As a concession to sleepless night in a row number four, I put on my shortest skirt, highest heels, and more eye makeup than my mother. Or father, for that matter. The look was a little on the slutty side but at least it distracted from the bags under my eyes (which were so big I was pretty sure they wouldn’t even qualify as carry-ons anymore). Ten minutes later I was dressed, blow dried, and standing at the front desk before Slim Jim again.
“Checking out today?” he asked, searching behind me for a glimpse of Dana. Or, more accurately, Dana’s breasts.
“Yes I am. And by the way, the bed’s broken in our room.”
He eyed me suspiciously. “How did that happen?”
I shrugged. “Search me.”
He contemplated the offer for about half a second. That is, until his eyes rested on my barely-B chest and decided I wasn’t worth the effort. “Fine. I’ll tell maintenance.”
“So, any way I could get a discount for the broken bed?”
He gave me a look. “Don’t push it.”
I didn’t. Instead, I signed the bill (cringing just a little at the total) and told him we’d vacate the room by noon.
That done, I headed in the direction of the American restaurant hoping a big latte, and an even bigger plate of pancakes with gooey maple syrup might help me wake up. I was halfway across the casino floor, picking my way through the fake tress and corridors of slot machines, when my cell chirped.
“Hello?” I answered.
It’s a universal truth that no matter how healthy our self esteem, we all have little quirks about ourselves we wish we could fix. Some people wish they could remember names better, others want to stop smoking or quit biting their nails. Me – I wished like hell that I’d learn to check the caller ID before picking up my phone.
“Maddie! I can’t believe you lied to me!”
Ugh. Mom. I rubbed at my temples (where, coincidentally, an instant headache had bloomed) wondering just which lie she’d caught me in this time. “Hi, Mom.”
“Maddie how could you. Las Vegas? Las Vegas!?”
Well, that answered that question. “Mom, it’s not what you think-”
“Oh, Maddie. After everything I’ve done for you! I raised you as a single parent, Maddie. A single parent! Oh, how could you do this to me…” She trailed off into a wail that belonged in an Alfred Hitchcock film and I heard the phone drop from her hands.
A second later Faux Dad came on the line. “Maddie?”
“Hi, Ralph. What’s going on?”
“Um, well, your picture was kind of in the L.A. Informer this morning.”
Again? I smacked my forehead with my palm. What was with those guys? It was one lousy boob! “What was it this time? Wait, don’t tell me. I’m engaged to a Martian, right?”
“Actually,” he paused, clearing his throat. “There was a story about you getting involved in another murder case. In Las Vegas. There’s a picture of you outside some club called the Victoria.”
I shut my eyes and thought a really dirty word. They had to pick now to print real stuff?
“Listen,” Faux Dad continued. “I know how these papers get their facts mixed up sometimes. And I remember how they glued your head onto Pamela Anderson’s body when they said you were getting engaged to Bigfoot. So…” he trailed off.
God love him, he was giving me a nice out. But for some reason I was having a hard time taking it. Truth was, I felt funny discussing this whole Larry thing with Faux Dad at all. Ever since he and Mom had started dating, Ralph had filled the role of father figure in a way I never thought anyone would. Okay, so I was a little old for trips to the zoo with him, but he did give me all the free manicures I wanted at his salon. In my book, that spelled love. And now, just by being here, I almost felt like I was betraying him somehow.
Luckily I didn’t have to answer as Mom grabbed the phone away again.
“How could you betray me like this?” she sobbed.
Oh brother. I rolled my eyes.
“Mom. I’m sorry. But I had to come.”
“You lied to me, Maddie. Lied!”
“Excuse me,” I said, doing a hands on hips thing, “but you’ve been lying to me for the last twenty-six years. My dad wears go-go boots!” One of the blue haireds at the Wheel of Fortune slot machine looked my way. But only for a second. This was Vegas. Everyone wore go-go boots.
“I can’t believe you made up the whole thing about Palm Springs, Maddie.”
“Okay, technically it was Marco who made that up. But let’s get back to the whole you-never-telling-me-my-dad-was-a-she thing. Do you know how many letters I sent to Billy Idol?”
But nothing I said was going to get through to her. Mom was the guilt master and she was in her zone now. “I raised you. I fed you and clothed you, I changed your poopy diapers…”
Ew! “Mom, I was just here for a couple days-”
“… and this is the thanks I get. Betrayal! Lies! I would expect this from Larry, but from my own flesh and blood? How could you?” Mom punctuated this with another raise-the-dead wail.
“Mom, I swear I’m coming home today-”
“Where did I go wrong? How did I a raise such a deceitful child?”
“Mom-”
“The trust is broken, Maddie. You’ve broken my trust and my heart!”
“Look, I didn’t mean-”
“And to think, I bought you a ficus!”
“Mom, I-”
But it was too late. The line was dead. My mother had hung up on me. I thunked my head against the side of a mega bucks machine.
“Ow.”
I shoved my phone back in my purse and backtracked to the front desk, that headache pulsing behind my eyes with every step.
Slim Jim was checking in a couple with four little kids in tow, all four pointing in different directions and arguing over what they were going to see first.
“Hey!” I called, waving him over.
He gave me a one finger, ‘wait’ sign, while he handed the harried parents their room keys, then sauntered over. “Yeah?”
“Do you have a copy of the L.A. Informer back there?”
“I dunno.”
“Well, could you check?” I asked, forcing myself to paste on a smile.
Slim Jim did a dramatic sigh, as if doing favors for barely-B’s was so not in his job description. However, he did look behind the counter, popping up a minute later with a copy of the tabloid in his hands.
“Thanks,” I mumbled as I grabbed it from him.
I scanned the front page. The headline read “Local Sleuth Snoops into Mysterious Drag Death.” Great. Tot Trots was just going to love this! I felt my headache threatening into migraine territory as I read the rest of the story. The reporter started with a blurb about last summer’s mishaps and the popped boob, then went on to say I was investigating another suspicious death, this time involving an alleged suicide off a Vegas nightclub roof. He even had the nerve to tell all the Vegas women with implants to stay out of my way.
Beside the story they’d printed two pictures, one of me outside the nightclub and the second was of Dana and me at Maurice’s condo yesterday. I stared at them both. Who even knew I was in Vegas, let alone going to Maurice’s house?
I scanned down to the byline. Felix Dunn. The same guy who’d left all those messages on my machine last week. And, I realized with a surge of triumph as I looked at his fingernail sized black and white photo, the same guy I’d seen behind the wheel of a certain blue Dodge Neon. Sonofabitch! Neon Guy was a reporter.
“Excuse me,” I said, hailing Slim Jim back over.
This time he was in the middle of checking in a short Asian man and a long legged model dressed in an outfit that made me wonder if the New York, New York rented rooms by the hour. Jim shot me an annoyed look and gave the finger again. The ‘wait a minute’ one, not the other one. Though if he could have gotten away with it, I think he would have used the other one.
Finally he finished with the odd couple and made his way over t
o me. “What now?”
“I need a room number.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Didn’t you just check out?”
“No, not for me. I need you to look up the room number of a guest. Felix Dunn.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”
“You don’t understand. This is an emergency. This is a real story. I’m not the bride of Bigfoot. Tot Trots is going to fire me, not to mention what my mother will do. Good God, I may end up pounding lemons in one of those Hot Dog on a Stick Hats again. Don’t you understand, I can’t go back to those hats!”
He stared at me. Clearly, Slim Jim didn’t understand. Slim Jim thought I was nuts.
“Sorry. It’s against hotel policy. We can’t give out guests’ room numbers. I can get a message to him if you’d like?”
“I don’t want to leave him a message. I want to kill him!” Which didn’t do much to further my case.
I paused. I counted to ten. Okay, fine, I only made it to five before I started to lose it again. I decided to try a different tactic.
“Tell you what. How about you bend the rules just a teeny tiny bit for me and maybe I can do something in return for you.”
Slim Jim narrowed his eyes at me. “What kind of something?”
I did a mental cringe, hoping Dana would forgive me for what I was about to do. “How about a date with my friend, Dana?”
His eyes lit up. “The one with the Double D’s?”
I nodded.
Slim Jim did a quick over-the-shoulder supervisor check, then leaned in close. “Think she’d go to the Bette Midler show with me tomorrow night? I’ve got two tickets right up front”
I crossed my fingers behind my back and I nodded. “Absolutely.” That is if we weren’t going to be back in L.A. by then.
He paused. But the allure of a night with a stacked blonde was more than any man could resist. “Okay. But if anyone asks, you did not get this from me.” Slim Jim did a couple of quick clicks on his keyboard. “1504.”
“Thanks!”
“Hey,” he called as I walked away, “tell Dana to meet me here at seven!”
I gave him a wave over my shoulder as I stalked to the elevators with renewed purpose. In the last three days I’d had to deal with not only my so-called-boyfriend showing up undercover in a drag club, but also my mother’s tips for the best places to have sex in Palm Springs, my best friend turning into a gambling addict, a dead drag queen, his weepy boyfriend, a zapped yapper dog, my MIA dad’s propensity for go-go boots, and, oh yes, last but not least – the Mob! The last thing I needed was for my big fat drag club life to be splashed across the front pages of L.A.’s sleaziest tabloid.
The elevator opened and I jumped in, slamming my palm onto the button for the fifteenth floor. Well, I might not be able to do much about the Mob or the crappy state of my non-existent love life. Or even the fact that Mom was going to lecture me into a coma and my employment with Tot Trots was likely to terminate so fast I’d be eating cup-o-noodles for the rest of the year.
But I could do one thing about this tabloid guy.
I tapped my foot. I fumed. I tapped and fumed some more. Finally the doors slid open at the fifteenth floor.
I stomped down the hallway, steam starting to come out of my ears as I made my way to room 1504. I rapped so hard on the door my knuckles stung.
“Hang on,” a male voice, tinged with a hoity-toity British accent, called from inside.
Then the door was pulled open by Mr. Neon himself. He was wearing the khaki’s again, this time barefoot with his shirt open as if I’d caught him in the act of getting dressed. He paused for just a second before recognition him hit.
“Maddie?” he asked, a confused expression washing over his face.
“Felix.”
Then I cocked my fist back and punched him squarely in the nose.
Chapter Twelve
“Bloody hell!” Felix staggered back, holding one hand to his face and the other straight out as if to ward off the psycho barging her way into his hotel room.
I slammed the door shut behind me.
“What the hell was that for?” he asked, his accent thick as blood starting to seep through his fingers.
“That,” I said, still advancing on him, “was for making my mother cry.”
He stared at me uncomprehending. “Lady, you’re nuts.”
“Thanks to your sleeze factory she may very well disown me now. Stop printing pictures of me!”
He pulled his hand away from his nose. A small trickle of blood still remained on his upper lip. “Sorry, love, I can’t. That’s what I do.”
“No,” I said advancing on him again until my index finger jutted into his chest. “You print stories about Bigfoot having the Abominable Snow Monster’s love child and Anna Nichole Smith’s affair with a three headed alien. You write about the government’s secret plot to cover up the Loch Ness monster.”
“Don’t knock it. I think I’m up for a Pulitzer with that Nessie exposé.” He did a slow grin, his eyes crinkling at the corner. On any other day, his brand of self-deprecating humor might have passed as charming. As it was, I fought off the urge to hit him again.
“You work for a tabloid,” I said, annunciating as if I was talking to a two year old. “You make crap up. You do not cover real stories about real people.”
His Hugh-Grant-blue eyes lit up. “So there is a real story here?”
“No,” I quickly covered. “No story. None at all. I’m… here on vacation.”
“Funny, I thought you were vacationing in Palm Springs.” He broke into a self-satisfied grin, leaning casually against the wall as his arms crossed over his chest.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “How do you know about that?”
“Sweetheart, I know everything about you. I’m a very good reporter, you know?”
“Ha! That’s why you work at the Informer?”
His grin faltered. “Touché. All right, how about this. I know that last week I got a call from a man who’d seen your picture in our humble little… uh, how did you so charmingly refer to it, ‘sleaze factory’? He claimed to be your long lost father and wanted to know how to get in touch with you. Not being able to resist a schmaltzy sob story, I gave him your number. Then followed you around, waiting for the big tearful reunion. Instead, I got a dead body at a drag club. Which, by the way is a very fun angle,” he added with a wink.
My hand balled into a fist again.
“And,” he continued, “I know that the deceased is reported to have jumped off the roof. Only any idiot who’s ever seen a real jumper could tell you the trajectory was all wrong. Put that together with the fact you’ve been questioning friends of the deceased, and I’ve got a headline that reads: Santa Monica’s Favorite Amateur Sleuth At It Again.”
I felt sick to my stomach. Though, I noticed hopefully, he hadn’t mentioned Ramirez or the Mob. Apparently he wasn’t that good of a reporter. “Leave me alone,” I warned him.
He threw on his charming face again, all boyish smiles. “No need to be hostile. In fact, let’s make things easier on both of us. How about an exclusive, huh, love?”
“Stop calling me ‘love!’”
“Why, are you going to hit me again?”
I was seriously thinking about it.
“Ever heard of slander? Libel? I could easily sue you for that Bigfoot story.”
Felix held a hand to his heart in mock horror. “Heaven forbid.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re mocking me.”
“Indeed, I am.”
“I hate you.”
“Aw. I’m crushed.”
“Listen, pretty boy, if I see one more picture of myself in your little tabloid, I swear to God I will come back here with my best friend who happens to be an Urban Soldierette and knows a hundred and one different ways to make a man sing soprano. And she’s not afraid to use them!”
He just smiled. “Ooo. Sounds kinky.”
I shot
him a look that could freeze the devil himself. (Who I wasn’t all together sure wasn’t a tabloid reporter.) “Quit following me!” I stalked to the door and pulled it open so hard it rattled against the wall.
“Lovely to have met you, Maddie,” he called after me.
I flipped him the bird as the door slammed shut behind me.
I silently seethed as I rode the elevator back down to the casino level. I went straight to the American Restaurant and ordered a plate loaded with pancakes, waffles, French toast, and crepes that was so high I couldn’t see around it. All served with a mound of whipped cream and a river of gooey maple syrup. By the time I was done I felt totally sick to my stomach, but the anger hadn’t really gone away. It had just morphed into slow burning anxiety. With Tabloid Boy following me around like a lost puppy, things had suddenly become much more urgent.
If Monaldo saw Felix’s story, it wouldn’t take much digging for him to put two and two together and realize I was Larry’s daughter. I wasn’t sure how this fared for Larry’s safety, but I didn’t think it would endear Monaldo to him much more.
Not to mention me.
Whatever Larry had gotten himself into I needed to get him out. And fast.
Before Monaldo got to Larry.
* * *
By the time I got back up to the room, Marco was strategically fitting his collection of souvenirs into leopard printed luggage while Dana got in one last poker lesson from the casino channel.
Dana took one look at my low cut tank, liberally dotted with maple syrup, and started clucking her tongue.
“Oh, Maddie. Pancakes? Do you know how many carbs are in those things? Not to mention the refined sugars.”
“I only had three.” I didn’t tell her about the waffles and crepes.
“All that white flour goes right to your mid section. I bet you just ate two hundred sit-ups worth of simple carbohydrates.”
I shuddered at the mere mention of the ‘S’ word. “I couldn’t help it. I needed comfort food.”
“Why, what happened?” Marco asked, tucking a ‘Vegas Vic’ coffee mug between a pair of loafers.
High Heels Mysteries Boxed Set (Books 1-5) Page 40