Lucky Stiff (Lucky O'Toole Vegas Adventure Book 2)

by Deborah Coonts

  “I said NOW!” he bellowed.

  That shout brought Jordan skidding into the room.

  “You!” Teddie pointed at him. “You caused all of this.”

  “Afraid it was you, old buddy.” With one look, Jordan sized up the situation.

  Rudy, clad only in a pair of boxer briefs, skidded in next to him.

  Teddie’s eyes flew open, then he blinked as if trying to process what he saw. “Hey, Rudy. What’re you doing here?” Then Teddie looked at me, his bloodshot eyes as big as saucers. “One wasn’t enough? You needed two?”

  In the silence that followed that remark, I said, “They’re together, you ass.”

  “Wha... ?” Teddie looked first at Jordan, then to Rudy, then back again. “Together? Like...” Teddie pantomimed the sex act.

  Jordan nodded and gave him a pained smile. “I told you, you would really regret making a horse’s butt out of yourself.”

  “Whoa!” With that, Teddie let go of the couch, staggered, then landed in a heap on his butt. He held his head in his hands. “Man, I feel like I’m on the Tilt-A-Whirl—I wish you guys would stand still.”

  Jordan elbowed Rudy. “Come on. Let’s take care of the poor sot. I think we owe Lucky at least that.”

  The two men each grabbed an arm and pulled Teddie from the room.

  “Make sure he’s sober for his studio session tomorrow at two with Reza Pashiri at the Palms,” I hollered after them.

  Jordan gave me a wave as the three of them disappeared toward the guestrooms.

  Knowing slumber was over for the night, I went in search of coffee.

  * *

  THE sky still dark, I thought I could see a very faint brightening in the east, although it might have been my imagination. I had no idea what time it was, and I didn’t care. Showered and caffeinated, I started my day. This time, I called for a limo to come get me and take me to work.

  Nose to the grindstone, head down, I powered through the paperwork on my desk. Down to the last few items, like a racehorse charging to the finish, I didn’t even look up when the outer office door opened.

  “Who died?” Miss Patterson asked from the doorway.

  I held up one finger then signed my name on the last paper, finishing with a flourish. Placing it on the top of the stack in my out basket, I looked at her. “What?”

  “You’re looking a bit worse for wear and positively funereal in black. Who died?”

  “Innocence? Good sense? Me?”

  Her mouth set in a thin line, she stared at me for a moment. “You’re not going to tell me what you mean by that, are you? Or why you look like death warmed over?”

  “Let’s just say, it was an interesting evening.” I glanced at the clock. Nine a.m., time to get a move on if I was going to deliver a virgin for sacrifice.

  I handed her my phone, then ducked into the closet for my purse. “Can I borrow your car? I need a car that holds more than two, and yours is the most convenient.”

  “Today’s the virginity auction, isn’t it? I’d almost forgotten.” Miss Patterson rooted in her purse, extracted the keys, then dropped them into my outstretched hand. “I’m going to have to start charging you rental.”

  “Add it to the list of everything else I owe you.” I pocketed the keys. “What do you imagine people will think when I show up at a virginity auction in a politically correct car?”

  “That you’re schizophrenic?”

  “Or that I’m not committed?” We grinned at each other. “Thanks for the car. In case you want me, you’ll have to use the pager. I’m killing my phone when I get to Mother’s. I won’t be able to do much from there—if the place is anything like it was yesterday, we’ll be lucky to get out alive.”

  * * *

  THE door to Bungalow Two stood open, so I walked in. “Arrianna?” Like a virginal vision, the girl materialized before me, dressed in a white sundress and white sandals—both of which had probably been charged to my office. Mona’s bill was climbing into serious five figures.

  Motioning to my own attire, I said, “We clearly have divergent views of the day.”

  That elicited a wobbly smile from the girl, but nothing more. “So, are you ready?”

  * * *

  AUNT Matilda tottered out of the French Quarter, balancing on a cane and four-inch heels, as I pulled up. A valet opened the door and helped her settle herself in the passenger seat. She didn’t tip him.

  “I thought you’d never get here,” she groused. “What if your mother starts without us?”

  I hooked my thumb toward the backseat. “She can’t. We’re bringing the sacrificial lamb.” I made the appropriate introductions, then motored out of the parking lot.

  Like an auctioneer sizing up a rare gem, Aunt Matilda gave the girl a long stare. “You ought to bring a pretty penny.”

  Why did she sound exactly like the Wicked Witch of the West to me? I’ll get you my pretty, and your little dog, too.... A shiver chased down my spine. “What is it with you and Mother?” I snarled. “When did you decide everything had a price? Including sex and innocence?”

  Aunt Matilda turned her rheumy eyes on me. “Sex always made you uncomfortable.”

  “Not sex. Casual sex.” I turned onto the on-ramp for the 215, pressed the accelerator, then waited for something to happen. And waited. Actually, I expected anemic performance from a car with less horsepower than a lawnmower, but this was ridiculous—I could run faster. At this rate, we’d hit highway speed about the time we reached Pahrump.

  “What’s so bad about casual sex? You should climb off that high horse, before someone knocks you off—learn to enjoy some of the baser pleasures of life.”

  “If nothing has value, then what can you hope for? Without hope, I would be like you... or Mother.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my words hit her like a slap. I didn’t feel bad—she’d made her choices, I’d made mine, and we both had to live with the paths we’d taken. “When did you two become so jaded?”

  “You always thought you were better than us.”

  “Not hardly.” I gripped the steering wheel and cringed as I saw an eighteen-wheeler barreling down on us in the rearview mirror. “You ladies did an impressive job carving out the lives you did. I wanted something different, though.” I wanted different all right, and I sure got it—I didn’t add that part. I shut my mind to Teddie—I didn’t know what to think about all of that, so I didn’t.

  With a tug on the horn, the driver eased the big truck into the outer lane and charged past. One near-death experience averted, I had the sinking feeling it wouldn’t be our last. “Call me crazy, but I still believe in true love—even in this town.”

  Aunt Matilda stared out the side window. All was quiet in the backseat.

  True love? Who was I kidding? The words sounded hollow, even to me.

  * * *

  THE traffic jam started about five miles outside of town. Lucky for me, I was a native, and knew all the burro paths that would get us around the worst of it. As we bumped over rutted dirt roads, I was glad I hadn’t brought the Porsche or a Ferrari. Of course, Miss Patterson might be less than pleased when she saw her car, but I’d think of some way to make it up to her.

  Pulling the Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock out from under Metro’s microscope would go a long way in that direction. For most of the drive, I had pushed possible scenarios around in my mind, trying to find a connection.

  Of course, pretty early on, it had dawned on me that Numbers could have been stung by one of our millions of bees on the loose that night and simply died. The one fly in that ointment was, if she died like that, why the shark tank? Which raised another question: Who tossed her in? And wouldn’t she have one of those epinephrine pens all the highly allergic folks carried, just in case? So where was that?

  I had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t just one bee, but Romeo would tell me for sure.

  One of the sheriffs deputies manned a roadblock at the entrance to an alleyway leading behind Mona’s. In his green unifor
m shirt, beige pants, combat boots, and flat-brimmed hat, he looked like a kid playing dress-up. Was the sherriff’s office recruiting them right out of middle school now? I bet he only had to shave once a week, if that. When did the whole world get so much younger? And when did we start giving them sidearms?

  I rolled down the window and stuck my head out as I eased to a stop.

  Before I could say anything, the child pretending to be a deputy tipped his hat at me. “Ma’am,” he said, making my day.

  ‘I’m the delivery service.” I motioned with my head toward the backseat. “She’s the center ring attraction in today’s circus.”

  “Ma’am?”

  If he said that one more time, I’d show him what his gun was for. I felt like I had one foot in the grave already—I didn’t need him to give me a shove. “I’m Lucky O’Toole, Mona’s daughter. The young lady in the back is the one being auctioned today.”

  “Really?” The kid bent down and stared at Arrianna, then recognition dawned. “Hey, Ari! I haven’t seen you since high school.” Then he turned to me. “We went to school together.”

  “So I gathered.”

  The boy whistled. “Man, I didn’t know it was you that’s got the town in such a dither, but I should have known. You always could get ‘em all lathered up.”

  “Thank you for that insight,” I said. “Could we go now?” Clearly I had left my sunny disposition at home.

  He patted my windowsill then stepped back. “Good luck. It’s a feeding frenzy up the road a piece.”

  I left him in a cloud of dust.

  As Mona’s came into view, I realized that, along with being really irritating, our young deputy was prone to gross understatement. Yesterday’s mob had multiplied overnight and now filled not only the front parking lot but also the side yards. A few intrepid souls even filtered around the back.

  Ignoring all of them, I positioned the car so Arrianna would have the shortest run to the backdoor, then called Mothers cell number. “We’re out back,” I said, when she answered.

  The sheriff and a couple of deputies appeared and ushered the main attraction into the house. They left Aunt Matilda and me to fend for ourselves. Once I had her settled in the front sitting room with an appropriate beverage, I made a circuit of the house to assess the situation.

  Obviously, access was carefully controlled—I was the only living creature patrolling the common areas of the ground floor. Pots clanged behind the door to the kitchen and snippets of music filtered down from the upper floors, so I wasn’t alone in the house, but you couldn’t prove it by me.

  I peeked through the lace curtains on the front window. Like a pack of rabid dogs, various reporters with cameramen in tow patrolled the front lawn looking for fresh meat. A scrum of men knotted in front of a large screen off to the side of the house—either Mother had been busy or I’d been particularly unobservant, but I didn’t recall seeing it yesterday. Reminding me of the stock exchange ticker, real-time bid information marched across the screen. Men waited in line at computer terminals, which sprouted in the yard like electronic weeds.

  People of all shapes and sizes packed the parking lot. Some of them I recognized as locals. Off to the side, a group of women and men marched—the same group of thumpers I had seen yesterday. The same black-clad man, holding a Bible aloft, spurred them on.

  One enterprising fellow served food and refreshments from his weenie wagon, which he had wedged in between the news trucks across the street. His sign advertised homemade tamales and funnel cakes—an interesting combination. My stomach growled at the thought. I would pay for it, but tamales were definitely in my immediate future.

  A door slammed upstairs and I heard the telltale clacking of Mona’s stilettos on the stairs.

  At the same time, a middle-aged man, his jeans hanging low under his burgeoning belly, darted from the parlor. He stopped in front of me, tilted his head back, and looked at me through a pair of reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. I guess I must’ve been blurry because he lowered his head, then gazed at me over the top of the glasses. “Do I know you?” he asked.

  “No.”

  He looked relieved—I didn’t know what that meant. “Do you know where Mona is? The servers are overloaded. We’ve blown a fuse!” He ran an unsteady hand through his thinning hair as his eyes darted around the room. “I can’t keep up with the volume of bids coming in.”

  “The fuse box is in a panel in the laundry room off the kitchen. Does that help?”

  With a scowl at me, he darted through the door to the back of the house.

  I met Mother in the foyer, at the bottom of the stairs.

  Smartly dressed in a black suit with a gold lame sweater underneath, black hose with a gold seam down the back of each leg, and black leather Ferragamos with gold buckles, she was the picture of calm, cool, and collected—if you overlooked the sheen of perspiration above her upper lip. She fixed me with a cold stare. “Where’s our girl?”

  “Upstairs, preparing herself.” The tone of my voice matched hers. “And you’re welcome.”

  With a nod, she dismissed me as she strode to the front door and opened it a few inches. “Send in the next one,” she said through the crack.

  The door opened to admit a reporter and cameraman.

  “Over here,” Mona ordered, as she took a stance in the curve of the staircase. “Any time you’re ready.”

  The cameraman set up the shot, the lights came on. “We’re rolling,” he said, his eye glued to the eyepiece.

  The reporter stepped in next to Mother, thrust a mike in her face, and said, “Mona, as owner of this establishment, how do feel about being called the leader of the attack on American morality?”

  This ought to be good. I crossed my arms and leaned against the front door.

  Mother gave the camera an elegant smile. “Morality is a luxury of the middle class. It’s all well and good when you have food on the table and a roof over your head.”

  Whoo boy. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you... I hoped the Big Boss wasn’t watching.

  If Mother was counting on me to ride to her rescue again, she had a rude fall coming. She could stew in her own juice for all I cared. Maybe the scorching would teach her a lesson—doubtful, but I’m a bit of a Pollyanna, so hope springs eternal.

  Glancing at my watch, I opened the front door and eased outside. I still had fifteen minutes, and those tamales were calling my name.

  Call me shallow, but, as I wandered through the crowd listening to snippets of conversation, I was sorta enjoying the comeuppance I saw in Mother’s future.

  I nodded at two men I recognized as locals. “Mr. Beckwith. Mr. Perkins.”

  Mr. Beckwith had been caught with his pants down in the girl’s bathroom at the local high school. Mr. Perkins was caught doin’ a cute little redhead at the local Dairy Queen. When his wife had gotten word of his shenanigans she’d chased him around the kitchen with a butcher knife until the law had arrived.

  As I eased past them, the two men glared at me as if I had a scarlet letter tattooed on my forehead. “Your mother gives prostitution a bad name,” one of them hissed at me.

  Explanations would be futile—those two didn’t think with the heads above their shoulders. I resisted pointing out the obvious—they weren’t exactly stellar examples of the Y chromosome set either.

  And they weren’t entirely accurate. Mother was one of the white hats in a black business. This virginity auction was an anomaly for her. Rescuing young women from their bad choices was more her style. I don’t know how many she’d taken off the street, cleaned up, provided with an education, and sent on their way. Throwing this one to the wolves... well, I couldn’t figure it out at all. I wondered what was going on. Did I really want to know? Probably not.

  Pausing next to the sheriff, I watched as his deputies herded the picketers across the street. ‘I’m glad you’re taking them out of Mona’s range,” I said. “That could get ugly.”

  A day’s stubble
dotting his cheeks, his uniform wilted, the sheriff looked ready to crumple where he stood. “I had to threaten to shoot them before they finally moved,” he said. “It’s some outfit from somewhere in Kentucky. They travel around the country sticking their noses into other people’s business.”

  This was tantamount to a felony in Nevada—a mind-your-own-damned-business state. “Remember the guy that railed against the sex trade by day, then availed himself by night?” I asked the sheriff, who smiled at the memory.

  He had a bit of chewing tobacco stuck in his front teeth. “As I recall,” he said, “the dude liked men, which made it even better.” He pulled a bandana out of his back pocket, doffed his hat, then dabbed at his brow. “Do you happen to know what the high bid is now?”

  “Haven’t a clue,” I said curtly.

  The sheriff didn’t take the hint. “My daughter buys stuff on eBay all the time,” he said. “She told me it’s best to wait until the very last few seconds, then throw in your bid. What do you think?”

  This man was going to have to stop asking me what I thought. Any minute I might lose control and give him both barrels. “I’d defer to experience,” I said, gravely.

  He chewed his lip as he tried to muster a thought.

  Shoulder to shoulder, we stood for a moment watching the throng as they jostled to place bids at the terminals. The chanting of the picketers provided an interesting soundtrack.

  Finally, the sheriff broke our silence. “So, what do you think about all of this?”

  “Personally, I’m against prostitution,” I deadpanned. “I don’t think anybody ought to have to pay for sex.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I HAD wolfed down two tamales when I felt a hand on my elbow.

  “Ms. O’Toole?”

  One linger to my lips as I worked to finish a bite, I nodded. “I thought that was you,” the young man said. “I’m Charles. After your call last night, I raced to the airport. You know the Bay Area—the fog was rolling in fast. I wouldn’t be surprised if my plane was the last one out.”