Worst In Show: A Jamie Bravo Mystery

by Layce Gardner

  “Travis?” I whisper. I’m half-afraid he’s half-dead.

  No answer.

  “Travis?” I say a bit louder. I walk into the kitchen and gasp at what I see. Travis’s hair is coated with white bird poop. His clothes are wrinkled and stained. He has an evil glint in his eye as he leans toward the blender with one finger poised over the puree button.

  I swallow a scream when I realize Lebowitz is inside the blender. The bird sees me and squawks, “Fire in the hole!”

  “Travis, no!” I shout.

  Travis jerks his head in my direction. I’ve never seen him look this way before. It’s like he’s possessed by a demon.

  “The bird deserves it,” he growls.

  “You don’t want to do this, Travis,” I say gently. “You’ll regret it.”

  “He should have to pay. Nobody poops in my hair and lives to tell the tale.”

  I ease my way over to Travis and gently take his trigger finger off the puree button. “You’re in shock. You don’t really want to blend the bird. You’re not a bird blenderer at heart. You’re better than that.”

  There is something about my words, or maybe it’s my soothing touch, that allows Travis to vent his feelings, and collapse in my arms, snuffling and sobbing. I pat his back, whispering, “There, there. One shampoo and it’ll only be a distant memory.”

  I eye Lebowitz over Travis’s shoulder and mouth silently, “You won’t be so lucky next time.”

  Fifteen

  I’m thinking that if I can find this missing dog, I might be on the receiving end of a reward. How hard can it be to find a dog? I enlist Travis to help me post Mrs. Myers’s flyers up and down the street. After he shampoos and blow dries his salon-styled hair, of course.

  “Don’t you find it odd that two dogs have gone missing from people living in the same building?” Travis asks, as he staples a flyer to a wooden pole.

  I had swiped the stapler off Jonathan’s desk while his nose was buried in a Sports Illustrated. I’m not a thief, though, I’m only borrowing it. I plan on taking the stapler back. Someday.

  “It is a little weird,” I say. “But according to Mrs. Myers, Max the Weiner dog was stolen from a newspaper stand over on Lexington while he was tied to a parking meter. Did the dognapper know that Mrs. Myers lived in the same building as Mrs. Heinz? Was it the same dognapper who took both dogs? Or is it a coincidence?”

  “So you think Max was stolen?” Travis asks.

  “I don’t think he’s a runaway. He’s a pampered doggie. Look at that sweater,” I say, pointing to a flyer. “He doesn’t appear to be the type who would run away from a good thing.”

  Travis tsked-tsked and said, “Poor little guy. He won’t last a minute on these cold, harsh streets even with that divine sweater. He’s much too soft. He’ll end up being some junkyard dog’s bottom.”

  I immediately push that disturbing visual out of my mind. “The German Shepherd might be a different story. Any dog who can open doors might be wanting to run away. My main concern is that these are pedigree dogs, so maybe the perp is looking to get a reward.” I plaster a flyer to a pole and Travis staples it in place. “You know what I’m thinking?”

  “You’re thinking you want to make me your sidekick?” he asks.

  “No,” I say. “I’m thinking we should go ask this Anthony the newspaper man if he’s seen any suspicious suspects lurking around his stand.”

  I hold another flyer to the next pole and this time Travis staples my finger. As I suck on my injured finger, I wonder if he did that on purpose because I won’t let him be my sidekick. Or maybe it was Karma for swiping the stapler.

  We staple flyers all the way to the newspaper stand. Anthony is a big man. He looks to be about sixty years-old. He’s grizzled but has sharp blue eyes. He wears a wool cap, an army surplus olive coat and mittens without finger tips.

  He’s surrounded by stacks of newspapers with bricks sitting on top of them.

  “Are you Anthony?” I ask.

  “That’s me, sweet thing,” he says, moving the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. “What can I do you for?”

  I ignore the sweet thing remark and continue, “I’m looking for a lost dog.” I hold the flyer up nose-height. “You seen him around?”

  Anthony barely glances at the flyer. “Sure, I see him all the time. Ethyl brings him by every day. He’s a cocky little guy and he gots the biggest sausage I ever seen—practically drags on the ground.”

  I get the feeling he’s not talking about the Jimmy Dean type of sausage. Before I can remark, Travis jumps in with a question of his own. “Have you seen any unsavory people lurking around?”

  “Unsavory?” Anthony asks.

  I translate, “He wants to know if you’ve spotted any low lifes around. Like somebody who might be working the old lost dog/reward grift.”

  Anthony chews on his toothpick as he thinks it over. “Low lifes are all over. But I never seen anybody take Max. ‘Course, I wasn’t looking for it neither. I was talking to Ethel like we do every morning. One minute he was there, the next he was gone. She ‘bout had a heart attack when she turned around and he was gone. The only thing left was his leash.”

  Aha. That’s my first clue this is a dognapping. Max didn’t come undone from the pole and run off with his leash dragging the ground. A dog couldn’t unsnap his own collar from the leash. It had to be a person. “You didn’t hear any barking, growling or anything like that while you were talking? No suspicious noises?” I ask.

  Anthony spits the frayed nub of the toothpick to the sidewalk. “You know, now that I think about it, I did hear a car screeching off, you know, like it stopped real sudden and then took off to beat all hell. I didn’t pay no mind, but yeah that would have been ‘bout the time Ethyl and me was having our chat. So, you think somebody stole Max?”

  “That’s what I’m looking into. Keep your eyes open, would you? Max is the second dog to go missing in the past couple of days. We might have a dognapping ring on our hands.”

  “Sure thing,” Anthony says.

  I hand him my card. “You see or hear anything, give me a call.”

  “Yeah, okay,” he says, putting my card under a brick.

  As we head back to my car, Travis says, “I like the way you played that. Anthony the newspaper man could be your ear on the street.”

  “My what?”

  “You know, your Huggy Bear,” he says.

  “My huggy what?” I ask again.

  “Like Starsky and Hutch. They had that police snitch. His name was Huggy Bear.”

  “If there’s going to be any hugging on Anthony, it’s got to be you.”

  “Well, he was giving me the look,” Travis says, preening. “If so he’s definitely a bear.”

  “What look? The ‘Does that dude pluck his eyebrows’ look?”

  Travis slugs me in the arm and I laugh.

  Sixteen

  I dropped Travis off at Burt’s Burlesque so he could mix cocktails for the day crowd. He’s pulling extra shifts lately. I think he might be saving up for another piece of furniture. My next step was to deliver the bad news to Olivia Charles, a.k.a. Missing Hymen Lady. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but I needed to tell her that her dearly devoted husband was getting some action on the side. Gambling action, that is. So, that’s how I found myself in a mansion on the ritzy north end of the city sitting on an uncomfortable chair spilling the beans about Milton.

  “My husband is a compulsive gambler?” Olivia Charles asks.

  Olivia Charles isn’t a bad looking woman as far as pickle heiresses go. She’s skinny, too skinny for my taste. I read an article in a magazine the other day that said men (and lesbians) don’t like skinny. Too many angles and bones jutting out isn’t what they prefer. They want cushion and soft curves. It is women who are fascinated with being skinny. Personally, the whole thigh-gap measure of beauty has me flummoxed. Anyway, Mrs. Charles is on the skinny side and her face has the wooden look of a ventriloquist’s du
mmy. I’m thinking she’s had one too many Botox injections.

  I’m sitting in her living room as I tell her about her husband. There are pickles everywhere you look. Not real pickles, mind you, but pickle memorabilia. Embroidered pickle pillows, bronze pickle doorstops, there is even a painting of five pickles playing poker hanging over the fireplace. There are a lot of framed photos dating back to when her great great grandfather had started the pickle business. Her perfume smelled like dill. Okay, that could just be the power of suggestion.

  I clear my throat and give her the deets. (That’s detective speak for details.) “Yes, I followed Milton around. He gave a chunk of cash to a couple of mafia goombahs and then he got bashed in the nose with a motorcycle helmet by another goombah. I took him to the doctor and he confessed that he was in the soup big time.”

  “How much does he owe these… mafia men?” Olivia asks, pouring us both coffee from a silver carafe shaped like a pickle.

  “Better hold on to your hat.”

  “Milk or sugar?”

  “Both, please.” It’s a true sign of impeccable breeding when good manners trump dire fiscal matters.

  Olivia stirs her coffee with a tiny spoon, making dainty circles in her cup without the usual clang-clang that happens when I stir. She smiles at me and says, “I am now holding my hat. How much money has my husband lost to these gumball men?”

  “Goombahs,” I correct. “He’s in for fifty large.”

  She sips her coffee.

  I sip my coffee.

  She has a great poker face. I can’t even begin to tell what she is thinking. She would probably be a much better poker player than Milton. Or maybe it’s just the Botox and she can’t move her facial muscles.

  “Good coffee,” I say to break the silence.

  She takes another sip before speaking. “Fifty large is how much exactly?”

  I guess I forgot that not everybody is a big fan of the Sopranos. I am a proud of owner the entire boxed set, and as a result, it is how I learned most of my mob lingo. “Fifty thousand dollars,” I clarify.

  “That is large.” She stirs her coffee some more even though she had already stirred it enough. She mumbles to herself, “Fifty large. He’s in for fifty large. That is quite a bit of cash.” She looks up from her stirring and asks, “Was it high-stakes poker?”

  “Yep, he was playing with the big guys too.”

  “He never did know when to fold,” Olivia says, pulling out a handkerchief from her flat bosom. It has a pickle embroidered on it. The handkerchief, not the flat bosom.

  It crosses my mind that maybe I should start carrying handkerchiefs with me. I could hand them out to distressed women. I could maybe order some with a magnifying glass monograms on them. Or little hats and pipes a la Sherlock Holmes. Maybe I should run by Nordstrom’s and pay Reggie a visit.

  “Was that why Milty was trying to break the prenup? Because he needs the large money?” Olivia asks, sniffling and dabbing under her eyes like women do when they don’t want to smear their make-up.

  “That’s what he told me. He says he loves you, but he has to divorce you and break the pre-nup because he doesn’t want to end up sleeping with the fishes. He wouldn’t be married then either. He’d be dead.”

  Olivia bursts into loud tears. So much for the make-up not running. She holds her handkerchief over her nose and lets loose. Between the mascara, the tears and the snot, I don’t think the stains will ever come out of that white handkerchief.

  I should tell Reggie that I need dark-colored handkerchiefs. Maybe a navy blue or even black. Brown would match my new coat. I finish off my coffee before it gets cold and wait out the emotional explosion.

  Finally, Olivia stops blubbering and asks, “Where is Milty now?”

  “He’s staying at the Embassy Suites but if he can’t come up with the money by tomorrow I’ll have to find a safer place for him.” I didn’t really have a safer place for him, but Olivia doesn’t need to know that. I have a strong feeling that she is going to pay out the fifty large because it’s evident she loves the little worm.

  Sure enough, that’s her next question. “What if I give Milty the money?”

  I nod. “Well, that’s an idea, but I’m not sure that Milty can be trusted with that much money right now. He’s not thinking straight. He’d probably take that fifty grand and put it on the ponies or something, you know, trying to double it. That’s how an addict thinks.”

  Olivia takes a deep breath and holds it for a long time. When she lets it out, she says, “Maybe I could give you the money and you could give it to the gumballs?”

  “Goombahs.”

  “And maybe you could persuade these men to not allow my Milty to play cards with them anymore. My great-aunt had herself barred from the riverboat casinos in Kansas City. Can’t these men do the same?”

  “I could probably work that out.”

  “I could pay you five large for your trouble,” she says.

  I nod. I hope not too eagerly. Five large is a lot of moolah for just two days work.

  Olivia continues, “Just bring my Milty home to me.”

  “I will,” I say. “I’ll bring your Milty home.”

  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that she’s willing to take him back. Some people are suckers for the wrong kind of people. Then I remember my recent liason with Veronica.

  Pot, meet kettle.

  Seventeen

  “Gimme a Yoo-Hoo, and don’t be stingy, baby,” I say in my best Greta Garbo accent. Most people won’t get that movie reference—unless they’ve seen Anna Christie as many times as I have. Travis makes me watch it with him every time it comes on. He thinks he was Greta Garbo in a past life, but that’s another story.

  “So, the pickle heiress is really going to take him back?” Travis asks. He pulls a Yoo-Hoo out of the fridge and pours it over rocks just the way Greta would take it. He adds a swizzle stick and places it on a paper coaster that advertises Burt’s Burlesque in giant pink bubble letters.

  I don’t usually go into Burt’s Burlesque during daytime hours so I forget how pink everything is. You can’t really see it that well at night because of the low light ambience. It’s like I’m stuck in a giant bottle of Pepto Bismol. The day shift is slow. There’s always the same old queens congregated over in the corner. Occasionally, when one of them gets drunk enough, he will hop up on the stage and do a Bette Midler impersonation. I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing it but I’ve heard the tales. That’s why Travis pours with a light hand.

  I overhear the queens—there’s five of them—arguing about Freddie Mercury vs. Adam Lambert. It’s a heated discussion.

  “Yep, she’s taking him back. It seems that she really loves him,” I say. I stir my Yoo-Hoo with the red-and-white swizzle stick.

  “Love is blind,” Travis adds.

  A balding queen with green eye shadow drunkenly points at Travis and lisps, “You can say that again, sister.” With the eye make-up he looks like a drag queen that forgot her wig.

  “You’re cut off, Clarence,” Travis says back.

  “Ooh, now I’m gonna cry,” Clarence says. “Boo hoo hoo.”

  “Ignore him,” Travis silently mouths to me.

  “Veronica worked out a deal with Milton and his wifey-poo. He isn’t allowed to touch a dime of her money aside from the fifty large until he goes to Gambler’s Anonymous and stays straight for at least a year. Veronica got him a shrink. It seems there’s a drug therapy program. Milty is going to try it. He wants his allowance back.”

  “Drug therapy?”

  “Sure. It seems that some people’s brain chemistry sends out wonky signals that actually makes them crave the high of gambling or other compulsive behaviors so that even if they wanted to stop they can’t.”

  Travis wipes down the bar with a damp rag. “I’m impressed with your detective prowess, Jamie. How’d you figure all that out?”

  “The internet.” I slurp down the dregs of my Yoo-Hoo.

  “I didn’
t even know you could read, let alone work a computer,” he says.

  I roll my eyes. I don’t dare tell him that it was Veronica who found out about the drug therapy. But she found it on the internet, so I’m not really lying. Not really…. Okay, maybe a little.

  An old queen with Bozo red hair and wearing a silver lame shirt waves his hand in the air in Travis’s direction. I watch Travis pretend pour rum into a coke and take it over to Bozo. When he turns to walk back, Bozo slaps him on the ass. Travis squeals like he enjoys it. You got to hand it to him, Travis knows how to get tips.

  Travis picks up our conversation right where we left off. “You’re really going to go in there, give those wise guys fifty thousand dollars and tell them to ban mama’s boy from the poker table?” Travis asks. He slides another Yoo-Hoo in my direction without me asking.

  “What’s this for?”

  “I think you’ll be needing some more liquid courage. In fact, I think maybe I should go with you. For protection,” he says.

  “You have to be kidding me.” There’s no way I want Travis tagging along with me.

  “Why?” he asks with his lower lip pooching out. Uh oh, here comes the famous Travis pout. I’m going to have to carefully word my response unless I want to deal with a sulky roommate for God knows how long. “Look Travis, no offense, but you’re much too pretty to be intimidating.”

  He bites his lip. He’s doesn’t know whether to be insulted or not.

  “I need somebody big. Beefy. Scary looking. That’s why I asked Burt,” I say. “He said he’d meet me here.”

  “But… Burt? He’s such a queen.”

  “I know, but he won’t talk. He’s just going to stand there and look tough.”

  “Are you sure? What if there is really fisticuffs? Burt will wet his panties.”