2 Double Dip

by Gretchen Archer

  She took another big breath.

  “I meant what I said, Davis.”

  My fingers flew across the keyboards. I pulled up the list of So Help Me God benefactors who didn’t exist yesterday—no federal taxes, no DMV records, no Social Security activity. I ran them again, this time through Lee County, Alabama’s Department of Health Statistics and the SSDI, the Social Security Death Index.

  Why would my mother leave a message for my sister (who is here) with my ex-ex-husband Eddie the dumb-dumb (who is there)? It made no sense—my mother rarely did—although she pointed me in the right So Help Me God direction. The people putting money in the church plate were dead.

  ELEVEN

  The Bellissimo has a monster public-relations department, full of first-rate spin doctors. Things happen around here all the time that the general public never hears about. Gamblers pull into the parking garage, key the lock on a back seat full of children, then merrily stroll into the casino to power drink and gamble away their child support checks. At least two or three times a year, someone dies of natural causes in one of the 1,700 guest rooms. Other things needed “managing” every day of the week. Medical emergencies in the casino are more common than anyone would guess. Number one? Choking. Once this year, to death. But he choked on three $1,000 chips he swiped from another player’s stack, denied it, then unsuccessfully tried to swallow the evidence. Other repeat offenders: heart attacks, strokes, diabetic comas, Charley horses and hangnails. (Kidding.) Fist fights, dog fights, and fights with ATMs and slot machines occur almost hourly. In June, we had a live birth between two crap tables. It was a boy. The mother named him Shooter. A few weeks ago, a guest stumbled off the elevator and halfway through the casino wearing nothing but a black G-string before Security tackled him. The same day, a woman came in carrying an extra-large purse, then went from slot machine to slot machine trying to find homes for the calico kittens she had stuffed in her bag.

  None of it made the news. If it did make the news, Marketing made sure the Bellissimo was left out of it.

  So when No Hair called, interrupting my So Help Me God research to tell me that PEYTON BEECHER had disappeared from the hospital, my first thought was that this would be the lead story at five, and it would start with Bianca Sanders unloading a gun on the girl. There would be no way to keep it out of the news cycle, and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that the three of us were headed for mall security jobs.

  “What?” I could hardly process his words. “She got up and walked out?”

  “She didn’t get up and walk out,” he said, “she had help.”

  “Where was Fantasy?”

  “Barricaded in the bathroom.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “She’s pissed.”

  I realized I was up and pacing a circle. “Who helped Peyton out?”

  “An unidentified man. The hospital’s never seen him,” he said. “Their cameras got one good shot, but he was all decked out in surgery garb so he didn’t set off any alarms and all you can see are his eyeballs. I’m sending it your way.”

  The email containing the grainy photograph popped into my in-box. I tapped, tapped, tapped on the keyboard and began running it through our facial-recognition software. On another screen, I blew up the photo, and in spite of the low resolution I could see from the deep crow’s feet and thick white eyebrows we weren’t looking for a young surgeon. Not that he was necessarily a surgeon. I’ve never heard of a surgeon absconding with a patient.

  “What name was she registered under?”

  “Peyton Beecher,” No Hair said.

  “You should have registered her under a different name.”

  “When I want some Monday morning quarterbacking from you, Davis, I’ll ask for it.” Then he said, “Find that man and find the girl. Sit there until you do.”

  * * *

  At six that evening, I gave up on following every vehicle leaving the hospital property that could have possibly held PEYTON BEECHER. If I looked at one more minute of Biloxi traffic cam feed, my eyeballs would pop out of my head and roll across the floor. I stepped into the closet to dress in camouflage casino clothes, then tracked down my grandmother nodding off and on at a Frog Princess Deluxe slot machine.

  “Granny.” I shook her little shoulder. “Granny wake up.”

  We had meatloaf, mashed potatoes, turnip greens, pickled beets, butter beans, cornbread, banana pudding, and a pitcher of syrupy sweet iced tea at Dixie, the family-friendly restaurant past the cashier’s cage in the casino. The tablecloths are red-checkered and every menu item is hidden under glossy butter, creamy sauce, or peppered gravy.

  “THAT’S A HEALTHY APPETITE YOU’VE GOT THERE, DAVIE.”

  “This food is delicious.”

  I tucked Granny in at seven-thirty, then went right back downstairs for more eye strain. I didn’t even try to look for PEYTON BEECHER again. I went back to matching death certificates with So Help Me God patrons. I have no idea what time it was when I finally found a benefactor with a beating heart. He was Jewell Maffini’s neighbor. The man’s address, like hers, was One God’s Boulevard.

  * * *

  Something was so wrong with the coffee the next morning, both in my Bellissimo suite and in Beans, the lobby café, so while Fantasy was busy cleaning out Matthew Thatcher’s closet full of skeletons in control central, No Hair was at the hospital watching parking garage surveillance feed and threatening to snap necks over Petyton Beecher’s disappearance, and my little worn-out grandmother was sleeping above me, I decided it might be a good time to sneak out and check on Meredith at mine and Bradley’s new condo. I knew I could get a cup of coffee there that didn’t taste like aluminum foil, and we needed to work out something to get our grandmother back to Pine Apple. A little casino goes a long way with an eighty-two-year old.

  “Fantasy?” I breezed in. “What do you think about me ducking out for an hour or so?”

  She peeked over my neatly stacked printouts of So Help Me God on a table between us. “Considering you worked all night, I say go for it.” She stretched her long legs. “How late were you here?”

  “Late enough to figure out the church is making a fortune off the old folks who live there and reporting it as donations from dead people.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “I do say. The profit center is the senior citizen housing.”

  “What’s so profitable about senior citizen housing?”

  “That,” I said, “is a good question.”

  “And where do we fit in?”

  “That,” I said, “is an even better question.”

  “So what’s our next move?”

  I tapped a thick stack. “Run all the people who live behind the church through our system and see if anything pops.

  “Let’s do it,” Fantasy said.

  “We can’t,” I said, “not yet. The resident’s identifications are encrypted. I couldn’t stay awake long enough to crack the code. My brain hurts from trying and I need coffee.”

  “You’re holding coffee.”

  “I need better coffee.”

  “I’ll take it if you don’t want it.”

  I passed it to her.

  “This coffee is good, Davis.” She blew across the top and took another sip. “Come look at this.”

  I skirted around the table and propped myself up on elbows at her desk. All shapes and sizes of LeeRoy Gerard Maffini a.k.a. Matthew Thatcher dirt was on the screen. She had everything but him in short yellow pants wearing a bowtie sitting on the Easter Bunny’s lap. “It’s so nice to know someone’s real name and date of birth.”

  “This coffee is so good,” Fantasy said. “Where’d you get it?”

  “So this guy was a preacher back in the day,” I clicked around, “but has a master’s degree in finance?”

/>   “And now he’s the Bellissimo frontman,” Fantasy said. “Go figure.”

  “Maybe he can’t decide what he wants to be when he grows up.”

  “His original application doesn’t say a word about any background in finance.”

  “It doesn’t say his name is LeeRoy Maffini either.”

  “Mr. Microphone has secrets.”

  “So does that big church.” I gave a nod to the stacks of dead-people financials.

  “I’ll tell you one thing that’s not much of a secret,” Fantasy clicked. “Did you see this?” She pulled up two photos of Mr. Microphone, one from his preacher days and a recent Bellissimo press shot. “This nose job.” She tapped the eraser end of a mechanical pencil between the wide bumpy nose on the left and the sleek movie star nose on the right.

  “Good work, Ms. Erb. And look at his ears.” They flapped out of his shaggy auburn hair in the old shot and were pressed tight against his neatly-coiffed chestnut head in the new.

  “He makes a better looking emcee than preacher,” Fantasy said.

  “Amen.”

  The phone rang with an announcement from No Hair: Peyton Beecher had left the hospital in a silver Porsche Boxter. No discernible plates, but run down that car anyway, and do it now.

  I slumped against a wall.

  “Go on, girl,” Fantasy said. “I got this.”

  “Are you sure?” I shouldered my bag.

  “Granny, right?”

  “In the end, yes.”

  Fantasy shooed me out the door.

  I listened to local news on my drive to the new condo (we weren’t on it) (yet), then I listened to piped mood music in the condo elevator (Diana King’s “I Say a Little Prayer”), and the next thing I heard was the harmony, tranquility, and serenity of home.

  My sister is a miracle worker.

  She’d added two colors to the whitewash: raspberry for me, and a pale celery green for Bradley Cole. Upon closer inspection, the color she’d added the most of was a fieldstone gray, fifty shades of it, but it blended so well I didn’t see it at first. There were rugs, lamps, art, and pillows I’d never met, in textures and patterns I wouldn’t have chosen in a million years, and they all played so beautifully against the backdrop of the Gulf that I sank into the marshmallow sofa, drank it all in, and decided to never ever ever leave. I couldn’t wait for Bradley Cole to see it.

  But just then my ex-ex-husband Eddie exited one of the guest rooms, as naked as on the day he was born, saw me, laughed, then stood there, dangling, idly scratching his stupid chest.

  Something about the scene made me very, very ill. I ran, shoving past him, locked myself in the masterpiece bathroom, kicked a thick silver rug out of my way, then stretched out on the icy-cold tile floor to wait it out. Several minutes later, when long shadows of that naked rat bastard Eddie Crawford’s toes fell into my line of vision, I rolled over and let the other side of my body cool off. He jiggled the doorknob. “Go away, Eddie.” I barely got the words out. “Get out of here.”

  “What’s the matter with you, Davis?”

  “You, Eddie! You’re the matter with me! Get out!”

  “Let me in and we’ll talk about it.”

  “NO. And put some clothes on.” I rolled onto my back when I heard him pad away, growling and grumbling, but three seconds later I heard the doors to the His dressing room slide open. I dragged myself up from the floor and threw open the bathroom door to shout, “Not Bradley’s clothes, you idiot!”

  I turned to the vanity, splashed cold water on my face, and grabbed for a towel the size of a king-sized bed sheet. I tossed it to Eddie the Ass as I passed him. “Come on.” By the time we reached the living room, he’d wrapped the towel around his hips, but I made him stand anyway. He wasn’t sitting on any of our new furniture, ever. I fully intended to burn the towel he was wearing and the bedroom he’d slept in. “Where’s Meredith?”

  “Said she was going back to Pine Apple.” He tucked the towel. “Something about homework.”

  “Why are you here, Eddie?”

  “What’s it to you, Davis?”

  “This is my home!” I yelled. “And I don’t want you in it!”

  He yawned. Not a care in the world.

  “You need to go, Eddie. Get your stuff and get out.”

  “Hey.” He stabbed a finger my way. “Lose the attitude. Your sister has worked my ass off. ‘Move this, nail that.’ She’s as bossy and bitchy as you are. She gave me a ride so I could get my car, and she told me to stay here until Granny was ready to go.”

  “Here? She told you to stay here?”

  “She might’ve meant Biloxi,” he said, “not so much here.” He said it on a yawn. “Nice place, though. I like it.”

  If I had a loaded gun on me, this room would get a whole new color scheme.

  “Do you have your car, Eddie?”

  He rubbed his jaw. “Not just yet.”

  “Not just yet,” I repeated. “When are you thinking you’ll get it?”

  “As soon as I drum up enough money to get it out of hock,” he said, “if it’ll run.”

  “And where do you plan on getting the money to get it out of hock?”

  “I’m going to hit up the Tiger here in a little while.”

  He was talking about the cheesiest, greasiest, slimiest casino in Biloxi, The Lucky Tiger. It was a hole-in-the-wall last-resort joint, smelled like a gutter, and catered to a sad, sad local clientele. Business was brisk on the days government checks hit mailboxes, but otherwise, it was a ghost town. No one ever won a penny at the Tiger, and once or twice a year, either the Gaming Board or the Health Department chained the doors for any of a laundry list of offenses, like now. I’d seen it on Page Six, not far from the porn photo of me and Mr. Microphone, a pardon-our-progress-for-the-next-few-weeks ad, which was really a we’ve-gone-and-screwed-up-again ad. “No you’re not, Eddie.” I said it on a long, weary sigh. “The Tiger’s closed.”

  “Dammit.” He scratched his stupid ear. “Now what am I supposed to do?”

  I spotted my purse at the door, and pointed to it. “Go get it.”

  Smelling money, Eddie and his towel hustled.

  I dug for my checkbook. “How much?”

  He had an instant smirk on his face. Eddie Crawford had been taking my money for a decade, and here we go again. “I’d say five hundred ought to do it.”

  A bargain. I scribbled out a check. He broke out in a sweat.

  “What about Granny?” he asked. “I’m supposed to wait on her.”

  “I’ll take care of Granny.” I tore off the check. “You leave.”

  Eddie, eye on the prize, closed the space between us with one giant step. He was so close I could smell the fabric softener on the towel. He held his hands out—gimme, gimme—and as he did, the towel he was wearing dropped to the floor. Before I could scream, shove him away, or throw up, the front door burst open and Bradley Cole stood in the threshold of our new home holding a spray of white roses tied with a long, white, silk ribbon.

  I froze.

  Eddie laughed.

  Bradley gently placed the roses on the demilune table to his right, took a giant step back into the elevator, and left without a word.

  The space around me took on a carnival funhouse quality. Everything was distorted. Eddie’s mouth was moving, noise was escaping, but I couldn’t make a bit of sense of it. When my head finally stopped spinning, he, however, had no trouble understanding my words. He got my message loud and clear.

  * * *

  We call it Pine Apple Highway; others call it Interstate 10. It connects Greenville to the east with Camden to the west. Pine Apple is the halfway point, but everyone calls the middle mark Dead Curve. Many nights of my childhood sleep came to abrupt ends with the screeching wail of brakes, t
hen the crushing pandemonium of steel, metal, glass, and twice, explosions, as Dead Curve, less than a mile from our quiet country home, claimed another midnight victim. It was the finality of the silence after my father’s rapid footfall past my bedroom door that horrified me so. It was knowing there was no turning back the clock ten minutes. It was the silence that terrified me.

  My vision shifted between the two things that could break the silence I found myself in after Bradley walked out. My phone could ring with his call or the door could open and usher him back in, though neither would invade the ominous still, no matter how hard I stared at them.

  At the one-hour mark, the foyer buzzer sounded. I rose from the sofa and crossed the room.

  “Ma’am, my name is Herbert Baldwin. I’m a bellman with the Grand. I’m here to get a few of Mr. Cole’s personal belongings.” Thirty minutes later Mr. Baldwin left with, among other things, Bradley’s Sonicare toothbrush base. Which meant Bradley Cole had no plans to return anytime soon.

  * * *

  He would not take my calls. I drove to the Grand, but security wouldn’t let me through to the offices. When the phone beside me finally rang, it was Mary Ha Ha, who stopped whatever she’d been doing (probably my boyfriend) to tell me he was in a meeting, would be in a meeting, had fourteen meetings after that, so there was no point in me waiting. She suggested I have a nice day, then hung up.