Ms America and the Villainy in Vegas

by Diana Dempsey

  “We have to at least consider it, right? After all, what else am I going to pit school for?”

  “Because it’s something you’ve always wanted to do. Because it’ll make you a better mechanic.”

  “You know what, Happy?” He comes closer. “I don’t want to talk about that now.” Closer still. “Let’s talk about it later.” Close enough to kiss me.

  “How about how grody you are?” I manage to ask a few seconds later.

  “I don’t care if you don’t.”

  I realize I don’t.

  Jason’s lips are soft and warm. His arms are strong and enveloping. He’s the man I’ve loved since I was 17 years old, and as he pulls me along after him it’s as wonderful as Sunday morning with Rachel out of the house for a few hours.

  I ignore my cell when it rings—because I have better things to do—but eventually I fetch it and check my voicemail. “Trixie called to say that she and Shanelle took Mom out to dinner,” I report to Jason. “Trixie remembered you were getting in this afternoon and figured we were”—I pause—“occupied.”

  “We were occupied.” He comes close to brush my lips with yet another kiss. “I guess it’s true what they say about Vegas.”

  “I guess it is.”

  “I’m starving. I could eat a cow.” He brushes my hair off my forehead. “I wonder how that happened.”

  “I need to eat, too. It won’t look good if I faint during the performance.”

  “How about I run down to that deli across the street and pick up something? You get ready in the meanwhile.”

  “Good idea. But can I tell you something first?”

  I guess our being together like this has put me in a confessional mood. We settle against the bed’s plumped-up pillows and I tell him about Cassidy’s murder and how I have been “snooping around” as he puts it. I include every last painful detail about Hans.

  He listens without saying a word. Then, “It bothers me that you know how I feel about this and you do it anyway.”

  “It’s important to me to prove that I can. Even though—” I stop.

  “What?”

  “I’m not really sure that I can. I know I figured out who killed Tiffany Amber but I’m kind of nowhere when it comes to figuring out who killed Danny and Cassidy.”

  “That’s because you’re not a cop! You don’t have their resources, you don’t have their training—”

  “I know.” I don’t want to hear all the reasons I’m coming up short. I already know them all too well.

  “Can’t you just be happy you solved that murder on Oahu and leave it at that? That cleared your name. That let you be Ms. America. Isn’t that enough?”

  It should be. It really should be.

  Jason gets out of bed. “I’m gonna go to that deli.”

  “Okay. I’ll shower. And I’ll try to reach Rachel before she goes to bed. I missed her this morning.”

  Even though Jason and I aren’t exactly on the same page, I feel better that we caught up on everything that’s been going on. Then I’m doubly pleased when my daughter is willing to take a break from Titanic—which she seems to adore beyond all other movies—to chat with me.

  “I’ve decided that Maggie isn’t all bad,” she declares.

  “Maggie? Is that the name of Grandpa’s …” My voice trails off. I can’t bring myself to say “girlfriend.”

  “She did my nails with this airbrushing technique. It took like hours but they look really good. They’re lime green with gold dots.”

  I’m taken aback. “That sounds kind of girly for you.”

  “They’re not pink or anything. Ryan thought they looked really cool, too.”

  That does not qualify as high praise in my book.

  “And she totally gets what I mean about college,” Rachel goes on. “She didn’t go to college and she owns her own business.”

  I restrain myself from making all the less than generous observations that pop into my brain. “That’s great that she owns her own nail salon but I hardly think that means that college isn’t incredibly worthwhile.”

  “She just gets that there’s no reason I have to go now. She understands why I want to do that program overseas next year.”

  “Rach, as I told you before, that program sounds worthwhile. But I’m afraid that if you put college off, you’ll never go.”

  Life may intervene. It has a way of doing that. The last thing I want is for my super-bright daughter not to get a college degree. It’s bad enough I still don’t have mine.

  My daughter is smart enough to change the subject. “I’m glad Dad got to go to Vegas. He’s gonna see your show, right?”

  We talk about noncontroversial subjects for the few minutes I can spare before I’ve got to jump in the shower. The pounding water starts to calm me down and Jason finishes the job.

  “Don’t get all worked up about what this Maggie has to say.” He hands me a sandwich. “I got you turkey and guacamole on whole wheat. For all we know she’ll be out of the picture in a month.”

  That is sage advice. Plus I have something more immediate to worry about: my debut with the Sparklettes.

  We grab my mother from her room and manage to make it to the theater on time. I wonder how my mom and Jason will coexist by themselves for the hour until the show starts. I hope we don’t have a third murder in the theater.

  Backstage, some of the dancers are already well into their warm-ups. I join Trixie and Shanelle and limber up with some stretches. No doubt thanks to this morning’s cryotherapy—not to mention Jason’s ministrations this evening—I’m feeling pretty darn good even though we’re near the end of a very long day.

  “You look happy,” Trixie observes with a wink and a giggle.

  “I am happy,” I reply, though I’d be way happier if I’d nabbed a killer or two.

  “You go, girl,” Shanelle says.

  “By the way, did you get to talk to Frank after the cryotherapy this morning?” Trixie wants to know.

  “Did I ever.” I lower my voice. “I kept him from skipping town. And he told me Danny gave him money, money we know is probably stolen.” Explaining the Frank escapade, and my backstage encounter with Travis Blakely, takes us through our squats, lunges, and barre work.

  I don’t mention my get-together with Mario. I judge it best not to think about him too much.

  Shanelle laughs as she executes a few jump kicks. “Just think, Trixie. All we did this afternoon was shop for souvenirs.”

  Trixie lights up. “I got a black Vegas baseball for Tag”—she kicks—“a pink Vegas Princess beach towel for Tessa”—she kicks again—“and red fuzzy dice for Rhett.”

  “Nothing for yourself?”

  She bends over, panting. “We ran out of time.”

  That’s Trixie for you, always thinking of herself last.

  Trainer Elaine hustles us through a few drills before we race to the dressing room to slap on more makeup and don our opening costume, the Sparklettes version of Top Hat and Tails.

  Squeezing into the black and pink ruffled corset makes me think of Cassidy. “Detective Perelli told me Cassidy’s body was taken to Phoenix today, where her family lives,” I whisper to Trixie and Shanelle.

  “She never did make it to L.A.,” Trixie says.

  “I do feel bad for that girl,” Shanelle adds, pulling on the thigh-high black fishnet stockings. “I get the idea it was Danny who created the mess and Cassidy mostly got sucked into it.”

  I agree with that assessment.

  “What about Cassidy’s cat?” Trixie asks me.

  “Detective Perelli told me her mother wants to keep it.”

  “That’s good.” Trixie faces a mirror and straightens her top hat. “Can you believe we’re about to go onstage as real dancers?”

  I can’t. But we are. Elaine leads the eighteen of us to the stage and we assume our start-the-show positions. A few minutes later the drumroll signals that the curtains are about to part. I’ve been so distracted all day I haven’t
had the chance to get nervous. Now I feel the adrenaline rush I know so well from pageant competition.

  “Good luck, ladies!” Elaine races past high fiving Shanelle, Trixie, and me. “You’ll do great!” She scampers aside just as the curtains pull back.

  The audience cheers and claps. A jazzed-up version of “Puttin’ on the Ritz” fills the theater. We start busting out our moves. I beam at the invisible crowd beyond the klieg lights. Jason is out there, and my mom, and I’m reminded yet again how very lucky I am that my crown allows me to do so many fun things that I’d never get the chance to do otherwise.

  We dance and twirl and kick up a storm and then it’s costume change time. Into our Madonna-style bustiers and beauty-queen sashes, all in the 78 seconds allotted. This time we start with “Vogue” and two-thirds of the way through Shanelle, Trixie, and I take center stage for our “solo” routine.

  Greta Garbo, and Monroe,

  Dietrich and DiMaggio,

  Marlon Brando, Jimmy Dean

  On the cover of a magazine.

  Grace Kelly; Harlow, Jean,

  Picture of a beauty queen.

  Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire

  Ginger Rogers, dance on air …

  The crowd goes wild. I don’t think I’ve ever had this much fun performing. Every other time I’ve done a dance number it’s been during pageant competition. Since tonight that pressure is off, it’s pure joy.

  “We nailed ‘Vogue’!” Trixie shrieks when we’re backstage again, this time for our final change into the diamond costume of black spandex and silver lame.

  “You were right, Elaine!” I shout. “It’s a huge rush out there!”

  “Wait till you do the final number!” she yells back. “You’ll get chills!”

  She’s right. I do. We do our showstopping 36 straight eye-high kicks to Donna Summer’s “Last Dance” and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so exhilarated in my life. It might even be better than cryotherapy. One of the Sparklettes told me the final kick lines are addictive and now I know why.

  I can’t believe it’s over when we finish our encore and strut off the stage.

  Backstage Shanelle lets out a whoop. “That was the fastest ninety minutes of my life!” she hollers. “Let’s go back out and do it again!”

  “Tomorrow night we will!” Elaine says. “Right now I need you to cool down and stretch and soak your feet in ice. But before that let’s put our hands together for Happy, Shanelle, and Trixie, who rocked that stage tonight!”

  We three queens are only too happy to take our bows.

  By the time we’re released to find Jason and my mom outside the theater, I’m fading. But Jason says, “Who’s up for drinks? I’m buying!” and before I know it we’re at an outdoor nightclub that mimics a Paris street scene.

  We order a vegetable tart, canapés with smoked salmon, and warm camembert on crackers. One French martini later—Chambord-flavored vodka and Chambord liqueur, pineapple juice, and fresh raspberries for garnish—I am ready for dreamland.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The next morning, I wake up surprisingly early and soon discover why. My hips, thighs, and butt are in revolt. Every fiber of my being screams for cryotherapy.

  I scrawl Jason a note, pull on the tracksuit I grabbed from my room the prior night—over my mother’s objections to my sleeping with my husband—and hobble downstairs hoping Frank is at the spa and willing to take pity on me.

  It’s so early the place is deserted, but Frank is present and accounted for. “I’m a desperate woman,” I tell him.

  He does not look happy to see me. “You know I’m not supposed to crank that thing up just for you.”

  “I know. It’s too expensive. Oh, well.” I’m about to turn away when he speaks up again.

  “You told that detective about me taking cash from Danny. She put me through another one of her interrogations yesterday.”

  “She didn’t arrest you, though, did she? That’s a step in the right direction.”

  “If you say so.” He eyes me then heads for the cryogenic chamber. “Why I’m doing you a favor is beyond me.”

  I follow him, delighted. “You recognize I’ve got your best interests at heart. With Detective Perelli and with Sally Anne.”

  “You go change and I’ll get everything ready,” he tells me.

  I emerge from the locker room swathed in the skin-protecting paraphernalia but Frank isn’t in the chamber anteroom as usual. The thick steel door to the chamber itself is open and I glimpse its dark, misty interior. “Frank?” I’m at the threshold when I’m shoved hard from behind. I launch into the chamber and land on all fours. The door slams shut behind me.

  I scramble to my feet. “Frank!” It’s dark. It’s freezing cold. Actually it’s way colder than freezing cold.

  It doesn’t take long for me to realize that I am in the cryogenic chamber alone. I spin around and make for the door. “Frank!” I pound on its icy steel surface. I yank on its handle. Nothing. “Frank!”

  No response. I hear nothing but the hiss of the cold killer air flooding the chamber through the vents.

  Okay, I know it sounds crazy, but it is killer air. It’s so cold it’ll kill you. And it won’t take its time about it, either.

  “Frank!” I wail. It was pretty nervy of him to act like he was doing me a favor only to lock me in here. I yank more on the handle and pound more on the door. I yell more for Frank. And then another thought comes to me. Why in the heck am I calling for him? He’s the one who shoved me in here!

  Oh my God, I realize. Frank is a killer. If he pushed me in here, he must be. Because he knows no one can survive in here for long. He must have killed Danny. And Cassidy. And now he wants to kill me, too. Maybe because now I know he took Danny’s stolen money. And thanks to me, Detective Perelli knows that, too.

  So what sense does it make to kill me? I’ve already let the cat out of the bag.

  Maybe he’s not thinking clearly, as Trixie once suggested. And I made it so easy for him to do me in. I let myself trust him. I wanted to trust him because he was Sally Anne’s fiancé.

  I start jumping up and down, partly in panic, partly from habit. Moving is what you do in a cryogenic chamber. You need to stay in motion to keep your circulation going. Continued circulation sounds like a fine goal to me right about now.

  Don’t panic, I order myself as I jog around the chamber, my clogs noisy on the floor. I punch the air as though I were a boxer in the ring, though my enemy is nowhere to be seen. Think, I tell myself, think! You can get yourself out of this. There has got to be a way.

  I am so proud of my brain cells because seconds later, something Frank said to me before my first treatment does come back to me. There is a panic button but once you’re in, you’re in.

  I ignore the disturbing latter half of that statement and focus on the panic button part. Yes! Panic button. That has my name written all over it.

  So where would it be? Somewhere easy to find, I conclude. Because the individual looking for it is, by definition, panicked.

  By now it’s even mistier in the chamber. My skin is stinging and so are my eyes. I run to the door and peer at the wall around it. Since it’s dark and my sight isn’t at its all-time best, I start feeling the wall, too.

  My heart sings when my left hand alights on a large square button on a plate mounted to the wall. This has got to be it. I press the button then I press it again. I don’t hear a darn thing. I realize that doesn’t mean it’s not sounding somewhere else but the resounding silence here is none too reassuring.

  And what if it’s sounding at the spa’s reception desk and only at the spa’s reception desk? Frank could be listening to it chuckling to himself and not moving a muscle. I didn’t see anybody else in the spa this morning. Not a soul.

  Hysteria rises within me but I tamp it down. Once again I jog a loop around the chamber and punch the air. I don’t let myself think about how cold I am or how long I’ve already been in there. Maybe, I tell myself, the pa
nic alarm is sounding somewhere else in the hotel or maybe another worker has arrived at the spa and will hear it. Somebody may well be on their way to save me right now.

  But until they show up I better try to come up with another idea. I jog, I punch, and I think. Unfortunately some of the thoughts bouncing around my brain aren’t very helpful. Like how ironic is it that Happy Przybyszewski could expire in a contraption that her own Polish forebears had a hand in devising.

  A little while later, I have to give my brain cells a standing ovation because they do indeed scrape up something new.

  What about the vent that’s funneling in the killer air? Maybe I can stop it up somehow.

  I know where the vent is because I’ve seen it. It’s high up on the wall across from the door. I can reach it if I stand up on the bench built along that wall.

  But what am I going to use to stop up the vent? There’s nothing in the chamber. Nada. All I’ve got are my skimpy cryogenic-chamber shorts and top and the stuff I wear to protect my skin during the treatment: the gloves, knee socks, and arm and leg warmers.

  I strip them off. If I don’t survive, who the heck cares about the state of my skin?

  I reach up and start stuffing everything into the vent. It feels like icicles up there. I can’t really tell—because I don’t have a lot of feeling in my fingers at this point—but I get the impression the flow of sub-frigid air does ebb.

  When I’ve stuffed the vent as much as I can, I leap down from the bench and resume jogging. I curse myself for not having thought of stuffing the vent at the start. It may not save me anyway, I know. I feel so, so cold. How much colder can I get? How much longer can I last? My skin stings so bad …

  I keep the hysteria down. I continue moving. I don’t let myself cry. I don’t let myself despair.

  And then I think I hear something at the door. I stop jogging and listen because I can’t hear a darn thing over my pounding clogs.

  And then I hear it again. Heavens above, I do hear something at the door. And then I see the door actually begin to open.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT