by Peggy Webb
She smells like a flower. Gardenia. And it’s not perfume, either. She has a natural set of powerful pheromones that roped in my human daddy and made him forget he’d planned on being a bachelor till the day he died. Which could be sooner than later. You ought to see his arsenal. Knives, guns, rifles, machetes. He’s got ’em all, and he knows how to use them, too.
Of course, he’s an expert at keeping secrets. The only weapon Callie knows about is the Colt .45. And I’ll never tell the rest. She’s got enough on her mind keeping up with the Valentines and the Latons’ dirty laundry.
And I’m not talking blue jeans.
Just because I’m taking a little R and R, don’t think I don’t know what’s going on. Finding stuff out’s not rocket science if you know the fine points of eavesdropping.
Yesterday when I was on the farm showing Ann Margret around (well, bragging, if you want to know the truth), I overheard Ruby Nell and Charlie talking about the body snatching. (Obviously, they’d met down there to talk about things they didn’t want the Latons to know.)
If they had put me on the job, they’d never have lost the body in the first place. But what can I say? Don’t step on my blue suede shoes? Everybody in the world loved me when I was crooning gold and giving away Cadillacs, but Callie’s the only one of the Valentines with a true appreciation of my talents.
Of course, if they’d put me on the job I wouldn’t have met my little French poodle. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not one to get my head turned by every Raquel rottweiler and Shelley sheepdog that walks by. But let a honey like Ann Margret come along and a basset hound can’t help falling in love.
But even fools have to eat.
I sashay over to the garbage can behind the truck stop to see what’s cooking. Coleslaw. Cabbage. Dill pickles. It might do for stray cats but not for a King.
I head down to the farm with Ann Margret trotting along beside me to see what I can find in Ruby Nell’s garbage cans. Day-old meat loaf, half a loaf of Wonder bread, a big hunk of lemon pound cake. The woman’s a kindred spirit. I wonder if she was a basset hound in another life.
After lunch Ann Margret and I take a dip in the lake and are just vegging out under the oak tree when this sleazy-looking character I’ve never seen shows up with his rod and reel. If you ask me, something fishy’s going on, and it’s not catfish.
If I were a Doberman I’d haul off across the pasture and take a bite out of his leg, but I’m nonviolent by nature. I prefer to sit back and see if we can settle our differences by peaceful means.
The stranger meanders around the east side of the lake, looks over his shoulder, then heads toward Ruby Nell’s house.
“Take another step in that direction and you’ll wish you hadn’t, Buck.”
I can smell Buck’s fear all the way over here. Obviously he didn’t see Charlie Valentine coming and neither did I. Maybe the rumors about Charlie are true: a man who can move with that kind of stealth just might be mixed up with the Southern Mafia.
“I was fishing. Your brother said I could.”
“He didn’t know what I know. I’m making you an offer you can’t refuse. You can leave politely and never come near Ruby Nell again or I’ll help you pack and escort you to the state line. You don’t want to have to do that again, do you, Buck?”
Apparently there’s a long history between these two, and I plan to find out about it. But not today.
Charlie watches Buck scuttle back toward his truck, while I take advantage of the diversion to vanish into the woods with my sweet Frenchie. If Charlie sees me, he’ll insist I go home, and I’ve still got a lot of business to take care of.
Elvis has left the building, baby.
Chapter 5
Hot Tips, Hair Spray, and Undercover Bombshells
“Stop, you little troglodyte.”
Lovie’s yelling at the twerp who stole my purse, while I huff along in her wake trying to catch up. You’d think somebody with my long legs couldn’t be outrun by a person three inches shorter and seventy pounds heavier.
“I don’t think he knows what troglodyte means, Lovie.”
I’m panting and there’s a stitch in my side I’m sure will turn into a ruptured major organ any minute.
“When I catch you I’m going to relocate your ears,” she screams right before she pounces.
Both of them go down like felled redwoods. By the time I get there, Lovie’s sitting on the petty thief with her legs crossed. He’s flattened like a frog and fighting for breath.
She tosses my purse to me. “What do you want me to do with this little pipsqueak, Callie?”
“Why don’t we start by pulling his fingernails off?”
“Are you broads crazy? Get off me.”
Lovie bounces a time or two, and you can hear his scream all the way to Mississippi.
“I think that’s too tame,” she says. “I think we ought to break both his knees.”
“You already did, you big tub of lard.”
She boxes both his ears. “Watch your mouth. You ought to be ashamed, talking to your elders like that. Maybe we ought to teach him some manners. What do you say, Callie?”
“We could tie him to the back of your van and drag him along the Strip. It needs a good cleaning.”
“Call the cops,” he begs. “Please, just call the cops.”
Tears are streaming down his face. I almost feel sorry for him, but Lovie shows no mercy. She pats his backside.
“Have a seat, Callie. Let’s think about this awhile.”
I shift trying to get some relief from the stitch in my side and he yells, “Sweet Jesus!”
Lovie winks at me and I pull out my cell phone and give him a reprieve. It takes three of the LVPD to get Lovie up. While one of the officers takes my statement and another cuffs the repentant thief, Lovie asks the third, a fresh-faced young man with red freckles, about Bubbles Malone. Officer Jenkins, according to his badge.
“She was an exotic dancer, I think,” Lovie says. “Probably about twenty-five or thirty years ago.”
“No. I’ve never heard of her.”
That doesn’t surprise me. I have tennis shoes older than this man. But no matter what their age, they all fall victim to Lovie’s charm.
“You’ve just pulled out a thorn in the backside of Vegas,” Jenkins tells her. “We’ve been trying to catch this perp for six weeks. You wouldn’t be looking for a job, would you?”
“You never can tell.”
Flirting is second nature to Lovie. If I don’t get her out of here, she’ll be making a date and teaching Jenkins a few new tricks.
He hails us a cab, but we’re too tired to continue our search so we head back to our motel, where we compare notes while Lovie rubs Bengay on her hips and I put Band-Aids on my blistered heels. Yellow with smiley faces. What can I say? I’m a woman of simple pleasures.
“Are you okay, Lovie?”
“I’m fine.” She rubs Bengay on her thighs, too. “I should have used pepper spray on that little turd.”
I inspect my feet for more damage. “Fayrene’s been wanting some Enzo Angiolinis. I’m giving these to her as soon as I get home.”
One of the reasons I’m so popular in Mooreville is that my customers eventually get my designer shoes, sometimes after they’ve been worn only once.
“This is not working, Callie.”
“What?”
“Just going around asking questions. The minute I open my mouth the locals clam up as if I’m fixing to turn them in for lobbying against Christmas.”
She’s right. At the rate we’re going, we’ll never find Bubbles, let alone the doctor’s body. There’s only one thing to do.
“Lovie, we’re going undercover. And don’t you dare say, been there, done that.”
“Okay, I won’t. What’s plan B?”
“I can get backstage as a hairdresser and makeup artist. You can be my assistant.”
“No, I’ve always wanted to be a star. I’ll pose as a showgirl.”
T
he thought boggles my mind.
She hefts herself off the bed and strikes a come-hither pose and I hit her with a pillow. She tosses it back and we fall into bed.
I’m lying under my sheets dreaming I’m a slot machine and Jack’s just hit triple cherries when my cell phone jars me awake. I scramble for it in the dark, then punch the Talk button while I head toward the bathroom so I won’t wake Lovie. Sitting on the side of the cold porcelain tub with my bare feet on the even colder tile floor, I whisper, “Hello.”
It’s Jack. “I hear you’re in Las Vegas looking for some missing goods.”
“How did you know?”
“I have my ways.”
One of his ways happens to be melting my bones every time I hear his voice. It’s a deep, sexy rumble you’d expect from a man who, without his clothes, looks like he ought to be doing triple-X-rated movies. Also, even with his clothes.
“I’m hanging up now, Jack.”
“Don’t you want to know where I am?”
“No.”
“Close enough to pull your cute buns out of the fire. Call me if you need me, babe.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
Where Jack’s concerned I can’t even come up with a retort that’s not cliché. If I knew a way to cure myself of him, I would. I’ve burned white candles under the full moon, consulted a psychic, and even tried to get on Dr. Phil. But Jack’s like staph in the heart, an infection that just won’t go away.
I tiptoe out of the bathroom, which turns out to be an unnecessary precaution. The way Lovie’s snoring it will take a Judgment Day trumpet call to wake her up. I get into bed and pull up the covers, but my feet are freezing, so I have to get back out again and rummage around in my suitcase looking for socks.
That man’s more trouble than he’s worth. Of course, there was a time Jack was the first person I ran to with my problems. He had a knack for fixing things and making it look easy while not making me feel like a fool for asking.
If I keep following this train of thought, I’ll get derailed and start second-guessing myself about the divorce. I’m not going to think about that tonight. I’m going to be Scarlett O’Hara and think about it tomorrow.
Or whenever we find Dr. Laton and get him back in his casket at Eternal Rest.
I fall into bed and pray for a dreamless sleep, or at least one that does not feature my almost-ex winning my jackpot.
Going undercover is not as easy as it sounds.
First we have to find a casino that will believe Lovie as a hundred-and-ninety-pound bombshell, over-the-hill showgirl.
After spending the morning checking every rundown casino on the Strip we finally end up at our last hope—Hot Tips, a ramshackle club on the fringes that looks as if it saw its best days during the reign of Bugsy Segal.
The owner—a swarthy man smoking a cigar bigger than he is—has no trouble picturing me as hairdresser and makeup artist to the stars. But when Lovie plops the “showgirl wanted” ad in front of him, he nearly swallows his cigar.
“What are your credentials?”
“Les Folie Bergère, Paris. In France I’m a national treasure.”
I knew Lovie had a talent for fiction, but I never knew she could lie with such a straight face.
“Show me what you’ve got,” he says.
“If I show you everything I’ve got, you won’t survive it.”
“You’re hired. Go backstage and let wardrobe find you a costume that fits.”
“That’ll be a miracle on the order of the parting of the Red Sea,” she tells me as we wind our way through darkened hallways that make me want to whip out my cell phone and dial 911.
Finally we find wardrobe behind a plywood door with faded gold lettering. Lovie goes through a pair of gray curtains while I wait in a small, spare sitting area in an uncomfortable straight-backed chair. I’m flipping through an out-of-date fashion magazine as if I have a burning interest in hairstyles from 1996 when she bursts through the curtains.
“Don’t you dare laugh,” she says, and then we both crack up. In full regalia, complete with a ten-foot-tall feathered headdress, she looks like a molting Big Bird.
“I’m showing more skin than the Goodyear Blimp. Why don’t we skip plan B and go straight to plan C?”
“Which is?”
“Something that doesn’t feature me in feathers. I’m itching.”
“That’s why God made Benadryl.”
We have time for a quick supper and a phone call to Mississippi before we head out for our undercover performances. I call Uncle Charlie, partially because he’s more likely to give a coherent report from the home front, but mostly because I’m afraid Mama will find us on her slot machine radar and catch the next plane west.
“I haven’t seen a sign of Elvis, dear heart,” he tells me. “But Ruby Nell and I are still looking.”
“By any chance, has the corpse reappeared?”
I ask this question while crossing my fingers behind my back and making a silent devil-at-the-crossroads promise to give up cute shoes. But only the ones with big price tags.
“No. But at least the Latons haven’t asked to see the body. What about Leonard Laton?”
“The lead’s still hot,” I say, and Lovie rolls her eyes.
“Well, it is,” I tell her after I hang up. “We’re going to find the body. Are you ready?”
“Ready for what? My ass looks like the moon over Miami.”
“Well, all right, then. Let’s get out there and shine.”
Armed with enough glitter hair spray and Cover Girl makeup to paint another desert, we head to Hot Tips.
The parking lot is full and the casino/nightclub is packed. Their public appeal has to be the cheapest drinks in town and the low cover charge, because one quick look backstage tells me these showgirls are mostly has-beens and rejects from the bigger, classier clubs in the heart of the Strip.
Beside them, Lovie looks like a star. I’m glad. I’d hate to have to beat somebody up. But if anybody insults her or makes a wrong move in her direction or even looks at her sideways, I’ll whip off my pink Fendis and smack them with the four-inch heel. I swear to Neiman Marcus.
I leave Lovie getting acquainted with the other showgirls while I spread my makeup at a dressing table under a long bank of lighted mirrors.
“You new here?”
I say yes, and the long-legged exotic dancer plops into my chair.
“See what you can do with this face.” She has grooves deeper than the Grand Canyon, but I’m up to the challenge. “I’m Candi with an i.”
“Nancy,” I say, and start sponging on medium bronze pancake.
When you’re involved in skullduggery, you never know when somebody with a big gun is going to come after you. I smooth a darker shade to define Candi’s cheekbones.
“Say, you’re really good. Have you been at this long?”
“Long enough to wish I could have worked on some of the really big Vegas stars. Like Bubbles Malone. Have you ever heard of her?”
“That name rings a bell. Wait a minute.” She twists around in her chair. “Hey, Divine, come over here a minute.”
A woman with sleek skin as dark as a panther’s glides over. Although I stand six feet in four-inch heels, I’m dwarfed by her.
“Do you remember a dancer named Bubbles?” Candi asks. “Bubbles Malone?”
“Yeah. But she wasn’t Malone back then. She was Bubbles Daily.”
“She was my personal hero,” I say. “I’d just love to meet her. Do you happen to know where she lives?”
“Sure. You got anything to write on?”
Divine scrawls the address in eyebrow pencil on a napkin from Hot Tips, then races to line up for her performance. I’ll have to wait until after the show to tell Lovie.
The houselights go down, and I go up front and grope for an empty seat. Finally I find one beside a man the size of a Whirlpool refrigerator.
The drums roll, the curtains part, and I sit back to watch the moon rise
over Miami.
Chapter 6
Lemonade, Pregnant Cats, and Frozen Stiffs
Armed with a map of Las Vegas and a half-baked plan, we set out at the crack of ten the next morning to pay a social call on Bubbles Malone. Lovie’s driving and I’m navigating. Or trying to. Reading maps is not my strong point.
In a subdivision on the outskirts of town where all the houses look alike and the street names are hidden on little posts the size of toothpicks, I spot a bloodred Ford pickup behind us. The driver is a hulking stranger with a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes.
“Somebody’s following us, Lovie.”
“How do you know?”
“He’s up your tailpipe. And that driver looks like he knows how to use a machine gun.”
She glances in the rearview mirror. “I think it’s my secret admirer from Hot Tips.”
“Who?”
“How do I know? I had so many I couldn’t keep their names straight.”
“Good grief.”
“Besides, if it’s the one I’m thinking, he never did come close enough to introduce himself. I think he’s shy.”
“Then how do you know he’s an admirer?”
“I can smell lust a mile.” She whips onto Cactus Street—Bubbles’ current address if my information is correct—and the Ford truck keeps on going. “See, I told you. He’s shy.”
“Driving a badass Ford F-150 four-by-four with a roll bar and enough lights on top to spotlight every snake in the Painted Desert? I don’t think so.”
“You’re losing it, Callie.”
She pulls into the driveway of 106 Cactus, and parks behind a ’98 Honda hatchback.
“I am not. But you do the talking, Lovie. I’ll conduct the search.” She excels at fiction. She’d have to, to keep so many men on the string.
Lovie and I bail out of the van, priss right up to the front door, and ring the bell. Elvis’ mama and the national treasure of France back down at nothing.
After five rings, the door swings open. It’s hard to recognize Bubbles without six inches of pancake makeup. Her red-rimmed eyes match a red chenille housecoat with most of the chenille rubbed off.