Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries Boxed Set: Books 1-3 (The Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries)

by Heather Haven

  “How are you going to do that?” I asked.

  “Possibly by commercial airlines, but I thought I’d try to rent a private pilot and jet. It would be more impressive.”

  “At your service, Mrs. Farnsworth.” Gurn stood tall and saluted.

  “Gurn, your name is on a hit list probably created by Lou Spaulding,” I said. “How can you take Lila anywhere?”

  “Once I get to the East Coast, there are several aliases I can use to fly a plane.”

  “Ah,” I mused. “Another perk of being a special kind of CPA?”

  “And,” Gurn said, ignoring my comment and looking at me, “I know someone who’ll rent me one of his Maverick jets under any name I’m using at the moment.”

  “I’m assuming that, too, is by special arrangement with the board of Certified Public Accountants,” I threw in for good measure.

  “Liana, there is no need for sarcastic remarks. Let us not question this and merely be grateful for the gentleman’s assistance,” chastised Mom. She turned to Gurn. “I think you will do admirably. I wouldn’t mind having you along for extra protection.”

  I panicked. “Protection? Hey, this is sounding dangerous, Mom.”

  “Now, now.” Gurn patted me on the shoulder. He took my mother by the arm and headed for the door, saying over his shoulder,

  “Lila and I are going to be fine. Oh, this means you’ll have to make your way back to Vegas today on your own. You might want to give the friendly skies a call,” he said, with a wink.

  “I’ll give you some ‘friendly skies,’” I muttered, “swinging.”

  Chapter Twelve

  So you Wanna be in Show Biz?

  It was shortly after five p.m. the same day. I’d finished running through the first two routines, watered-down versions of ‘50s and ‘60s style dancing with a few step-ball-changes and wiggles thrown in. I wiped perspiration from my forehead. Not that it was strenuous or difficult work, but the temperature had hit about ninety-five degrees inside Johnny Thunder’s small, windowless rehearsal studio, despite it being November and around seventy degrees in the Nevada desert.

  “Okay. So I see you can dance a little, and you’re good to look at.” The star of the show stared at me appraisingly, and then stepped forward and whispered in my ear, “I wasn’t sure what I was getting into with Flint, but five grand is five grand. And it’s just for tonight, right?”

  I tried not to be put out by the ‘dance a little’ crack, but nodded in agreement at the timeframe. He looked relieved. Johnny stepped back to where he’d been watching me go through my paces.

  Dressed in a tight black jumpsuit, Johnny was a small man with a barrel chest and bird-like legs. Deeply tanned skin, a pockmarked face, and slick, jet-black hair exuded a certain raw, untamable charm. Johnny Thunder, aka Webster Jonathan Tall Trees, probably appealed to a lot of the ladies. The familiarity with which he dealt with the other three dancers led me to believe he’d bedded them all at one time or another.

  “Okay, Paisley,” he said to me, “let’s try the third number.”

  I tried not to cringe at the name Richard had dreamed up for me. He’d created a driver’s license, credit cards and Social Security card, all in the name of Paisley Putz, no

  relation to J.J. Putz, the baseball guy. Sometimes Richard’s sense of humor gets on my nerves.

  “Let’s go, girls,” Johnny said, turning around and looking at the other dancers in the room. “I’m going to need you on this.”

  Bobbi, Bambi and Starlight, got up from nearby chairs to line up next to me. In their early twenties, Bobbi and Bambi were mirrors of each other. Taller than me by a good two or three inches, they were thin to the point of emaciation with the exception of huge, fake breasts covered by ripped, midriff-revealing T-shirts. Crew-cut, white blonde hair less than an inch all over their heads completed the odd look. With slow deliberation, they sauntered to my left. There they stood as erect as a modern major general, staring vacantly ahead without acknowledging my existence.

  Then there was Starlight, the dance captain, who marched to the stage with anger in every step. Starlight LaRue, probably in her mid-forties, had the look of a lady who’d been around the block a number of times, each trip etching itself on her face in ever-deepening lines. Long, dyed red hair, in desperate need of conditioning, hung limply down her back. Two black inner tubes sat on heavy lids, masquerading as false eyelashes. She, too, sported a set of counterfeit jugs, which looked out of place with the rest of her slender, muscular body. I began to wonder if there was a tax cut in Vegas for people with boob jobs.

  Sizing the ladies up—and I use the term ‘ladies’ loosely—I wasn’t worried about Bobbi or Bambi. Between the two of them, they had little interest in anything other than their apparent cocaine habit and getting through the day. Starlight was another matter.

  As dance captain, it had been Starlight’s job to teach me the routines. She’d met me two hours earlier armed with the show’s music recorded on a boom box and a heavy-duty bad attitude. Along with the routines, I got a crash course in

  dealing with a snarling dance captain and a chisel-sharp tongue, who could teach an army drill sergeant a thing or two about sadism.

  Apparently, she didn’t believe for one minute I was filling in for a sick dancer. Hanky-panky with thundering Johnny appeared to be more along the lines of her thought processes. She had a strong sense of ownership for her boss and probably some major history. I would have to watch myself with her.

  The one-hour-fifteen-minute review consisted of Johnny belting out loud and throbbing ‘50s and ‘60s songs while four scantily-costumed girls jiggled around in the background, me now being one of them. My part in this cheesy revue was easy to pick up, consisting mostly of dances like the Jerk, Swim, Mashed Potatoes, and Twist, while tossing my hair around like an idiot. Two or three numbers actually required knowing your left foot from your right, so I had to pay attention from time to time. Starlight and I stood in a line on either side of the two giant, bleached blonde Q-tips, we being the two shorter women. We stared at our illustrious leader.

  “You sing?” Johnny asked, squinting into my eyes.

  “Sing?” I parroted with a stutter.

  “Okay. I’ll put it this way. Can you carry a tune?”

  “Barely,” I said, thinking of all the times Richard and Mom try to drown me out when we go caroling. I’m told I have a three-note range.

  “Close enough. Do you know “Yesterday” by the Beatles?” I nodded. “Good. All you got to do is sing the last word of each line after me and do a little dancing. Watch Starlight. She knows what to do.”

  Starlight didn’t exactly stick her tongue out at me, but I could tell she’d have liked to.

  Johnny clicked on the boom box and the sound of tinny music filled the room along with the pulsing beat of drums.

  Johnny spun around and faced a pretend audience. He crooned the beginning lyrics in a not too bad voice.

  We sang the required back-up nasally but in unison, doing two or three steps of some weird dance I was later to learn was called The Monkey. Then we struck a pose. I was only a half a beat behind the other women, watching them carefully. But I think I lost consciousness for a moment or two, though, because I suddenly heard him belt out the last two words of the next line, “far away.”

  “Far away,” I caterwauled, giving it everything I had. Then I bounced with the other dancers to the count of four and struck another pose.

  I was just getting the hang of it when Johnny stopped singing and turned to me abruptly. “Ah, Paisley, why don’t you just mouth the words? Don’t sing,” he said with an earnest but condescending smile.

  Starlight laughed, and even the two Q-tips giggled.

  “Sure,” I said. Jeesh, even Johnny Thunder has standards.

  After that horror was over, we ran through several other numbers until we came to the theme from Peter Gunn.

  “Okay, Paisley,” Johnny said, turning to me. “This is where you do your solo
with the gun.”

  “I have a solo with a gun?”

  “Oh, yeah, I forgot.” Starlight walked over to her dancer’s bag and took out a small, black wooden pistol, stashed inside a holster. The holster was tied to a red lace garter. This had gone from bad to worse, which I didn’t even think was possible.

  “It’s a forty-eight bar solo, but you got to pull the gun out of the holster on your leg on the last two counts,” Starlight said with a nasty edge. “Here you go.”

  She threw the garter and its companion piece at me. I caught them with one hand and strapped them to my thigh, while she went on,

  “We don’t care much what you do before you get to the end of the number. Just fill the time, but be sure to pull the gun out on the last seven-eight of the count. We pull ours out at the same time. It’s our big finale.”

  I listened to the horns and drums blaring out the well-known tune once through. The second time Johnny ran the tape, the spot for my solo came up. My heart was in my mouth. Only the day before in Flint’s kitchen I’d thought about how wonderful it would be to be dancing onstage in costume. Be careful what you wish for. You may get it.

  Johnny and the three dancers moved aside, making room for my ha-ha big number. I commended my soul to God and stepped forward. Then it hit me. Coming into these routines with years of formal ballet training was a bit like using a blowtorch to light a birthday candle. I decided to go for it. I executed an entrechat, cabriole, assemblé, jeté, interspersed with a few other easy jumps and leaps. Full of myself, I threw in an arebesque—I mean, why not—and ended with several Fouettés en tournant, a type of turn I do fairly well. My former ballet teacher, Madame Monique, would have been proud.

  At the seven-eight count, I grabbed the lightweight toy from its holster, arched my back and aimed the silly thing to the heavens in what I hoped was a moderately sexy pose. Or maybe I looked like I’d been struck by lightning. I wasn’t sure. There was a moment’s silence.

  “Wow!” Johnny grinned at me with arched eyebrows. Starlight’s jaw dropped to the floor. Even the two Q-tips looked impressed. Good dancing, like everything else, is relative. Put me in the middle of a hoe down with fourth-graders, and I suspect I would look like another Margot Fonteyn.

  “Well, all right,” Johnny said, with surprise. “Giving the show some class, aren’t we? I like it. You see, Star?” Johnny turned to the redhead. “We could use more of that kind of dancing in the show.”

  “Yeah, sure,” she answered quietly. “Although I think she could cut it back a little.”

  “What are you talking about?” Johnny’s tone of voice indicated he thought she was crazy. “The girl’s a ballerina. I saw that kind of dancing on a PBS special once in The Crackling Nuts or something.”

  “The Nutcracker,” Star said through gritted teeth.

  “Whatever,” he shrugged. “Let’s use it.”

  “I don’t mind cutting it back a little,” I jumped in, with a tremulous smile in Starlight’s direction, hoping I could make amends. She glared at me.

  “Do exactly what you did there, sweet cakes,” Johnny ordered, waving Starlight’s comment away. He turned to Bobbi and Bambi. “It wouldn’t hurt either of you girls to wake up and do a little bit of that kind of dancing, either.” He looked back at me, approval written all over his face. “You could learn a lot from her. She’s got a lot of class.”

  The Q-tips stopped looking impressed and glared at me much the same as Starlight had done. Johnny was oblivious. Typical man.

  We finished the rehearsal with me feeling like poison oak and being treated pretty much the same way by my fellow dancers. Before I left, Johnny handed me two purple costumes covered in plastic, fresh from the cleaners, a hatbox containing a purple and silver Mylar Cleopatra wig, and a pair of beat-up, white go-go boots. Six forty-five, and I was an official Las Vegas dancer.

  * * * *

  It was now exactly eleven p.m., which gave us performers little time to put props and costumes in place once

  we arrived on the thirty-eighth floor. The penthouse show was scheduled for eleven fifteen. Wearing the first wet and over-used costume from the two previous shows in the main

  lounge, we carried the equally sweat-drenched second costume with us. Yuk.

  Johnny pressed the elevator button for the penthouse, while I thought about the scenario Lila, Richard, Gurn and I had come up with. My job, after I had humiliated myself on stage for the third time in one night, was to make sure they came out of the room no later than one a.m. If not, I was to take appropriate action. This was no time for nerves; just follow the program. It was a matter of timing, remembering what to do, and being in the right place at the right time. I repeated this mantra endlessly.

  Lila and Gurn arrived at the hotel around seven, followed discretely by Flint. They had checked into adjoining suites, she as Alice Farnsworth and Gurn as Rick Maddock, her personal pilot and thinly veiled boy-toy. Both had worked their way into the inner sanctum of the private casino around eight thirty p.m. Once inside the metallic cage of the private casino, Lila and Gurn had hopefully been able to break into the electronic, unprotected transmissions, taping them for scrutiny later. I would finish the third set with Johnny and my new best friends by twelve thirty a.m. By that time, everything that needed to go down should have gone down, and it would be simply a case of standing by the door and waiting.

  I adjusted the purple wig and checked myself out in the elevator mirror, feeling the whoosh in my stomach as we lurched skywards. When the doors opened, two men with AKAs stood on either side, watching us alight.

  I looked out into the small but opulent casino room, done in every conceivable shade of off-white, with shimmering touches of soft pink, peach, and magenta. Back, floor, and overhead lighting showcased larger than life white ceramic or frosted glass art deco statues of slim, long-haired

  women. Frozen in time, they held vases of cascading water or cavorted with darling, ghostly companions, such as dogs, dolphins, monkeys, and birds, each sculpture surrounded strategically by green gaming tables.

  As I stepped off the elevator, the guard closest to me checked the toy gun in my garter and moved up my leg, giving me a screening any airport would be proud of. I wanted to tell him he could at least buy me dinner first but restrained myself. After, I was free to follow the others to the stage at the end of the room. But I had other plans.

  I decided to check out as much of the room as I could and scuttled away. This main casino fed into other smaller rooms, separated by see-through curtains, slats of carved, white wood or hidden doors, one of them being the multi-million dollar private casino. Out here in the main casino, well-dressed players, serious in intent, gambled for a minimum bet of $1000 per play. These were the pikers. Behind one of these doors, the minimum was one million dollars per play.

  This had to be the quietest casino room I’d ever been in. I looked around at the clientele; all intent on playing Craps, Baccarat, Poker, or the Roulette wheel in a most dignified manner; like merry old England’s Ascot without any horses. Sort of takes the fun out of it, in my opinion. I’d rather be at Circus-Circus with the ding, ding, ding of the nickel slot machines, throwing back a watered down Mai-tai. But sometimes I’ve got no class, no matter what Johnny Thunder says.

  I finally found what I was looking for on the far side of the room. Discretely set into an art deco wall was a hidden door, with another armed man standing nearby. A man walked up to the guard, showed him a piece of paper, received a nod, and was ushered inside. I tried to amble nearer, just as Johnny bounced over to me. He was covered with enough sweat to have been trapped in a sauna room for two or three hours.

  “Paisley! Where the hell did you get to? I was getting nervous about you. You can’t take off like that, not up here. Anyway, come with me. We’ve got to set up.”

  “Well, what have we here?’ We both turned to the sound of the voice, and I recognized Lou Spaulding from Richard’s computer images but taller and more colorful in person.
He stepped in between Johnny and me and took my hand. “What a lovely addition to your act, Johnny. You must introduce me.”

  “Oh, sure, Mr. Spaulding,” Johnny stuttered. “This is the girl filling in for Rita tonight who’s got the flu or something. This is Paisley. Paisley, this is Mr. Spaulding.”

  “But you must call me Lou,” he said, bending over and kissing my hand, a hand I planned on washing as soon as possible.

  I forced a smile, which I hoped looked more charming and warm than I was feeling. I gave my hand a little tug. He got the hint and released my paw.

  “Nice to meet you, Lou,” I trilled, “but I have to go set up for the show.”

  I countered away from him and crossed in front of Johnny. I kept my smile going until I thought my face would break. I watched Spaulding’s leering eyes follow me across the room.

  Johnny and I headed to the back of a miniscule stage, maybe able to hold six or seven people, and into one of the two wings, delineated by curtains hung from the ceiling to the floor. Starlight was already setting up. When she saw me, she turned on me with a vicious look on her face.

  “Where the hell have you been? Listen, stupid, you can’t go wandering around anywhere you want. You stay with the group.”

  “It’s all right, Star. Take it easy,” Johnny jumped in before I could say anything. “She didn’t mean it. She doesn’t know the protocol of this place, right?” He turned and directed the last word to me.

  “What protocol, Johnny?” I said, throwing my costume on a nearby folding chair. “I was just looking for the bathroom and got a little lost. What’s the big deal?”

  “We’re only allowed up here because Connie Elsberg likes to hear me sing.” Johnny said. “I don’t want to say too much, but she and I used to—”