate to bring up the subject of food while we’re speeding across the city wondering who’s behind us with murder on the mind, I can’t help it. My stomach is growling.”

  Brig and Asha both gave me looks that mixed amazement with disgust.

  I sniffed. “Well, I’m sorry. Asha’s cook laid out a wonderful spread about four hours ago, and it’s been a really long day, and I tend to get an attack of the munchies when I’m stressed. Excuse me if I’m failing to live up to the high standards of heroines who are capable of going days without food, holding back tears after run-ins with bad guys, and leaping tall buildings in single bounds without mussing a hair on their bleached blond heads.” I sighed. “Come to think of it, I did that already. Today. Well, not leaping a building precisely, but that Ferris wheel should qualify.”

  Brig rolled his eyes heavenward. “She’s rambling. I think she may be right. She does indeed need food. It seems to be a constant and consistent problem.”

  Brig pulled over and stopped at the northern end of Juhu Beach at a place called Versova, which is near a fishing community. At this time of night all was quiet. We looked out over the water and stayed silent for a few moments. It was a gorgeous view. I couldn’t enjoy one speck of it.

  Brig nodded. “Okay. Five Flights to Go.”

  “What? More stairs? My legs are already killing me from dancing, flipping, and kneeing wiseguys in delicate areas. I can barely make it out of the car, much less up five flights. And what about food?”

  Brig smiled at me. “It’s the name of the place, Tempe. They did the touristy glamorous Three Flights Up two better. It’s a nightspot for the beautiful people. Dancing to the latest tunes from the States. Though I don’t think we’ll want to hit the dance floor tonight. Best part for you? They have food. Plus the music is loud and it’s always crowded and I doubt that we’d be seen, even if anyone we know happened to show up.”

  I nodded. “Sounds good.”

  Brig started the car up again and we were off. I tapped him on the shoulder. “Brig? Speaking of anyone knowing, how did Patel know we’d be at the Pool Palace?”

  “I think it was a case of sheer blind bad luck.”

  Asha glared at him. “Unless he followed you from Jake’s. Tempe and I were there a good two hours before Seymour showed up. Which, you may recall, was coincidentally right after you made an entrance.”

  Brig waved his hands in surrender. Not the best idea when one is driving. He placed them back on the wheel with a casual air. “Not my fault, ladies. Jake dropped me off at the rail station, and I took two cabs from there and checked behind me all the way.”

  I thought about this. “Hold up. No. Don’t stop driving. Forget Patel knowing. Doubtless he had someone tailing you all day. I want to know how you knew Asha and I would be at the Pool Palace.”

  “I called Asha’s house. Mala answered. She doesn’t speak a lot of English, but she managed enough to tell me you ladies had gone to the Pool Palace.”

  Asha glanced back at me. I returned her look. We needed to have a chat with Mala, the helpful maid.

  “So, Brig? Why did you want to join our girls’ night out anyway?”

  He bristled. “I didn’t know you ladies had your hearts set on buddy bonding. It’s Asha’s fault.”

  She sat straight up. “Me? What did I do?”

  Brig spat out, “You turned a normally intelligent male into a besotted dunce, that’s what you did. Jake kept drooping around the house mumbling about how rotten you’ve been treating him. Not making a lick of sense.”

  “What else is new,” Asha muttered.

  Brig ignored her. “I had to get out. I planned to track you down myself and see if I could coerce you into throwing yourself at Mr. Roshan and doing whatever it takes to bring him back to the living. Damn, woman, the man’s loony. What’s this garbage about calling off the wedding? Will you at least talk to him?”

  Cool. Maybe Asha would enlighten us as to her reasons for dumping Jake two days earlier. Or not. Asha settled back into her seat with a “Humph. Fat chance.”

  “Ouch!” Her seat happened to be me, and her elbows were digging into my rib cage.

  “Sorry.” She tilted her chin up. “Brig, drop it, okay?”

  He did.

  Brig stopped the car three blocks from Five Flights to Go. “I think it’s best if you ladies proceed on foot. I’m ditching this baby at a garage. I don’t want to park her on the street. I’ll meet you at the club in ten minutes.”

  Asha and I started walking. Asha was a step ahead of me. She stopped. I ran into her back. She turned.

  “You buy it?”

  “What?”

  “Brig’s reason for tracking us down? All that cat poop about me and Jake. Mr. Matchmaker. Like he cares whether Jake and I exchange vows or not.”

  “Well, what else could have driven him out after a long day of gymnastic tricks and gliding through tangos with me? If he’d wanted a night out on the town, I damn well doubt he’d have ended up at a pool hall catering to college kids. First off, I don’t think he plays pool. I mean, he might. Play pool, that is. But I think his list of teenage activities ran more to stealing hubcaps and hassling Bronx women than to shooting pool. Too tame.”

  I couldn’t tell her about Brig’s murdered sister and that I felt certain his blood had chilled when he learned another gymnast was at a pool hall looking for a bit of fun.

  Asha threw her hands up into the air.

  “Gad. I give up. Brig’s right. You do ramble and run on when you’re hungry. And you’re also such a dope, Tempe. Brig was looking for you. Not me. He knows full well Jake and I will make up within the week. We break up at least twice a month and are back together before the florist even knows the wedding’s been called off again.”

  “Oh.” We were at the entrance of the nightclub by this time. “You really think he was looking for me? Not us, plural?”

  She pulled me inside the doorway. “How old are you? Jeez! Did your mother let you date before you were twenty-nine? Damn, Tempe. For a bona fide born-and-raised-in-Manhattan businesswoman, you put the ‘eve’ into naive!”

  “Oh.”

  Before I could think of anything polysyllabic to say, Brig joined us. His breathing was labored and his mouth was set in a scowl. Apparently, he’d run the whole way back to Five Flights to Go.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “I have good news and bad news.”

  “Which is which? You’re gone less than six minutes and I already sense the hounds of hell after us. Am I right? What is it with you, Brig? Do you wear a scent every goon in Bombay sniffs and immediately knows where you are? And, by virtue of proximity and not choice, me too?”

  Asha nudged me. “Will you let him speak?”

  Brig glanced around us. We were in a dark doorway, sheltered from the streetlights, but I was not dumb enough to believe we were at all protected from prying eyes.

  “Good news first. I discovered a nice stash of carb bars in the glove compartment of Asha’s car. They seem a mite hard, rather than chewy, but they’re all Tempe is going to get for a while because the bad news is I saw Ray Decore strolling down the street not one block from here.”

  “Oh terrific. Do these guys have us bugged somehow? This is insane!”

  Brig urged us farther into the entranceway. “Didn’t you tell me Ray has an eye for females of all shapes, sizes, and persuasions? This area is crawling with clubs and women. Hell, no more than half a mile the other direction are at least three places like C.C. Curry’s where you made such a hit with your dancing. I’m sorry. It’s just our bad luck that the man happened to pick the same street we’re on.”

  I sighed. “You know, I’ve heard for years that India has a terrible people problem. As in, population explosion. And I’ve seen crowds here that ma
ke a Manhattan subway at rush hour look like a desert island. Can someone tell me why, in the, what, three days I’ve been here, I keep running into the same ten guys everywhere I’ve gone? And at least nine of them carry guns? Or knives?”

  Brig ignored me. He whispered, “Asha. Go upstairs. Ray just turned the corner. Tempe and I will stay here until he passes. He hasn’t seen you and wouldn’t know you anyway unless you start keening. We’ll meet up tomorrow.”

  I looked up at Brig in the dim light of the tunnel-like entrance. “How are we supposed to hide down here? Won’t he see us in about ten seconds?”

  Brig motioned toward the couples leaning up against every available space of the walls in this hallway. Every one of them was busily engaged in what I’d term serious making out.

  Brig pulled me close. He found the darkest part of the entranceway. He leaned down and hid me from the opening with his whole body. A body that now pressed against mine with a firmness sending vibrations far different than fear throughout my whole being.

  The man could kiss. I forgot that Ray Decore had wandered inside this entrance. That he stood barely two feet away. Woe to him, or anyone else, who interrupted the delicious taste of Brig’s mouth on mine or stopped the hands roaming through my hair and down my back.

  Brig then gently stroked my hair, then my forehead. He let his fingers travel over my eyelids and nose and chin, then rest for a moment in the hollow of my neck. I, in turn, was exploring the solid muscles of his shoulders, and his back, and heading down from there.

  “Tempe?”

  “Mmmm?”

  “Tempe?”

  Brig had stopped kissing and fondling. I started smoothing down more than one errant black hair off Brig’s forehead.

  “Hmm?”

  “Ray’s gone inside. We need to leave before he decides this isn’t his scene and he needs wilder pastures.”

  “Oh.”

  “Tempe? Did you hear what I said?”

  “Huh?”

  “Ray. Here. We have to go. Now.”

  “Oh.” I paused as the meaning hit me. “Oh!”

  I quickly rearranged the shirt that had crept up under my bra as I managed somehow to snap out of the enraptured haze where Brig had kept me for the last few minutes.

  “Brig, what about Asha?”

  He shook his head. “I have to assume she’ll be fine. She’ll find a way to change into some wacky character upstairs. I don’t think Ray would recognize her anyway. You and I, on the other hand, have to get out of here. No telling how long he’ll stay, and the pair of us are a head taller than everyone else standing here. I’m rather amazed he didn’t notice us when he walked in.”

  I smiled. “Our first piece of luck for the evening.”

  “Come on. We’d better hurry in case that luck turns again and Ray decides the women here are too young or accompanied by men bigger and better than he.”

  I followed Brig back outside, then put my hand on his elbow. He stopped.

  “Brig. Any idea where we’re going?”

  “Not really. We can’t use Asha’s car because Patel’s crowd knows it now. And walking in this area at this hour isn’t wise even if we weren’t already being chased by two sets of murdering thieves. I’m not in the mood to deal with ordinary muggers just now.”

  “So?”

  Brig drew in a quick breath. “Holy Saint Pat! I don’t believe this! Whatever we do, we’d best decide now! I think we must have offended a god today. Perhaps one who dislikes aerial flips beside a temple on a movie set.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I just caught a glimpse of Kirk Mahindra under that lamp not two blocks down the street.”

  “Oh grand. It’s now officially a three dog night.”

  “What? The old singing group? ‘Joy to the World’ and ‘Celebrate’ and all that? Are you loco? Is this what happens when you don’t eat?”

  I crossed my eyes at him. “Not the group! The number. Patel, Ray, now Mahindra. Hounds scenting blood. Ours. Three dogs.”

  “Uh, huh. Well, then, there’s a train station half a mile from here. And blessedly, it’s the opposite direction from where Mr. Mahindra has now been joined by two buddies. I’m not fond of taking the rails after midnight, but I doubt they’ll be on to us as fast if we head there.”

  “They do seem to travel in clumps, don’t they? The bad guys. Except for Ray. So far he’s on his own. Stupid, really. Unless he was completely faking it, the man can’t speak a word of Hindi. And Ray had no reason to fake it. He wouldn’t have brought me if he hadn’t been forced to hire an interpreter.”

  We turned and headed toward the train station. Brig stopped once to pull out a handkerchief from his shirt pocket. “It’s not exactly the best disguise in the world, but if you can figure out a way to wrap up your hair, at least no one will see the color, Miss Redhead. These streets aren’t near dark enough to suit me right now.”

  I did as he asked, fashioning a do-rag out of the square of cotton, then tucking my hair under it. “Yes?”

  He burst into song. “Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match!”

  I winked. “I’m glad you know the classics. Did you ever see a live production of Fiddler on the Roof? I saw the last revival in Manhattan. Super.”

  “I did too. We can sing ‘Do You Love Me?’ a bit later when we’re not runnin’ for our lives.” He eyed me critically, then smiled. “Well, you don’t really look like one of Tevye’s daughters. Tell the truth, you could easily play the lead in Playboy of the Western World. Which reminds me, just how much Irish is in your background, Miss Walsh? You have the look, ya know.”

  “I have enough, Mr. O’Brien. Enough to recognize blarney when I hear it. And enough not to believe it.”

  He laughed, then took my hand in his as we tried to look like ordinary tourists out for a night on the town.

  We made it to the train station without incident, paid our fare, and even found a seat in the crowded car. Trains in Bombay tend to give one claustrophobia during rush-hour conditions. They’re not quite that jammed after midnight, but there were enough people to give me a sense of security from prying eyes. So much so that I relaxed and fell asleep on Brig’s shoulder.

  I had no idea how long I slept. I had no idea where we’d started, so I had no idea where we’d ended up. Brig squeezed my hand, then my shoulder.

  “Tempe, lass. Time to get off the train. We have to take a cab or a rickshaw from here.”

  “Huh? Where we going?”

  “The one place I could think of that’s safe tonight. Vivek Studios. We’re staying on the film set.”

  Chapter 17

  Raj’s trailer was a nice trailer, but it was still a trailer. Nowhere near the opulence of either Jake’s or Asha’s homes or even Brig’s hotel by the harbor. But tonight it was going to be home.

  Although picking the lock on Raj’s trailer seemed a strange choice in accommodations for the night, Brig’s suggestion that we camp there made sense, in a warped sort of way. Jake didn’t have a trailer. Asha did, but we didn’t know which one it was. There were smaller trailers, all occupied.

  I gathered that Raj had told Brig during one of their chats on the set this morning (a very long time ago) that he’d be staying at his home for a few nights. His presence wasn’t required early tomorrow. Which was now today, since it must be past three in the morning.

  Raj had also told Brig that his trailer boasted a separate bathroom. That alone made Raj’s home on the set an easy choice. The breaking-and-entering aspect bothered me, but since all we planned to steal was a night’s rest and some toilet tissue, I felt sure once Raj learned about it, he wouldn’t be terribly upset.

  Once inside my latest residence, I kept dozing off. Brig appeared to be suffering from the same affliction. Exhaustion. We curled up spoon-fashion on Raj’s narrow bed and fell asleep after one chaste good-night kiss.

  We were awakened four hours later by the rude sounds of Asha Kumar yelling and pounding on the door. Sunlight streamed t
hrough the tiny window in Raj’s galley kitchen.

  “Tempe! Open up! I know you’re in there.”

  I cautiously opened a second eye and gazed at the man lying beside me. “How do you do it?”

  “How do I do what?”

  “Not you, singularly. You, plural. Both. As in you and my new best friend out there attempting to beat down the door. How do either one of you seem to know where I am at any given moment of the day or night?”

  Brig smiled. The thought struck me that waking up on a daily basis to that smile would be worth any grief that same smile might cause during the day. I pulled the sheet over my body. At some point last night I’d shed my jeans. I didn’t remember doing so. Brig noted my movement.

  The brogue returned. “You discarded the garment in Raj’s bathroom somewhere around five this mornin’. Half asleep when you did so. And I, being the parfect gentleman I am, lass, did not take advantage of yer unclad state. Enticin’ though ’twas, I can say without lyin’.”

  Brig stood. He’d discarded his jeans also, and I couldn’t help but notice the large bump in the road between Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner on the boxers. Had I been aware of that before the knocking on the door started, I might not have stayed the “parfect lady.”

  I forced my attention back to the noise outside.

  “Would you please open the door and let the girl in? She’ll have everyone on the lot lined up outside wondering what’s going on if she doesn’t stop yelling. Watch. She’ll start keening next just to keep herself in shape.”

  Brig’s shirt lay on a chair across the room. I remembered the feel of bare skin on my back throughout the night. A sensual feeling. A wonderfully comfortable feeling. I could grow used to that feeling along with that smile.

  The door opened and Asha breezed through. “Hey, guys. How ya doing this morning? Ready to dance?”

  Obviously neither Ray nor Mahindra nor Patel had stumbled across Miss Kumar during the night. A pity. She looked far too bright, cheerful, clean, and rested. There was also a gleam in her eye that boded a fair amount of teasing in store for me all this day. I wondered if I could hide in Raj’s trailer during lunch and tea.