Ivy Get Your Gun

by Cindy Brown

  Billie had called and asked me to come in early for a costume fitting. That didn’t quite account for her effusive manner. I wondered why she’d turned on the charm. Oh, stop it, Ivy. Sometimes I didn’t like the way that PI work made me question everyone’s motives. Maybe Billie was just being nice. Maybe she was happy to have a woman to talk to. Maybe she really liked costume fittings.

  I did. Especially when the costume looked like the first one she handed me. “Wow. Did you make this?”

  Billie nodded. “You know us theater folk. Best to do a little bit of everything in order to stay employed.”

  “This is amazing.” I fingered the ankle-length dress, white lawn and lace with a high Victorian collar. I was just about to ask her about the row of Velcro that split the costume up the front when she said, “Chance won’t be able to take his eyes off you. He loves the whole lacy girly look.”

  Okay, that was weird. “Aren’t you two, you know, like a couple?”

  “Not really. He’s way too young for me.” She sighed and sat down in a wooden chair. I sat in one that was conveniently placed next to it. Given the carefully positioned seating, the just-the-two-of-us costume fitting, and Billie’s over-the-top friendliness, I was beginning to think I was being set up. Did she want to tell me something? What?

  “I should have never slept with him.”

  Oh, that. But why was she confiding in me? Was she afraid that Chance didn’t shoot Mongo by accident? Or did she know it for sure and was throwing Chance under the bus? “Why not?” I asked.

  “I was Mongo’s woman.”

  Maybe it was guilt over her infidelity.

  “We’d been together over ten years. But I was getting pissed off at Mongo. He was…unreliable.”

  “Didn’t Chance say something about him taking off?”

  “Yeah, he’d go off for a week at a time. Sometimes more.”

  “Do you think he had a drinking problem? Or gambling?”

  “No.” Billie bit the word off, like she wanted to end that line of thinking right there. “But I always wondered if he had another woman. One time I found…”

  “Strange panties?” I did need to keep up the ditz role.

  Billie wisely ignored me. “I don’t know if it was letter or a poem. But it was romantic. I found it when I was putting away some of his laundry, stashed in the back of a drawer. I put it back, hoping he’d show it to me sometime. But he never did, so…” She shrugged. “The last time he took off, I took up with Chance.”

  “Revenge sex, huh?”

  “Maybe. Mostly I felt sorry for him.”

  “Really? Chance seems like a pretty tough guy.”

  “He’s not what he—never mind.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ivy,” said Billie, “you’re young. You’re going to figure out eventually that no one is who they seem.” She stood up. “Speaking of which, you can drop the airhead routine.”

  “What do you mean?” I said again in the highest, most breathless voice I could.

  Billie laughed. “Overkill, darlin’. I can tell you’re not stupid. Can see it in your eyes. I know why you’re playing the role, but you can drop it around me, okay?”

  Oh no. How did she figure out I was a detective?

  “I’ve played that role too. It’s helpful. You got to give men what they expect. Don’t want to rock the boat when they own the sea. But when it’s just us women, you can be yourself, smart and all.”

  “You played that role too?” I used my real voice but treaded carefully. After all, Billie might be trying to catch me off guard.

  “Sure. It’s just one version of the two parts we women get to play in life.”

  “Two parts?”

  “Now come over here and try on this other costume.” Billie held up a saloon girl’s dress. The top was green satin with a low square neck trimmed in black lace. The bottom half was green and black striped satin—and too short by about a foot and half.

  I held it up. “This doesn’t fit the period.”

  “It’s what the boss man wants.”

  I wrangled myself into the stupid, ridiculous, woefully inaccurate costume and finally got it on. “Too tight,” I said when I could breathe again.

  “Nah. It’s gotta be form-fitting to fit under the other costume.” Form-fitting my ass. This was form-sucking. I felt like I’d been Press-and-Sealed. Billie picked up the white Victorian dress. “You wear this one over it.” She ripped open its Velcro front. “It’s a tear-away, see? You just step offstage and pull it off when you change from Rose to Fannie.”

  I looked at myself in the full-length mirror. Yikes. The top was cut so low I’d have to use double-stick tape to keep it in place, and the skirt was, well, we’d have to rethink some of the blocking if we wanted to keep it a family show. I’d worn my share of revealing costumes before, but this one looked like gratuitous sex in a B-grade movie. “Can we please fix this one?”

  “Nope. Came down from the top. Better get used to it, Ivy. It’s kinda like life. Like I said earlier, you get two choices: Madonna.” She held up the white ingénue dress, then pointed at my ridiculous saloon girl’s outfit. “Or whore.”

  Chapter 24

  “If you had to choose, would you prefer white lace panties or black crotchless ones?”

  Matt chewed thoughtfully. “Actually, I like boxers.”

  I swatted him with a napkin. “On me.”

  “I bet you’d look pretty good in my boxers.” He stood up from the table. “Let’s see. Right now.”

  “Are you trying to get me naked when I want to have a serious conversation?”

  “A question about black crotchless panties precedes a serious conversation?”

  “This time it does.” We were sitting at my kitchen table, finishing up one of my fancier bean suppers, white Cannelloni beans with mushrooms and garlic. Ooh la la.

  I told Matt about my conversation with Billie that afternoon. “Do you think men divide women into two groups?”

  “No. It’s an awfully black and white view of the world. That said, the question you just asked was black and white too.” He smiled.

  That was one thing I loved about Matt. Sometimes I was too satisfied with life’s easier answers. He made me dig a little deeper. It was good for me as a PI, and as a person. “Okay, do you think women have fewer choices than men?”

  “Absolutely. Women aren’t even allowed to go to school in some parts of the world.”

  “Do you think things are getting better?” I had my own opinion, but I wanted to hear a man’s point of view. Well, Matt’s point of view.

  “Well, in the last hundred years or so, women’s rights have come a long way.”

  I saw in his eyes that he wasn’t done thinking about the question. “But?”

  “But things aren’t equal. We still have a pay gap, for instance. Twenty-one percent.”

  “Twenty-one percent? You’re kidding.”

  He shook his head. “Read it last week in the Wall Street Journal. How old do you think Billie is?”

  “Forties?”

  “Where did she grow up?”

  “Not sure. Somewhere here in Arizona, I think.”

  “Depending on where and when she grew up, in what type of household, community, religion, etcetera, those two roles may have been the only options presented to her.”

  “But things are different for woman in the twenty-first century in a city the size of Phoenix, right? They’re different for me?”

  “Sometimes. I suspect there are times when you’re treated differently from men.”

  “I certainly have to wear scantier costumes than they do.”

  “But to me,” Matt reached a hand across the table and enclosed mine, “you aren’t Madonna or a whore. You’re the one and only Ivy Meadows, and I am lucky to be your man.” He squee
zed my hand. “But since we’re having a serious conversation…”

  Oh no. “Are you done with dinner?” I tried to grab his plate with my free hand.

  “Yes, but…” Matt moved his plate out of my reach. “Ivy, I get the feeling that our problem—”

  “It’s not a problem. And even if it is, it’s just temporary.”

  “—that our problem has more to do with you than Cody.”

  Confession time. Though Matt and I had been friends for a couple of years and dating for nearly four months, I hadn’t told anyone. Not Cody, not Uncle Bob, not Arnie or Marge. Not only had I not told anyone and sworn Matt to secrecy, I didn’t want us out in public as a couple. Not yet.

  “It’s only while you’re still working with Cody.” I dropped Matt’s hand and stood up, placing my silverware on my plate. I walked the few steps to my kitchen sink. “You’ll graduate in two weeks. Isn’t that soon enough?”

  Matt had been studying for his Masters in Social Work and already had a job lined up after graduation.

  “It is, but I still think Cody could handle the news now—could have handled it earlier if we’d told him.” Matt followed me to the sink with his dirty dishes. “He’s an adult, Ivy. He understands, and I’m pretty sure he’d be happy for us.”

  “That’s just it. I don’t want him get all excited and then…” I turned on the water, too hard. It splashed me, and I backed away into Matt, who stood behind me.

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know.” I turned the water down. “And then it doesn’t work out.”

  “Ivy.” Matt put his plate on the counter and turned me gently by the shoulders. “Do you want this to work out?”

  “Yes.” Why was my heart beating so fast? After all, we were already lovers.

  “I do too. So it will.” Matt kissed me gently on the lips. “It will.”

  Chapter 25

  As Marge opened the door, I heard Arnie in the background: “Cookie, Cookie, listen while I sing to you…”

  “I don’t know that one,” I said. “Is he singing to someone named Cookie or to a baked good?”

  “Probably both.” Marge let me in and closed the door. “You want one with some coffee? A baked good, I mean. I’ve got some rugelach. It’s too early for cookies.”

  “It’s too early for anything. Except coffee. And maybe a rugelach.” It was not quite eight in the morning. I wasn’t usually awake until nine, mostly because I had a hard time going to sleep before two in the morning. Actors’ hours. But this morning I’d hunted for Chihuahua and pug tracks near the golf course water hazards. I did see some tracks, but they looked too big to be footprints of the little dogs.

  I walked into the living room, where Arnie sat in a recliner with his leg propped up in front of him.

  “You are looking good!” said a tinny voice. No one around except for Arnie, who brimmed with suppressed glee. “It’s the clock.” He pointed at a mirrored clock that hung on the wall. “Every hour, it says an affirmation. You want one for Christmas?”

  “If I told you, then I wouldn’t be surprised. Hey, I brought you something.” His eyes lit up at the sight of the gift-wrapped box I placed in his lap. “I wish it was Lassie.” The spark in his eyes extinguished. Dang, would I ever learn to think before speaking?

  “It’s okay.” He smiled, but his bottom lip trembled. “I’m sure he’s out there having a ball. Probably the big cheese with all those little Chihuahuas.” Arnie opened his present. “Hey, this is great.” He smiled for real now.

  “It’s an air-conditioned tie.” I pointed out the little fan hidden in the tie’s knot. “You charge it with the cable that’s in the box. It plugs into a USB port. And sorry to follow up a gift with a request, but…” I explained how the wildlife cameras might help us find Lassie. Arnie agreed to buy four of them before I even finished my spiel.

  “And did I tell you I’ve been peeing in a cup?” he said.

  Oh no. “Are you having tests done or…?”

  “It’s to help lure Lassie home,” he said. “Somebody told me about it. You put cups of pee around the borders of your house. He smells them, thinks of you, and comes home.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Seems like that would only work if you smelled like pee.”

  His face fell. Dang again, Ivy. “Hey,” I said. “You want some rugelach?” It made him smile. Pastries usually did.

  I left Arnie fiddling with his new tie and went into the kitchen, where Marge had arranged our treats on a plate. I told her about the pet detective and the cameras I was going to buy. “I think we might get somewhere that way. And I think you can skip the pee cups.”

  “Thank God.” Marge handed me a cup of coffee. Ahhh. Marge’s coffee was dark and rich, and she liked to add a little cinnamon. Almost took the pain out of morning. “Hey, is there any way I could work from here for a few hours? I want to get to Gold Bug a little before noon.”

  “Sure. No sense in you going all the way back to Phoenix and then having to turn around and come back out this way again. You can use the home office.”

  After I grabbed my laptop from the truck, I sat down at a desk under a framed poster of The Sound of Cabaret (the show where we’d all met) and dug into my investigation. I found out that everything Frank and Josh had told me was true. Lesser long-nosed bats were endangered. Josh’s family had once owned the ranch, the town, and the gold mine. His dad transferred the deed to the ranch to John Carver (no mention of a poker game), and then right before he died, sold the mineral rights to the mine to Acme Arizona. There had been no recent applications for mine permits. If there was “gold in them there hills,” as Chance said, no one was actively doing anything about it.

  Josh later sold the town and remaining land to Gold Bug Gulch, LLC. I checked similar properties and found that a million dollars was a fair price for the land. Might have been a matter of supply and demand. Gold Bug wasn’t the only ghost town for sale, and I suspected that buyers for run-down towns in the middle of nowhere were few and far between.

  I’d never heard back from Dawn Wayne, the attorney/agent for Gold Bug Gulch, LLC, so I called her again. “Oh, I am so sorry,” her admin assistant said, “I forgot to give her your message. I got a call from my son’s school right afterward and…”

  “Is he okay?”

  “He stuck gum in his ear.”

  “In it?”

  “On a dare, I guess. We had to go to Urgent Care to have it removed. Anyway, I am so sorry about your message. Tell you what, Ms. Wayne is in between appointments right now. If you can hold a sec, I’ll put her through.”

  She was as good as her word, and Dawn Wayne was accommodating too. “I’m happy to give you this information. For future reference, you can also get it through the Arizona Corporation Commission.”

  I didn’t tell her I’d already tried. I wanted to hear what she said.

  “The members of Gold Bug, LLC are Arnie Adel and an investment group called GBaU.”

  “Can you tell what the acronym stands for?”

  Dawn Wayne cleared her throat. “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.”

  “Really?”

  “Swear to God.”

  “Wow…What about Nathan DiRienzi and Josh Tate? It’s my understanding that they’re owners too.”

  “Only members owning more than twenty percent are listed in the public record.”

  Huh. It wouldn’t be surprising if Josh had a small share, given that he also got the money from the sale of the land. But Nathan? He was the catalyst behind this whole venture. Surely he’d want to own at least twenty percent. “Back to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly—can you give me any information about them?”

  “I’d like their permission before giving out any further information. May I tell them why you’re asking?”

  “Never mind. It’s not that important. Thank you.” I h
ung up and leaned back in the desk chair. “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly…” I said out loud to myself.

  “You can meet ’em yourself.”

  “Aaah!” I about tipped out of my chair.

  Arnie stood outside the office door, balancing precariously on crutches. “Oops. Didn’t mean to scare you or eavesdrop, but I got good hearing on account of these.” He pointed to his enormous ears. “Nathan’s investors will be here on Monday. They’re flying out for the first chuckwagon cookout. We’re doing a dry run before we offer it to the tourists, work out the bugs. The gold bugs.” He chuckled. I did too, just to make him feel good, since his joke made no sense whatsoever. “Wish we could go, but I think Marge is glad we got my crutches as an excuse. She’s not crazy about horses.”

  “Not true,” Marge said from behind him in the hall. “Don’t we have a Kentucky Derby party every year?”

  “That’s so you can wear a fancy hat.” Arnie winked at me. “Hey, why don’t you invite your uncle? And your brother.”

  “Matt too?” Arnie and Marge had met Matt when he’d accompanied Cody to the theater. “He can bring Cody. Not sure I would have time to pick him up otherwise.” Not a great lie, but Arnie bought it, so it worked. And it made me tired. Secrets were exhausting.

  I called my uncle and invited him to the cookout.

  “Sounds good,” he said. “Can I bring a date?”

  “Is Bette here now?”

  “Not yet. She’ll be here Wednesday. Just a few more days.” Uncle Bob couldn’t keep the anticipation out of his voice. I’d never seen him happier than since he’d met her, even though they lived in different cities and only saw each other in person about once a month. Or maybe because of that. Maybe that kept the relationship exciting. Maybe familiarity was the death of romance. Maybe Matt and I wouldn’t make it once he really knew me. Maybe…