Melissa Bourbon Ramirez - Lola Cruz 01 - Living the Vida Lola

by Melissa Bourbon Ramirez

  “¿Ahora?” My mother looked horrified. “You are leaving now?”

  I spoke slowly, working hard to enunciate my words. “I have to. Manny’s picking me up. I’m going to do some—” I dropped my voice again, whispering seriously, “undercover work.”

  “What kind of covers are you and your boss going to be under?” Antonio murmured.

  Apparently Jack heard; his smile faded.

  “Today is Sunday,” my mother objected. “Your sister, the teacher, does not work on Sundays.”

  “Actually, she’s probably doing lesson plans or grading papers, Mami. That’s why she’s not here.”

  Mami scowled and went back to sipping her margarita.

  “What is this undercover work?” my father asked, his jaw set.

  “A case. It’s no big deal.”

  Jack set his drink down and leaned against the counter. His folded arms pulled at the palm trees that decorated the bottom of his shirt. He looked as disappointed as I felt, but I’d chosen my career. And I was a team player. Manny needed me; I was there.

  “I’ll be fine, Papi.” I gave him a peck on the cheek. “It’s just Laughlin’s, and Manny’ll be there.” Then with a wave good-bye to the group, I flew out the door and zipped upstairs to change.

  Chapter 7

  I pulled on low-rise black jeans and Sketchers, then tucked my hair up under a wig from my growing collection—a shoulder-length redheaded bob. With a pair of black-framed prescription-free glasses, the disguise was complete. I looked in the mirror. Not half bad.

  Manny’s white Dodge Ram pulled to the curb just as I headed back outside. It was a lifted four-by-four, complete with sunroof and matching camper shell—an extension of his machismo but not exactly an inconspicuous undercover car.

  I looked around as I raced down the stairs, wondering what kind of car Jack drove. Too many parked on the street to venture even a guess.

  Inside the truck, I avoided looking at my parents’ window. Guilt was second nature to me, what with my Mexican Catholic upbringing and all. A good daughter would have stayed and had dinner and helped clean up afterwards. A good daughter would not have become a detective. A good daughter would have put her mother first.

  Apparently I was not such a good daughter.

  Manny gave me a slow once-over as I tucked a stray strand of my hair under the wig. He raised a quizzical brow.

  “People might recognize me at Laughlin’s,” I said.

  He revved the engine and took off, the midtown houses flying by in a blur. Ten seconds later, he looked at me again. “Been drinking?”

  My head skirted around a nod and a shake. “A few margaritas.” And a couple shots of tequila. “I’m fine.” I considered segueing the conversation to Isabel—just for the hell of it—but didn’t have the mental deftness to tackle a subtle change of topic. “Where’s Sadie?” I asked instead. “She’s not going to like me taking her gig.” Not that I cared.

  Okay, I cared a little. Even if Sadie had wanted the Diggs case but was stuck at Laughlin’s, our cases were our cases, and I knew she’d be pissed if the perps showed up tonight while I was working her turf.

  “She’s stuck out of town. She’ll relieve you at seven.”

  Oh, well, that sucked. I was giving up dinner with Jack for just a few hours? My shoulders slumped for a second, but then I bolstered my attitude. Manny’d called me in to do a job, and I was going to do it well. “I didn’t do—” A hiccup slipped out. “—the training,” I finished, darting a glance at him to see if he’d noticed.

  He stared straight ahead, his face impassive. “You’re just bagging groceries. I’m sure you can handle it.”

  “Do—I—get—a—Laughlin’s—shirt?” I enunciated each word, overcompensating for any alcohol-induced slur I might be harboring. I could feel him evaluating my behavior. Damn. PIs didn’t work under a tenure system. Would he fire me if he found out I hadn’t been straight with him about being tipsy? How long did a tequila buzz last, anyway? I wished I’d thought to down some water before I left. Or a quadruple espresso.

  I popped a mint and muttered a nearly silent prayer that I’d be back to normal in no time. Meanwhile, I’d be extra cautious.

  “Yes to the shirt. You can wear it on top of—” He paused, looking me over with a slow gaze. “—that.”

  Manny’s silent appraisal of me was more than a little disconcerting. I tugged at the top I’d worn for Jack. Damn again. I should have changed it. Served me right for dressing all alluring for a man.

  He dangled one arm out the window and turned his concentration back to the road.

  “Are you going to fill me in on the job?” I had a rough idea from the last staff meeting, but details would be a little helpful. “What am I supposed to be looking for?”

  He pulled the brown file from under his seat and handed it to me. “It’s all in there.”

  I opened the folder. The information sheet contained the standard data—minus a photograph. We were on the lookout for a man-and-a-woman team, both purportedly in their thirties. They’d robbed four grocery stores in the immediate area, always between the hours of five in the afternoon and nine at night, taunting the police with notes, daring anybody to catch them.

  Keenan D’Angelo, owner of Laughlin’s, hadn’t been hit—yet. He was taking no chances. He didn’t want to risk his employees’ safety for the money in the tills. The police would offer only nominal patrols.

  So far, there had been no injuries during the robberies, no evidence of a weapon. I thought D’Angelo was probably more concerned about losing his hard-earned dough than losing his employees. Oh, man! The tequila had zapped my optimistic attitude and made me a cynic like the Camacho Associates. Not good, Lola, not good.

  Trying to get my optimism back—and get focused—I went back to the file. The method was the same each time. The couple does a little shopping and waits in the line of a male checker. After the groceries are bagged, the woman flashes the checker. While he gawks—as they all do, I mean they’re guys—the partner in crime jumps over the checkout counter, shoves the checker aside, snatches the money from the till, grabs the grocery bags, and then they both bolt. The checker is left speechless and his drawer penniless.

  It was some high-class thievery.

  Enter Camacho and Associates.

  The one thing that all the robbery victims, and the surveillance cameras, could give as a description were the sunburst nipple shields and a spiral tattoo that started under the sunburst on the right breast and worked its way outward. I cringed. My head spun at the mere idea of a tattoo on the boob.

  Not surprisingly, no one seemed to remember any details about the Bonnie-and-Clyde duo—except Bonnie’s boob jewelry.

  “So our goal is to prevent the robbery if they come in to Laughlin’s?” Nothing wrong with a little clarification.

  “And subdue the perps, if possible.”

  Check. “You’ll be in the store?”

  He shook his head. “Surveillance from outside.”

  So how was I going to capture both Bonnie and Clyde on my own? Assuming they showed up tonight.

  Manny seemed to read my thoughts. “How are you going to subdue them if they come tonight?” He looked at me with an annoying little smirk on his face. “Are you hiding a gun on your person?”

  “You know I don’t believe in guns. All I need is a pair of handcuffs.” I’d given him my philosophy on guns more than once. “My body is my weapon.” My lip curled after the words left my mouth. That had sounded so much better—and so much less suggestive—when I said it in my head.

  “You’re going to have to prove that to me, sargenta,” he said, his voice low and rumbling.

  I jabbed my finger at him then grabbed the doorjamb to stop swaying. “Hey, I can subdue and restrain. You sure you want to go there?”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “Oh, we’ll go there.” His face was way too serious. “You’re going to show me all your moves one day.”

  I swallowed h
ard and pressed the window button. ¡Dios mío! I was suddenly roasting. “What’s with the sargenta bit?” I asked when I’d cooled down a degree. As nicknames went, being called sergeant was good. Strong and tough. But Dolores from him was just fine. Anything else sounded too personal.

  “How do you expect to catch bad guys when you’re always the underdog without a weapon, Dolores?” He’d ignored my question, but I left it alone. Ignorance is bliss, and all that.

  When I didn’t say anything, he shook his head. Neil carried. Even Sadie, who could decommission like Medusa with her porcelain gaze, had a pistol. Manny had made it clear that when I got licensed, he wanted me to carry. That was two years ago. He was still waiting.

  “It’s against my principles.”

  “Then you need to reconsider your principles.”

  I hated to admit that he had a point. I was at a slight disadvantage against bad guys without a weapon. But was I willing to risk my freedom for it? I’d thought long and hard on the subject. I’d done firearms training, but I still wasn’t willing to risk shooting an innocent person—or have my own weapon used against me. I flexed my muscles, bolstering my confidence. “I’ll take it under advisement.”

  “We’re not done with this discussion,” he said as he pulled into Laughlin’s parking lot.

  I chose to ignore him.

  “You need to wear a wire. I’ll be out here watching and listening.” He eyed me. “With a gun.”

  “Well, don’t accidentally shoot me.”

  Manny had one arm stretched across the bucket seats of the truck and the other slung across the steering wheel. He looked away as I worked the black wire up underneath my shirt and clipped the miniature microphone onto my bra. What a gentleman.

  “How’s that?” I asked when I had it in place.

  His voice was low as he trained his gaze on me. “Too obvious.”

  I looked down. Yep, even from this angle I could see it. I turned my back to him, stuck my hand underneath my shirt, and worked the wire to my side. I fed it beneath the fabric of my bra, flattened my shirt against it again, and turned back. “Okay?”

  “Perfecto,” he said slowly, and I had an inkling he wasn’t talking about the wire.

  He dug under his seat, handing me a pair of scratched-up handcuffs a moment later.

  I dangled them from my finger. “What are these for?”

  “You said all you needed was handcuffs. Here they are. Put them to good use.”

  Yikes. He was thinking only about work, wasn’t he? He had Isabel to play hostage with. “I will.”

  “Introduce yourself to D’Angelo,” he continued. “He’ll set you up. If you see anyone suspicious, give me a signal. ¿Entiendes?”

  I nodded again and got out of the truck, forcing the handcuffs into my back pocket. “Got it.” I pushed the glasses up the bridge of my nose and straightened my wig, feeling Manny’s eyes burning against my back as I walked into Laughlin’s Grocers. My head swam and I felt nauseated. Alcohol and an empty stomach did not make a good combination for investigative work. But I was on the job, and Lola, PI always gets her man… or in this case, her nipple-shielded woman.

  It didn’t take long to slip a green Laughlin’s shirt over my top and situate myself at the front of the store to pack groceries. Within an hour, my tequila buzz had worn off and I was actively studying each customer. No sign of Bonnie and Clyde, but it was still early.

  Chances were they wouldn’t show anyway.

  It was five fifteen, and two checkers were working the registers: an attractive blond-haired young man in his late teens or early twenties, probably a college student; and an older woman with tight iron-gray curls running up and down her head. Working back and forth between the two, I packed bags, tried not to crunch eggs or smash bread, and made polite conversation.

  I kept my eyes peeled for a couple with no specific features, hair color, hairstyle, or height. Since this wasn’t a nudist market, the description I had of Bonnie’s breasts didn’t do me any good.

  It took a while, but before long I found my groove, packing bags like I’d been doing it for days. “Paper or plastic?” I asked after each sale, disappointed that no one came in with their own environmentally “green” bags. Didn’t people know about global warming? Didn’t people care?

  I kept an eye out for Manny every time I helped a customer to the parking lot with their groceries, but I didn’t see him. Where in the world had he hidden the macho machine? It wasn’t like you could slip the big-ass truck behind a tree. I knew he was out there somewhere. A shiver zipped down my spine—he had my back.

  It was good to know someone did.

  By 7:20, Sadie was still a no-show, I had no less than eleven paper cuts on my fingers, and I’d spotted at least seven nondescript couples who could have been Bonnie and Clyde. But each had shopped, paid, and left without incident. At 7:25, another couple wound their way up and down the aisles, adding this and that to their cart. The way the woman’s eyes darted around put me on alert. Was she casing the place?

  I peered at her chest. Nada. Her shirt was smooth. It didn’t look like any medieval jewelry lurked underneath, but I couldn’t rule out the possibility.

  “Potential suspects,” I hissed into my bra, putting Manny on alert, too. There was a lull at the checkout lines, so I swept the floor in front of the registers, keeping an eye on the couple as they shopped. Another couple, two men, and a gray-haired man entered the store. Laughlin’s was steadily busy. Saturday nights in Sacramento weren’t just for dates anymore.

  The couple in question approached the checkout line. “Be ready,” I whispered into my chest.

  I leaned the broom up against the checkout counter, adjusted my wig, poked at my glasses, and began bagging the couple’s groceries. I peered at her front again. Perfectly smooth.

  When I looked back at her face, she caught my eye and—¡ay, Dios!—winked at me.

  I broke into a coughing frenzy and quickly walked away. Oh God, did she think I was checking her out? No, no, no! I needed to work on my subtlety.

  Once my coughing was under control, I went back to the groceries, looking at the couple through my eyelashes. The woman cracked a huge come-hither smile at me as I bagged a six-pack of beer, a container of strawberries, whipped cream, a T-bone steak, and oysters from the seafood counter.

  It wasn’t hard to deduce that they were going to have an aphrodisiac kind of night. Ew, had she wanted to make it a threesome?

  The guy caught the look his girlfriend was giving me, grabbed the bags, and dragged her out of the store. Good. Thank God. But what, I wasn’t his type?

  I pressed my hand against my forehead for a second and then turned my back to the checkers. “False alarm,” I whispered as I contemplated taking a break and having a Snickers bar.

  “Hello, there, boys.” The sausage-curled checker’s giggly voice brought my attention back to the register. The next customers moved up in line.

  Jack and Antonio. My jaw dropped. “What the hell are you doing here?” I snapped.

  Antonio flashed a wicked grin. “Geeky. That’s a good look for you, Lola.”

  “Nice. Get out of here. I’m working.” I paused and dropped my voice. “And by the way, since when do you step foot in a grocery store?”

  “Since tonight. I had a hankering to see what one looked like from the inside.” He winked at me. “I need a battery for my camera,” he said, “so I can take some pictures later.”

  I peered at him, my lips tight. What was he talking about? Oh! Oh, no! My pictures of Jack. I’d dug through my drawer searching for my fake glasses. Had I left the photos in plain sight? Had Antonio been in my room and seen them?

  My stomach coiled. Oh shit. I couldn’t believe I’d be so stupid as to leave them lying around. Grabbing Antonio by the front of his shirt, I pulled him aside. “Did you—?” But I couldn’t even say it. What if I was just paranoid? What if he hadn’t seen the photos and he was just fishing?

  He smacked an ultra-innocen
t look on his face—quite an accomplishment, considering his fearsome goatee. “Something wrong, sis?”

  My blood scorched my cheeks, and I was afraid steam might start shooting out of my ears any second. “What are you taking pictures of?” I asked as innocently as I could muster.

  His grin widened. “I was thinking I’d hide somewhere and see what looks interesting. Maybe I’ll catch someone doing the nasty.” His voice dropped a decibel. “Candid shots are the best, don’t you think?”

  Shit! He had seen them. I growled and felt my face get hotter. Dropping my voice to a harsh whisper, I demanded, “What were you doing in my room?”

  He notched his head toward the check stand. “Borrowing some cash for the beer.” He stepped back into line. “I’m saving all of mine, remember?” He shot me a victorious smile. “Oh, and I guess we need to talk about that date with Reilly,” he said.

  “Oh no.” I grabbed the six-pack of Corona and stuck it in a bag. “You promised.”

  He turned to Jack, who’d been watching us with a look of amused curiosity. “Hey, dude, you remember that girl you dated in school. Greta—” He paused, resting a finger on his lips. “What was her last name?”

  “Pritchard.” Jack grinned. “Greta Pritchard.”

  “Right.” Antonio darted a look my way. “Pritchard.”

  I seethed, partly at Antonio’s audacity, and partly at the look of blissful remembrance on Jack’s face. “Okay, we’ll talk,” I snapped. “Now, I’m working. Do you mind?”

  Antonio paid the checker as Jack smirked. “Nice hair.” He was close enough for me to breathe in his clean outdoorsy scent. “Where’s Scooby and Shaggy?”

  I knocked his arm with the back of my hand, heat from the contact sizzling up my arm. “You’re hilarious.” I gave the store another scan. All clear. Lowering my voice, I leaned closer again, hyperaware that Jack, a man I was totally hot and bothered over, was next to me, and Manny, a man who had just put me on edge with his scrutiny and nickname, was outside listening. My only consolation was that I had finally sobered up. “I’m undercover,” I whispered. “Now go away.”