“You should stay away.”
“That’s my kid, Angel. How’m I supposed to do that?”
Good question, actually. What would I do if it were Nicole? My daughter. Answer: I would move heaven and earth to protect her. Fortunately, she was two thousand miles away from all this.
“Pahranagai Inn,” Lucy said. “Room nine. Now how about you get out and leave us alone.”
I stared at her. She gave me a bland look in return.
“Well,” she said, “he’s got to know where they are. But”—she faced Russ—“if you’re smart you’ll play it cool. Right now she’s safe. Make a big deal out of it and you could screw it up.”
“I just need to see her. Make sure she’s okay.”
“She’s fine. She’s with Shanna,” I said.
“Yeah, well, I figured that.”
“And they’re married—unless they’re lying about it, which doesn’t seem likely, so you’d better factor that into whatever you think you’re gonna do or say to her.”
“How about, ‘congratulations’?” Lucy said. “Since it looks like you kinda missed that part.”
Fairchild’s head whipped between us as if he were watching a jai alai match. Finally he said, “Parana-what?”
“Pahranagai Inn,” Lucy said. “Room nine. It’s at the north end of town. Caliente. Hundred and fifty miles from here so you oughta get a move on.”
“Yeah, well, thanks,” Russ said.
I got a pad of Luxor stationary out of a desk. “Before you go, I want you to find out everything you can about a woman named Arlene.” I wrote on the pad with a Luxor pen. Damn fine pen, too. No skipping, no ink blot. Thought maybe I’d keep it since they buy them by the truckload.
“Arlene,” Russ said slowly.
“I don’t know her last name. But it’s likely she’s the owner of Arlene’s Diner. You’ll pass the place on the way to Caliente. It’s in the middle of nowhere on US 93. Can’t miss it. She’s in her fifties or sixties, if that helps.”
“So, what do you want to know about this person?”
“Whatever you can find out. Does she own the place? How much did it make the last few years? Does she have relatives nearby? And there’s a motel there, too, the Midnight Rider Motel. Does she own it? If so, for how long? If not, who does? Does she own other property anywhere? Rent anything? How long has she been in the state? Where was she born? Is she educated?”
“Jesus,” Russ said. “Who is this woman?”
“That’s what I want you to find out.”
“Four minutes, twenty seconds,” said my assistant. “But I’m thinking of trimming that ten minutes down to like eight.”
Russ stared at her, then back at me. “What’s with this Arlene lady?”
“I don’t know. Place is a little odd,” I said. I didn’t want to mention that Arlene almost certainly knew that Jo-X flew in and out of the place, and that she knew Shanna was Celine—which I wasn’t ready to reveal to Russ yet.
“Odd how?”
“Minute and a half,” said my assistant, giving me the kind of look that could mean only one thing.
“Odd as in strange,” I said to Russ.
“Strange how?”
“Strange as in a little bit off.”
“Shee-it. Talk about runnin’ me around in circles.”
“Just find out everything you can, Russ. I don’t know what’s important, but I’ll sift through it.”
“Fifty-five seconds.”
Russ gave me a look. “What’s with the countdown timer, Angel?”
“She needs a bath.”
“So? Who’s keeping her? Bathroom’s right over there. It has a door. She was just in there.”
Lucy’s eyes narrowed. Her lips parted and her teeth showed. “In thirty-eight seconds I’m gonna throw you out a window.”
“Jesus, Angel. Okay, I get this information, how’m I gonna get it to you?”
“You’ve got my number. Cell phone coverage is sketchy out in the desert. Keep trying. You might confide in your overgrown behemoth sidekick, give him the information. Or have him get it for you, if he can do that. I’ll phone you. If I don’t get through, I’ll phone him. One way or another, I’ll get it.”
“Okay, great. We all done here?” Lucy said.
Russell stared at me. “Your assistant’s kinda—”
“Out,” Lucy said. She hauled him toward the door by a sleeve and propelled him out into the hallway.
I blocked the door with a foot so she couldn’t slam it in his face and further damage what had evolved into a useful working relationship.
“She’s new,” I said. “We’re still workin’ things out—”
Lucy’s bathrobe landed on my head. When I got it off, Russ was staring somewhere behind me with eyes the size of tennis balls before I got the door closed.
I turned around. Lucy was wearing nothing but a grin she’d borrowed from an Alice in Wonderland movie.
“She’s new,” she chirped, jumping up on me, arms around my neck, legs wrapped around my waist.
“Hey, wait—” My hands automatically grabbed her rear to keep her from falling and hurting herself, which turned out not to be necessary—but it was the kind of warm, firm, rounded butt I would be able to feel in my hands for the next twenty years.
“And pretty worked up,” she whispered. “So you’ve got a lot of work to do—you know, like you told him—workin’ things out.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
DINNER WAS LOBSTER thermidor and a very fine Vouvrey from France’s Loire Valley, courtesy of the Luxor who had lost another three grand to Lucky Luce minutes before we sat down and got menus. I was almost starting to feel sorry for them, especially the pit boss who watched a month’s salary walk away after just six minutes of play. It wouldn’t be long before Lucy was banned from roulette in this place. They did that in casinos. Casinos were notoriously sore losers. Notorious. Card counters were regularly escorted to the sidewalk by the seat of their pants, but this thing with roulette would have them scratching their heads. She didn’t have a system and she used the word “shuckins.” She’d bet on both red and black at the same time, which qualified her as a genuine idiot. They might check her birthday, discover that four planets had been lined up like duckpins, none of them Mars, then run us out to the sidewalk and put us in their infamous Black Book, which they claim doesn’t exist—except that it does.
On the way down to the restaurant, my legs had felt rubbery. I hadn’t been used like that in a while. In fact, it had been about nine months. First there was the Jacuzzi, then a shower, then a brushing of teeth, then a bottle about the size of my thumb that produced dabs of liquid on her chest and inner thighs that smelled faintly of musk and orange blossoms, then she led me over to a bed and, if memory serves, there was quite a lot of pre-fooling-around and girlish giggling—not mine; I try to suppress it since it plays havoc with my PI gravitas—before things got serious. Words from the Vagina Monologues were used. At one point, one of us said, “Giddyup, Mort,” in a breathy whisper and I’m ninety-nine percent certain it wasn’t me.
“Wow,” she said, flat on her back and naked. “I haven’t been roughed up like that in . . . like forever.”
I was on my back, too, unable to produce lifelike sounds.
Lucy sat up nimbly and straddled me on hands and knees. She bent down and brushed my lips with a nipple, then gazed into my eyes. “Speak. I want to hear signs of life.”
“Can’t,” I croaked.
“How about a little CPR kick start?”
“I’ll let you know.”
“We should go get dinner then do this again. Okay?”
“I’ll let you know.”
She giggled, then stretched out full-length on top of me and tucked her head beneath my chin. “You do that.”
Luck is a guileful thing. Good luck is sometimes disguised as bad. You miss your flight, stomp around angry, and the plane ends up scattered all over a mountainside somewhere. Good luck isn’t
always apparent at first glance, but give it time. What looks like bad luck can save your life.
Lucy and I were in the Mustang headed north on the Strip. We were the first car at a red light, The light turned green, I hit the gas, and we were T-boned by a sixteen-year-old kid running the red. He was joyriding in his daddy’s Mercedes SUV, green, same kind of car that Jeri, Ma, and I were tracking last October, driven by Julia Reinhart. It seemed like a cosmic sign to me, but I misinterpreted it, which I tend to do.
It wasn’t a full-on T-bone, didn’t hit the passenger door. The SUV got the front quarter of the Mustang, gave us a one-eighty spin, glanced off and got a full T-bone on a zippy little Chevy Volt in the lane to our left, pushed it across the intersection where the Volt was hit head-on by a limousine. After our one-eighty we got front-ended by a Forester that had been behind us. When we came to rest, we were facing due south, watching the traffic that used to be behind us pile up, horns honking, as if that would help clear a five-car accident. Lucy’s side airbag had deployed, then deflated, leaving her with a thick dusting of talcum powder and cornstarch.
“You okay?” I asked her.
She didn’t answer for a few seconds, then she spit out some talcum and said, “Well, poop. I liked this car.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Uh-huh. My first ever car accident.”
“Good thing it was a rental. Not so much paperwork.”
Lucy and I had been headed back to Arlene’s since that seemed to be the epicenter of this Jo-X-Danya-Shanna case. That trip had just experienced what’s called an unexpected delay.
It was 10:08, full dark, or would’ve been if we hadn’t been on the Strip with a billion watts of neon illuminating the scene. Once I got my head back in the game, I thought about the lockbox in the trunk with its guns and disguises. It was probably a nonissue since the accident wasn’t our fault, but we were about to get inundated with cops and tow trucks, so I needed to keep that lockbox in mind.
I got out, checked the damage. The right front tire was tilted inward, crushed up against the engine. It looked like the entire front axle assembly was a total loss, steering, too, the hood was crumpled, radiator leaking, windshield had a big crack in it, lots of extraneous damage. Fifty-fifty odds, they would total the car.
Lucy and I endured the snail-paced paperwork nightmare that results from a major non-injury accident. Police statements, license, rental agreement. I’d taken the insurance policy with the rental, so they could hash it out with the insurance company of the kid’s father, who, as luck would have it, was an assistant DA. Later I found out there were three of them in the car, and the kid had a point one six blood alcohol level and they had been passing around an open bottle of Smirnoff’s vodka. The usual dumb.
An hour later, Lucy and I were in a taxi, headed back to the Luxor. I had the lockbox on my lap. Thing was constructed of sixteenth-inch steel plate. With weapons, ammo, knife, wigs, and so on, it weighed thirty-five pounds.
“Anyway,” Lucy said, “that rounded out the evening.”
“Yup.”
“We need a new car. Gonna get one in the morning?”
“Yup.”
She stared at me. “Your needle’s stuck.”
“Yup.”
She poked me in the ribs, then kissed me. “So, no Midnight Rider Motel. We’ll have to tough it out in the suite. And if you say ‘yup’ one more time, I’ll sleep in the other bed. Alone.”
“The other bed has fleas. And the suite’s got room service and a Jacuzzi, kiddo. This was meant to be.”
“Fleas, huh? Okay, then. Same bed.”
The taxi driver was a woman in her forties. She gave me a wink in the rearview mirror. Nice.
One of the perks we got with the suite was hassle-free car rental service. An assistant concierge contacted Avis who were thrilled that the Mustang might be a total loss, and we ended up with a Cadillac XTS. The convertible had been nice, but I’d been concerned about the lockbox. Go through the ragtop with a utility knife, drop the rear seats, and there was the box. Someone could take off with it in thirty seconds. So now we had a hardtop, which was that aforementioned bad-luck, good-luck thing. Up in the suite I signed the new rental agreement, and the Caddy was delivered to valet parking. The claim check was left for us at the front desk. Done.
I had to get out of the Jacuzzi when my phone lit up with “Monster Mash.” I caught it on “a graveyard smash.” Lucy was in bubbles up to her chin. She gave me a whistle and said, “Wow. Now there’s a sight.”
“Down, girl.”
She laughed. I told her to shush, then swiped the phone.
“Yeah?”
“You told my dad where we were, you cretin.”
“Cretin. That’s not a big word, two syllables, but it’s not in common usage. I’m impressed.”
“Shithead.”
“A term of endearment I’ve been called before.”
“For good reason, I’m sure,” Danya said. “Why the hell did you tell him? My dad?”
“Because he’s your dad. And he loves you. And he was more than a little worried.”
“You’re still a shithead.”
“Okay, then, keep in touch.”
I ended the call. It hadn’t lasted long enough for me to lose the erection, so I got a leer and a smile as I stepped back into the Jacuzzi. I kept the phone where I could reach it because I have these premonitions.
“Danya?” Lucy said.
“Uh-huh.”
“She called you a cretin?”
“Sure did. And a shithead. Twice.”
“She’s beautiful, but she’s got rough edges.”
The phone sounded off again. I swiped the screen. “Hola, kiddo. Guess we were cut off.”
“Yeah, right,” Danya said. “Don’t do it again.”
“That all depends. What’s up?”
“That’s what I want to know. That tabloid guy was up at Jo-X’s hideout place. How’d he find out about us? Or you?”
“You first.”
“I don’t know. That’s why—”
“What I meant was, he knew about you two first. Shanna, actually. He tracked Celine all the way to Tonopah, except by the time she got there she was Shanna again. Then he tracked you to Reno. He found out later who she was, after she got back to your place when Xenon dumped her. I wasn’t involved in this mess until you hired me and got me involved.”
“Well, shit. Is there any way to keep him from writing the story?”
“You could kill him. That always works.”
“Get real.”
“Not that I know of. Something about freedom of the press, First Amendment rights, that sort of thing.”
“What about libel?”
“If he tells the truth, good luck with that.”
“If anyone in the media found out Shanna had been Celine, we would never hear the end of it.”
“Sure you would. You’re giving the national attention span too much credit.”
“That’s still not a nightmare I want us to ride out.”
“Gotta go, Danya. Good luck. If you need more advice, I’m here for you.” I ended the call.
“She’s gonna kill the Wharf Rat?” Lucy asked.
“Probably not. But next time I see him, I might give him a heads-up. Anyway, I’m hungry. You ready to get out of here, go track down something to eat?”
My phone rang at six forty-five the next morning.
“Please get that soon, like now,” said my brusque assistant. She had an arm across my chest, warm resilient breasts tucked tight against my ribs, one leg flopped over one of mine.
“‘Monster Mash,’ Sugar Plum. Really good stuff.”
“Before I throw it against a wall, okay?”
“That’s right, threaten the phone.” I swiped the screen and said, “Yo?”
“Yo?” Ma replied.
“Do you know what time it is?” I asked.
“Eight forty-five.”
“Not here, it ain’t.”
>
“You don’t come on the news until after the first commercial break, Mort. The story’s starting to fade.”
“Good to know, and it’s six forty-five here.”
“So what’s goin’ on? Where are you? Still at that motel?”
Took me a moment to catch up to that.
“Not that one. We’re in Vegas. At the Luxor where, guess what, it’s now six forty-six in the morning.”
“We?”
Oops. That one got loose.
“Got me an assistant, Ma.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I don’t?”
“Who the hell said you could have an assistant? I’m not paying for anything like that. And it’s a she, isn’t it?”
“Wait, I’ll check.”
“Don’t bother. How old is she?”
“Thirty-one.”
Silence for a moment. “That don’t sound so bad, not that you can have an assistant.”
“Thanks, Ma.”
“She good? I mean, as an assistant? And don’t think my asking means you can keep her. Jesus, I don’t mean keep her like a hamster. What I mean is, get rid of her. Unless of course she’s useful. And free.”
“She’s useful. Like a set of skeleton keys.”
More silence.
“What’s that mean?” she asked. “That don’t sound good.”
“You’ll like her, Ma.”
“At least tell me she’s not there in the room with you.”
“She’s not here in the room with me.”
“Liar.”
“You told me to tell you that. Now, if you want to know where she is, she’s right here in the room with me.”
“Early in the morning, too. So . . . what’s she weigh?”
“That’s a hell of a question.”
“Again, I ask: What’s she weigh?”
“Depends. When she’s in a supermarket, she weighs apples, nectarines, grapes, stuff like that.”
“Je-sus Christ. You evasive son of a bitch. She’s beautiful, ain’t she?”
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Ma.”
She hung up.
“That your ma?” Lucy asked, head propped up on an elbow.
Gumshoe on the Loose Page 24