Murder Has Nine Lives

by Laura Levine

  My, that sip felt good going down. So I had another. And another.

  After a few soul-restoring seconds, I reluctantly tore myself away from the bottle and returned to the living room, only to get the shock of my life.

  Remember how Emmy the Reiki healer promised that any day now Prozac would get better and be back to her old self? Well, she was right. I stared in disbelief at Prozac, who was now prancing around the room, full of pep and vinegar.

  Yes, indeed. The Old Prozac was back.

  Only one problem:

  My peppy, vinegary furball had Arnold clutched firmly in her mouth, dragging him around by his tummy!

  “Prozac! What do you think you’re doing?”

  She gazed up at me in ecstasy.

  Playing touch football! Arnold’s the football!

  I quickly ran over and snatched Arnold from her jaws.

  She meowed in protest.

  Hey, no fair! I was winning!

  Then, abandoning her triumphs on the football field, she jumped up on the sofa.

  Time to resume my never-ending battle against the evil forces from the planet Chenille!

  And with that she began mercilessly clawing my throw pillow.

  Yes, my little angel was back in action.

  But at what price?

  Poor Arnold. I lifted his tux, and to my horror, I saw that his tummy seam was ripped open. Stuffing was already beginning to pop out. Jim was going to kill me when he saw this.

  I raced to the kitchen and patched the seam shut with masking tape. Somehow before the evening was over, I was going to have to sew Arnold back together again. In the meanwhile, I hurried to my bedroom to blow-dry Prozac’s cat spit from Arnold’s tux. I’d just about finished when Jim came walking in the front door.

  “Sorry it took me so long,” he said when I dashed out to greet him. “I couldn’t find the right size makeup brush.”

  Good heavens. He had makeup brushes in his glove compartment, too?

  Was it possible Jim’s former roommate had been Cover Girl Barbie?

  He whipped out his magical cosmetic and began expertly applying it to my face.

  “Voilà!” he said when he was through, admiring his handiwork.

  “What do you think, Arnold?” he asked his roomie, whom I had clutched in my arms, far from Prozac’s devil jaws.

  Jim grabbed him from me and mimed the bear looking me over.

  “Yowser!” was Arnold’s appreciative reply.

  “Well, time to go!” Jim said, packing up his cosmetics.

  But I couldn’t leave without my sewing kit.

  “Wait!” I said. “I think my earring’s coming loose. I’d better go put on a new pair. Be right back.”

  Grabbing my purse, I hurried to my bedroom and, after some frantic searching in my lingerie drawer, finally retrieved a sewing kit from some long-ago hotel visit. Quickly I slipped it into my purse and headed back out to the living room.

  “I thought you were going to change your earrings,” Jim said.

  “Oh, right. Changed my mind. They don’t feel loose, after all.”

  “She may be cute, Jim,” I heard Arnold stage-whisper as we headed out to Jim’s Porsche, “but I think she’s a bit eccentric.”

  Look who’s talking! I felt shouting.

  But instead, I kept my mouth firmly shut, praying Jim wouldn’t feel the masking tape under Arnold’s tux.

  And off we went to the Toiletmasters Fiesta Bowl. Or, as I would soon come to think of it, Arnoldgate.

  * * *

  It was a long drive to Phil’s house in Tarzana, a leafy suburban community deep in the wilds of the San Fernando Valley.

  I spent the entire time crammed in the back seat of Jim’s Porsche, my knees jammed in my chest, while Arnold luxuriated up front in the passenger seat.

  By the time we got there, I was ready for back surgery.

  As on our first date at the restaurant, Jim handed Arnold to me, instructing me to hide him in my purse.

  “I don’t wanna hide in her purse!” Arnold whined.

  “You can either hide in her purse and come to the party,” Jim said, “or you can sit out here in the car all night.”

  “Oh, all right,” Arnold snapped.

  Frankly, I was glad to have Arnold in my purse. The less Jim could touch him, the less likely he was to discover the hole in his seam.

  Phil greeted us at the door to his sprawling ranch house, which, according to a plaque on his front door, had been dubbed “Flushing Acres.”

  He beamed in pleasure at the sight of us.

  “Hey, you two crazy kids!”

  Well, he got one of us right.

  “Follow me,” he said, ushering us inside. “The party’s out back.”

  We followed Phil through his country-style living room and ginormous kitchen out to a backyard the size of a small theme park.

  The yard had been transformed into a party venue, with floodlights and heat lamps and a buffet table on the patio. A deejay was off in a corner spinning records as a few hardy couples shook their booties on a makeshift dance floor.

  Round tables had been set up on the lawn, with tiny vases shaped like commodes holding centerpieces of fresh-cut flowers.

  An antique claw-foot bathtub, filled with ice, held bottles of beer and wine.

  “So what do you think?” Phil asked, gesturing to the bathroom-themed splendor.

  “Everything’s so . . . festive,” I managed to reply.

  “It looks super, Uncle Phil,” Jim grinned, looking deceptively sane.

  “What a cute couple you two make,” Phil said, beaming at us.

  Any minute now, he’d be announcing our engagement.

  “Help yourself to the buffet,” he said. “And have fun!” he added, with a most unsettling wink.

  We made our way through the crowd of plumbers, mostly burly guys guzzling beer and discussing their stock portfolios.

  At last we reached the buffet table, the one bright spot on my otherwise dismal horizon. Phil’s wife had set out an amazing spread: Swedish meatballs, chicken satay, baby lamb chops, cold pasta salad, and mountains of yummy sourdough rolls.

  I piled food on my plate with gusto, making sure not to let my pasta salad spread out and take up too much space. With the precision of a civil engineer, I managed to load a sample of pretty much everything on one eight-inch plate.

  “Hungry much?” I heard Arnold’s voice snipe as I piled on a baby lamb chop. “Any more food on that plate, and you’re gonna need a forklift.”

  Of all the nerve! I was getting sick and tired of Jim’s acerbic alter ego.

  And I wasn’t the only one.

  Across the buffet table a rather large woman in an I MY PLUMBER T-shirt looked up from where she was ladling Swedish meatballs on her plate and shot me a filthy look.

  “I wouldn’t talk if I were you, honey. You’ve got enough food there to feed a USO troop.”

  Oh, hell. She thought I’d just dissed her. Damn that Arnold and his high-pitched voice.

  “I’m so sorry,” I stammered. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t say anything.”

  “If you didn’t,” she said, oozing skepticism, “who did?”

  What could I tell her? That it was my schizo date’s teddy bear?

  And then the most infuriating thing happened.

  Jim smiled apologetically and said, “You’ll have to forgive my girlfriend.”

  His girlfriend? On what planet?

  “I’m afraid she’s had a bit too much to drink.”

  The woman melted under his dazzling smile.

  “What’s a nice young man like you doing with her anyway?” she cooed, practically batting her eyelashes at him.

  “She’s not so bad when she’s sober.”

  It was all I could do not to shove a baby lamb chop up his nose.

  I stalked off in high dudgeon—Jim hot on my heels—and headed over to one of the dinner tables at the outskirts of the crowd, carefully choosing one without any party-goers,
unwilling to risk another outburst from Arnold.

  “I can’t believe you let me take the fall for Arnold’s wisecrack,” I said, plopping down into a chair.

  “I’m sorry, Jaine.” Jim shot me a sheepish look. “I didn’t want to get in trouble with Uncle Phil.”

  “But it’s okay if I get in trouble with him? He’s my boss, too, you know.”

  “I guess I just wasn’t thinking.”

  “Forget it,” I snapped.

  By now I was so aggravated, I’d totally lost my appetite. Well, not totally. Somehow I managed to force down a lamb chop. And just the teensiest mouthful of pasta salad. And maybe a weensy dab of Swedish meatball—Okay. So I ate everything. Are you happy now?

  As soon as we’d sat down, Jim had me open my purse so Arnold could poke his head out and check the scene.

  “Wow, what a palace!” Arnold said. “Why can’t we live in a joint like this, instead of that crappy retirement home?”

  “We will someday,” Jim said in his own voice, “just as soon as I get myself established with Uncle Jim.”

  “Way to go, bro! It’ll be like the Playboy Mansion! With a grotto and plenty of hot chicks!”

  Yeah, right. The only hot chicks showing up at Jim’s grotto would be from the UCLA Psychiatric Nursing Department.

  “Let’s dance!” Arnold piped up as the deejay started playing a slow tune.

  For a frightening instant I thought Jim was going to start dancing with the bear.

  But, no. He pushed Arnold back down in my purse—with outraged squawks from Arnold—and held out his hand to me.

  “Shall we?”

  Oh, groan. The last thing I wanted to do was dance with the guy.

  “I’m not really in the mood.”

  “Please, Jaine,” he pleaded. “Just one?”

  He looked at me with those gorgeous blue eyes of his, eyes that would, under normal circumstances, have me melted in a puddle on the grass, but tonight just gave me the heebie-jeebies.

  “Okay,” I said, reluctantly getting up to join him.

  “Don’t forget your purse, Jaine. Arnold wants to dance, too.”

  Of course he did.

  We made our way to the dance floor, where Jim insisted on keeping my purse unzipped so Arnold could “hear the music.” Then he took me in his arms—arms that IMHO should have been tied up cozily in a straitjacket.

  I tried to follow as he shuffled awkwardly, out of step with the music, but it wasn’t easy, and I was constantly shooting nervous glances at my purse, hoping nearby dancers wouldn’t notice Arnold inside.

  I absolutely had to think of a way to get Arnold alone so I could sew him up.

  “I think Arnold needs a potty break,” I said. “I’d be happy to take him.”

  “Potty break?” Jim looked at me like I was the crazy one. “Arnold doesn’t take potty breaks. He goes to the bathroom, and he doesn’t need any help doing it.”

  So much for Plan A.

  We continued dancing, me trying desperately to come up with Plan B and avoid Jim’s two left feet, when I heard a familiar high-pitched voice.

  “Whoa, Jimbo. What a klutz! Who taught you how to dance—Larry? Moe? Or Curly?”

  “Shut up, Arnold!” Jim hissed.

  But Arnold wasn’t about to shut up.

  “Next dance, Jaine dances with me. And I’ll show her how it’s really done.”

  I glanced around to see if anyone had heard Jim talking in Arnold’s crazy voice, but thank heavens the music had drowned him out.

  “If you step on her feet one more time,” Arnold continued, on a roll, “she’s gonna lose a toe.”

  “That’s it!” Jim snapped, dragging me off the dance floor.

  “This is why I never take you anywhere,” he said, hissing into my purse. “You always sabotage my dates.”

  For a minute, I wondered if this was one of Jim and Arnold’s phony fights, like the one they’d staged at the restaurant. But it couldn’t be. For one thing, there was no bill to weasel out of. And for another, Jim looked really steamed.

  “I’m sick of that selfish little brat always ruining things for me. And I’m sick of you, too!” he added, glaring at me. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed those come-hither looks you’ve been slipping Arnold, looking down at your purse every few seconds. You’ve got a thing for him, and don’t deny it! Well, you can have him. I can do much better than you! In fact, there’s a blonde over there who’s a lot hotter than you!”

  With that, he marched back onto the dance floor and asked a cute blonde to dance.

  At last! I was alone with Arnold. My chance to sew him up.

  Leaving Jim stomping on the poor blonde’s feet, I quickly slipped into the house.

  My plan was to sneak into an empty room, whip out my sewing kit, and do some emergency surgery on Arnold. But I hadn’t got past the kitchen when I bumped smack-dab into Phil. And he wasn’t looking happy.

  “Hey, Jaine. I was just talking to Maria Sanchez. She said you insulted her at the buffet table, that you made some crack about her taking too much food.”

  Damn that Arnold and his big mouth.

  “I swear, Phil. I didn’t say a word to her.”

  “Then who did?”

  Jim may have been a raging nutcase, but I wasn’t about to throw him under the bus.

  “I don’t know, Phil. I just know it wasn’t me.”

  He thought this over for a bit and must have decided I was telling the truth.

  “If you say so, hon.” Then, breaking out into a smile, he added, “By the way, I took a look at the Touch-Me-Not brochure. Nice job!”

  “Thanks, Phil!”

  At least something was going my way this god-awful night.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” I said, “I was just heading to the powder room.”

  “Around the corner,” Phil instructed. “First door to your left. The toilet used to belong to W. C. Fields. I call it W. C.’s WC.”

  I proceeded to trot around the corner.

  I did not, however, pop in to admire Phil’s celebrity toilet. I couldn’t risk someone with an overactive bladder banging on the door in the middle of teddy bear surgery.

  Instead I slipped into the next room, which looked like a guest bedroom, with a daybed and chest of drawers and fake ivy sprouting from a miniature bidet.

  Taking a seat on the daybed, I fished Arnold out from my purse, along with my sewing kit.

  As Arnold lay there in my lap, staring up at me with brown button eyes, I almost expected him to start yakking at me, demanding that I give him a local anesthetic and asking to see my medical degree. But, of course, without Jim at his side, he said nothing, the model patient.

  Perusing the selection of threads in my sewing kit, I picked out a tan that was relatively close to the color of Arnold’s fur, and—after undressing the patient and carefully removing his masking tape—I threaded my needle and began sewing.

  All I can say is thank heavens for my mother, who’d taught me how to sew when I was a kid. My mom had been going through one of her “crafting” phases at the time and had sucked me up in her vortex of needlework, cross-stitching, and Simplicity Patterns.

  (So, seeing as we’re such good friends, if you ever need anything hemmed at the last minute, don’t hesitate to ask my mom.)

  In spite of my rigorous training, beads of sweat popped up on my brow as I sewed my first tiny stitches along Arnold’s tummy seam. I soon began to relax, though, when I realized that because of Arnold’s fuzzy nap, the patch job was practically invisible.

  After that, my needle practically flew through the job.

  I was feeling quite proud of myself and was just about to sew the final stitch when suddenly the door burst open and Jim came whooshing in.

  “I’ve been looking all over for you—” Then, spotting the needle in my hand: “What are you doing to Arnold?”

  “Um. Emergency appendectomy?”

  “What???”

  His face was now a dangerous red.
Holy Moses. Something told me I was the one who’d soon be needing stitches.

  But before Jim could do anything, Phil came hurrying in.

  “Jim, I was just talking to Carole Sapin, one of my top plumbers, and she said you got fresh with her out on the dance floor.”

  Jim blushed and dug his foot into the carpet.

  “Gosh, Uncle Phil, all I did was ask if she was wearing panties.”

  “Jim, Jim! What am I going to do with you?”

  For the first time, Phil noticed me with Arnold on my lap.

  “What are you doing with that teddy bear, Jaine?”

  “She claims she’s giving it an emergency appendectomy,” Jim sneered. “She’s nuts! Arnold had his appendix out years ago!”

  “Wait a minute,” Phil said with an aggrieved sigh. “Did you stop taking your meds?”

  “I had to, Uncle Phil. They make my toes itch.”

  “Your mom told me you gave up your fixation with your teddy bear.”

  “I did. Charlie and I broke up last year. This is my new roommate, Arnold.”

  Phil turned to me with an apologetic shrug.

  “I’m so sorry, Jaine. I thought he was taking his meds.”

  By now, I’d stitched my last stitch and snipped off the remaining thread.

  “Here you go,” I said, handing Arnold over to Jim. “Good as new. It’s been swell dating both of you. Now if you don’t mind, I’ll call myself a cab and get going.”

  And without any further ado, I grabbed my purse and scooted out of there.

  The last thing I heard as I headed down the hall was Arnold calling out to me:“You busy tomorrow night, babe? What do you say we give it a whirl? I’m much more fun than Jim!”

  Clearly the patient had recovered from surgery and was doing just fine.

  YOU’VE GOT MAIL!

  To: Jausten

  From: Shoptillyoudrop

  Subject: Crazy Morning!

  What a crazy morning it’s been, sweetheart. Today’s the day of the Scrabble awards luncheon, and as bad luck would have it, Alex Trebek’s driver never picked him up at the airport. So Lydia just dashed over to get him. Which means I’ve got to go to the clubhouse to take care of the floral arrangements. I was supposed to pick up the championship ring from the jewelers, where it’s being sized for Lydia. But I’ll never have time to do that now, so I’ve asked Daddy to go there for me. I felt awful asking him to do it after he came so close to winning the ring himself, but he’s graciously agreed to go.