Crazy Cool

by Tara Janzen

  She looked at the partially peeled orange in her hand, then blew out a short breath and tossed it back into the open glove compartment.

  “You’re on the wrong track here.” She’d thought it over, had been thinking it over since they’d headed out to Tim’s place. “This doesn’t have a damn thing to do with my dress, or my tiara, or those photographs, or with Bobby Hughes wanting to be prom queen.”

  She looked over and caught his gaze for a second.

  “How so?” He downshifted for another red light and brought the car to a stop.

  “I’m an easy target,” she began. “If someone wanted to blackmail me, they could have done it a long time ago, and if someone wanted to scare me, they wouldn’t need to kill anybody to do it, but . . .”

  “But?” he prompted when she paused.

  She shrugged and glanced up. “But you’re not an easy target. Anyone who wants to come after you is going to have to work real hard, and if they want to scare you, it’s probably going to take more than killing Ted Garraty. So maybe we need to be watching your back instead of worrying about my old prom dress.”

  He didn’t answer at first, just held her gaze for a long moment, then looked away.

  “Even if you’re right, we need to talk to these guys.”

  She was right, and he knew it, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

  “I suppose,” she agreed reluctantly. She didn’t want to talk to the rest of the Prom King boys. Tim was a friend. They’d kept in touch—not regularly, but every now and then. It had been easy to talk to him, and nice to finally meet the group of wild Indians he called his children. Jonathan had been a friend, too: dear, sweet, overwhelmed, and underloved Jonathan. He’d never meant to hurt her that night. But the rest of the boys—there had been some real malice in the incident. It had all happened so fast, though, she’d never been able to pinpoint exactly where it had come from.

  Just thinking about it was enough to make her headache worse. She reached for the box of crackers she’d put on the dash. Maybe eating a little something would make her feel better.

  The light changed, and he shifted the car back into gear.

  “You loved that dress,” he said after a couple of minutes of silence.

  Yes, she silently agreed. She really had loved that dress.

  CHAPTER

  14

  BY THE TIME they got to The Painted Pony, she was covered in cracker crumbs, and Hawkins’s plan to be more careful was starting to include things like “carefully brushing her off,” and “carefully taking her home,” where he could “carefully kiss her mouth” and “carefully take her clothes off.”

  He was insane, and it was ridiculous, and it wasn’t doing a damn thing to improve his mood, which had been a little tense from the get-go this morning.

  He pulled to a stop in front of the Pony and looked at her. She’d still been a little green around the gills at Tim McGowan’s, but the ride back into the city, the crackers, the vitamins she’d taken, the half bottle of mineral water, and the orange she’d finally gotten down were starting to work. Though she was far from perky, she was edging toward normal.

  “This place is disgusting,” she said, looking out the window at the strip club and taking a bite out of another cracker. Like all the other clubs along Colfax Avenue, the Pony looked a lot worse for wear in broad daylight. At night, its flaws would be camouflaged with flashing lights—kind of like the strippers themselves.

  She took another bite, turning in her seat, and he watched a small avalanche of crumbs tumble off her dress onto the seat and the floor. Roxanne was as dusted in crumbs as she was, and he was trying not to let it get under his skin. Unlike Kid, who used his cars as combination garbage trucks and auxiliary refrigerators, he kept Roxanne clean, very clean, paying Skeeter a hundred bucks a month to detail the Challenger.

  By the time he was finished hauling Bad Luck “The Slayer” around, it was going to cost him at least two hundred. There were orange peels stuck in the console, and one of the bags of herbal supplement—last year’s Christmas present from Skeeter, along with the chamomile tea he’d tried to get down Katya this morning—was scattering itself all over the place.

  One look at the leaves, twigs, and seeds inside had only reconfirmed his decision not to use it. Not Bad Luck, though. She’d taken one look at the bag, read the ingredients, and shaken half of it into her bottle of mineral water. The other half was now pretty well distributed over the dash, and every time he made a turn, a bit more of it sifted down to the floorboards.

  She was an amazing slob, but he’d known that from their time together in the Brown Palace. Any hope that she might have outgrown her less-than-tidy ways had been shot to hell when he’d gone into the bathroom while she was making her phone calls.

  Armageddon. Ragnarok. Doomsday. His bathroom had rivaled all of them. Oddly enough, he didn’t mind it in the bathroom. Those memories were too sweet.

  But his car was different. He liked his cars clean, all of his cars, but especially Roxanne. She was classic muscle, customized, one of a kind after all the work he and Skeeter had put into her—and Bad Luck was turning her into a Dumpster.

  A small price to pay for her cooperation, he told himself, but it still grated across his nerves when she popped the last of the cracker in her mouth and proceeded to brush herself off in the car . . . in the car!

  It was all he could do not to grab her hands and say, “Come on outside, baby, and let’s brush you off in the parking lot.”

  But he knew if he touched her, the last thing he was going to care about was cracker crumbs.

  “Okay,” she said, still brush, brush, brushing. “If we’ve got to do this, let’s get it over with.”

  Great idea, he thought, but he still didn’t move. All he could do was sit there in stunned amazement and watch the crumbs fly around inside the car and settle on his shirt, on his jeans, and in his lap—and she didn’t have a clue. There she was on her side, grooming herself for her next big entrance and destroying him in the process. A couple more minutes and he’d be completely en croûte.

  When she finally finished and reached for her door handle, he got out of the car and brushed himself off . . . in the parking lot. Cripes, what was so hard about that?

  Predictably, when he rounded Roxanne, the first thing he noticed was that Kat had crumbs on her butt. In his own defense, he told himself it wasn’t just because the first thing he did was look at her ass. He’d noticed the crumbs because they really stood out on a red dress.

  “You have crumbs on your butt,” he said.

  She immediately stopped and did that twisty-turn, hip-shot stance thing she’d done in Doc Blake’s last night, trying to see her behind while she brushed it off. She did a pretty good job, too, only missing a few.

  Rather than make a big deal out of it, he stepped forward, all chivalry and good intentions to finish up for her. But while he was brushing off her butt, she reached up and slid her hand through his hair, and suddenly there they were, with him standing too close and her half turned toward him.

  “You’ve—uh—got some crumbs. . . .”

  In his hair, right. He should have known, but in a real testament to his powers of prescience, he didn’t give a damn about the crumbs anymore. They could have been standing in a hundred-pound sack of them, and he wouldn’t have cared, because he could smell her lipstick: bubblegum.

  Yeah, he was that close, with his hand on her butt and her hand in his hair, and everything else in the world begging the question: “How much would it cost him to kiss her?”

  Five percent of his self-respect?

  Ten percent of his eternal soul?

  And did he really care?

  Bubblegum lipstick—soft, pink, sweet, and on those lips. Just how much of a test was this supposed to be? he wondered.

  He felt her breath on his mouth and started bending his head toward her.

  “You . . . uh, we can’t,” she said, her voice as soft as her lips looked and without a
n ounce of conviction in it.

  No, of course he couldn’t, he thought, stopping his descent, but keeping his hand on her ass, because it just felt too incredibly good to give up. Kissing her wasn’t in his plan. It didn’t make sense. It was the first step on the road to perdition.

  Or maybe the second, because the hand-on-the-ass thing sure felt like it could take him straight to hell.

  “We’re—uh—in a parking lot.” Her voice slipped down to a whisper.

  Actually, if that was the problem, there was no problem, because he could kiss her in a parking lot. He could kiss her anywhere, in a box or on a fox, in the rain, on a train. He could kiss her anywhere she and Dr. Seuss could dream up.

  He thought kissing was great fun. He thought this lovely limbo he and Kat were in, half wrapped around each other but barely touching, was great fun, too, but he wanted to jack it up a bit, take it to the next level, and the next level after that, and the one after that.

  She was right. Maybe he couldn’t kiss her in a parking lot. Maybe he couldn’t just kiss her.

  So he backed off, carefully lifted his hand off her butt—no wandering—and stepped away.

  He should have thanked her for saving his life.

  “Close call” was the best he could come up with.

  “Damn close,” she agreed, completely avoiding his gaze, her attention all on straightening her dress.

  Twenty-four hours ago, he would have bet a million dollars that he would not have reacted to her, but here he was, reacting all over the place to every single breath she took.

  Fucking unbelievable.

  Once they got inside the club, he had to admit she’d been right. The Painted Pony was disgusting, worse than disgusting. It smelled of stale cigarettes, spilled booze, and a few other things Hawkins didn’t want to think about too much. He’d been in a lot worse places, but he didn’t think the American Princess had.

  The lights were low inside, but they weren’t low enough to hide Bobba-Ramma’s inch-thick eyeliner and false eyelashes, his bad dermabrasion job and the shaking of his hands, or the tracks up his arms.

  But Kat had been right about him, too. He was no murderer. Like Manny the Mooch, Bobba-Ramma didn’t have enough brain cells left to plan a homicide, let alone double-tap a guy between the eyes. He’d been partying way too hard over the years, done way too many lines, and was an alcoholic to boot, if whiskey on the rocks for breakfast was any indication.

  “Ohh, yes. Poor Teddy-bear,” Bobba-Ramma tsk-tsked.

  “Teddy-bear?” she asked, and Hawkins had to give her credit. She knew her job was to chat Bobby-boy up, while his job was to look like a mean son of a bitch.

  From the nervous glances Bobba-Ramma kept casting in his direction, he was doing a damn good job of it.

  “Teddy,” Bobba-Ramma said. “Teddy-bear Garraty. That’s what we all called him.” His eyes darted to the stage, where a young man in a pink negligee and a pout was shrugging his shoulders.

  An annoyed expression tightened the club owner’s face, and he waved the young man back with a couple of angry flaps of his hand.

  “I guess I don’t remember that,” she said.

  “Go, Luke, go. Find it,” Bobba-Ramma snapped at the young man, then rolled his pale blue eyes back at her. “No, no. Not all of you, from back then. All of us here, at The Painted Pony. He was a true, true friend to all of us.”

  And there was a motive for blackmail, if Hawkins had ever heard one. Anyone on the Denver Social Register who was a true, true friend to the likes of Bobba-Ramma and his Pony boys and girls was a mark just looking to get taken for a load of cash—but not necessarily murdered.

  “Oh,” was all Katya said, having a little trouble running with that information.

  “Can I trust you?” Bobba-Ramma asked, leaning closer over the table, apparently oblivious to the fact that for every centimeter he moved forward, Kat shied away two.

  “Of course,” she said, looking like she could fall over any second.

  “We do special revues for special clients . . . very special clients.” Bobba-Ramma leaned even closer, and Kat just had to endure. There was no place left for her to go without toppling over. “They’re by invitation only, and we serve dinner and everything for five hundred dollars a plate. They’re all the rage, really, and Teddy-bear was a founding member. He’d been to one in Chicago, and thought Denver should have its own special show. Other clubs are trying to steal the idea, but nobody has better boys and girls than the Pony.” A claim that had the unfortunate effect of making him smile, or maybe grimace was a better word.

  “I’m sure,” she agreed weakly. Bobby-boy’s teeth were a definite shade of green, as if he had an algae problem, like maybe his tank needed cleaning—with a fire hose.

  “I don’t know what we’ll do without him,” the club owner said. “Teddy-bear was more than just a member, he was a sponsor, and a truly fine revue needs sponsors. They’re very artistic. Oh!” He brought his hand up to his cheek. “You’re into art, aren’t you? A gallery or something?”

  Subtlety was not Bobba-Ramma’s strong point. Hawkins could see what was coming next, and he was duly amazed that a guy on estrogen had enough balls left to do it.

  “With Teddy-bear gone, there is a spot open for the next revue.” He tucked a strand of stringy blond hair behind his ear, looking coy. “I’d be happy to let you come on a trial basis the first time, see if you like it.”

  Well, that did it for Hawkins. The guy was totally insane. Women who looked like Katya Dekker did not ever, ever, show up at private “revues.”

  “I could even give you a discount,” the club owner said, sweetening the pot. “Teddy-bear gave me a small deposit last night to secure his place, and I could put that money toward your account.”

  Bingo.

  Hawkins leaned forward on the table. “Did Garraty talk to anyone else while he was here?”

  “Well, he was in quite a rush, actually. We barely had time to chat ourselves. Then Stuart just barged in on our conversation. No tact whatsoever. You can take the boy out of the suburbs, but you cannot take the suburbs out of the boy.” Bobba-Ramma had clearly been offended.

  “Stuart?” Katya asked. “Do you mean Stuart Davis?”

  “The bruiser himself.”

  “What did Stuart and Ted talk about?” Hawkins asked.

  “I don’t know, I was busy with—Oh, Luke,” Bobba-Ramma crooned, distracted by the young man in the pink negligee sashaying victoriously across the room. “You found it.”

  Luke was carrying a tiara, and if a sallow-faced, washed-up scarecrow could glow, Bobba-Ramma was doing it.

  “You remember, don’t you, Katya?” he said, breathless, his gaze fixed on the younger man and the prize. “Prom night?”

  Good God, the guy was totally insane, Hawkins thought. How could she forget her prom night?

  “I had the votes, but they gave the crown to you? Remember?”

  Insane and delusional.

  “Yes,” she said, surprising him.

  The club owner’s smile turned slyly winsome. “It was a travesty, but I survived. I could have been the first prom queen queen in the history of Wellon Academy, but they lacked the vision,” he said, taking the tiara from Luke and fitting it to his greasy locks.

  “Yes,” she agreed again.

  Something in her voice set off a warning bell, and when he glanced over at her, the warning bell turned into a siren.

  She was on the verge of hyperventilating again, her breathing getting shallow, her gaze fixed on Bobba-Ramma and his tacky little tiara. The metal was bent in a couple of places, as if it had been thrown against a wall and stomped on by a big boot. The stones were plastic, and the sight of Bobby-boy in the crown was so pathetic as to be downright scary.

  Okay, they were out of there.

  “Thanks, Mr. Hughes,” he said, shoving back from the table and rising to his feet. He ignored Luke’s lazy once-over and took Katya by the arm. “We’ll get back to you on the revue.�
� When hell freezes over.

  “You’re—you’re leaving?” There was no disguising the disappointment in Bobba-Ramma’s voice. “But . . . but—”

  Hawkins didn’t wait to hear what the guy had to say. He grabbed Kat and walked out of the club without a backward glance. He kept his hand on her the whole way across the parking lot, until he had her safely back inside Roxanne.

  BREATHE or faint, Katya told herself when he closed her door, knowing it had to be one or the other. She was trembling inside, which she hated, and she couldn’t get her seat belt buckled, which flustered the hell out of her.

  “We’re not very far from my place. Let me take you back,” he said, when he got inside the car.

  “No.” She was going to see this through, no matter how awful it got, but she wasn’t going to ride around in Roxanne without a seat belt. How did this thing work? There were too many straps, some for pulling down over your shoulders, some for wrapping around your waist. There was even one for pulling up between your legs. The only one she wanted was the waist one, the one she’d been wearing before, but all the others were ganging up on her with all their clips and buckles and whatnot.

  “Do you want some help?”

  “No.” It couldn’t be that complicated. It was just a seat belt.

  “Bobby didn’t seem too broken up about Ted,” he said.

  That was the understatement of the century.

  “But I don’t think he killed him, any more than I think Tim McGowan did.”

  She didn’t, either. Where was that one clip? The one with the orange button that held the waist belt?

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine . . . just fine.”

  When he didn’t say anything else, she looked up. He knew she was lying.

  She went back to struggling with the seat belt. “Okay. The tiara threw me a little.” It was as much of an admission as she was going to make. “But now we know Stuart was in town last night. So maybe we’ve almost got this thing tied up.”

  “Not quite,” Hawkins said dryly.

  She stopped in mid-fumble, then after a second continued straightening out the clips and buckles, trying to find two that matched.