I did a couple of dry gulps.
“Maddie?” he said again, this time in a voice that was distinctly male.
I licked my lips and moved my mouth. Only no sound came out. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Uh, yeah.” I paused, staring at those familiar green eyes again. “Larry?”
He quirked a corner of his lips. Rimmed in ruby red lipstick. “Most people just call me Lola now.”
I nodded, feeling my eyebrows pinch together in a way that screamed for Botox as my brain searched for the appropriate emotion. I’m pretty sure shock would have worked. Or surprise. Maybe even anger. But honestly, all I felt as I stared at my dad in a mini skirt and go-go boots was relief that he wasn’t dead in a ditch somewhere.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I got your message.” I couldn’t help staring down at his boots. Gucci. At least now I knew where I got my fashion sense from.
Lola slash Larry bit his lip, little flecks of ruby red dotting his teeth. “Right. Sorry about that. I, uh, I shouldn’t have called. It was stupid. Everything’s fine now.” Only the way his eyes darted to Turtleneck’s in a silent exchange didn’t quite jive with his words.
Now that the gun wasn’t pointed at me, I noticed how badly Turtleneck’s hands were shaking. He shifted the gun from one hand to the other, as if not really sure how to hold it. And he kept glancing around the yard like he was expecting the boogey man to pop out from behind an azalea bush any second.
And Larry didn’t look a whole lot more composed. Up close I could tell he was a lot older than I’d originally put Lola. Makeup covered bags under his eyes, his chin was showing a hint of gray stubble, and the distinct outline of a girdle sat beneath his stretchy white top, holding in an unflattering middle-aged spread.
But more than anything I kept going back to his eyes. So like the ones I saw in the mirror every morning that it was kind of unnerving. Okay – it was very unnerving. It was almost like seeing the fifty year old version of myself if I were ten inches taller and let this mustache thing get out of control.
A million and one questions begged to be answered as Larry and I stood there silently contemplating each other. Were the mini skirt and heels why he’d left Mom and me? Why he hadn’t so much as called for twenty-six years? Did this mean he wasn’t a rock star? Oh God. Was my dad a stripper?
And what was with the gunshot? Why had he run away from me last night? And last, but not least, who the hell was Monaldo?
Since I wasn’t quite sure I was ready to hear the answers to the other questions, I started with the latter.
“Who’s Monaldo?”
“No one,” Larry said. A little too quickly. He gave Turtleneck a warning look and the gun disappeared back into his cords.
O-kay.
“I saw what happened to Harriet last night,” I said, switching gears. “I’m sorry.”
Turtleneck did a dry sob thing and buried his face in his hands. Larry just bit his lip again.
“Was he your…” I trailed off, my gaze resting on his mini skirt.
“Roommate,” Larry supplied. And I hate to admit I was slightly relieved. I wasn’t sure I could deal with having two daddies at the moment. Especially when one of them was dead.
Instead, Larry gestured to Turtleneck. “Maurice and Harriet ar- were a couple.”
Maurice nodded, tears running down his chubby cheeks again.
I gave him the most sympathetic face I could considering he’d had a gun pointed at my head just seconds ago.
“Look,” Larry continued, “I’m sorry you came all the way out here, Maddie. But, uh…” He glanced at Maurice again. “Now’s not really a good time. Sorry.” And with that Larry turned on his Gucci heels and disappeared back into the house.
“Wait!” I cried. I pushed through the sliding door. Maurice (still sobbing) followed me.
The house smelled like a combination of Clorox and my Irish Catholic grandmother’s Glade plug-ins. A bottle of Windex sat on an end table next to a rag, the only two things out of place in the entire room. The house was immaculate. I’m talking Swiffer commercial clean. All the furniture – a chintz loveseat, oak coffee table, and glass entertainment center – was symmetrically arranged, each corner lining up perfectly with the next. It was the kind of room that made me instantly want to take my shoes off for fear of leaving a muddy trail across the pristine tiled floor.
Instead, I charged up the stairs. “Larry?” I called, taking them two at a time with Maurice hot on my heels.
“What are you doing? You can’t be in here,” he protested, eyeing the bottoms of my strappy sandals versus the white upstairs carpeting.
I ignored him, following the sounds of Lola’s movement.
The second floor of the house held three bedrooms and a bathroom decorated in hot pink tiles and a pink and white polka dotted shower curtain. (Who was their designer, Barbie?) The first two bedroom doors where closed. I caught a glimpse of Larry’s red wig moving around in the third.
As I entered the room it was instantly clear that Larry was not the resident housekeeper. Larry’s room looked like the pictures I’d seen of the Beverly Bloomingdale’s right after the Northridge quake hit. Dresses, skirts, blouses, and shoes mingled in disarray on every surface. A handful of long wigs on Styrofoam heads lined the dresser amidst eyeliner, mascara, and – I cringed - the same Raspberry Perfection lip gloss I put on every morning. I averted my gaze, feeling my face scrunch into those Botox worthy lines again.
Instead I focused on Larry, standing in the center of the room zipping closed a black duffle bag as a little yapper dog circled his ankles.
“I need to talk to you, Larry,” I said, as Maurice huffed up behind me.
Larry looked up, only mildly surprised I’d followed him in. “I can’t. I have to go.” He picked up a beaded purse from the floor and slung it over his shoulder.
“So, so… you’re just going to leave again?” My voice cracked, images of that hairy arm disappearing from my life overwhelming me. Granted, this was not exactly how I’d always fantasized our father-daughter reunion playing out, but the fact that he was walking away again had me going into a panic.
He must have noticed because he paused again.
“Look, I’m sorry we had to meet under these circumstances. I know how you must be feeling and I’m sorry this is such a shock to you.”
Understatement alert. But shock was good. Shock was one step way from denial and if I could just tell my mind to make that next leap over the fence, I planned to camp out in denial for a long time. I looked down at his Gucci boots again. A long, long time.
“What about the gunshot Friday night?” I asked, dragging my gaze back up to Larry’s face.
He found a piece of lint on his skirt suddenly fascinating. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I heard a gunshot on the message you left me.”
Larry and Maurice did that silent exchange thing again. “Must have been a car backfiring.”
Apparently being a terrible liar ran in the family.
“Look, you said on the phone that you needed help. What kind of help? Does this have to do with Monaldo?”
Larry gave me blank stare. “No. I don’t need any help. Everything’s fine.”
Right. I narrowed my eyes at him. So fine that his roommate had just taken a header off a roof. Not to mention the sobbing gay guy with the gun shoved in his Old Navy cords.
“Larry, if you’re in trouble-”
But he cut me off. “Really, I’m fine, Maddie. Everything here is fine.” He grabbed his duffel bag and pushed past me, back down the stairs.
“Wait!” I followed, my heels click clacking on the tiles as Larry headed out the front door. I followed him down the flagstone pathway and out to the Volvo in the drive. Turtleneck grabbed the yapper and with a backwards glance at Larry, hopped in the Taurus and roared down the street.
But my whole attention was focused on Larry as he threw his duffle bag in the Volvo and walke
d around to the driver’s side.
“Wait,” I said again, that panic rising in my throat. “Can I… maybe call you or something?”
Larry paused, his eyes softening. “It was good to see you Maddie. Tell your mom I said ‘hi.’”
And before I could protest being blown off again, he had the car in gear and was driving out of my life for the second time. Only this time instead of a hairy arm, all I saw was his long, red wig, flapping in the breeze out the car window.
I stood there in the empty driveway trying to process what just happened.
My father hadn’t been shot. He was okay. He wasn’t dead, wounded, or bleeding. I should be relieved he was okay, right?
And I was.
Kinda.
Only he hadn’t seemed all that okay. And I still had more questions than answers. Not even considering his taste in clothing, there was something really weird going on here.
I looked back at the house. Just for good measure I tried the front door. Locked.
For lack of any other bright ideas, I got in the Mustang and drove back to the hotel.
* * *
The first thing I did when I got back to the room was check my messages. Imagine my surprise when I had seven. All seven from Ramirez.
Under any other circumstances, seven messages from an LAPD officer yelling at you to get your butt back to his jurisdiction might not be a good thing. But as I sat there listening to each one, I couldn’t help feeling just the teeniest bit of triumph. Who’s not returning calls now, huh?
I hit the erase button and all seven disappeared. Then I flopped back on the bed and stared up at the textured ceiling.
Okay, so my dad preferred lipstick to dip sticks. So he happened to like Gucci boots. (Couldn’t really blame him there.) So instead of running off to Vegas with a showgirl he had apparently become a showgirl.
The fact still remained he was my dad. And despite his protests, he was in trouble. How much trouble and what kind, I wasn’t quite sure. In fact, I wasn’t even quite sure I wanted to know. Larry had, after all, just run out on me for the second time in my life. He hadn’t exactly exhibited the classic signs of a father happy to see his daughter.
I rubbed my eyes, pushing the fatherless little girl in me to the back of my mind and tried to focus on the practical adult woman. (I knew she was in there somewhere.)
Let’s assume that I had, in fact, heard a gunshot in Larry’s message last Friday. He’d been asking for help and someone had taken a shot at him. Three days later Larry’s roommate swan dives off a roof. And Larry goes mum. I didn’t like the pattern here.
So, what kind of help had he needed? Did it have something to do with this Monaldo guy? Maurice had said they were done. Done with what? Had that been what he and Larry were arguing about in the kitchen? The way they were waving their arms at each other I couldn’t imagine it was over what kind of casket to bury poor Hank in.
I closed my eyes. So, the question was, did I walk away like Larry had so many years ago? Or did I stay and try to help him out of whatever mess he and Turtleneck had gotten themselves into? I wish I could say a brilliant answer came to me, but instead I think I drifted off to sleep.
The next thing I knew, Dana burst into the room with a loud whoop and started jumping on the bed.
“Ohmigod. Ohmigod. Maddie wake up!”
I cracked one eye open, surprised to see the sun setting over the Excalibur castle outside the window.
“What time is it?”
“Time to Par-teee. I just banked at blackjack. A thousand bucks! I am the blackjack queen. Mads, you gotta play this game with me. That clerk, Jim, convinced me to play with him and at first I was like ‘no way,’ but then he said, ‘it’s easy,’ and I was like, ‘will you show me?’ and he was like, ‘sure.’ So I did. And I like totally hit a ten and the dealer said, ‘now what,’ and I totally said, ‘hit me,’ and he totally said, ‘okay,’ and then I like totally got a jack and then totally won. A thousand bucks, Maddie. How totally great is that?”
I blinked, cracking the other eye open. “My dad is a drag queen.”
Dana stopped jumping up and down. But to her credit she didn’t even ask if I was drunk.
“Say what?”
I propped myself up on my elbows, and told Dana about my morning in Henderson. And the fact my dad has been harboring a Victoria’s secret all his own.
“Wow,” she said when I was done. “I knew a tranny once. Dolly. She worked the corner of Hollywood and Vine.”
“Great. Thanks. That really helps.”
“Do you think your mom knows?” Dana asked.
I thought about it. If the way she’d gone five different shades of pale when I mentioned Larry was any indication, it was all together possible.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Do you think you should call her?”
“No!” I sat bolt upright. “No. There is no way I want to talk to my mom about this. I’m doing denial right now. And if I talk to Mom about it, it’s real. And there goes my healthy denial.”
“Um, I’m not exactly sure denial is actually considered healthy,” she said, her eyebrows drawing together.
I looked her straight in the eye. “Dana, my dad wears go-go boots. Trust me, denial is my friend.”
“Okay, if you say so.” She sat down on the bed beside me. “So, what do you want to do know?”
My stomach growled, reminding me I hadn’t eaten since this morning. “Right now, I want food.”
Since Dana hadn’t eaten either, being too distracted by her like-totally-banking blackjack streak, we decided to hit Broadway Burger again. And even though the patty melt with extra mayo was calling my name, visions of my father in a girdle drove me to follow Dana’s lead and order a soy burger with extra sprouts instead. While the clerk made our sandwiches, I told Dana about the seven messages from Ramirez. She agreed. He was getting what he deserved.
We took our sandwiches to a table near the window and Dana immediately dug in, making little yummy sounds as she tucked a stray sprout back into her mouth.
“Ohmigod, this is so good,” she moaned.
I sniffed my burger, wrinkling up my nose. “It smells like lawn trimmings.”
“No it doesn’t! Maddie, it’s so good for you. It’s full of heart healthy soy and antioxidants.”
I sniffed it again. “I don’t know…”
“Just eat it,” Dana prompted, moaning her way through another bite.
I took a tiny nibble. “It tastes like lawn trimmings.”
“It has seventy five percent less fat than a beef burger.”
I looked down at my midsection. Still girdle free. For now. “Seventy-five, huh?”
Dana nodded.
I held my noise and ate the lawn trimmings.
By the time we got back to the room, Marco was back from Gay Paree, loaded down with shopping bags and wearing a jaunty black beret.
“Bonjour my lovelies,” he greeted us.
“How was Paris?”
“Magnifique! You likey the hat, oui?”
“It’s totally you,” I said honestly.
“Dana some guy called for you while you were gone,” Marco said, pulling a miniature Eiffel tower on a key chain out of a shopping bag. “Roco? Rambo?”
“Rico?” Dana asked, her eyes lighting up.
“Yep. That’s the one. Deep voice. Sounded like a total cutie.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me to tell you that ‘Mac,’” Marco said, doing little air quotes with his fingers, “said your background check cleared and he’ll pick up your ‘LadySmith’ (more air quotes) for you on Friday.”
Dana sighed and clutched her hands to her heart. “How sweet is that? I love that man.”
“What’s a LadySmith?” Marco asked, planting his hands on his hips. “Is this some new kind of sex toy?”
“It’s a gun,” I told him.
Marco took a tiny step away from Dana. Considering his run in with her stun gun
, I didn’t blame him.
After Marco finished unpacking his Paris souvenirs, Dana and I filled him in on my adventures of Father Knows Best meets Bosom Buddies. He made the appropriately shocked sounds when I mentioned my dad’s go-go boots and the appropriately appalled ones when I mentioned Turtleneck’s tasteless loafer.
“So,” he said when we’d finished, “do we think Larry killed his roommate then?”
“No!” I said a little more loudly than I’d meant to. “No, I don’t think Larry killed anyone. Besides, the police said it was a suicide.”
“Oh pooh.” Marco waved me off. “They always say that when they don’t know who did it.”
While Marco tended to oversimplify things, I wasn’t totally convinced he was wrong.
“Monaldo,” Dana said, rolling the word over her tongue. “I wonder if that’s Italian.”
“It sounds kind of Portuguese to me,” Marco said. “I dated this Portuguese guy once. Made the best Polvo I’ve ever tasted. I’m talking to die for, dahling.”
“No, no. I’m pretty sure it’s Italian.” Dana crinkled up her brow. “Wasn’t one of the guys in The Godfather named Monaldo?”
Mental forehead smack. “He’s not from The Godfather.”
“This is just like that pilot I shot last season. Mafia Chicks,” Dana said. “You know, all these Vegas clubs are run by the Mob,” she insisted.
“Oh my God, Maddie!” Marco gasped. “Is your dad in the Mob?”
“No! My dad is not in the Mob. There is no more Mob in Vegas.”
Dana and Marco both looked at me. Then each other.
“Oh honey,” Marco said, “you are so naïve.”
My left eye began to twitch.
“Look, I’m sure this is all nothing. Just a misunderstanding. Larry was probably just upset about his roommate today. And it must have been a shock seeing me again after so long. I’m sure if I could just sit down with him for a few minutes, Larry would be able to explain everything. Besides, maybe it was just a car backfiring. Right?”
Hey, what do you know? I’d successfully made the leap into denial.
“I think we should go check out that club again,” Dana said
High Heels Mysteries Boxed Set (Books 1-5) Page 33