Killer in High Heels

by Gemma Halliday

Nanny stroked his goatee. “Not sure. Been a few days though. He missed karaoke night on Friday and Big Boy never misses that.” He did that gap-toothed grin again. “He always does Pretty Woman.”

  I tried not to picture the shower curtain poncho to go with that audio track.

  “Say, what do you want with Big Boy anyway? Who are you?” Nanny asked, his eyes going from Dana to me…then resting on Marco again.

  This time I’m sure I heard him whimper.

  “Who are we?” I asked, my voice going about an octave higher as Nanny narrowed his eyes at us. “We’re, um, well…”

  I hesitated to tell him. Unibrow had already searched Larry’s place. I didn’t particularly want my name coming up should he make a visit to Bobbi’s as well. I was racking my little brain for a good fake name, when Dana came to the rescue.

  “Hey, is that a cobra?” she asked, pointing to a snake tattoo making its way up Nanny Goat’s left forearm.

  He nodded. “Yeah. Got it in the Gulf War.”

  “No kidding?” Dana leaned in closer. “Because my friend, Rico, has the same one.”

  Nanny Goat’s face broke into a smile. “Rico Moreno?”

  “Ohmigod, yes!”

  “Hell, Rico and me go way back. Used to run around San Bernardino together with this group called the Hellcats when we was kids. After I joined up, we served together in Kuwait. That’s where I got this beauty,” he said, gesturing to his arm again. “Why didn’t you tell me you all was friends of Rico’s?” He reached across the bar and slapped Marco on the back.

  Marco lurched forward from the impact, steadying himself on the counter with another whimper.

  “What a small world,” Dana mused.

  “Hell, in that case I don’t mind tellin’ you, you ain’t the first people come lookin’ for our Big Boy.”

  “We’re not?” I asked, visions of Unibrows dancing in my head.

  “Nope.” Nanny leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. “About a week ago his ex was in here looking for him. Said he missed his child support payment this month. Nothin’ new though, that guy is always behind.”

  “So we gathered. Anyone else stop by?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Yep. Couple days before that. Big dude. Built like a tank. Real hairy eyebrows.”

  I gulped. “What did he want?”

  “He was looking for Bob too. Gave me some line about Bob owing him on a gambling debt. I didn’t buy it though.”

  “Why not?”

  “Like I said, Big Boy was always behind. Any extra cash he got went to those ex-wives of his. No way would he gamble any of it away. The dude was odd, but he wasn’t stupid.”

  “Thanks,” I said, though it wasn’t really the news I wanted to hear. Apparently Monaldo was sending his goons to pick off the drag brothers one by one. It was only a matter of time before they worked their way down to Larry’s name.

  I pulled a pen out of my purse and wrote down my cell phone number on a cocktail napkin. “If you see Bob, would you mind giving me a call?”

  “No prob,” Nanny said, depositing the napkin in his pocket. “Like I said, any friend of Rico’s is a friend of mine.”

  After Dana and Nanny exchanged a few pleasantries about what the old dirty dog Rico was up to lately, we made our way back out into the assaulting sunlight.

  Marco, who’d been quiet save for the whimpers, let out a long breath as we reached the car. “That was the scariest place I have ever been,” he said, fanning himself with his beret. “I seriously need a drink. Anyone want to stop for a cranberry-tini?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  In lieu of cocktails, we pulled into a McDonald’s on Maryland and after a Quarter Pounder, Diet Coke, and hot apple pie (hey, I did go for the diet soda), we changed for Hank’s funeral. I paired my mostly clean black leather skirt with the most demure white blouse I’d packed and a dark blazer I borrowed from Marco. Finished off with a pair of casual black Cavalli pumps, I looked conservative enough to blend in at a memorial service.

  I wish I could have said the same for Marco. He emerged from the men’s room wearing a pair of gray slacks with an iridescent purple sheen to them, a skintight black shirt and the jaunty black beret again. And to think this was the man worried about being conspicuous.

  Dana followed my lead, wearing a little black dress with a black leather jacket over the top. Okay, so our hemlines were a bit higher than true mourning called for, but hey, this was Vegas.

  And, as we entered the church at Alta and Campbell, I realized that a Vegas funeral has a whole different meaning than a Beverly Hills funeral. The Vegas funeral made West Hollywood on Liberace’s birthday look tame.

  While the church was a subdued stained-glass affair with dark pews, light flower arrangements, and soft organ music, the inhabitants of the large room were anything but.

  The first couple of pews held what I assumed were Hank’s family—an older couple in grays and navy blues, a man in a dark suit, and two squirmy children who were probably glad they’d gotten to miss school for “Auntie” Hank’s funeral. But the pews behind them were a mix between the circus and a soap-opera audition. Three full rows of aging drag queens in unrelieved black. Long, lacy dresses, wide-brimmed hats (one with an ostrich plume sticking two feet into the air), and somber black veils. The handful whose faces were visible were fully made up, big fat tears running a marathon down their powdered cheeks as they sobbed into little white hankies. Oh boy, did they sob. Not a dry eye in the house. And none of this dainty eyedabbing stuff either. These ladies were doing the kind of sobs usually only heard from toddlers at naptime. Big, full-blown body-sobs that echoed under the high ceilings like a symphony of dying geese. Punctuated by the occasional nose blown loud enough to shake the stained-glass windows.

  I tried to look past the veils and hankies to see whether Larry was among them. But, honestly, I couldn’t tell one from another. A different wig, a different girdle, and I wasn’t sure I’d even recognize my father.

  Beside the painted ladies sat Maurice. His face looked like it had aged a couple hundred years since I’d last seen him. And the somber music wafting in through the sound system didn’t do anything to ease the grief lines etched around his eyes. He reminded me a little of Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. His eyes were downcast, his skin taking on a little of a gray color that perfectly matched the suit he donned in lieu of his trademark turtleneck. I wondered if he’d slept at all since Hank died. His bags looked bigger than mine.

  Across the aisle from Maurice sat Monaldo and his line of henchmen. To his right was Unibrow and to the left, Ramirez.

  Marco, Dana, and I settled into an empty pew behind the painted ladies. Luckily, Monaldo didn’t notice us.

  Unluckily, Ramirez did.

  He craned his head back, letting his eyes casually scan the room until they met mine. Then they went all big and round as his jaw dropped open like it was on overoiled hinges. He blinked a couple of times, then mouthed at me, “What are you doing here?”

  I just smiled and shrugged. What else could I do?

  Ramirez pulled his jaw into a tight Bad Cop face and narrowed his eyes, staring me down. I could feel those eyes boring a hole right through me. I hoped I’d never have to face him across an interrogation table. I had a pretty good idea I’d crack.

  We all settled into our places as a white-haired priest took to the pulpit and began waxing poetic about Hank’s life and the hereafter. I admit, I kind of tuned him out, instead searching the sobbing painted ladies again for any sign of Larry. Unibrow kept glancing behind him, toward the open church doors, doing, I supposed, the same thing. I felt like I was on a Where’s Waldo hunt and the first one to spot Waldo’s miniskirt won the prize of Larry—dead or alive.

  The ceremony was short, thankfully, and then we all shuffled out of the church to drive single file the short distance to the cemetery. On the off chance Monaldo and his crew might recognize the Mustang, Dana, Marco and I held back. I noticed Ramirez scanning the crowd for me. I d
ucked behind the woman with the ostrich feather until Monaldo motioned him into the long black Lincoln and shut the door behind him.

  Since we’d brought up the rear of the parade, most of the crowd had already assembled at the grave site by the time we arrived. Hank’s eternal rest would be under a large tree, atop a small, manmade hill, covered in a lawn that must have used half of Lake Mead to keep watered in the summer. We parked the car on the gravel road and hiked to the top where the coffin sat, now lying next to a tarp-covered pile of dirt. Carnations, roses, and fragrant lilies of the valley lay on the polished mahogany surface. Maurice started bawling as he laid a single red rose on the pile. Which of course set off the painted ladies (who would take any excuse to pull out a hankie), and pretty soon everyone was in tears again.

  Except for Monaldo. While his face was a placid mask, I was pretty sure that on the inside he was celebrating having just gotten away with murder.

  Beside him Ramirez just glared at me, his eyes silently cursing at me in Spanish. I tried to ignore him, instead focusing on the priest as he said a final few words over the grave site.

  Something about funerals always depresses me. Usually it’s the idea that my own end is somewhere in sight. It raises the big scary question of what is there after this life? Do we really ascend, as the priest promised, to a beautiful magical plane where there is no pain, sorrow, or shoes that pinch your toes five minutes after you put them on? Or do we simply die, turn to dust, and that’s all she wrote?

  Only today, the questions of the universe were taking a backseat to questions about my father. I wondered where he was. I wondered if Monaldo might have already gotten to him. I wondered if I’d ever be able to picture him again without thinking of Raspberry Perfection lip gloss.

  I scanned the faces of the mourners for Larry again. Most were the same from the church, though a few had opted to join the group here. So far none was six feet tall in a red wig.

  Once the priest said his final “ashes to ashes,” the crowd began to disperse, lingering in small groups to console each other. I casually mingled amongst them, searching each veiled face for any signs of my father. It had been a longshot that he’d even show up, but I hated to let go of that small hope I’d see him once more.

  I was circling a group of painted ladies (still sobbing into their hankies), when the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I felt him before I even heard him. That’s how hot the anger radiating off his body was.

  “What are you doing here?” Ramirez growled in my ear.

  I froze. “Paying my last respects.”

  “You are supposed to be on your way back to Los Angeles,” he said in a tightly restrained whisper. I was pretty sure that if I turned around now I’d see that vein bulging in his neck again.

  “Maurice invited me. It would have been rude not to come.”

  Ramirez muttered something in Spanish. But before I could figure out which creative swear word he was employing now, he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me down the hill and into the back of Monaldo’s Lincoln.

  “I swear, I’m leaving right after—”

  But I didn’t get to finish. As soon as he had the door shut behind us, Ramirez grabbed me by the shoulders and planted his lips on mine.

  I shuddered from the impact. Or maybe it was from the volcanic heat instantly settling south of my belly button.

  “God, you look sexy in black,” he murmured, coming up for air.

  “I’m wearing Marco’s clothes.”

  Ramirez looked down. Then he shrugged. “It’s been six weeks. You’d look sexy in anything.”

  I was about to protest, but he didn’t give me a chance, taking my lips in his and thoroughly kissing me again.

  “Or better yet,” he amended, “nothing at all.”

  He slid his hand up my shirt, his fingers closing around the clasp of my bra.

  “Whoa, boy!” I pushed him away, both hands flat against his chest. “You’re kidding, right? You want to do this now?”

  He paused, looking around the backseat. “What? The windows are tinted.”

  “We’re at a funeral!”

  “So…is that wrong?”

  I’m ashamed to say that with my hands still glued to his rock-hard pecs, I actually thought about it for a minute.

  “Yes, of course it’s wrong. And by the way, have you noticed that every time we’re together we’re either ripping each other’s clothes off or fighting?”

  “Yeah, we should do a lot less fighting.”

  “I’m serious.”

  He flashed me his big bad wolf smile. “So am I.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Why can’t we just have a normal conversation like normal people in a normal relationship”

  “So you wanna talk now?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Yes.”

  He sighed. Then he tilted his head from side to side, as if working out tension kinks that magically appeared whenever I did. “Okay. Fine. Let’s talk.”

  “Good.”

  Then we both stared at each other. Silent.

  Great. Turns out we had nothing to talk about.

  “So…” I said, grasping for anything. “How was your day?”

  He raised one eyebrow at me. “My day?”

  “Yes. This is what normal couples talk about. They talk about their day. So how was your day?”

  Ramirez rubbed the back of his neck, relieving a little more of that tension. “Okay. My day was fine.”

  I threw my hands up. “No, that’s not how it goes. You’re supposed to tell me what you did, where you went, who you talked to. You’re supposed to tell me how you felt about your day so I can be all supportive and stuff. Like, here, I’ll go first. I had a call from my mother. She was pissed and I feel like crap for lying to her and am pretty sure she’s going to either disown me or at the very least take back my new ficus. After that I punched my stalker in the nose, which felt a lot better than it should have. Then we went to FlyBoyz, which just made me feel like I needed a shower. There. That was my day. Now your turn. What did you do today?”

  Ramirez just stared. “Whoa. Back up—stalker?”

  Whoops.

  “Did I say ‘stalker’? Okay, well, see he’s really more of a follower than a stalker, to be honest. He just kind of follows me around town and occasionally takes pictures that he occasionally prints in his newspaper.”

  “A reporter?” he shouted. That vein started to bulge in his neck and I wondered if maybe I should have stuck with the stalker story instead. “You’re telling me you have a reporter following you?”

  I heaved a deep sigh. This was so not how normal couples had conversations. But it was too late to put that horse back in the barn. Instead, I told Ramirez all about my encounter with Felix and the many Dodge Neon sightings I’d been privy to in the last week, ending with the Informer’s piece this morning.

  When I finished he did one of those foreign curses again and I made a mental note to sign up for Spanish class at the rec center.

  “Don’t worry,” I reassured him. “The worst has already happened. Mom saw it.”

  “Maddie, I’m not worried about your mom,” he said, the vein staring to pulsate now. “I’m worried about Monaldo! If he sees this, how long do you think it will take before he puts two and two together? He saw you at the club. He knows your face and if he sees that paper he’ll know your name and where to find you.”

  The thought sent a cold chill right up my spine. “I didn’t think of that.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Hey, it’s not like I asked to have my picture in the paper.”

  “Yet somehow the other ninety-nine point nine percent of the population can manage to stay the hell out of things that don’t concern them.”

  “Larry’s my father. It concerns me!”

  Ramirez rubbed his neck again. “Look, just leave it alone, okay? Go home, design a few SpongeBob boots or whatever it is you do and let me do my job, okay?”

  While his tone was way
over the border of condescension, making me want to quote last quarter’s sales figures for my “whatever it is you do” shoes, I knew he was right. The best thing for me to do was get out of town before I messed up his investigation any more than I already had. The sooner he put Monaldo behind bars, the sooner I could breathe easily abut my father’s safety. So instead of taking a stand for shoe designers everywhere, this time I let the comment go.

  “Fine. But,” I added, “just so you know, we’re doing it again.”

  He paused, a blank look on his face. “Doing what?”

  “Fighting. See?”

  He took a deep breath, then looked toward the sky as if asking for patience from somewhere above. “I told you we should have just had sex.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Hmph.” It was the best response I could come up with because I was kind of thinking he might be right. “Look, I’ll go away and let you do your job, but just promise me you won’t let anything happen to Larry while—”

  But he cut me off, shoving my head down in his lap.

  “Um, hello? Ever heard of foreplay?” I mumbled against his thigh.

  “Shhhh. Someone’s coming.”

  I shifted my body down to a crouching position on the floor mats as someone knocked on Ramirez’s window. I held my breath, trying to make myself as small as possible.

  Ramirez cracked the window open. “Yeah?”

  “There you are, Bruno.”

  That artic freeze tickled my spinal column again as I recognized the voice. Monaldo.

  “Yeah, I’m here,” Ramirez answered, doing an Oscarworthy impression of cool, casual Goon Number Two. Even though I could feel his leg muscles tense beneath my palms.

  “What’s going on in there?” Monaldo asked.

  I scrunched my eyes tight, my fingers digging into Ramirez’s thighs as I willed the bad man to just go away.

  “Nothin’,” Ramirez answered in a lazy drawl. “I just had enough of the bawling, you know?”

  Monaldo was silent for a moment. And I was on the verge of wetting my pants when he finally said, “Fine. We’re leaving in five minutes.”

  I did an internal sigh of relief.