Ultimate Concealer, A Toni Diamond Mystery: A Toni Diamond Mystery (Toni Diamond Mysteries)

by Nancy Warren

“Because she needs to find out what her father is like, and we need to let her. Maybe they’ll figure out a way to have some kind of relationship. I don’t know.”

  “I know you’re right but it makes me crazy that Dwayne is feeding her that line of bull.”

  “I know.”

  They headed to the hotel, Toni feeling a lot better now that she’d seen Tiffany, and checked in. The room contained two queen-size beds, a small seating area with a pull out couch, a chair and a built-in unit with the TV. The bathroom didn’t have nearly enough counter space for two women who not only made their livings selling cosmetics, but who also believed wholeheartedly in their benefits.

  While they were prettying themselves up for dinner, Toni checked her messages. There was one from Patience Vernon, one of her newer recruits to the Lady Bianca team. She returned the call while Linda re-did her face.

  Her smile was so automatic that she didn’t even notice she was beaming with positive energy when she pushed send on her cell phone.

  “Patience! I was so happy to get your message. It’s Toni Diamond.” She always identified herself even though all her team had call display. She’d learned in one of the many sales seminars she’d attended that it was a good practice both to assume anyone calling you was offering good news and always to give your name. With anyone other than her own sales team she’d usually identify herself as Toni Diamond of Lady Bianca Cosmetics since she knew every time she linked the two together a little more cosmetics karma went out into the world.

  “Hi, Toni,” Patience said when she answered. Toni did not receive beams of positive energy coming back her way.

  She pulled up Patience’s file on her computer. They’d worked on sales goals together and, since Patience was a beginner, they were starting with friendly fishing. Her goals were small enough to be readily achievable which would lead to a feeling of success, and that would spur her on to larger goals and greater success.

  Toni always found, however, that getting that first flush of success was critical.

  “I bet you’re calling to tell me that you’ve already booked your first makeover. Maybe even got someone in your circle interested in selling Lady Bianca at a home party.” Patience was a member of a church with a large congregation. She also worked for a multi-national company. She had all kinds of opportunities to go friendly fishing in her own pond.

  “I’m not sure I’m ready. There are so many people, so many other Lady Bianca reps offering makeovers, I’ll only make a fool out of myself.”

  Toni didn’t let her smile dim, not by a single watt. She reminded herself that her newbies were like toddlers. They had to be encouraged to walk, and the next thing you knew they’d be running all over the place. “Okay. The first thing we need to work on is attitude.”

  She gave a pep talk and at the end of it, Patience had agreed that she would go to her women’s circle at the church tomorrow night and talk to at least three ladies about her exciting new venture. In fact, she’d committed to talking to as many as ten ladies, stopping only when she’d booked one for a makeover.

  When she put down the phone, her mom was putting the final swish of Raspberry Parfait gloss on her plump lips and staring at the result critically.

  “Was that girl calling you to try and quit?” she asked, as she turned from the mirror.

  “Oh, sure. The newbies usually get cold feet at least once. I’ve got her reenergized. All she needs is one success and she’ll start to feel that fire in the belly.”

  They passed the time during the short drive back to Brent Hodgkin’s house arguing whether a makeover or booking a home party was the most exciting success for a new recruit.

  When they got to the boring house with the exotic interior, they walked up the path, her mother insisting she wanted to take a photo of the living room on her smart phone as she wanted to do something similar with balloon curtains in her home. Since Linda’s double wide was already a shrine to her idol, Dolly, Toni wasn’t sure the curtains were going to match but she kept her mouth shut. She rang the doorbell and waited.

  She pictured Tiffany with her blow dryer going, unable to hear her. She pulled Tiff’s cell phone from her bag so she’d remember to return it and they could communicate again.

  When the door finally opened a stunning woman stood there. Tall, slender, with cascades of blond ringlets and floor-length showgirl costume, she said, “Come in. Tiffany’s almost ready.”

  In the second blink, Toni recognized that under the makeup, the wig and the glam, was Brent Hodgkin, the dull-looking man who owned the house.

  Her mother must have made the connection about the same time for she said, “Oh, you’re a tran—” She turned to Toni. “What do they call those?”

  “A female impersonator,” Brent said in that rich, low voice that was so much more at home in this persona than in his daytime one.

  “What’s your act called?” Toni asked before her mother could speak another word.

  “Sunny and the Three Chers,” he said. “I’m Sunny. With a u.”

  “Oh, I get it,” Linda said. “Where are the three Chers?”

  “We’ll meet at the club later.”

  Toni asked, “Do you and Dwayne work together?”

  “Yes. That’s how we met. We’re part of the floor show at the Double Nugget Casino.”

  “The Double Nugget?” Linda asked. “Is that on the strip?”

  “It’s one of the older casinos,” Brent said. “It had its heyday back in the ‘50s when the Rat Pack dominated Vegas.”

  Toni didn’t know much about Vegas but she knew that the old downtown had very much gone to seed, giving way to the new strip with the big, glitzy places like the Bellagio and the Venetian and so on where the shows tended to be more Cirque du Soleil than Sunny and the Three Chers.

  The Double Nugget was to the strip as Dwayne Diamond was to Neil Diamond.

  “So singing is your second job?” Linda asked.

  “Yes.” He seemed so much more confident and interesting than he had earlier.

  “I’ve always wanted to sing.” She pushed out her already more than ample chest and said, “A lot of people say I look like Dolly Parton.”

  “You do,” Brent said politely.

  Before her daughter arrived on the scene, Toni asked, “Do you know what kind of trouble Dwayne’s in?”

  Sunny looked at her and said, “Dwayne courts trouble the way other men court women.”

  “And vice versa,” Linda muttered.

  Toni knew there was a lot he wasn’t telling her, but she also suspected that now wasn’t a great time to be asking. He was probably keyed up about performing. She remembered from when she’d been with Dwayne that he was always even more self-obsessed than usual when he had to perform that night.

  So, she nodded. “I’ll see how Tiffany’s doing.”

  “You missed a spot,” Linda said.

  “Pardon?” Both she and Sunny turned at once, but Linda was looking at Sunny’s chest.

  “You missed a spot when you were shaving your chest.” She came a step closer. “And that’s a nasty rash. What kind of moisturizer are you using?”

  Toni held her breath but Brent/Sunny seemed happy to talk sensitive skin. When she left the room, her mom was already digging in her bag for a sample of the Lady Bianca sensitive skin moisturizer. “And if I may say so, I think we could find you a better palette of eye shadows for your skin tones.”

  “Really?” Brent/Sunny said, waving a well-manicured hand toward his eyes. “Because I am not in love with this purple.”

  “No. It’s all wrong for your coloring. We don’t have time tonight, but tomorrow I can bring over my kit and we’ll see what we can do.”

  “And you think you’ve got something that won’t irritate my skin?”

  “Lady Bianca says put the drama on the skin, but the skin itself should always be calm. Well, she says it better than that because she’s English, but you get the idea.”

  Toni found Tiffany’s room by
following the sound of a blow dryer, as she’d suspected. She knocked on the door and found her daughter had already managed to scatter her belongings all over the guest room. But Toni also noted that she’d made an effort with her appearance. She’d put on some makeup in a color other than black and removed the traces of funereal nail polish.

  She wore her usual tight jeans but on top she wore a green shirt that brought out the color in her eyes. Toni might feel a stab of irritation that it was her no-account father who was responsible for the change, but she wasn’t going to argue with the improvement.

  She was also too smart to comment.

  “Grandma’s downstairs and I think she’s trying to talk Brent into a makeover.”

  “Oh, my God,” Tiffany said, jumping to her feet and grabbing her black Toms off the floor. “She’s been here for like five minutes and she’s already pimping makeup?”

  “That’s your grandmother. Never miss an opportunity,” Toni said with pride.

  Out of respect to Tiffany’s vegetarianism, Toni and her mother skipped the steakhouse they both would have preferred and settled on a restaurant that gave a great view of the strip.

  Considering how upset she’d been with her daughter, the meal was surprisingly fun. She suspected that Tiffany had not enjoyed taking this trip all on her own as much as she’d anticipated she would. And, while she was a long way from seeing Dwayne in a clear light, she must be wondering why a respectable man would get beaten up in broad daylight and then refuse to go to the cops.

  Toni didn’t want her to see Dwayne as the complete loser he was, but she did want her daughter to realize that he was not a good man to idolize. She knew she had to tread carefully.

  So, when Tiffany announced, “I have a surprise, well, really it’s Dad’s surprise,” she kicked her mother under the table before she could engage her mouth and asked, “Oh? What is it?”

  “Dad’s got our names down so we can get into his show for free tonight. Isn’t that great?”

  Dwayne might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he’d always been smart where manipulating women was concerned. Of course he wanted his daughter to see him perform. He wanted to charm her along with every other female in the audience. He might not be much of a singer, but he was a hell of a performer.

  He’d been showing off his whole life.

  Chapter Six

  “Beauty and folly are old companions”

  — Benjamin Franklin

  The Double Nugget may once have been popular with the Rat Pack, but now Toni suspected it was popular with actual rats. It was down at heel, a little sleazy, and the casino they had to walk through to get to the show lounge was full of people who looked as though they might be gambling with their Social Security checks.

  Even the sound of the slot machines was more shrill than the ones in their hotel, a tiny bit desperate.

  “Look up,” Linda said, nodding her head in an upward direction.

  Toni and Tiffany did. The ceiling looked as though it needed painting and some patching done. It was stained with grime and the lighting was industrial. “See all those round things? Those are security cameras. They’re everywhere in Vegas. I saw it on a show about secrets of Las Vegas.”

  “Doesn’t seem like much of anything is a secret if there are that many cameras,” Tiffany said.

  The casino was so massive that there were intersections with signs giving directions to a buffet, the restaurant, one of a number of bars, and the Double Nugget Show Lounge, their destination.

  “Oh, look,” Linda said, staring hungrily at the brightly lit machines. “There’s a whole bunch of machines based on Dukes of Hazzard. Maybe I could just—”

  Toni grabbed her mother’s arm and pulled her back. “No. There’s a casino in our hotel. You can go down later.”

  They turned back but Tiffany didn’t move. She stood stock still in the middle of the aisle. When Toni turned to her she saw that her daughter looked pale and rigid. “Honey, what is it?”

  “That’s the guy who crashed into Dad’s car. And those are the two guys who hit him.”

  She followed Tiff’s gaze and it was easy to see who she referred to. Even in the crowded casino you could tell that this was a guy with power. He was big. Large in every way from his height, which had to be around 6’4”, to his bulk. He wasn’t fat, but he was very solid, like a wrestler who’d lost muscle to fat. He had a square head and a short neck. Short hair, a blue suit that looked handmade and too much gold jewelry.

  The two guys with him were paler versions of himself. Classic sidekicks.

  The three were standing watching the action at one of the craps tables. Toni watched a waitress in a ridiculously skimpy outfit deliver drinks to the players. As she walked past, the big guy said something to her and she giggled and walked on.

  She was headed toward them and as she reached them, Toni said, “Excuse me, who was that man you were talking to?”

  She glanced back. “You mean Grant Forstman?”

  She had no idea who she meant but she nodded anyway.

  “He’s my boss. He owns the casino.”

  “Oh. Thanks.” If he owned the casino then he had to be Dwayne’s boss too. Was Dwayne really dumb enough to sleep with the casino owner’s wife?

  “Can I get you a drink? So long as you play the drinks are free.”

  Linda said, “Well, isn’t that ni—”

  “No, thank you,” Toni interrupted. “We’re heading in to see the show.”

  “Okay. Have fun.” And the waitress walked on.

  Toni led them in a wide half circle around Grant Forstman. She did not want him to recognize Tiffany, and she did not want her daughter anywhere near that man or his muscle. “Do you want to leave?” she asked her daughter as they moved out of range of the casino owner.

  “No. I can’t let Dad down. I promised we’d be there.”

  “And there’s a trait that did not come from his side of the family,” Linda muttered so only Toni could hear.

  The show lounge was a dim cavern with round tables scattered on two levels. It wasn’t full to bursting, but it wasn’t empty either. The young woman at the front desk looked as though she didn’t get enough to eat or enough sleep. Even her over-processed red hair looked exhausted. Tiffany shyly told the woman that Dwayne Diamond was her father and that he’d left tickets for them.

  The woman’s eyes showed their first spark of life. “Dwayne has a kid?” She stared at Tiffany for a moment then said, “Huh.” But she checked a list and nodded. “Sure. You can go on in. Sit anywhere.”

  Toni let Tiffany choose their seats and she picked a table on the second tier but near the front.

  The three Chers’ outfits made the original Cher look tame by comparison. How did they keep those headdresses from falling off? And how did they manage to dance in those shoes? Their show might be camp but it was well done. All four of them, including Sunny, had great voices, and Toni found herself laughing and singing along.

  And then the MC announced “country singing sensation Dwayne Diamond.” Toni hadn’t set eyes on Dwayne in sixteen years. When that familiar, long-limbed man walked onto the stage carrying a guitar, his boots adding a little swagger to his step, she fell back in time for a moment. How hard she had fallen for that man back when she was too young and stupid to see that this diamond was a fake.

  Oh, but he sparkled like the real thing.

  As he settled himself in front of a microphone, pushed his Stetson back and gazed out at the audience, he said, “How y’all doin’ tonight?” She felt a hum coming from her daughter. It wasn’t anything you could hear, more an energy. And she was helpless to stop her daughter from being pulled in just as she would be helpless the first time Tiffany had her heart broken.

  He strummed a little on his guitar and said, “I am honored to have three very special ladies in the audience tonight. They came all the way from Texas. Tiffany, Toni, and Linda, this one’s for you. It’s called “You Are the Only One for Me.”
<
br />   He’d written that song years ago. He told her he wrote it for her, and it wasn’t until later that she found out he’d been telling the same story to a lot of women. Since no names were mentioned, it was an easy lie to get away with.

  Dwayne had a pretty good voice. He sounded familiar, like you might have heard him on the radio. And that was his problem. He wasn’t unique. He sounded a bit like a lot of big country and western singers. His songwriting didn’t stand out any more than his voice did. But, in an intimate venue, with a lot of women in the audience, Dwayne could make you believe he was so much more.

  He was thirty-eight years old and in his prime. She wondered if he still cherished hopes of being discovered.

  He came out after the show was over and headed straight for their table. “And how are my three favorite Texas gals?” he asked, his handsome face creased in a smile. Not a shadow of a doubt seemed to exist that he’d be welcome.

  “You were great, Dad,” Tiffany said, accepting the hug he bestowed on her.

  “Thanks, honey.”

  Then he turned to Linda. “Why Linda, I do believe you are prettier than ever.”

  “So are you, Dwayne.”

  It was true, too. He’d been boyishly handsome back when Toni had married him. The sixteen years between then and now had added a few wrinkles around his eyes and filled him out. He was a seriously hot guy.

  When he turned his attention to Toni, his grin spread even wider. “Oh, honey, will you look at you? I have missed you.” A stranger hearing him would have thought that she was the one who had left him. He pulled her into a hug whether she wanted to go or not.

  “Hello, Dwayne,” she said.

  “Can you believe this gorgeous girl of ours?” Slight emphasis on the ours, as though one implanted sperm made him father of the year. He pulled up a chair from a neighboring table and sat down. He waved his hand for one of the wait staff even though they were clearly cleaning up. “Louise, honey, I want to buy a round of drinks for my family here.”

  “Thanks, Dwayne,” she said. “But we’ve been traveling all day. We’re pretty tired. Let’s get together tomorrow.”