As I watched, a dark gray RAV4 pulled into the parking lot. Tak Hoshiyama got out and went inside the dealership. I became so distracted by the scene that I forgot about the gasoline. It splashed out of the tank and onto the hem of my pants and my suede shoes. I jumped back, too late.
“Shi-oot,” I said, changing the instinctive curse word into something more PG-13. I’d been trying to convince Magic Maynard to drop his curse words when he was practicing his routine, and now my knee-jerk reaction was to self-edit.
“Shi-oot?” asked a tall man in a cowboy hat.
“I splashed gasoline on myself,” I said, “and I was trying not to swear.”
“Well, then shi-oot is right. Your costume is all messed up now. You are going to a costume party, aren’tcha?” He tore a length of brown paper towel off a roll that sat by the windshield wiper station and handed it to me. I blotted my hands dry and dabbed at the smelly liquid on my pants and shoes.
I could have asked him the same thing. He had on mirrored sunglasses that kept his eyes hidden. His shirt had mother-of-pearl snaps as buttons and was secured at the neck with a bolo tie shaped like a cow skull. A camel blazer, jeans, and lizard-skin boots finished off the outfit. If it wasn’t a hundred degrees, it was close. How he’d managed to not sweat through a few of his layers, I didn’t know.
“I always dress like this,” I said. “How about you?”
He laughed. “Me too. Cowboys and Indians. We should have somebody take our picture.” He held out a hand. “I’m Black Jack Cannon. Couldn’t help notice you staring at my dealership over there. See something you like?”
“You’re Black Jack?” I stammered. “What are you doing over here?”
“This here gas station is mine too. Buy a car, get a year’s worth of free gas. Nice incentive, don’tcha think?” He pulled a business card from his wallet and handed it to me. The back of his card was the same image as the playing card that was rotating on the pole.
“You’re Blitz’s dad, aren’t you?” I blurted out. Immediately, I backpedaled. “I mean, I’m so sorry for your loss,” I tacked on.
“Blitz was my wife’s son,” he said. “Tragedy, what happened yesterday. I hope they catch the killer soon or people are going to start thinking Proper City is like all those other desert towns around here.”
“We are a desert town,” I said.
“Not like the others. The people who pay the taxes around here make sure our money goes back into our own community. We pay the salary of the police who are supposed to keep us safe at night. We don’t need outside elements coming in here trying to change the way we live.”
For a moment, I saw a ray of light in Black Jack Cannon’s point of view. If he suspected that an opportunistic vagrant had killed Blitz—and he put public pressure on the police force to find said vagrant—then the police couldn’t spend time chasing Ebony for a crime she didn’t commit. It wasn’t much, but as far as theories went, I was willing to accept it.
“So you think somebody was passing through Proper City and saw the party? Maybe saw an opportunity to get something to eat or even rob a bunch of people, and was able to get in because everybody was in costume? Nobody would have noticed that there was a stranger among the rest of the partygoers.”
“Could be. We love our costume parties around here, but it sure does make it easy for a stranger to infiltrate our world.”
“I hadn’t thought about that before, but I guess it does.” I threw the wadded-up paper towel into the trash and screwed the gas cap back onto my scooter.
“You’re Jerry Tamblyn’s girl, aren’t you?” he asked.
I nodded. “I’m Margo.”
“So I guess that makes you part of the problem, doesn’t it?”
“Excuse me?”
He turned to the side and jabbed his elbow at my arm. “I’m just joshin’ ya. Your dad designed the costumes for my Maverick party a few months back.”
“I heard about that,” I said.
“Gonna be hard for Sol Girard to top that for next month’s poker game.” He laughed. “You tell Jerry to keep up the good work and don’t pay any attention to my theories.” He put his hand on my shoulder and nodded toward the gas pump. “Sorry about the gasoline on your shoes. Next time you need a fill-up, you come see me first. It’ll be on the house.”
“Thanks, Mr. Cannon,” I said.
“Call me Black Jack. Everybody else does. And this little scooter is mighty cute, but if you ever decide you want a real car, you come see me about that too.”
“Maybe I will.” I climbed back on, buckled my helmet under my chin, and glanced at Black Jack’s parking lot. Tak’s RAV4 was still there. I took off before he came back and spotted me.
I returned to Disguise DeLimit as Kirby was closing out the register drawer. He held up an index finger while he counted the change. I straightened the wall of fringed flapper dresses and put the bin of cigarette holders back on the shelf where they belonged. The peg next to the dresses that usually held an assortment of sequined headbands was empty except for one pink, one red, and one blue.
“Okay, I’m done counting,” Kirby said. “We had a good day. The Proper City Cheerleaders were looking for something special for their halftime routine, and they flipped when they saw the flapper dresses. They took dresses, headbands, and fishnet stockings.” At the word stockings he turned red under his freckles.
“Sounds like it’s going to be quite a halftime routine,” I said. “I noticed that we were low on headbands. Are you saying they bought all but the three we have left?”
“Yes.”
“I guess I know what I’ll be working on tonight,” I said.
Accessories were easy to order from our suppliers, but we’d always known that it was the merchandise that we could make ourselves that would separate us from more commercial costume shops. It wasn’t hard to make a headband of bright, sequined elastic and add on a feather or a paste gem, but by making the headbands in-house, we could experiment with different types of feathers and stretchy supplies and come up with combinations that regular costume shops couldn’t stock. One of our most popular items was the black beaded headband with the peacock feather. It was the perfect unique accessory to set off a little black dress, even for an event that didn’t require a costume.
“I put the money in the safe and tallied up the sales slips. I can stay behind and help you fill in the shelves for tomorrow, if you want,” Kirby said.
“No, you should go home. It’s after five. Enjoy the rest of your night.” I apologized for not being able to give him a schedule for the week, since I didn’t know when my dad and Don would be back. We agreed to play it by ear. I walked Kirby to the front door and threw the lock after he left.
Eager to shed the residue of gasoline that clung to my hands and clothing, I headed upstairs for a shower. I changed into a pair of loose cotton pajamas that had pictures of little green aliens on them. They were silly and completely inappropriate for a thirty-two-year-old woman but they made me feel closer to my dad, who was on his own alien adventure. I pulled on fluffy alien-head slippers and called him—my dad, not the alien-head slipper—to see how his trip was going.
“Hi, Dad. Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yup. Are you?”
“Yup.”
Over the past seven years that I’d been in Las Vegas, there had been times when this had been the extent of our daily phone call. After spending a lifetime in Proper City with him and Ebony, moving away had been hard. Part of me had wanted to cling to the people and place that I knew and never leave. The people who knew my mother used to tell me that I was a miracle, that the doctors didn’t expect me to survive childbirth. That’s a heck of a thing to carry with you when your mom was the one who sacrificed her own life so you could live.
My dad had been the one to encourage me to move. “Margo,” he’d said, “I’ve never been
able to show you the world because I’ve had to be here minding the store. But I promised myself when the time came, I wouldn’t push the shop onto you. You need to see what else is out there in the world before you decide where you want to be and what you want to do.”
He gave me fifty thousand American Airlines miles and encouraged me to go anywhere I wanted. It was an amazing gift that allowed me to spend a week in Europe, but it might as well have been Oz, because as I traveled along the European rails by myself, the one thought that I couldn’t shake was that there was no place like home.
I moved to Las Vegas—close enough to home to feel connected but wacky enough to stretch my boundaries—and bounced around a series of low-paying jobs. Eventually I took the job with Magic Maynard. It wasn’t the best job in the world, but it was fun—except for the nights he sawed me in half. I’d never get used to that trick.
“How’s Area 51?” I asked.
“It’s amazing. This guy papier-mâchéd a series of gray alien heads that are out of this world.” He laughed at his own joke. “After dinner he took us to his garage. He has the whole crew of the starship Enterprise. Even the red shirts who get killed in the first five minutes of the show.”
My stomach turned at the mention of the word killed.
“There’s too much to fit in the back of Don’s car so we’re going to rent a trailer in the morning. What about you? How are things in Proper?”
Judging from his tone, he hadn’t heard the news about Blitz. I didn’t want to tell him anything that would upset him—not while he was still recovering from his heart attack—but I couldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened.
“Blitz Manners is dead,” I said. “He was killed at his birthday party.” The phone was silent for a few seconds. “Dad? Are you still there?”
“I’m here.”
“The police think Ebony was involved because she was standing over his body with the goose knife in her hand when I walked in on them, but she couldn’t have done it.”
“Margo, slow down. Tell me what happened.”
I closed my eyes. The image of Blitz’s body lying facedown in the puddle of blood slipped into place like a slide show. Slowly, I felt myself rock back and forth. “Ebony was in the kitchen. It was time to carve the goose. I wanted to be helpful so I went back to see if there was something I could do. When I walked in, his body was facedown in a puddle of blood and Ebony was standing over him with the carving knife in her hand.”
“Did the police question her?”
“They questioned everybody. We all had to wait until they took our statements. I think Ebony and I were the last two people to talk to them.”
“Where’s she now?” he asked.
I flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. “At her store, probably. The last time I saw her was this morning. Someone vandalized her car and Dig towed it for her.”
“Margo, listen carefully. If the police go digging into Ebony’s past, they’re going to find some things out that she’d rather not have become public. You need to do something for her.”
“Sure, Dad, what?”
“You need to contact Takenouchi Hoshiyama and ask him for his help.”
Chapter 9
“WHAT DOES TAK Hoshiyama have to do with anything?” I asked.
“You know him?”
“He was at the party. He’s a friend of Blitz’s.”
“Tak is friendly with most people, I’d imagine. He worked for the district attorney’s office in Clark County until a few months ago.”
“He’s a lawyer?” I asked.
“No, city planner, I think. I don’t know why he moved to Proper, but when Don had trouble with his neighbor encroaching on his property line, Tak was a big help.”
“We’re talking about murder here, not property lines,” I said.
“Margo, Tak is a smart man and he comes from a good family. Everything’s going to be okay, but Ebony is going to need some help. Do you want me to come home? I can.”
“No, you haven’t had a chance to get out of Proper for years. Stay with Don.”
“Only if you’ll promise to call Tak. Think about everything Ebony’s done for you. She’s our family. Do this for her.”
“You don’t have to ask twice.”
The tone of the conversation shifted from the joy of discovering the sci-fi costumes to the seriousness of Ebony’s situation. My dad had promised to head back the following day. I told him to take it easy and promised to call Tak in the morning. Though sincere, both promises felt empty. Usually a talk with my dad left me feeling warm and cozy. Today, not so much.
* * *
EBONY didn’t answer any of her phones. I left messages to call me back and hung up. My next call was to my roommate in Vegas. Maynard expected me to show up for work on Tuesday, and it wasn’t looking as though I was going to make it.
“Margo? Is this Margo? The phone says it’s you but I can’t hear you. Hold on, let me get to the hallway, where I get better reception. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Hello? Margo?”
“Hi, Crystal, I can hear you. Can you hear me?”
“Of course I can hear you. Maynard’s been asking when you’re coming back. I don’t think he likes me as much as you. He keeps telling me to dress the part. What exactly do you wear for this performance?”
“Think Desperately Seeking Susan,” I said. “Vintage ’80s dance class with a tux jacket over top.”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re coming back tomorrow, right?”
“That’s why I called. I’m going to be here longer than I thought. Do you think Maynard will hold my job for me?”
“Girl, I’m doing what I can, but those doves freak me out.”
“Thanks, Crystal.”
“Vintage ’80s with a tux jacket, huh? Where am I supposed to find that?”
I sighed. “The bottom two drawers on the right-hand side of my dresser.”
“You have two drawers filled with costumes for Magic Maynard’s act? You are one weird woman.”
* * *
IT was close to eight o’clock when I finished my phone calls. I prepared an unfulfilling dinner of Fruity Pebbles doused with milk and carried the bowl downstairs. Halfway through, I abandoned it on the counter and walked around the store, determining what needed to get done for the week.
First item: restock the flapper section. Headbands, I already knew, but we were low on garters and fishnets too. There were a few dresses left on the rack, but when I checked the sizes, I saw that they were mostly small and extra small. Fringe wasn’t the easiest thing to work with, so I made a note to check our suppliers to see what colors and styles were available for immediate delivery.
Next to the flapper section of the store was a rack of poodle skirts and cashmere twinsets from the ’50s. We were in the middle of the hottest six months in Proper City, and even if somebody was heading to a sock hop or a ’50s-themed party, they’d request a custom costume instead of the heavy wool on these. I made a note to rotate the store’s inventory and replace the winter-weight costumes with something lightweight like hula girls and surfers.
When I finished my tour of the store, my to-do list was four pages long. There was a chance I was creating work so I wouldn’t have to think about my dad’s health or Blitz’s murder or Ebony’s predicament, but I couldn’t help myself. Outside the store, the sky grew dark with night. Even during the hot days from April to October, it was worth going outside at night. The sun took a break from scorching the town and a cool breeze danced around buildings, cars, gardens, and residences.
I set my notebook on a chair. Air would feel good. I flipped the dead bolt and opened the door just as a truck screeched to a halt in front of the store.
I jumped back inside and pushed the door shut. The hydraulic arm kept it from slamming. When it fell into place, I flipped the lock and backed away into a
shadow. The silhouette of a person approached. I felt his presence even though I couldn’t see. Why hadn’t I drawn the shade on the door? What was I thinking?
I flattened myself against the wall between the entrance and the display window. The person moved away from the storefront. I didn’t move. In a few seconds, I heard a thud on the sidewalk, and then another. The sound repeated twice, and then the truck drove away.
My heart thumped in my chest. Was someone out there still? I didn’t think so. Come on, Margo, I told myself. Grow a pair. Nobody’s waiting on the sidewalk to get you.
I pulled the shade down and dropped to my knees. When I peeked out of the corner of the window I spotted four bulging black trash bags in front of the shop. Creepy thoughts flooded my brain and I shuddered. I could call the police, I thought. They could come and investigate the bags. Or I could wait until tomorrow when it was light out. Or I could call the city trash collector and ask him to pick up the bags and take them away.
As options played out in my head, Soot approached the door. He pushed his nose into the small space below the door. I stroked his fur and started to calm down. I grabbed the doorknob, stood up, and pulled the shade down. The pull tab from the window shade caught on the button of my pajama top and I yanked at it to free myself. The shade retracted all the way and I found myself face-to-face with Tak.
I screamed. He might have screamed too. Soot jumped a foot in the air. When he landed he scrambled his feet against the linoleum tile floor, searching for traction. Seconds later his nails caught and he took off for the stairs.
Tak tried to open the door but it was locked. I stumbled backward a few times. My heart did a jive in my chest. Tak stepped out of view. The phone rang and I kept my eyes on the door while I felt around the counter for it.
A Disguise to Die For Page 8