He drifted a few paces away, out of earshot of Jaz’s adoring public. I followed, intent on having this conversation. Things with this guy didn’t make sense.
“Sometimes my son doesn’t know the line between work and fun,” Johnny finally said, stopping in front of the neighboring antique store and taking another photo of the crowd.
“Is that what you call attacking America and attempting to force her against her will?”
Pain registered in eyes that suddenly looked weary. “My son’s made a lot of mistakes.” Johnny scrubbed a hand over his smooth face. “Kids don’t come with instruction manuals, and Blaze was a challenge from the moment he was born. He almost died at birth, and it’s like he’s been fighting for his place in the world ever since.”
“So he makes his way by assaulting women? And you think sweeping it under the rug helps your son?”
“I’m not excusing that behavior.”
“His or yours?”
Johnny gave a rueful laugh. “Yeah, I’ve screwed up a lot myself—as a parent and as a manager.”
“Your son did something terrible, and you buried it.” Perhaps literally. “I can’t help but notice that with America gone, your son’s secret is now safe.”
“Is it? If you found out, then anyone can.” Johnny shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at the concrete below his expensive loafers. “When my wife died, I shut down. I had three little kids under nine, and no clue how to be a single parent. I threw myself even more into my work and hired a team of nannies. I gave my kids the best of everything—tennis lessons, vacations to exotic locations, shopping sprees. Anything to make myself feel better about my absence. What started out as a coping mechanism turned into a habit. One day I realized I didn’t even know my kids anymore, so I gradually changed my ways. But for Blaze—my oldest—it was too late. He was resentful, uncontrollable, and angry at the world. I felt responsible for that. If I’d been more of a father to him, things would’ve been different. He’d lost his mom, and what did I do? I deserted him. I put work and my own life first.”
“And all these years later, you’re still trying to make up for it. America pressed charges, and you bought her silence by putting her on the concert tour of one of the top performers in the world.”
Johnny didn’t bother looking surprised. “America was a little craftier than that. I did offer to buy her silence, but not with anything as big as a tour with Jaz. I think I offered her money or something else she didn’t really care about. Little did I know, she’d recorded our conversation. By that afternoon, she presented me with a video of my bribe attempt on Blaze’s behalf. She threatened to send it to all my board members, who were already sick of my son’s role in the company. She countered my earlier offer. I let her open for Jaz for the rest of the tour.” He stared back toward the bookshop. “She also gave me six months to let Jaz go.”
“From your management company?”
“Yes.”
“But you hadn’t fired Jaz yet.”
“No. Not yet.”
“Were you going to go through with it?”
His sigh was lengthy and loud. “I don’t think so.”
“But you ignored Jaz to the point that you knew she’d consider leaving you.”
What was worse, a parent like Johnny who did too much or one who was completely hands-off like mine?
“I know this looks bad,” Johnny said. “But I didn’t kill America. My son might walk outside the lines of the law, but I don’t. You think I don’t realize I put out one fire only for my son to throw kerosene on another? The victim and sole witness of my son’s inexcusable behavior might be gone, but the story lives on. I gain nothing from America’s death.”
I wasn’t so sure I agreed. America’s death got rid of Johnny’s blackmail problem, and he still got to keep his biggest client.
Reese Riggins appeared, interrupting any further questions. “Johnny, we need you in the bookstore.” She seemed to move in a constant sprint, barely pausing as she delivered her request. “Jaz wants you for some photos.”
She scurried off, not bothering to wait for an answer.
Johnny took obedient steps in that direction, but stopped and turned back. “Paisley, one day you might have children, and you’ll see the lengths you’d go to protect them. I hope you never find yourself in my position as a parent. Sometimes we make hard choices. And sometimes you realize . . . you chose wrong.”
Johnny walked away, leaving me standing on the sidewalk.
Had I just had a heart-to-heart with America’s killer?
Chapter Twenty-Eight
That evening I parked my car in the driveway and walked my tired, aching body up the steps to my front porch. Crickets chirped, and the humid breeze ruffled the flag hanging from a post. The crescent moon levitated in the sky, a curvy hint of light I’d never paid much attention to until my late-night star-gazing sessions with Beau. We’d spent a lot of time on this porch, but between our jobs and my house guests, we hadn’t done much hand-holding or sky watching of late. Perhaps that’s how he preferred it.
“Hi,” I said to a security guard, whose name I’d yet to learn. “I take it Jaz is here?”
He merely grunted.
“Nice talking to you.” I stepped inside and closed the door. “Mom? I’m home. Sorry, I’m late, I—” What in the name of circus clowns had happened to my living room? My life moved in cinematic slow motion as I stood in the middle of the room, twirling in a full circle as the scent of paint assaulted my nostrils. Had I stepped into a nightmare?
Mirrors. Animal print. Rugs. Gaudy abstract paintings that went from floor to ceiling filled with feminine silhouettes that resembled my least favorite pop singer in the history of music.
“What is this?” Glancing up, I saw at least fifty of me in a collage of diamond-shaped mirrors circling the new chandelier the size of a school bus.
“Paisley, dear.” Smiling, my mother glided down my staircase like Scarlett O’Hara in a sweater set. “Isn’t it fun?”
Fun? “Where’s my TV?” Seriously, was I dreaming? I knew I’d been quite sleep-deprived and caffeine-drunk.
“If you hold that zebra pillow to your ear, you can hear the African Sahara.” Mom walked to the couch and demonstrated.
“Were you here when all this happened?” Gone were my pale gray walls. Instead, I was surrounded by Pepto pink and chartreuse green. They hadn’t even waited ’til the paint was dry to hang their obnoxious “art.”
“Jaz needed a place for a photoshoot tonight. She had a presser about tomorrow’s movie premiere.”
“This is not her workstation. I live here.” I blew out a candle in the shape of a gold coin that smelled like my next allergic reaction. “Did she get Sylvie’s permission? This is her house. Jaz can’t just repaint and bring in all this stuff. Where’s my couch?” My face heated like a fever. “Where’s my beautiful, new comfy couch that cushions my body like a freaking cloud?”
“Paisley, calm down.”
I looked at my mother like she’d sprouted two heads. “What is wrong with you people? Is nothing sacred? Do you and Jaz have daily meetings about how you can disrespect my life? Do you plan out how you’re each going to dismiss everything I value?”
“Now, come on. Don’t be dramatic.”
“This is my life, Mother. This is my house.” My eyes burned with unshed tears. “Stop minimizing me.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.” I breathed through the rush of emotion, desperate to not completely lose it. “You don’t take anything I do seriously. You invited Jaz to stay here without asking me, knowing she’d once ruined my life and never looked back. You’ve spent your entire visit either hobnobbing with social elites or having girl time with Jaz. You take up for her at every turn, and you allowed her to destroy Sylvie’s living room.”
My mother crossed her arms over her cardigan, her necklace swishing against her clavicle bone. “Everything you see here is temporary. Jaz intends to have the sam
e crew come back tomorrow to return your living room just as it was. I wouldn’t have given her permission to redecorate without that assurance.”
She’d given Jaz permission? “You’ve both gone too far.”
“Wait. Where are you going?” My mom called as I climbed the stairs.
“I’m taking a shower.”
“Can’t we talk about this?”
I stomped loud enough to wake the neighbors. “Not unless you can make it disappear.”
After an artful, yet immature slam of my bedroom door, I changed into yoga pants, a t-shirt Beau had no idea I’d stolen, and threw myself on the bed, face down in the pillows. How did my mom and I get to this point? We were practically strangers now. Maybe Sylvie had been right, and I should’ve talked to her. Before Mom gave Jaz permission to turn my living room into a Saharan disco.
I was seconds away from surrendering to the tears when I heard it.
A tap-tap-tapping against my window. Maybe it was Beau, here to save me from drowning in self-pity or doing someone else bodily harm.
The noise happened again, this time, louder. Someone was lobbing pebbles from below.
I knew who I’d find before I even opened my window and looked down into my backyard. “Sylvie and Frannie, what are you doing?”
“The tent is leaving the forest!” Sylvie hollered.
Tugging the elastic from my wrist, I threw my hair into one of the ponytails my mother so abhorred. “I’m not in the mood to decode, so I’m going to need you to translate.”
Frannie stepped out of the shadows. “Jaz’s rapper boyfriend has been spotted at the state line, headed to Oklahoma.”
“So?”
“So?” Sylvie said. “Where’s he going? What’s he doing? Are there shenanigans involved? Any observances of tomfoolery?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he has a hankering for an Amish bakery. Can we have this conversation inside?”
“We’re not going in there,” Sylvie said. “You’ve got crazy people in your house.”
She didn’t know the half of it. If my grandma saw her living room, she’d pull out every CIA torture tactic she knew.
“Tee Pee’s headed to Oklahoma every night this week,” Frannie said.
I rubbed a sore spot on my forehead. “How do you know that?”
Frannie threw up her hands. “Can we stick with the important facts here?”
I thought I was. “What exactly is it you want to do about this?”
“Follow him,” Sylvie yelled.
“Are you two tracking his car?”
Sylvie and Frannie stared up at my window like two holy angels. “Who, us?”
“Forget it.” Jaz could solve her own stupid murder mystery. “I’m tired, my head hurts, and all I have to eat is a frozen dinner and a stale pack of crackers.”
Sylvie swatted away a bug. “We’ll take you through Dixie Dairy. Will you go if I buy you a cheeseburger?”
“No.”
“A cheeseburger and shake?”
“I’ll be right down.”
“This is it.” Sylvie checked an app on her phone and pointed to the turnoff from Highway 412.
“The Lucky Horseshoe?” The large casino was one giant beacon on the tiny map dot that was West Siloam. It blinked and flashed with a mammoth sign that promised frequent winners, big payouts, and the cheapest steak in town. Cars parked as far as the eye could see, and across the street were pawnshops, all-night loan services, and a diner that served waffles round the clock.
Sylvie had declined to explain this tracking app she had, and it was probably better for my nonexistent rap sheet that I didn’t know. According to the app, Tee Pee’s car had parked at the Lucky Horseshoe half an hour ago.
Our trio of vigilante crime fighters walked to the golden double doors of the casino, where Sylvie paused at a poster of current and upcoming entertainment.
“Oh, my gosh. Be still my heart, Frannie. It’s the Boy Wonders.”
Frannie fanned herself with post-menopausal precision. “Here? At the Lucky Horseshoe? Do you have any idea how badly I wanted to see them back in the day?”
“Who are the Boy Wonders?” I stifled another yawn as the smell of cigarette smoke wafted our way. What was it about smoking and casinos? Did the cigs make people more likely to win? Did the mushroom cloud of carcinogens make the world beneath it seem more ripe for a jackpot?
“You don’t know who the Boy Wonders are?” My grandmother regarded me with no small amount of disdain. “Why, only the sixth hottest boy band of our youth. Tell her, Frannie.”
“They were four surfers from Topeka.”
Surfers from Kansas. That was about all I needed to know.
Frannie’s voice lightened with all the adoration of a teenage crush. “They sang songs about the beach while their girly, swimsuit-wearing backup singers rode giant mechanical surfboards behind them on stage. You’d go to a show and get hosed down with water.”
“And the sand,” Sylvie said. “Don’t forget all that sand they’d throw. You’d be picking that stuff out of your hair for weeks!”
“Sounds delightful.” I bypassed a waitress carrying watered-down drinks. “Makes the aerial stunts we did at our shows seem like amateur hour.”
“Well, we didn’t want to put it that way, but okay.” Frannie’s Birkenstocks scuffed across the vivid carpet. “I haven’t thought of the Boy Wonders in years. Sylvie, remember how they’d bring up some girls from the audience, and they’d get to ride the surfboards? It looked impossible to stay on.”
“I do, indeed. Never got picked no matter how loud I screamed or elbowed people out of my way.”
“Me neither,” Frannie said. “It’s like the dream never dies though, you know?”
“Nuh-uh.” I grabbed both ladies by the hand like a mom pulling over my car. “There’ll be no surfing tonight. We’re here to keep an eye on Little Tee Pee, not throw your bras on the stage and fulfill some sandy old fantasy.”
Frannie snorted. “This bra cost more than my first car. Ain’t no man worth this undergarment. But we can still take a little peek in on the show. Just catch a few minutes?”
“After we put in some work.” How did these ladies ever get their missions accomplished in the CIA? “We find Tee Pee first.”
“Right. Find Little Saggy Britches.” Sylvie patted her large purse. “I’ve got my disguise. Frannie?”
My aunt gave us pistol fingers. “Fannie pack is fully loaded. Lead the way to the bathroom. Paisley, where’s your disguise?”
I frowned at the two Bond girl wannabes. “No disguises. Mingle and blend in. Play some machines, chat with the regulars. We don’t have time for fake noses and prosthetics.”
Frannie and Sylvie exchanged a look and shook their heads.
“Where did we go wrong, Sylvie?”
“Not sure, Frannie. Next, she’ll stick signs on us that say ‘I’m undercover. Please look at me.’”
Frannie looked toward the colorful ceiling. “Mmm, mmm, mmm. Lord, help us.”
The two disappeared into nearby bathrooms. Five minutes later, Sylvie appeared, then thirty seconds later, out came Frannie.
Sporting a black poodle-curl wig, Sylvie leaned on a cane that she’d hid God knows where and made her way toward me. She wore thick glasses that couldn’t hide her newly attached unibrow and a tracksuit that looked like it had gone to the 1984 Olympics only to come in last. “Hi, toots. I’m Margie. I like the craps tables and men who buy me drinks. See you around.”
I shared this woman’s DNA. This should keep me up at night.
Frannie sauntered to a slot machine a few feet away. Her low-cut Grateful Dead t-shirt, high-waisted jeans, and neon green flip-flops were a sight to behold, and I wasn’t sure what her overall costume theme was other than “Things You’d Find at Frannie’s Garage Sale.” She reached into her expansive cleavage, extracted a quarter, and stuck it in the machine. “Destiny Dawn is the name,” she said in my direction. “And slots are my game. I used to be a lou
nge singer in the ’70s. I had a fling with Barry Manilow’s third cousin, twice removed. He ruined me for any other man, so I’ve spent decades trying to get over him . . . one casino after another.” She patted the seat by her in an invitation I ignored. “And you are?”
“Wondering why I didn’t come alone.”
Frannie laughed and yanked down the lever, sending the display to spinning and beeping. “Everyone comes here looking for something. Hope you find whatever it is you’re after.”
Destiny Dawn was a walking, talking, poorly-dressed fortune cookie.
In the years following the demise of the Electric Femmes, I’d performed the casino circuit, beginning with the big ones in Vegas, then eventually, as my celebrity status ebbed, I was lucky to get gigs at small joints, opening up for acts like Rowdy Robert’s Cher Impression Show and Polly’s Parade of Pop Singing Parrots. Besides being a sensory overload of sounds, smells, and sights, casinos were a part of my rock bottom story, and I felt the remnants of shame now as I walked by a poker table and smelled smoke and cheap cologne. I recalled the many nights of washing down my misery with a stiff drink just to push myself on stage. Casinos contained so many sad stories, and those desperate tales rang out with every chime of a slot machine, every call of a table attendant. I inhaled a deep breath of stale air and reminded myself that tonight I could walk out these doors, knowing I was safe, employed, and no longer lived in that place of desperation.
Fifteen minutes later, I was down five bucks and working on my second club soda when I found Little Tee Pee.
I heard his “Whoa dude,” first, pulling my attention to a blackjack table. He sat in a black leather stool, pulled close. His fellow players were a mismatch of folks including two men in suits, two white-haired ladies, and a man in a beret who looked more beatnik poet than card shark. Cards and multi-colored game chips littered the green table, and the dealer presided over it all with an easy smile. Little Tee Pee wore his sideways ball cap and signature baggy shorts. Three fawning women stood behind his stool like giggly cheerleaders, watching his every move and cooing encouragement. Tee Pee didn’t have much of a poker face, and I recognized that look of defeat that pulled at his features. Was Tee Pee losing more than just a casino game?
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