“What?” Hanky looked at me like she did when I told her Jesus’ name.
“You shouldn’t squash up your face like you’re doing. It’s unattractive. What if it freezes like that on you?” I knew full well no one’s face ever froze up despite what every grandmother and mother threatened their children with.
“Are you for real? First you live in this bizarre neighborhood with a real-life cat woman neighbor…”
“Don’t forget she’s a phone sex operator and a palm reader, driving a stolen car,” I added.
“You date a cop and some joker you kissed at a parade—.” She held up her hands to stop me from replying and went on, “Yeah, I heard all about that one—he is cute by the way. I see the attraction…but back to you. Then you tell me you do animal rescue, you named this dog after Jesus (the God pronunciation)—all of which I can buy, but my face will freeze? How old are you—five?” Hanky finished her interrogation and waited with her police face for an answer.
Secretly, I hoped there was some truth to the face freezing myth and it would suddenly happen to Hanky. I hated to admit it, even to myself but she was right. It did sound like I was five.
“As much as I’d like to sit here all night with you and have these sparkling exchanges, I’m thinking we ought to go to that bar so I can get your take on that scumbag bartender. He really rubs me the wrong way,” I said.
“You want to hang out with me?” Hanky was rolling her eyes in mock disbelief as if I thought she wanted to hang out with me.
“No, we are not going to ‘hang out’. Think of it as more of a stakeout. We go to the bar—like we’re friends—and you see this guy. He’ll be happy to tell you about the lottery and ask you to take a chance. We—meaning you—act interested and ask a couple of questions, look around, see if anything looks suspect. You can get a take on the dude. I have this feeling he manipulates Sandra or controls her some kind of way. What d’ya think?” I was trying to come up with a few more reasons in order to talk her into it.
“Okay, let’s go.” Hanky said putting Jesus on the floor and walking toward the door in that God-awful man’s pantsuit she was wearing.
“Wait. What? We can’t just barge in there,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Sit down. We have some work to do first.” I said, “You need a mini makeover,” but I was thinking it was more along the lines of a complete hardware and software upgrade and reboot. “First, I’m going to put some make up on you.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes. Then, we’re changing some of your clothes.” From the hostile look Hanky was giving me I did the circling of one hand in front of her. “Do you want him to make you for a cop soon as we walk in, because this…dressed the way you look right now,” I did more hand circling, “he will.”
Hanky stopped in her tracks and had her hands on her hips, or was it her gun?
I wasn’t sure, so I hastily added, “Not that there’s anything wrong with the way you look now. You look like a cop because that’s what you are, right?” I was back pedaling as fast as I could. “If you want him to think you’re a babe, you have to dress and act like a babe. What size shoe do you wear?”
“I don’t do babe.” She definitely had her hand on her gun and appeared pretty adamant.
“Look, if you don’t like it, I’ll put you back the way you look now. Your shoe size, a six, a seven?
“Seven.”
“Good, that’s what Suzanne wears. Wait here. I’ll be right back, but take off the gun belt and your shirt. Don’t freak. You can put the gun in the back of your pants and I’m going to get you a purse to put the rest of that stuff in.”
“I don’t wear purses,” she tried to tell me while I ran upstairs to plunder Suzanne’s closet.
“You do tonight,” I yelled back over my shoulder.
When I returned, I brought a pair of black high heel pumps and one of my black spandex low-cut tops to go with her black pants suit. I put on black pants and a blazer with black high heel pumps. I thought it made both of us look like DEA or FBI agents, so I changed my blazer to a super oversize white cable knit sweater. It looked more casual, but dressy.
The spandex top was about a size too small on Hanky but it was working. She kept trying to pull it up and I kept pulling it down to reveal her cleavage.
“It’s like a tourniquet on my chest. I feel like I’m in an iron lung,” she said.
“How old are you? I think the last time anyone heard ‘iron lung’ was in the 1940s.”
“I saw it in a movie,” she said.
“You’re a babe, remember? Okay let’s practice in those heels. Walk around.”
I watched her teeter around off balance, catching herself like a kid trying to ride a two-wheel bike for the first time after the training wheels came off. “Wait a minute, those cuffs have to be let down on those pants. Take them off, I’ll have to iron out the crease.”
“The crease stays.” Hanky said.
I knelt down and snipped the places at the seams where the cuffs were held up. “Where did you get this suit? Did you borrow it from Dante? I have a cincher for the back of this jacket. It’ll give it some shape.” I made a circling motion with my finger which indicated I wanted her to keep walking in the heels.
“I hate you,” Hanky said, but she kept practicing in the shoes.
“Keep going, you’re doing…you’re…you can only improve. I’ll go get my makeup. You just have to get in and sit down at the bar, and walk out when we leave. We’ll bring your shoes in the car. You can change them immediately.”
When I came back, she wasn’t as wobbly so I gave her my very large, chic black tote handbag to put all her gun belt stuff in, which she had taken off and put on my table.
She started dumping her handcuffs, Taser, night stick, flashlight, and a money clip she had inside her holster when I held the tote out to her. Now it weighted a ton.
“This too, is like a weapon, so use it to swing at someone if you need to. You won’t have time to rummage around in it trying to find something. Now, see if you can still walk without looking like you are going to do a face plant.”
“Why would someone ever wear, let alone spend money and buy these shoes?” she moaned as she wobbled around the room.
“That whining you’re doing—you sound a lot less cop, and a lot more hot mama,” I joked. “We buy those shoes because they’re beautiful. They make you—well most women—feel beautiful when we wear them.” I watched her adding, “They make you look taller and thinner.”
“I look taller and thinner?” Hanky stopped walking and asked in disbelief. I was surprised too, because she did.
“Yes, those cuffs were sabotaging you and cutting your height. They could also make you trip if a heel catches, so be careful. Okay, enough practice with the shoes. Sit here at the table,” I said pulling out a chair where I wanted her to plop. By now she was starting to do everything I told her to do without an argument. Funny how cooperative a woman wearing uncomfortable shoes can be when distracted by the pain.
“Close your eyes,” I said.
“Why? I want to see what you’re going to do.”
“If you keep them open I’m going to get stuff in them and I can’t put eye makeup on you if they’re open.”
“Oh. I wanted to see how you do this. I’ve never worn makeup.”
“Never? Why?”
“My dad raised me after my mother left and he surely didn’t know much about any girlie stuff. He was a cop so I did what he did.”
“Close your eyes. I’ll freshen mine up after I finish yours and you can watch what I do. You need to put your own lipstick on anyway. Lipstick is hard to put on someone else. I could end up making you look like Ronald MacDonald. I’d rather you do that yourself.”
I dusted her face with a little powder and told her what I was doing before I added anything. I put some highlight around her eyes to brighten them and a little dark eye shadow in the crease. I added some eyeliner and a light touch of
cheek color because she was so pale. I told her to be real still and added mascara. Before I handed her a mirror, I fluffed up her hair and I was just about to hit it with some hairspray when she grabbed my arm to stop me.
“This isn’t mace,” I said. She released my hand. I was glad I took the nightstick away from her before I started this part. I added some big gold clip on earrings, the kind that pinch the tar out of you—if she didn’t shoot me over the shoes, she might over the earrings—and a Fleur de Lis pin on her jacket. The pin was covered in rhinestones so it gave her a little bling and it helped the jacket look less severe. I could feel more Hanky Hate Me coming.
“Open your eyes,” I said. “It’s time to practice walking again. Follow me, I have a full-length mirror on the door in the hall bath.”
When she got up, I handed her the handbag and made her put on the jacket and pulled the top down a little more. I don’t know who was more surprised, Hanky or me, when she looked in the mirror.
She started smiling from ear to ear, and she did look hot. I’d never hear the end of it if Silas saw her now. She watched me as I showed her how to put on the lipstick and while I freshened up my face. I spritzed us both with some perfume.
“Now we look and smell pretty,” I said.
“You think I look pretty?” Hanky asked.
“Of course. Don’t you think you look pretty?”
“I know I’ve never looked this good. I might have to buy me a top like this for work. Where do you get these?”
“At Macy’s, but keep it. I have a dozen more like it.”
“Really? Thanks,” Hanky said as she turned forty-five degrees in each direction from center to admire herself. She even took the mirror and looked at the back of her hair. “I’ll never get my hair to do this again.”
“Yes, you will. I’ll show you when we get back.” I turned her to face me and put my hands on her shoulders like a coach does to his little league players and said, “Now, we’re ready. Off we go, just two friends having a drink at a bar.”
“What if anyone asks what I do?” she had a quasi-panicked look on her face.
“Tell them you work with me, and if they ask I’ll bore them with what I really do so they’ll tune out and won’t ask anymore questions.”
“What if he asks…”
I cut her off. “Look, anything you don’t want to answer, just smile and flirt a little.”
“I don’t flirt.”
“Right.” What was I thinking? “Just smile and think about how much you’d like to shoot them. That will make you smile, right? Better yet, don’t say too much, or they will make you for a cop. Just smile a lot or shrug your shoulders like this.” I handed her the tote.
“I’ll look like a bimbo,” Hanky snapped.
“That’s the idea. You’re a quick study. I’ll ask the questions and you try not to talk. Men think you like them when you smile at them. Correction, they think you want them when you smile at them, and that’s the kind of distraction we’re going for. We’re both blonde and they think we’re ditzy anyway. Let’s use that to our advantage.” I said.
“Wow, I never thought to use ditzy to my advantage,” she said as she followed me out. “You seem to know a lot about men.”
“If you think that, you don’t know me at all. I don’t know squat,” I said. “Oh, and leave your police face here.”
When I opened the front door and she saw the three steps down to street level from my front porch Hanky panicked and stopped. “Are there any steps in there? Maybe we should call for backup?” I grabbed her arm to keep her moving.
“No. We don’t need no stinkin’ backup,” I said in my best low budget Mexican movie accent. “Remember, you’re a cop. You have a gun. Any guy you meet will never, I repeat, never, make you for a cop dressed like this unless you go into cop-speak first.”
“I’d rather stay here with the dog,” Hanky said, resisting my efforts to move her down the steps.
“No, you can’t stay here with the dog, but we can bring Jesus if he makes you feel better,” I said and grabbed Jesus on a leash. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
We stood outside the bar and I figured a last-minute pep talk wouldn’t hurt. I waited until Hanky was standing solid on the high heels. Again, I faced her and put my hands on her shoulders a la Little League.
“I’m Brandy. You’re Zide. Girlfriends use first names. Cops and men call everyone by their last name. Don’t do that, okay?” I didn’t think reminding her too much as to what to do or not do was a bad idea as flashbacks of the cat fight nudged into my memory.
“Remember, smile—try not to talk, just smile. If you have to talk, make your answers brief.”
“I’d rather be back at your house playing with the dog,” she said as I put my hand on the door.
“Play with him here while I schmooze Sully. Feel free to join in—but as Zide, OK?”
Before I opened it, I remembered how dark it was in there and advised Hanky as soon as we got in, not to move, but let her eyes adjust or she’d trip over something and fall. She was holding Jesus.
We stepped inside and as soon as our eyes adjusted I hooked my arm with Hanky’s like we were BFFs and walked her to a seat at the bar. She was acting like a Zombie when I looked at her. Chasing criminals, handcuffing men or shooting someone Hanky could handle, but becoming a babe at light speed was more than she could adjust to this fast.
“Hey, Ladies,” Sully said, and then realized he knew me. “Welcome back. I didn’t think I’d see the likes of you again.” Sully walked his eyes all over Hanky and parked them right at her neckline asking me, “Who’s your friend?” Then to Hanky he asked, “Whatcha havin’ beautiful?”
Hanky said, “I can’t drink, I’m on…”
“Medication.” I cut Hanky off before she could blurt out she was on duty. “Sully, this is my friend, Zide.”
Zide nodded and gave a blank stare. She did look like she was on medication. I looked at Zide and said, “I’ll drink something light with you. They have Barq’s Root Beer, want that? I’m gonna have a tonic with limes.” Hanky was nodding yes.
“Does your dog want something to drink?” Sully asked Zide, still eyeballing her cleavage.
“A bowl of water for Jesus would be nice,” I answered.
“Jesus? You named a dog the Spanish name for Jesus?” Sully started laughing.
“I know. We’re going to be struck by lightning.” I answered for both of us.
“Can Zide speak?” Sully asked Hanky in a way that looked like he was flirting with her.
“Yeah, I speak.” Hanky said and started nodding her head as if to make the point.
I tapped her foot on the floor with mine to try to get her to stop nodding. I got her attention and smiled at her which made her smile like a dog growling and showing his teeth at someone.
“That would be nice if you brought Jesus a bowl of water.” This time she smiled and turned her head slightly. I could swear she was tugging the blouse down in front.
When Sully went to get a bowl for the water, I said, “That’s good. You’re doing great, but remember, this guy is a sleazebag.”
“I met your roommate, the pole dancer,” Sully said when he came back. “She came in here a night or so ago.”
“Suzanne? I think she prefers to be called an exotic dancer. We work opposite schedules,” I said. “I haven’t seen her in a couple of days.”
“Yeah, she came in here with Sandra. They looked like a couple of real chums.” His voice had an edge to it.
“Well, I think they share a cab home some nights when they both work late in the French Quarter. I don’t know that I’d call them chums,” I said and Hanky sipped the Barq’s. “I’d guess you’re more of a chum with Sandra than any of us. Would I be right?”
“What makes you say that?” Sully asked.
“Well, Sandra mentioned she comes here often and that you send her home in a cab on nights she’s had too much to drink. Guys do that for gals t
hey like, right? Are you two dating?” I asked trying to sound like a ditzy blonde. Hanky stopped petting Jesus long enough to give me a ‘what are you doing’ glance while Sully put away some bar glasses.
“Why do you ask that?” Sully stopped working and waited for an answer.
“Sandra seems a little smitten with you, she comes here often and you have the hedge fund pool, that’s all,” I tried to sound like it was the only two dots I could connect.
“We’re just friends,” he said.
“How did you two meet?” I asked.
“I don’t remember. We’ve known each other forever,” Sully answered while he went back to washing glasses.
“So, do you live around here?” Hanky asked, trying to keep some information going.
“Why do you want to know? You gonna send me flowers?” Sully said like it was a joke.
“I’m new in the neighborhood, just trying to know who my neighbors are,” I answered for Hanky looking around the bar as if taking it all in.
“I used to live in the house you’re renting. I’m surprised Sandra didn’t tell you that,” he said, his eyes back on Hanky’s cleavage which was a good thing since I almost dropped my drink.
“Where Suzanne and I live now?”
“Yeah,” he answered, smiling as if he knew he had surprised me.
“No, Sandra didn’t say anything about you living across the street, just someone named Opal who hated her feeding the cats. Did you live with someone named Opal?”
Sully stopped and stood frozen in mid-wash not looking at me. It seemed to be his turn to be surprised. Then he said, “No, no one named Opal. Must’ve been someone before me.”
I gave Hanky the universal eye-move toward the exit indicating it’s time to go.
“Brandy, it’s getting late and we’ve had a long evening. I’m ready if you are,” Hanky said. “Sully, can we have the check?”
Drive Thru Murder Page 18