Death Prefers Blondes

by Caleb Roehrig

  “Yes, you jumped-up bitch, he owes me money!” The man’s eyes glowed with a feverish light she should have recognized immediately, and he seized her wrist again. “I don’t like getting fucked with, and I sure as hell don’t like no sass-mouth bitch talking down to me!” Jabbing a finger at her, he snarled. “You tell him he better gimme my fucking money by tomorrow, or his ass is headed to the morgue!”

  “I’m going to tell you three things instead,” Margo replied neatly, snatching his outthrust finger from the air. “Number one: I’ve had a really shitty night, and I am not in the mood.” She squeezed down on the digit until she saw the pain register in his eyes. “Number two: Never touch a woman without her consent.” With a sharp twist and an ugly pop, she dislocated his knuckle joint. “And number three: You called me a bitch. Twice.”

  With that, she slammed her elbow into his face. He reeled back and she released his hand, watching as he tumbled to the dusty ground. Stepping over him, she steadied her breathing and headed for Davon’s door.

  * * *

  A violin concerto had been playing, but when he heard voices in the yard, Davon turned it off. Peck had been relentless lately, hassling him about money, making threats. The fucker had even tried to break into the apartment using a key he’d copied while Georgia was on one of her benders, and if Davon hadn’t gotten the locks changed—for the sixth time—it could have been ugly.

  The voices stopped abruptly, and a few seconds later there was a knock at the door. Setting his jaw, Davon crept across the room, lifting a slim but heavy length of pipe from a cluttered end table. Flexing his grip, he waited. The knock came again, and then, to his surprise, a girl’s voice. “Davon? Georgia? Anybody home?”

  Startled, he threw open the door. “Margo? Girl, what the hell are you doing here at this time of night?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and as she stepped into the apartment, Davon was surprised again to see tears in her eyes. “I should have called first, but I didn’t … I couldn’t…”

  She choked on the words and fell silent, shaking her head, and when Davon pulled her into his arms, she began to sob. Shutting the door, he guided her to the couch, calling out, “Hey, Georgia? We got company.”

  “For fuck’s sake, who’s here at a time like this?” his drag mother called querulously from the other end of the short hallway. A moment later, Georgia emerged, out of drag but no less flamboyant in a teal kimono and silk slippers. “It’s a good thing I’m presentable at all hours, because I—” She froze, taking in the sight of Margo’s quaking frame. Then, swiftly, “This looks like a job for tea.”

  “Chamomile, or maybe peppermint,” Davon suggested. He watched until she disappeared into the tiny kitchen, until he heard water splashing into a kettle. Georgia had been sober for three straight days—a record. Maybe a miracle.

  He kept his arms around Margo, murmuring in her ear—soothing phrases from a childhood frighteningly far away—until her tears subsided and her halting breaths evened out. When she straightened up again, she blew her nose. “Thanks, Davon. And … sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. Everybody falls apart.” He stroked her back.

  “There’s just so much … I don’t even know where to start,” Margo answered miserably. The saloon doors to the kitchen swung open then, and Georgia returned.

  “I made chamomile,” she said, placing a tea tray on the scarred coffee table. “It’s supposed to be calming. I think that’s New Age bullshit, but what the hell? It can’t hurt.”

  “Thank you,” Margo said, accepting a cup. At last, her eyes seemed to take in the room around her—and the suitcases piled by the door. “Are you guys going somewhere?”

  “Georgia is.” Davon couldn’t keep the pride and satisfaction out of his voice. “Tomorrow afternoon, thanks to the French masters, she’s checking in to the Cornerstone Wellness addiction treatment facility.”

  “Really?” Margo turned large eyes on Georgia, who managed a weak smile of confirmation. “That’s amazing! Congratulations.”

  “Thanks, hon.” Georgia toyed nervously with a tiny, silver teaspoon, her body language radiating fear. “I don’t know how I’ll manage. I haven’t been sober longer than a week at a stretch in about ten years, but I have to start somehow. And I guess this is how.”

  “You’re gonna do great, Mama,” Davon said confidently, willing it into the universe. He could hardly believe this day had finally come; after all the blackouts, binges, and hospital visits, money getting used up faster than it came in, Georgia was going sober. Even if they could never cash in the Petrenko jewels, Davon was getting the only thing he’d really wanted since his parents died.

  “You might consider an early start.” Margo jerked a thumb at the front door. “That walking bag of centipedes I met in the yard says you owe him money, and if you don’t have it by tomorrow morning … something something morgue.”

  Davon squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “I should just pay him off. We have the money now, but I can’t do it. I can’t reward that asshole for what he did to Georgia.”

  “It shouldn’t be you anyway,” Georgia muttered, hanging her head. “It’s my debt.”

  “Leave it, Mama; we talked about this.” Davon was resolute. To Margo, he added, “Anyway, I’m sorry you had to meet Peck. The only good thing about that son of a bitch is that he’s going to die someday.”

  “It wasn’t so bad. Kicking his ass made me feel a little better anyway.”

  Georgia’s head snapped up, and Davon went still. “You hit Peck?”

  “I gave him a short lesson on how to treat a lady,” Margo said primly. “With my fists. He might have ended up in the dirt.”

  Instantly, Davon jumped to his feet, tension circling the room. “Mama, put your coat on. We’re leaving early. Margo, I’d appreciate a hand with those bags.”

  “What’s happening?” Margo stood as well, confused. “You seem … freaked out?”

  “Peck doesn’t react well to violence,” Davon understated. Jerking open a drawer of the end table, he snatched something out and tossed it to Margo. “Here—put these on.”

  “Brass knuckles?” She grabbed the heavy rings out of the air, incredulous. “Are you serious? Come on, you can’t actually be scared of that pocket-sized creep, right?”

  “Please. Give me a little credit.” Davon was insulted. “Peck’s a cowardly piece of shit, but he’s got friends—just as mean, and a whole lot bigger—and they respond a hell of a lot faster than the LAPD in this neck of the woods.”

  He snatched up the pipe from where he’d discarded it, just as Georgia hustled back into the room, wearing a floor-length leopard-print coat. After a moment of thought, Margo tossed the heavy bit of jewelry back to Davon. “You keep it.” With a flourish, she produced a retractable baton, flicking it out to its full length. “I’m covered.”

  Davon arched a brow but didn’t bother to ask. There’d be time later. God willing. Grabbing one of the suitcases, he said, “Then let’s move.”

  They were as quiet as they could be, herding out of the apartment and dragging two suitcases over the rocky ground. Peck was nowhere to be seen, but his lights were on, and music that sounded like feedback poured from his open windows. The three of them were almost to the gate when a battered truck squealed around the corner, screeching to a halt at the curb. Four men climbed out of it, rolling meaty shoulders and swinging metal bats.

  Instinctively, Davon and Margo dropped their suitcases and retreated two paces, putting their backs together in a defensive formation. Over his shoulder, the boy called, “Go back inside, Georgia. Lock the door.”

  “Not a damn chance,” she fumed in response. “I’ve been doing drag since the Reagan years. You think I lived this long without knowing how to bash back? Gimme that fucking pipe!”

  There was no time to argue, so Davon did as he was told, and kissed his brass knuckles for luck.

  * * *

  The altercation was short and brutal. Peck’s friends had grea
ter numbers, bigger muscles, and better weapons—but no clue what they were up against. Even four-to-two it would have been no contest; but a sober Georgia, true to her word, was a force to be reckoned with. When all four of the bat-wielding men lay at their feet, the trio stood in the moonlight, their panting breaths competing with Peck’s ugly music against the winter evening. Combing her sweat-dampened hair with bejeweled fingers, Georgia grunted, “Thanks. I needed that.”

  They were almost giddy as they picked up the suitcases and resumed their escape.

  * * *

  “Holy shit, Margo,” Davon said later, when they were camped out in a threadbare Hollywood motel room, and she’d finally relayed everything she’d experienced. They’d found the nicest of the sleaziest places off the strip, and Georgia’s snoring was so loud they could hear it through the adjoining door. “This Addison dude is a fucking Bond villain!”

  “And there’s nothing I can do about it,” she concluded with a helpless shrug. “There’s no hard evidence, and whatever was used on my dad—if anything such as a ‘genetically targeted toxin’ even exists—it’s so sophisticated that the most advanced medical laboratories in the world couldn’t detect it.”

  “Girl, with about a week’s notice, you had a machine built that duplicated a man’s fingerprint.” Davon flopped backward onto the bed. “You think there aren’t shady scientists out there, cooking up poisonous shit all day and figuring how to make it extra?”

  “So you believe me.” She sounded relieved.

  “Of course I believe you!” Davon sat up again. “My question is what the fuck are we gonna do about it? You know we have to call out the cavalry, right? Let’s invade this dude’s home—go through his shit, steal the evidence!”

  “I wish we could.” Margo stared down at her hands, electric light cutting a line across the bedspread through a slit in the curtains. “But I don’t know where Brand lives. We’d need to do research, recon … we’d need special tech made, and the way things are going at Manning, my connection probably isn’t with the company anymore. I don’t even know if evidence exists. If Win’s—” She had trouble getting the word out. “If Win’s killer really has the true will, who knows where it is now? I’m sure Brand planned to destroy it.”

  “Lawyers make copies,” Davon interjected flatly. “It has to exist somewhere.”

  “Maybe. But Win’s office is a crime scene now, and the police will probably search his house, too. Anything valuable will be impounded long before we can get to it.”

  “What about what’s-his-name? That thirst trap who worked for Win?”

  “He is not a thirst trap,” Margo protested, her cheeks flushing. “And he can’t help us anyway. Even if he knew the contents of the original will—even if he has a draft of the original document—it doesn’t prove anything! We weren’t in the room when the will was amended, and the copy Win read out was signed and dated. I’d need way more than hearsay to claim it was doctored.”

  “So, who was in the room?”

  “Dad, Win, and Addison Brand,” Margo answered with a frustrated snort. Then she gasped. “The cute nurse!”

  “Who?”

  “There was a nurse—a second witness!” Margo swung around to face him. “I never saw her myself, but there must be some way to track her down!”

  “Okay.”

  “You sound skeptical.”

  Davon winced. “It’s just … if her signature’s on a bullshit document, then Brand probably got to her, too.”

  “Or maybe her signature was forged.”

  “Anything’s possible at this point,” he allowed. Then, sliding his eyes toward the gap in the curtains, to where Los Angeles crackled and glowed in the darkness, he said, “The thing we gotta figure out right now is how to keep you away from Petrenko.”

  “There aren’t a lot of places I can go,” she admitted. “I could be recognized at a hotel, I burned all my bridges at Somerville when Axel’s dad got arrested, and I can’t even go to the Moreaus because they live too close to the mansion! Plus, Valentina knows I’m tight with them. You and Georgia were my ace in the hole.”

  “Our place is definitely a hole.” Davon rubbed his eyes. “After tonight, though, I’m not sure any of us can go back to Boyle Heights for a while. My big, stupid plan was to ask Axel if I could stay in one of the guest rooms at the villa—”

  “By which you mean his room, hoping Jacinta doesn’t notice,” Margo put in smugly.

  “I didn’t ask for commentary.” He wrinkled his nose at her. “But what do we do with you? You can stay in shitty motel rooms forever, but sooner or later, you’ll have to go back home for something.” Laughing, he added, “That’ll be our next big job: breaking you into your own home for clean underwear.”

  He was still chuckling when Margo gripped his shoulders. “Davon! You are a fucking genius.”

  “I’ve been saying.”

  “I’m serious.” Her energy filled the room, a bar of brassy light from the window making her eyes gleam. “I’m breaking into the mansion!”

  30

  The next morning, Margo took out as much cash as she could from an ATM. Giving a chunk to Davon, she had him book the motel room for another week. With no lobby or restaurant, and a staff trained to forget guests’ faces, it was as good a hideout as she was going to get. She could have food delivered, and she wouldn’t have to encounter another human being unless she wanted to. Until she managed to get herself out of the mess she was in.

  After Davon and Georgia left for Cornerstone Wellness, Margo made an important call. She was asked a series of sharp questions at an increasing volume, all of which she chose to ignore, and eventually received a reluctant agreement to her proposal.

  To pass some time, she fantasized about feeding Addison Brand very slowly into an active volcano, or locking him in a trunk filled with hangry spiders. After about an hour of this, a scuffed and battered sedan pulled into the motel courtyard. Making sure the coast was clear, Margo darted for the car and jumped in.

  “Are you sure no one followed you?” she asked, scanning the traffic behind them. The backseat was filled with an overflowing laundry basket the size of a small Jacuzzi, several bags of groceries, and a crate of cleaning supplies with Cyrillic labels.

  “Please.” Her chauffeur was insulted. “I learn to drive in Soviet Union. You think I can’t spot a tail?”

  “Thanks, Irina,” Margo said meaningfully.

  The magenta-haired housekeeper scowled, but there was concern in her eyes. “What goes on? How come you’re at cheap, catbag motel and not home? How come all this sneaking around?”

  “It’s a really long story, and it’s better if I tell you about it when we get there.”

  “I don’t like this.” Irina’s knuckles were white around the steering wheel. “You’re acting scared, myshka.”

  “I am scared,” Margo confessed, and there was little else to say after that.

  They were quiet until they reached Malibu, where Margo directed Irina past the turn-off for the mansion and instead to the deserted build site where she’d met with Vojak after the funeral. They were there for fifteen minutes, and then the sedan coasted back to the main road, up the canyon, and finally to the Mannings’ front gate, where they idled.

  From where she lay hidden, Margo heard the housekeeper speaking, and then a man’s reply. She’d been expecting this, but still it made her blood run cold. There were people watching her house, stopping those who tried to enter; were they armed? How dangerous a mission had she asked Irina to undertake? And if the guy forced her into letting him search the vehicle … well, there were only so many places to hide a human in a four-door sedan, and she was in no position to attack if he found her.

  The words passing back and forth were in Russian and escalated very quickly from an exchange to an enthusiastic argument—the kind that only Irina could instigate—and then the man issued what was unmistakably a command. Seconds passed, and then came a pop as the lid of the trunk released. Margo
scrunched her eyes shut and held her breath.

  The trunk was jerked open wide, and then a short silence passed. Muttering to himself, the man tossed aside books and magazines, tools and old rags, rummaging through years of accumulated detritus. Finally, grumbling loudly, he slammed the trunk shut again, barked something at Irina, and then his feet scraped against the road as he retreated.

  Margo didn’t breathe again until the car surged forward, until the gate had slid open and shut, and the sedan was parked in the courtyard—well out of sight from the road. Before she could move, Irina was already shouting. “That no-good punk pointed gun at me! A gun! At me!”

  “I’m sorry,” Margo said hastily, rising from the pile of dirty clothes in the woman’s laundry basket. As hiding places went, it was better than what Joaquin endured at LAMFA, but she’d had to try very hard not to wonder just how much of what she was nestled in was used underwear. “You were amazing back there, though. You saved my ass.”

  Irina glared, but Margo could see satisfaction layered in her expression. “It felt good to shout again in Russian. Much more satisfying language for being angry. Now you tell me what goes on! Why am I almost killed trying to come to work?”

  Margo exhaled, experiencing none of the rush she usually had when she’d just escaped a bad situation with her life. Telling this story was going to hurt. “Inside, okay?”

  Standing in the kitchen, Margo revealed everything. It still sounded surreal, even in its simplest forms, and Irina was horrified. Three times the woman broke out in a litany of Russian curses, and by the end, they were both crying, holding each other. Margo wondered how many times the chasm of grief would yawn open inside her. How many times could she fall into it and survive?

  “I served him food! Right here in this house!” Irina spat emphatically onto the floor. “May that mudak rot in hell!”

  “He’ll pay,” Margo promised quietly. “You can count on it.”