Little feet stuck out from under the Disney princess dust ruffle on the bed.
I sat on the bed carefully. “Well. Looks like Heidi’s gone somewhere. Too bad. I was going to tell her that I was going to bring her mommy home. Guess I can’t. Wonder if she knows where her mommy went?”
Silence.
“I wonder if those teddy bears know? Excuse me? Hate to interrupt your tea party, but do any of you know where Heidi’s mom has gone?”
“Las Vegas,” A little voice said from under the bed.
“Really?” Was she making it up? Would a little girl who didn’t live in Nevada or visit the city know about Las Vegas? “Las Vegas. Did she tell you that?”
“She said she was going to Las Vegas.” Her little girl’s voice went deeper as she did a darn fine impression of her mother’s faux Georgia accent. “Las Vegas, land of slots and sluts.”
Well, there was a word little girls didn’t often say. Susu was definitely headed to Nevada. “Thanks, Heidi. I’ll bring your mommy back. And when I do, let’s get a pedicure.”
Her little toes wiggled good-bye.
I had to haul my crazy sister home, but where in sin city would I look?
Chapter 3
I’d been to Paris three times, and I wasn’t sure if this one counted as the fourth. The Eiffel Tower was there. The little cobblestoned streets and boulangeries filled with tasty treats were there. The hordes of American tourists were there. But so were long rows of blinking, chiming, singing slot machines.
The Paris Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, the theme park version of the City of Lights, was where Susu had booked a room, according to the receipt she’d left in her computer’s printer tray, almost as if she was daring us to find her.
She’d bought a round-trip ticket and hotel package from an online service. Carl had immediately started to look for flights, although I tried to convince him that he was the last person she’d want to see there.
I guess I don’t get any points for tact. But honestly, she was running away from a situation that she needed to face. Having the main instigator chase her to Las Vegas was not going to help.
A couple of calls to my friends at Delta got me a first-class seat on the red-eye. Thank goodness for the severance package that allowed me to fly with my old privileges.
I raided Susu’s closet while Carl was tied up on the phone. One look at her so-called wardrobe and I realized one reason why she’d been so depressed. She hadn’t thrown any of her “fat” clothes away, and they were like an open door beckoning her back to her old weight. She also hadn’t left behind any of her new clothes, darn her.
I didn’t have a stitch to my name and no time to buy more right now, although I’d be giving Carl’s credit card a workout shortly.
In the meantime, my Prada tote was packed with Susu’s cotton granny panties. I refused to wear the denim jumper and white tennis shoe outfit, nor the fleece ensembles that were a far cry from Juicy Couture.
I was in a navy blue JCPenney suit that screamed “junior office clerk,” but it was the only decent outfit my sister owned. It hung on me. With my stitched-up lip, I must have been quite a sight.
Before I got on the plane I called the hotel from a pay phone, identified myself as Susu, and added my sister Anita to my room. The hotel clerk asked the usual questions, but I was ready for them, with everything from Susu’s address to her Social Security number. I told myself that it wasn’t identity theft, it was a family rescue.
The flight attendants on the trip out were kind, plying me with juice and drinks because I couldn’t chew peanuts or pretzels. I wasn’t good at talking, either. It hurt more today than it had yesterday.
Las Vegas is a 24/7 town, so I had no trouble grabbing a shuttle to the hotel. I walked past the reservation desk and headed straight to the house phones and once more pretended to be Susu, asking if my sister Anita had checked in yet.
“Not yet,” the clerk answered.
I smiled into the phone and went to check in. Was I sneaky, or what?
“Has my sister Susana checked in yet?”
“She has.” The elegantly dressed reception clerk smiled as she took my driver’s license and photocopied it. I held my breath until the clerk returned, smiling.
I slipped the key card into my jacket pocket and tried not to race to the elevators. I wanted this over with and my sister back home where she could take care of me, damn it.
The elevators were crowded and I had to wait until one arrived that had room for me and my suitcase full of ugly borrowed clothes. When the brass doors opened again, twelve half-naked hunks grinned at me.
Hallelujah. One hour in Vegas and I’d already hit the jackpot. I squeezed in and rode upstairs in a wave of body heat and testosterone.
By the time I got to my floor I knew they were part of a boxing team in town for a big Golden Gloves match, and that they’d been downstairs working out. When the doors slid open I pocketed the list of names and hotel room numbers. I had dates lined up for the next three days. Seems boxers are fascinated by women with stitched-up lips.
I slid the key card into the door and eased it open. The light was turned off and there was no noise. I debated sneaking around in the dark. What the heck. If she was here, she’d know about it soon enough. I flipped the light on. The place was a mess. Susu had made herself at home.
Clothes were draped over every surface, and there were shoes all over the floor. I stared at a large pair of men’s deck shoes set neatly by the desk. Uh-oh.
The bathroom counter held a man’s toiletry kit, along with Susu’s signature rose-perfumed lotions and bath gel.
I backed out of the room, turning the lights off. I was so not telling my brother-in-law about this.
Back in the lobby I booked another room, smaller, but with a truly superior bathroom. No tub, but a shower that would hold six comfortably. Something to keep in mind when I partied later.
I thought about what to do next. Watch her hotel room door? Hang out at the bar? This was not the town where you could ask if anyone had seen a crazy redhead. The place was infested with them.
After stuffing the hideous clothes in a drawer, I went downstairs, hoping for a Susu sighting. No luck. Nothing to do now but to get decent, and that meant a trip across the street to the Bellagio, and the best shopping this side of Rodeo Drive.
When I returned I was dragging three full shopping bags, and Carl’s Amex card was feeling heavy. What better reward from a grateful spouse than to outfit his needy sister-in-law after she returned his runaway wife? This was powerful incentive to succeed.
I dashed upstairs and changed into one of my new outfits, a pair of Diesel jeans, a fluttery Diane von Furstenburg top, and a pair of Kate Spade flats.
At least my lip had subsided from plum-sized to Angelina Jolie. The pain was something else, but I hadn’t filled the pain medicine subscription, (a) because I’d had no money, and (b) because I didn’t want to be doped up when I found Susu, although I was craving a cocktail in the worst way. Feeling more like myself, I went downstairs on a Susu hunt.
Two hours later I sat at the bar, sipping a Cosmo through a straw from the normal side of my fat lip, watching a clown work the crowd waiting at the restaurant’s wrought-iron gates. The clown wore baggy black pants, a tight black and white striped T-shirt, a red scarf tied around his neck, and a black beret at a jaunty angle. He was built. A flash of red hair shot by, trailed by Susu’s unique laugh.
I jumped from the bar stool and followed, maneuvering through the maze of slot machines and dazed tourists up way past their bedtimes.
It was Susu all right. She was in the elevator banks, leaning against the wall, with a man slobbering all over her neck. Her head was thrown back, like a victim in a vampire movie, and her mouth was making little ooh-ooh sounds.
Gross, but at least I could get her back to Atlanta before Carl showed up. I’d almost reached them when the man heard my rapid footsteps and looked up. He wasn’t a man. He was a kid. I stopped dea
d. I’d been expecting George Clooney, but this was Orlando Bloom.
Susu’s eyes opened and after a second focused. On me. “Anita!”
“Anita? Like, your sister?” The kid looked at me with interest. Who knows what crazy tales she’d told him?
“That’s me. Who are you?”
He extended a hand. “Rod Patterson. Of Patterson Tires fame.”
“I’ve never heard of Patterson Tires.”
He blushed. “Not here, of course. But we have twenty-five stores in California.”
“Congratulations. Susu, can we talk?”
Susu pushed away from the wall. She was wearing a black satin corset thing with a short skirt that laced up the sides of her hips and no underwear to speak of.
“I don’t think we have anything to talk about, Anita, and I don’t know how you found me, but you can go home now.”
“No can do. Homeless, remember? Unlike you, who has a nice house, and a husband. And two kids. Remember them?” I added those last for Tire Boy’s benefit.
He smiled. “Susu told me all about them.”
The elevator door opened behind them and Susu grabbed young Master Patterson and pulled him into the car. She punched a button and the door slid shut before I could jump in, too.
I stepped back and watched the numbers on the digital display. They stopped at four. I smiled. Gotcha.
My triumph was short-lived. The fourth floor, like all the other floors of this hotel, consisted of several intersecting homogenized corridors. Same rugs, same doors, and just about soundproofed. Was it 426 or 456? The card in my pocket was unmarked, damn it.
Beside the elevators was a doorway marked STAIRS, which further deflated my joy. They could have jumped off here and walked to another floor.
By now it was almost three in the morning. I went down the hallways, listening. A couple of late night partiers gave me weird looks as they staggered past, then I got a hit.
Insane giggles bubbled through a door. I’d heard that drunken laugh before.
“Susu, open up!”
The giggles stopped. I prepared my speech about her poor children. Poor little Heidi. Poor baby Tony. Poor me.
The door swung open. “You asking for Susu?” The guy was wearing what looked like a shiny wet suit and a mask. The wet suit was attached by crisscrossed cords tied over a basketball-shaped belly covered in black hair.
Was Susu a nympho? And why was she punishing herself? This guy was beyond gross. “Yes. Is she here?”
He stepped aside. “See for yourself.”
I took one step closer and looked over his shoulder. A woman was tied to the bed, face covered with a hood.
“Susu?”
The man giggled and reached for me. I fell backward, grabbed the doorjamb and ran like hell. The guy was the giggler, and it couldn’t have been Susu on the bed, since there hadn’t been enough time since I’d last seen her for Susu to be hooded and tied up.
It seemed to be consensual weirdness, but not for me. At the end of the hall I stopped, gasping. Thank goodness for flats. I wouldn’t have made it in my doomed Moschinos.
I looked down the hall at the endless doors, each neatly labeled with a room number. Impossible. I opened the stairwell door and headed two floors up to my room.
The room next to mine was having a raucous party. I thought briefly that it might be them, but it was a card party. I fell asleep to hysterical cries of “Go Fish.”
Anything goes in Vegas.
The telephone awoke me an hour later. I fumbled for the receiver. “Fire?”
“No. Who’s Fire?” It was Carl.
“Not who. What. I thought there must be a fire, because it’s four in the morning.”
“Oh. It’s seven here. I thought I’d call to see if you found her.”
“I did, last night. But it was so late I didn’t want to bother you. Thought you might be asleep.” I waited, but no apology came for waking me up out of mine.
“You have her? You’re not dicking around, are you?”
I almost laughed. If anyone was allowed to use that phrase, it was Big Carl. “You heard me, right? I don’t have her, but I did see her. She didn’t want to talk to me. She’s safe, she’s here. I’ll catch up with her. Stick tight, keep your cell phone handy. Say hi to the kids from Aunt Anita.”
I hung up and fell back asleep, but the damage had been done. I dreamed that Carl was there, and his freakishly huge dick was chasing me around the room. When I caught up with my cradle-robbing sister I needed to ask her if the Tire Kid was better than what she had at home.
I was up at eleven A.M., local time. I showered and dressed and headed downstairs to breakfast. Afterward I wondered what to do. I wasn’t cut out for this amateur detective business. Too impatient, and it seemed like I’d be spending a lot of time watching and waiting.
I wasn’t worried that I’d miss Susu and Baby Rod. The way they’d been chewing on each other’s faces, they’d probably been at it all night and were right now either in mid-bunny or sleeping it off.
I thought wistfully of the deep sleep that only comes after satisfying sex, and got so worked up that I bought three more pairs of shoes and a killer silk Nicole Miller dress in red. This was such a party town. You had to be prepared, you know?
My mood about seven hundred dollars lighter, I went back to Paris and stopped at the Café Ile St. Louis, where I’d had breakfast. I ordered a café au lait and skimmed the New York Times. I didn’t notice Baby Boy Patterson slip into the seat opposite mine until he poked his head over the top of my newspaper.
“I’ll bet that’s popular at the frat house.” I picked up my coffee, ready to either sip nonchalantly or throw it in his face.
He sat back down. “How’d you know?”
I folded the paper. “Because I was young once.”
He snorted. “Yeah, like you’re a crone.”
“I’m twenty-four. You’re what? Seventeen?”
“Twenty-two.” He was sulking now, his lower lip stuck out. Or he was doing an impression of me?
“Susu’s almost forty.” She’d kill me if she heard me say that. She’d just turned thirty.
“She’s hot.”
“Yeah, and you’re going to get hurt, you little homewrecker you.” My expression was probably not the friendliest, because he quit being defensive and sat up straight, watching me warily.
“Are you threatening me?”
“Yes.” I sighed. “No. But Susu’s all confused. She’s going through some rough times. This is me being nice and telling you to back off or she’ll drag you through it, too.” I eyed him, his expensive haircut, his black on black striped shirt. Ben Sherman, I bet. My last fling had one just like it. “I was right, wasn’t I? You’re in school?”
“Yeah. I’m a senior at Princeton.”
La de da. “So where did you meet my sister?”
“Online.”
“Oh, brother.”
“No, really. It’s great. We can talk about anything. She is so awesome. And we have so much in common—”
“Diapers, a mortgage, a husband?”
He gave me a look. “She told me about all that. Anyway, we decided that this would be a great place to meet.” He waved around.
“So you hadn’t met before yesterday?” And she said I worked fast.
“Not in person, but we’d e-mailed and chatted online so much, I felt as if she was my best friend.” His face glowed when he talked about Susu. Not good.
“Listen, Rod.” I grabbed his still-waving hand. He must have had some Italian in his background. “My sister’s all the family I’ve got. What she has for you is probably hormonal. Like, a hot flash or something. She’ll come to her senses soon.” Please, God. Very soon. “I don’t want you to get hurt, either.”
“You’re wrong, Anita. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” He tried to tug his hand out of my grasp, but I held it tighter, then added my other hand. He pulled and I pulled. It slowly got closer to me. The whole
while he was talking about how great Susu was.
A man’s voice cut through his protests. “I thought Mom was hysterical, but here you are. What the hell do you think you’re doing, Rod?”
Distracted, Rod quit pulling and his hand hit my breast and stayed there. I released him and he pulled back, knocking my coffee cup over. Café au lait spilled sideways, pooling at the edge of the table before forming a fast drip to the floor.
Rod and I both leaped to mop it up and banged our heads together. The guy who’d upset him laughed, an evil-sounding bark. I turned and saw an older version of Rod.
This guy was more Clooney than Bloom, and would have been very yummy if it wasn’t for the sneer on his face.
Rod was standing, almost at attention, next to the table. I looked up at the newcomer. “I’m impressed. How are you with dogs?”
“Dogs?”
“You seem to have Rod trained to salute when you show up. Can you do the same with dogs?”
“Rod’s not trained, or he’d still be at school. In class.”
I turned to Rod. “You left school during classes?”
He shrugged. “Just for a few days.”
That’s all Susu was to him. Fun for a few days. I wondered if she felt the same. If so, then this whole thing would blow over and I could get her home. If not, my deluded sib was going to be hurt. Hurt and divorced, because Carl was going to dump her cheating ass.
My money was on the mutual fun theory. I beamed. “Well why didn’t you say so?”
The brother glared at me. “Who are you?”
“Anita Suarez. I’m Susu’s sister.” I held out my hand.
He didn’t take it. One eyebrow went up. “Sister?”
Helpful Rod chimed in. “Yeah. Remember, I told you about her? Anita’s the slut.”
Chapter 4
I don’t know why I didn’t just deck him. A good piñazo with my closed fist, one that would make my boxing buddies proud.
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