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 dived off a roof. And Larry went 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 had been 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 had 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 altogether 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 now?”
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 nose 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 loafers.
“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 at 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.
Marco squealed. “Vegas clubbing! Oh, can we, please? Pretty, pretty please, Mads?”
I shrugged. It seemed like as good a place as any to catch up with Larry. And who knows, maybe once I got him alone, he really could explain everything. “All right. Let’s go to the Victoria.”
Marco jumped up and clapped his hands. “Eek! Just give me ten minutes!”
Chapter Seven
Two hours later, Marco put the finishing touches on his club outfit of black leather pants and a form-fitting purple tank top, with three strands of silver chains around his neck. Capped off by the black beret. And I was pretty sure he was wearing more eye makeup than either Dana or me.
“We ready?” Dana asked, adjusting her spangled tube top. She’d paired it with a slinky black skirt and two-inch heels. I had my silver strappy sandals on again, but had changed into a shorter skirt—black leather—and a fire-engine-red stretchy top. I had to admit, we looked pretty hot.
“Ready.”
We parked the Mustang in front of Annie’s Escorts again and walked the short block to the Victoria Club. The yellow crime-scene tape was gone and the only evidence that anything out of the ordinary had happened here last night was the clean spot on the street where someone had tried to bleach the bloodstain away.
A line to get in spanned down the block, no doubt due to the press coverage from last night. I groaned. As much as I loved my strappy sandals, they were three inches high and the thought of standing around on the sidewalk in them for an hour made my toes curl. Literally.
A big guy covered in muscles from his Doc Martens all the way up to the top of his 6′5″ crew cut frame stood behind a red velvet rope separating the waiting crowd from the chosen ones inside the building. He held a clipboard in one hand, no doubt the list of people cool enough to bypass the Line of Shame.
“Hi,” I said, giving him my most flirtatious one-finger wave. “Um, any chance we could get in there?” I asked, pointing past him to the club, where already I could hear dance music pounding through the walls.
Crew Cut Guy looked at the line of people waiting, then back at us. “You on the list?” he asked in a monotone that suggested he’d already done this song and dance fifty times that night.
I pursed my lips, making the most of my Raspberry Perfection lip gloss. “Well, not exactly—”
But he didn’t even let me finish, instead pointing straight toward the waiting hopefuls. “Back of the line.”
“But—”
He gave me a cold stare and pointed again. “Back of the line.”
Rats.
I was about to resign myself to numb feet when Dana pushed forward. “Watch and learn,” she whispered, adjusting her cleavage until it looked like she was smuggling water balloons in her top.
“Hi, there,” she said, approaching Crew Cut. She paused, reading his name tag, “Pete.” She flashed him a big smile. “We heard this is the hottest club in town. And my friends and I are just dying to see it. You wouldn’t want to disappoint us now, would you?” Dana punctuated the statement by batting her eyelashes and coyly touching a fingernail to her plump lips.
Nothing. Crew Cut didn’t budge. He just did the straight arm point again.
But Dana, not one to be deterred, just sighed. “All right, Pete. But I don’t think your boss is going to be very happy when he hears who you’ve turned away.”
Hesitation flickered in his eyes.
“That’s right,” Dana plowed on. She turned and gestured to me. “This just happens to be the Eddie Izzard.”
I nudged Marco. “Who?” I whispered as Pete gave me a head-to-toe. But Marco just giggled.
“No kidding?” Pete asked. He squinted at me. “I thought The Iz would be taller.”
Dana waved the comment off. “TV adds six inches.”
Crew Cut nodded. “Yeah, right. I think I heard that before.”
“Anyway,” Dana continued, “we had our hearts set on the Victoria tonight. But I guess if The Iz isn’t welcome here we can always go to the Wynn…”
“Wait!” Pete called, suddenly in a more accommodating mood. “I might be able to make an exception for The Iz.”
Dana gave him a smile that was all teeth. “Oh, gee. Aren’t you just a doll, Pete,” she crooned.
I poked Dana in the ribs as Pete unhooked the velvet ropes and ushered us into the club. “I give up,” I whispered. “Who’s this Iz?”
She gave me a “well, duh” look. “Hello? Eddie Izzard? Dressed to Kill? Transvestite comic? He’s like the hottest thing since RuPaul. Honey, you really do need to get out more.”
I blinked. “You told him I was a guy?”
Dana turned to me. And I swear she stared right at my upper lip dust. “Well, he bought it, didn’t he?”
That was it. I was so getting a wax.
I self-consciously kept my head down as we entered the club.
The inside of the Victoria was even bigger than it looked on the outside. There was a dance floor to the right, gyrating wall-to-wall bodies bathed in strobe lights. To the left was a glass and neon bar that stretched the length of the wall and held patrons two and three deep vying for a Sammy Davis martini. Behind the bar was a hallway that looked like it held restrooms and offices.
But the main attraction was straight ahead of us. A scattering of tables and tiered booths angled down to a huge stage populated by seven women in platform heels, feathers, and yellow sequined leotards. All seven had Adam’s apples. In the middle of them stood the male version of Marilyn Monroe, singing about diamonds being a boy’s best friend.
“I love Las Vegas!” Marco clapped his hands together.
I’m glad someone was enjoying it. Me, I was still doing denial.
As we threaded our way to an empty table near the aisle, I craned my neck around, scanning the crowd for a six-foot-tall redhead and a short guy in cords. No luck on either count.
A waiter dressed in early Madonna, complete with silver bangle bracelets and a little painted on mole, approached the table.
“Welcome to the Victoria Club. Can I get you ladies something to drink?”
Marco did a little giggle at the term “ladies” and ordered a peach schnapps. “And may I say,” he added, doing an impression of a twelve-year-old at an Ashlee Simpson concert, “I love your music.”
Mental eye roll.
But Madonna ate it up, blushing and autographing Marco’s cocktail napkin before taking the rest of our orders. Dana and I both opted for cosmos.
“And would you happen to know if Lola’s working tonight?” I asked.
“Sorry. She’s off tonight. We only do the go-go number on Mondays and Fridays.”
My dad. The go-go dancer. I felt my face wrinkle again. “So you haven’t seen her in here at all today?”
Madonna scrunched her eyebrows together. “No, I don’t think so. I saw her last night, though, right before…” She paused, her eyes casting downward. “Before they found Harriet.”
“I’m sorry. Were you close?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say close. We were friendly, but Harriet and Lola have worked here a lot longer than I have. I just transferred over from Caesar’s last spring. I was a Roman soldier there.”
I was never going to look at those togas the same way again.
“Was anyone else especially close with Lola?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No, Lola and Harriet kind of kept to themselves. And Bobbi. The three of them were pretty tight. But Bobbi left last week.”
I sat up straighter. “She did? Do you know where she went?”
Madonna shook her head, her blond wig bobbing back and forth. “Nope. Sorry. She
just up and took off one day.”
I bit my lip. People seemed to be doing a lot of that lately.
“How about a Monaldo?” Dana piped up. “Does that name ring a bell?”
Madonna’s face broke into a smile. “Oh sure. He’s the owner.” She gestured to the hallway behind the bar.
“Thanks.”
“Uh huh. Enjoy the show,” she said. Then she gave Marco a little wink before moving on to the next table.
When she left, Dana kicked me under the table. “See, I told you the Mob owns all these clubs!”
Ugh. “Just because the guy is Italian and owns a club, it does not make him a mobster.”
“Italian-American,” Marco corrected me.
“You know,” Dana said, leaning in to do a pseudo-whisper, “I bet you this whole place is crawling with wise guys.”
I looked around at the suspicious number of size thirteen pumps. I seriously doubted it.
“Look, I’m going to go talk to the owner. Who I’m sure is a perfectly nice, normal Italian-American,” I said with emphasis. “You two stay here.”
“You sure you don’t want me to come with?” Dana asked. “I took Rico’s interrogation and intimidation course. Rico uses the same techniques as the CIA. They totally work, Maddie.”
“No! I said I was going to go talk to him, not interrogate him. Sheesh.”
Dana pouted. “No stun gun, no interrogation. You’re no fun at all.”
“Look, you two just…enjoy the show,” I said, gesturing to the stage where Marilyn was breaking into a rendition of “Happy Birthday, Mr. President.”
I left Dana still pouting and Marco still gazing starry eyed after his Madonna as I weaved in and out of club goers toward the hallway. I peeked around the corner. Three doors to the left, a pair of restrooms to the right. I did a quick over-the-shoulder glance and ducked to the left. The first door was marked SUPPLIES. The second two had the word “private” painted on them. I knocked on the first door. Nothing.
I moved on to the second door. I paused, hearing muted voices inside.
There were two of them. One was deeper and slower. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, just a low rumble on the other side of the door. The other voice was higher and more urgent. And, luckily, louder. Hearing my Irish Catholic grandmother’s lectures on eavesdropping echoing in my head, I put one ear to the door.
Killer in High Heels Page 8