I swallowed the last of my wine. “Semaphores?”
“The signaling tribe for the Seminole Nation. A radical spinoff tribe.”
This was all new to me, including Florida mummies.
The waiter deposited a full wine glass in front of Tippy, scooped up both empties, then stared at me. Was he flirting or memorizing my face? I turned away. No sense in making it easy for him either way.
Tippy drank half the glass in one huge cheek-puffing gulp, wiped her mouth with her sleeve smearing her red lipstick across her face. She looked over her right and then her left shoulder and leaned in for a whisper.
“I’ve followed your adventures in the Miami Herald. Cute sidekick you got. Looks a hell of a lot like Johnny Depp.”
She poked a manicured finger at me. “Here’s what I want from you. You and your hunky sidekick get to the bottom of the mummy pit. He declares them bogus and I get my land untangled. Do it like… yesterday. Otherwise, I will see you in court.”
“You have no grounds to sue me. You had ninety days to run a fine-tooth comb over that property. The ball is in your court.” I bit back the word bitch as I tripped over my clichés.
“Grounds, schmounds. Either you make those mummies disappear or lawyer up.”
I was in the right, but that never means a darn thing. I could spend months or even years in court defending the print on the agreements Tippy signed. I felt my shoulders slump as they made room for the migraine that flew up my nostrils.
She poked her finger at me again. “I need an unbiased examination of those mummies. Something doesn’t smell right. If I hire a professional archaeologist or let the state do it I might as well roll over right now. I want those rag dolls discredited before the state forces me to sell or the Indians kill me. I promised Daddy I would build that high-rise and I meant it.”
“Your lawsuit doesn’t scare me.” The lie “But those mummies interest me.” The truth. “When Roger returns, we’ll look into them.” I stood. “Now I have a plane to catch.”
I had no idea when Roger would be back but immediately wasn’t soon enough.
I caught six red lights on the way home and breezed through the rest. My garage door eased open and I pulled Goldie into her dehumidified home. It was a cool sixty degrees and tight as a tomb. Sure the utility bills might fuel a jumbo jet from Miami to… well… Palm Beach, but it kept my car happy.
No time for a shower if I was to make that last flight. I’d clean up at Hic’s hotel. I gobbled a quart of mango ice cream, threw pajamas and a robe in an over-night bag along with jeans and a sweater, and non-sexy undies. Speed changing into dark brown slacks, a chocolate-colored silk knit turtleneck, and brown Ferragamo flats, I flipped a yellow pashmina around my neck for a pop of color and flung my London Fog trench coat over my shoulder. The power cord slipped in the side pocket of my laptop case and I threw both bags in Goldie’s front passenger seat.
As I backed my car out of the garage a shadow slipped behind the building. I flashed my high beams but caught nothing in the lights. It could be my imagination or one of the dozens of dog-walking dames who followed their pooches with little plastic poop bags they never used. The shadow crossed in front of my door. It had to be a neighbor.
Stomping the brake pedal, I put Goldie in park, and sat studying the silhouetted patterns in the shrubs. Something didn’t feel right. I shut off the ignition and cautiously stepped out. Skirting the right side of the garage, I splayed my keys between my knuckles. It hurt like hell.
“I’m armed! Who’s back there?” I called.
A rattle of bushes sent chills up my backbone and cottoned my mouth. I clicked Goldie’s fob and her horn honked twice. Maybe the prowler would think there was more than just little old me and fistful of keys.
An abnormally high-pitched voice silenced the crickets. “Not to worry, honey! It’s Mrs. Lipschitz. Just looking for my cat Baby. She ran off.”
The tension oozed from my shoulders like melted mango ice cream on hot apple pie. “Do you need help? Step out in the light where I can see you.”
“Oh wait, here’s Baby! Thank you anyway. Have a good evening!”
As I eased forward into the shadows I heard the squish of feet on newly sprinkled lawn. The heck with helping the dingbat nab her cat, I had a plane to catch.
I stopped at the guard booth and asked José to keep an eye on my place. “Thought I saw someone prowling around my windows but it just turned out to be Mrs. Lipschitz.”
José frowned, his skinny face sliding into the collar of his brown uniform. He punched a few keys on his computerized residents’ list. “No tenemos Lipschitz.” He un-holstered his gun and with shaky hands took a bullet from the drawer and inserted it in the chamber of what looked like a Roy Roger’s special.
“Don’t do that! Call nine-one-one. No bulleto!”
I put Goldie in gear and pulled out onto Rebecca Road. My mind skipped ahead to Nashville. Hic was notorious for his frugality. He must be desperate to shell out for an overnight stay.
Chapter Five
At half-past midnight I arrived at the Thornhill, a seedy ten-story hotel one coronary away from the heart of downtown Nashville. The dump was dark but the street was bright as day thanks to sodium vapor anti-crime-lights on every pole.
Nary a car, with or without tires, graced the parking lot. My taxi pulled under the canopy as a chunk of plaster crashed from the overhang barely missing the hood of the cab.
“You sure about this, lady?” the driver said.
We exchanged looks in his rearview mirror. I wasn’t sure. I paid him and added a fat tip. “Wait here. I’ll either be right back or wave you on.” With my laptop bag slung over my shoulder, I kicked out the wheels on my overnight case and picked my way over the remains of the pavement. The right heel of my ballet flats wedged under the lip of an asphalt crack the size of a roasting pan. I fell catching myself on the wheelie case.
The Thornhill’s huge double doors swung open with a slight touch as if too tired to resist. Security was probably not in the budget. A fully-armed Avon lady toting catalogues and order forms could wander in here unchallenged.
The lobby was dimly lit which was probably good. Some things should remain in the shadows. “Hic? It’s me, Wendy!”
“’Bout damn time!” the voice came from the gloom on the left.
I turned and waved at the cabbie and wheeled my bag inside.
Alfred Hiccup stepped from behind the slanting relic of a reception desk, his face looking like a chunk of Mount Rushmore after a landslide. His remaining hairs drooped from a wide center part to below his flabby earlobes. As usual Hic wore his pinky-gray zoot suit with lapels as wide as the shoulder pads, which could have served as running boards on a 1930 Buick. The suit was a throwback from the era of the jitterbug and a tribute to Hic’s penny-pinching.
“The cook’s holding dinner,” he growled and shuffled off, a grizzly on a mission. I noticed he was wearing Kleenex boxes instead of shoes.
“It’s good to see you, too,” I said to his back as he lumbered away in a Walter Matthau hunch. He was an adorable curmudgeon.
The right side of the lobby resembled a narrow airport runway with tiny white floor lights the only illumination. I followed the twinkles tripping three times, once slamming my shoulder into the wall hard enough to cause me to yelp.
The corridor opened into a humongous post-Cinderella banquet hall with a vaulted ceiling. I strained to see the far side of the area where mounds of broken lumber, plaster friezes, and possibly the corpse of the skunk-ape were piled against a wall, probably pushed there by a frontend loader.
All but one of the tables were littered with upside-down chairs as if a giant had come through and turned the room on its ear. Our dining experience was to take place at a small round table in a corner near the entrance to the kitchen. Two laminated doors dangled from broken hinges and a light shone through the opening casting a pukey-yellow glow on our table. I smelled the remains of ancient bacon and leather-fri
ed potatoes. I was getting good at this archaeology thing.
Aside from the cook’s banging of pots and mild cursing emanating from the kitchen, Hic and I were completely alone. The decrepit hotel was hardly the setting for a gent in the top ranks of the Fortune 500. But, this was Hic as I would always remember him, filing the edges off pennies, one of his many hangovers from the Great Depression.
He motioned me toward a seat. I put my luggage next to it in case some critter tried to run off with it. A flimsy paper napkin lay at my place at the table. I used it to brush off the chair then unwound the yellow scarf from my neck, keeping the ends from touching the grungy table.
My host went through the squeaky swinging doors. A loud grumble and a shrill retort followed by a clang and a bang came from the other side.
Hic returned, amazingly sure-footed but Matthau-postured, carrying a large metal tray. He placed it in the center of the table with a clatter. Three bloody steaks were stacked like pancakes on the plate Hic took as his own. He passed a second dish to me. Wilted iceberg lettuce, no dressing, and a slab of sourdough bread lay on the plate, fit for a prisoner on bad behavior.
“Still a vegetarian,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
I’ve always been a meat-eater. Either Hic had me confused with another blonde real estate broker or he didn’t want to share his steaks. Since I’d seen enough blood for the day, I was happy to go green.
We shared a thermos pot of coffee poured into cracked, brown-etched Thornhill-crested china cups. The coffee was thick, almost chewy, but hot enough to fuzz my tongue.
Despite appearing tired and every bit his age, there was a spark of excitement in Hic’s bottomless eyes. I was a teeny bit relieved to see the glimmer. His imminent demise saddened me. It was way too soon for him to be leaving as I still had so much to teach him about enjoying life.
He talked and chewed, lips smacking. “My lawyer has the paperwork. He’ll meet us at the bank early in the morning for my signature, witnesses, and some other crap. Once I’ve signed we’ll put the will in my safe deposit box.” He settled back with a cat-that-ate-the-dog’s-food smile on his face. “You’ll hold the key to the box until I return from the afterlife. I won’t be gone long.”
I choked on a limp curl of lettuce. “You are not going to stick me with that responsibility!”
“There’s no one else I trust.” Saliva dribbled from the corner of his mouth. He tapped the table with a long yellowed fingernail. “Just prop this old body in my rocking chair near the second floor window, the one that looks out over the portico. Being a recluse has its advantages; people will avoid me for weeks, months. You just pop in once in a while and change my position so no passersby get wise.”
Sure. Zip up to Nashville once a week to rotate his rotting old body until his new one arrives. Sounded yummy. Great plan.
“Here’s the important part. I don’t want my will probated while I’m gone. ’Cause I’m not really gone. Get it?” He smirked.
My eyebrows hit my hairline. “This is not funny and it’s not that simple. I’d be aiding and abetting…” What would I be guilty of? Maybe keeping a corpse in a rocker or being off my rocker. “Every potential beneficiary, from cousins you never heard of to the government, is going to petition to probate if they discover you’re dead.”
“I won’t be dead. I’ll be in transmigration. It’s like reincarnation but more immediate.”
I gnawed on my lower lip. My beliefs were not on the table and I was not here to be a judgy judge. “How am I supposed to keep your decaying body posed by the window when parts start falling off?”
“My body will be fine. I won’t really be dead, just on hold. It will stay inert until I return in a brand new testosterone-loaded body. You’ll be too old for me.” He chuckled a phlegmy laugh that lifted his saggy jowls and blocked his hairy nostrils, causing him to hack.
“You can’t leave your assets neglected with no one to manage them.” I hated to be mean and squelch his dream but his paranormal mental gymnastics required tough love.
I folded my arms across my chest and shook my head, no. “The court will appoint some friendly lawyer as executor for your estate. He’ll get a fat fee for selling off your hotels. Sweetie, once you’re dead, you’re dead.”
I could hear his dentures wobble as he ground his jaws.
“That’s why I picked you, little darling. You are my executrix with explicit written instructions that no probate occur until I’ve returned from the afterlife. Besides… they’re not going to miss me. Mrs. MacGuffin says my turnaround time will be less than a month.”
Mrs. MacGuffin?
It was a hair-brained scheme. I imagined myself stalling probate in court. “I can’t—”
“You will. You have to. Promise me.”
Oh shit. Another deathbed promise. I must look like an escapee from the Heroes wing of Madame Tussaud’s. Just ask Wonderful Wendy. She’ll do it.
Hic’s lip twitched and his left eye drooped. I couldn’t bring myself to argue with him tonight. Not alone with no one to help if he clutched his chest and fell over dead. He’d never forgive me if he went into the great beyond without a proper will. Hic was a sibling-less, life-long bachelor. The government would swoop in like a flock of crows.
I believe in reincarnation, so did Gandhi and Ben Franklin. I just doubt you can aim yourself at a new body, pop back in, and pick up all your old toys. Then again, Dracula managed to hang on to his castles, wives, and a clutch of classic coffins.
“How will I recognize you?” It seemed like a silly question but if I was going to do this I might as well be in for a pound as for a penny.
“My new name is already in the will. I will find you and give you the password, which will identify me as me. Okey dokey? Then you announce my passing and introduce the new me as my legitimate heir. One of the documents I’ll be signing tomorrow leaves my entire estate to one, Alex Hiccup.”
The blood rushed to my head. “Who’s Alex Hiccup?”
“Me!” he said with a mischievous grin lifting his wrinkles. “There’s an envelope with my new identification in my safe deposit box.”
“But how do you know—”
“The only thing I don’t know for sure is my gender. I assume it’s male but if it’s not, what’s it like having tits?”
“I wouldn’t know.” I slugged the remains of my coffee and shuddered.
Hic yakked on about his upcoming reincarnation-transmigration while the Looney Tunes part of my brain kicked in with an image of the old gent returning not as a human but in the form of Michigan J. Frogg. He would tip his high hat and in a desperate croak lay claim to his forty-plus slum hotels. He would desperately ribbit the password, but without opposable thumbs the amphibian wouldn’t stand a chance in court.
Being in possession of the key to Alfred Hiccup’s safe deposit box and acting as the decider of who gets his loot scared the bejesus out of me. Not sure which was worse: propping up his dead body or fending off would-be inheritors. Hic might as well have painted a bull’s eye on my forehead.
He pushed his plate aside and reached across the table to hold my hands. I caught myself as I recoiled from his greasy fingers. He was a dear old friend and I was a born sucker. I extended my palms. His touch felt like a chamois all soft and mushy. Refusing his cry for help was not in my DNA.
Chapter Six
I knew Hic too well. He had more up his sleeve. I asked the question, dreading the answer. “What else do you want me to do?”
Hic squeezed my hands. “I want my Remington bronco. You have to get it back. The password was secretly engraved on the bottom years ago. I want you to melt it down in front of me before I pass.”
That darn statue.
I tried to ignore the drool working its way from the corner of his mouth to his chin and focus on his watery gray eyes.
“Since you lost it, my bronco’s been on display in the lobby of the Cowboy Pension Fund on the dang top floor of the North by Northwest Financial Center in
Miami. Stewart James took it to spite me because I never supported his pissant pension fund. The concept sucks. All a cowboy needs is a bedroll and a good horse.”
I thought if that were true, I would have heard about it. It wasn’t like I didn’t try to find it after it was stolen. Hic was way overdue for a fistful of senility meds. In a brilliant diversionary tactic I asked, “How can an afterlife coach predict your time of death?”
“There are many unexplained things out there. Mrs. MacGuffin has been to the afterlife many times.”
This MacGuffin dame was beginning to smell as fishy as the red tide. “Where’d you meet her?”
He snorted. “She said you’d ask that. She said to tell you, you’ll find out when it’s your turn to dance in the light.”
“I don’t dance,” I grumbled. Time to run a background check on his fortune teller.
Hic studied my face and zeroed in on my eyes. “Just get the bronco, memorize the password, and bring the statue back here. We’ll throw it in the hotel furnace. I want to see it liquefy before I go. No one except my lawyer will know you are the executor of my will. And I told him I didn’t want to ever see him again once the will is signed.”
My stomach was flipping like a team of Chinese acrobats. If word got out that I held the key to the Hiccup fortune every conman on the planet would camp on my doorstep.
“Do whatever you have to do to get the bronco back. That includes maiming and killing.” He grinned a wicked grin, patted my hand and withdrew his crepey fingers. “I’m counting on you like I never counted on anyone before. You’re my link to my next life.”
No pressure. This was his last wish and I was a chronic people pleaser going down with the ship. Glug, glug, glug.
He patted my hand again. “Let’s get you some sleep. Morning will come soon enough.”
A giant sigh escaped my lips. The bronze bronco was stolen on my watch. Hic’s assertion about the location of it was sinking in and computing. Stewart James, CEO of the Cowboy Pension Fund, was an avid Remington collector. He was also a white-collar bully and not someone to be confronted head-on. If he had it, the decent thing to do was to steal it back. Hmmm, I could enjoy besting that son of a…
Six Pack of Sleuths: Comedy Mysteries Page 19
