A country western ring tone started playing, and I realized the noise was coming from the beaded purse.
I finally twisted out of his grip so I could reach into the handbag, thinking at first it was Brian calling to see where I was; until I remembered I had Janet’s phone and not mine. As if the ring tone wasn’t evidence enough. I wouldn’t have wanted him to hear loud music and cocktail chatter in the background when I picked up, that’s for sure.
“That your boyfriend?” Mr. Nosy Private Eye asked.
“None of your bee’s wax,” I told him while I squinted close at the tiny screen, which said, ross calling.
I had no idea who Ross was, unless it was Mr. Perot wanting to get a hold of Janet.
So I turned off the cell and stuffed it back in the bag.
“Bet it was your home boy tracking you down.”
“Wrong number,” I told him, and snapped the purse closed.
He had me thinking of Malone, however, and wishing I were back at the condo. I reassured myself that in less than an hour I’d have dumped these clothes at Janet’s and wiped the clown paint from my face; and I’d be heading north to Prestonwood in the Jeep, calling Brian on my own cell. I’d promise to be back at his side lickety-split, and that would be no lie.
“So what about it, Andy?” Milton Fletcher nudged my arm. “Want to play Nick and Nora tonight and see if two snoops are better than one?”
I glared at him, more irritated than I should have been. But he rubbed me the wrong way for some reason, like corduroy pants.
I was not about to join forces with Detective Fletch. I had some sniffing around to do on my own, and he’d only be extra baggage…and annoying baggage at that.
“How about you do a David Copperfield and disappear. I’ll take care of myself,” I told him in no uncertain terms. “So either you scram right now or I will.”
“Wait a minute, Andy,” he said. “I don’t think you know what you’re getting yourself into. There are some real players here, and I’d hate to see you taken advantage of. From what I hear, it’s pretty hard-core in the back room, so don’t get in over your head, kiddo. Your mother mentioned you could be reckless when you thought you were saving the world.”
What the hay?
I was reckless, not to mention a gullible twit?
Puh-leeze! Who did he think he was, talking to me like that? My protector? My savior? Did he assume I was some dopey girl who didn’t know how to watch her own fanny?
Give me a break, Jake.
“Later, Doogie or Roger Junior or whatever you’re calling yourself tonight,” I said, and I turned my back on him and started walking across the room, needing to be somewhere else, anywhere he wasn’t.
I brushed past clots of pretty people smelling of expensive colognes and perfumes, ignoring the occasional hand that reached out to touch my arm or shoulder, attempting to draw me over.
I had a goal in mind, and it wasn’t to mingle.
If I was going to get the real skinny on Miranda and the Caviar Club, I needed to zero in on the one person I recognized from Miranda’s photos; someone who could very possibly have been involved with her romantically.
Someone who was already involved with another woman—a woman with access to sharp things like needles—and who should have kept his hands to himself.
I paused only once to rearm myself with an appropriate prop—meaning, I snatched another glass of champagne off a waiter’s tray—which is when I spotted my target.
I saw Lance Zarimba’s blond head just before it ducked behind the red curtain into the back room.
Yeah, I know, I know. Sevrugas weren’t allowed past the velvet.
But this was an emergency. Janet needed to write a kick-ass feature exposing the Caviar Club and linking the late Miranda DuBois to it, which meant I had a ton of dirt to dig up this evening. As if that weren’t enough, I didn’t like people telling me where I couldn’t go.
It only made me want to get there all the more.
And what was the worst they could do to me if I crossed through the velvet doors?
Toss me out? Revoke my temporary title of Lowly Fish Egg?
I wasn’t Miranda DuBois. Being evicted from this silly club would hardly kill me.
So I downed the glass of champagne to give myself a jolt of courage, put the drained flute aside, and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
Here goes nothing, I mused and lifted my chin.
Then I took off after the dude who was Dr. Sonja Madhavi’s main squeeze and who may well have been Miranda’s lover. Oh, yeah, and possibly her killer.
If Dr. Miniskirt hadn’t done the deed herself.
Chapter 19
No one stopped me as I entered.
If I’d expected to be grabbed and frisked, I guessed wrong.
Maybe it was the way I barged inside, snatching up a full glass of champagne from a passing waiter before I parted the curtains, my chin up, acting like I belonged.
My mother had always been expert at looking like she fit in—okay, more like she commanded the place, any place—so I mimicked that air of hers, practically daring anyone to tell me I wasn’t supposed to be there the moment I stepped past the red drapes. That idiot Danny Boy had said the privileged Belugas sometimes smuggled in a “delectable babe,” so I hoped to heaven I looked every bit as bedable as Suzy Bee had intended, even if it was all a façade made up of push-up bra, stiletto heels, and war paint.
Please, please, don’t let me encounter Theresa Hurley. She of all people would recognize that I didn’t belong. But I quickly pooh-poohed that thought.
The Keeper of the Clipboard would likely stand guard in the foyer of Bébé Gâté until the party was over. ’Cuz, God forbid, someone of average appearance got past the bald-headed bouncer and wandered in off the street. They’d probably have to call in the Pretty People Pest Control and fumigate for cooties.
Or, perhaps—and more likely—no one had tossed me out yet because they couldn’t see who I was. I could hardly peer more than a yard ahead with any precision. All right, I was exaggerating. But it was awfully dark, so much so that I was afraid to go too far beyond the curtain I’d dropped behind me.
I didn’t want to risk walking into somebody or spilling my champagne on anyone I didn’t despise.
As my eyes better adjusted, I realized there was no electric lighting at all here, not even set to dim. It was strictly candle glow in the inner sanctum where the upper tier Belugas swam or cavorted or did whatever they did. No wonder Miranda’s photos had all looked so dark.
I took a few tentative steps in, enough to assess a lengthy console table rigged with champagne in ice and plenty of tiny toast points and sterling bowls of roe. There was another large silver bowl that held some kind of square packets.
Was it candy?
I reached in, snagged a pack, and brought it nearer my nose.
The label was a bit difficult to decipher without direct light, but I soon picked out the large print on the front that touted the contents as a “glow-in-the-dark condom.”
So these were the back room’s party favors?
How very classy.
Not.
Though tempted to stash one in the Judith Leiber bag to take back to Janet, I didn’t. I tossed it back into the pot instead and backed away.
When Janet had said the Caviar Club was for S-E-X, she hadn’t been kidding. I’m guessing one-night stands were de rigueur for the members, if they were passing out condoms alongside the bubbly.
Yet another reason to be glad that I didn’t belong.
I figured I’d need a long, hot shower to wash this place off my skin when I was done snooping.
Speaking of, how much longer would I have to lurk around here and take mental notes?
“One more glass of champagne’s worth,” I told myself. Then I was getting out, whether I’d seen anything worth reporting back to Janet or not.
When this flute I held was empty, it would be time to go.
Until t
hen, it was my job to spy. And spy I would.
My ears still picked up on the thump of the bass from the music in the main part of the bar, although the Latin beat was much more muted; but I detected something else I hadn’t heard outside the velvet drapes: the voices seemed to whisper rather than to shout, and, oh boy, was that moaning?
And I mean the kind of moaning that sounded curiously like someone was playing an X-rated movie. Only I didn’t see any television screens anywhere, just flickering candles and shadowy forms and fabric partitions separating me from God knows what.
I took a slow sip of champagne, the slide of bubbles down my throat adding to the faint buzz I’d gotten from my first glass. I had to nurse this sucker. If I drank too fast, I’d be positively giddy.
The entry area, where I stood, was deserted except for me. All the action seemed to be going on behind the partitions.
I started toward the nearest one and almost dropped my champagne when I walked into something solid reeking of bad cologne.
A man.
“Hey, there, sweetheart,” a smooth voice whispered from the shadows around me, and I felt a hand slide possessively up and down my arm. “I was about to take off, but now I’ll have to reconsider. How would you like to have a go with me under the canopy? It’s not every day you run into a TV star like me, is it?”
TV star?
This could be the scoop I’d been looking for!
I turned and squinted up at the face that hovered above mine. The shadows created dark grooves on weather-beaten cheeks, and the hair looked shiny with product. It was broad-minded, I thought, for the Caviar Club to have allowed in a dude who definitely looked well beyond middle age.
Then something crackled in my brain, and I gulped when I realized it was Dick Uttley, Miranda’s former co-anchor on the Channel 5 nightly news.
Egads.
Wasn’t the dude in his late fifties, and he was hitting on me? Obviously, he liked his ladies younger by a couple decades (except for his longsuffering wife, I mean). If the man had been messing around with Miranda before she died, he obviously didn’t seem overcome with grief now that she was gone.
“Under the canopy?” I repeated, trying not to sound as creeped out as I was feeling. “I’m sorry. I’m new here. In fact, it’s my first time.”
“Ah, fresh caviar. Delicious.” He laughed, as if he’d made some hilarious joke. He took my hand and tugged. “The canopy, my dear, is a spot where you and I can get most comfortable. Perhaps I can help break you in.”
He laughed again, and I shivered.
I made note of the fact that he didn’t even ask my name before volunteering to “break me in.” How unchivalrous of him.
Somehow, I couldn’t believe Miranda DuBois would sink as low as having an affair with Sir Dick. He was—how shall I put it?—yucky.
“This way, my sweet,” Mr. Uttley uttered, and quickly dragged me around one of the fabric screens to somewhere quite a bit nearer the moaning noises, as they were louder and intermingled with subdued voices.
If only I had a flashlight to better see what was going on—then again, maybe I’d scorch my eyeballs and burn in Hell if I could—but the spotty candlelight did give me a good enough idea.
From the ceiling hung a gauzy web of netting, which I guessed to be the canopy that Dick Uttley mentioned. Below it, within the weblike folds, I could make out lots of moving parts atop a round mattress.
Body parts.
And some of them were glowing in the dark.
I thought of the party favors in the silver bowl and I gulped.
Good heavens, but there was an orgy going on, right in front of me. If it hadn’t been so dark, I would’ve seen absolutely everything.
Ugh.
Call me a prude, but this wasn’t my cup of tea.
In fact, if Uttley hadn’t been clinging so tightly to my arm, I would’ve set off in a run.
“If I might unburden you of your clothes, my darlin’, we can get on with it,” Dick Uttley murmured in my ear. “Or get it on, anyway.”
He leered, and I felt his hands move across my shoulder blades, toward the buttons that ran down the back of my dress, and I knew I’d never watch Uttley on Channel 5 again without wanting to shout You old pervert! at my TV set.
“Stop it,” I said, batting at his arms.
Which only made him grin wolfishly. “Ah, you like it rough, do you? Well, I can do that,” he said, and grabbed at my hardly biblically proportioned breasts.
I reacted instinctively and, for the second time that evening, lost a glass of champagne.
Only this time it was no accident.
I tossed the bubbly right in Dick Uttley’s face as he sputtered and screeched, “I should kill you, you little witch!”
He grabbed blindly at me, but I sidestepped him and turned to flee. I teetered and tottered on my high-heeled boots, moving as fast as I could around the gauzy canopy with the bodies writhing beneath, while Dick ranted and raged somewhere behind me. Thank goodness he was even slower.
I zigzagged around another of the partitions, my heart banging like conga drums in my chest. Get me out of here! my brain kept screaming as I pushed past people and candlesticks and the odd table or chair, ultimately running smack into the arms of another man.
Oooph.
I dropped the crystal handbag and it hit the floor with a clatter. I dared not even think how many of the tiny beads may have shattered on impact.
The dude I’d plowed into swayed against me, my shoulder having slammed into his chest, and I heard his grunt as he caught me around the waist.
Another lech, I thought instantly, and reached up to push him off; but he held on firmly. “Hey, hey, slow down,” he said. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I guess,” I murmured, my pulse continuing to race, “if okay means getting pawed by a cologne-drenched creep twice my age.” I glanced up at him through the dim, seeing the outline of an oval face with a smooth pate.
It took a second for my brain to whir, and then I recognized Dennis Bell, the computer wizard who sold more desktops and laptops than all the others combined. Wasn’t he married?
And he picked up chicks at the Caviar Club?
I guess being a rich geek made it a lot easier to get a little sumpin-sumpin on the side.
Hooey.
He let me go and bent down to retrieve the Judith Leiber bag from where it had fallen near my feet. The crystals caught the glow of candlelight and flickered. “You’d better kept a tighter grip on this”—he pressed the bag into my hands—“my wife has a few, so I know what they’re worth.”
“It’s not even mine.”
“Oh. Well, it’s hard to lose what isn’t ours to begin with, eh?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Whatever that meant.
“You might want to duck into the ladies’ room,” Dennis Bell suggested, cocking an ear. “I think I hear that cologne-drenched creep, and he’s headed this way.”
With that, he walked off, heading toward the red velvet drapes, and I figured he was leaving. Maybe going home to that wife he’d mentioned, because it was hard to believe anyone would bring their spouses to a party meant for hooking up with other swingers.
I didn’t have much of a chance to dwell on the guy, because I heard Dick Uttley’s nasty voice, too, raised above all other sounds, saying something about “tossing that little witch out.”
Being that I was the “little witch” in question, I figured it might be a good idea to scram altogether. Forget the ladies’ room.
I was just about to make for the velvet curtains when I spotted a slick-looking dude coming through them.
Oh, Lord.
Milton Fletcher.
The conniving cur!
He was no Beluga!
Well, okay, neither was I. Still, I didn’t like that he seemed to be turning up everywhere I went. It made me nervous, the way he was following me around, sticking his nose in my business, or Miranda’s business, anyway. My nose had already b
utt in first, which made it rather crowded. One of us would have to go.
So I spun around, diving for the nearest door and throwing myself into a pitch-black room. I had a feeling it wasn’t the loo, or someone would’ve left the lights on, wouldn’t they?
No matter.
I figured I’d wait there a few minutes, long enough to slow down my pulse, and then I’d get out of the nightclub as fast as my stiletto-heeled boots would carry me.
Dirt or no dirt.
Janet could ream me out for all I cared. I was going home where I belonged.
My breaths sounded loud at first, doubly noisy, in fact.
Like I wasn’t the only one breathing in the room.
A throat cleared—it wasn’t mine—and I heard the tiniest click as a light went on, illuminating a blond-haired man with a pale mustache, sitting behind a desk, muscled arms leaning on the desktop.
“You hiding out, too?” Lance Zarimba asked.
My hand went to my heart and I made a little eeep sound.
“My God,” I croaked. “You scared the crud out of me.”
He smiled sheepishly, his wide shoulders shrugging. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to. I just figured I was here alone.”
I took a tentative step toward him. “In the dark?”
“Well, it wasn’t much darker than out there.” He swung a thumb in the direction of the door.
And I realized he was right.
“Plus it’s quieter,” he said. “All that shouting. What’s old Dick pissed off about this time?”
“Me,” I admitted.
“What’d you do? Swipe his Viagra?” Lance suggested. “Knock off his toupee? Call his wife to come and get him?”
I couldn’t help it. Maybe it was nerves, but I burst out laughing.
Lance grinned all the wider and leaned back in the desk chair, hands clasped at his flat belly, looking like he owned the place. For all I knew, he did.
“C’mon and sit down,” he said, and gestured to a nearby chair. “You look amazing, by the way. I almost didn’t recognize you. Andy Kendricks, right?”
“Man, you have a good memory.”
“I told you you’d look like a million bucks if you just spent a little time in front of the mirror, didn’t I? It was true.”
Too Pretty to Die Page 21
