“We have to get out of here,” stated Captain Obvious.
“Like I told you before, I’m taking over this operation.” Earlier, I’d excused myself to go to the bathroom and gone through our hidden bags. I now pulled the gun from where I’d stashed it, behind the toilet, Godfather-style. See? Plan! I wasn’t quite as stupid as my dress looked. “Reach for the sky.”
He didn’t so much as lean for the sky. “Samantha, I’m surprised at you.”
“Good.” The gun felt foreign to me—cold, heavy. I’d never thought of guns as being weighty. Angelina Jolie’s hands never shook this way. “We’re going to get in a cab and go somewhere away from the valley. Once we’re there, you’ll answer my questions and help me out of this mess.”
He smiled. He wasn’t supposed to smile. “Okay.”
“Okay? That’s it?”
“Do you want me to argue? Or wrestle you for the gun?”
“No. But if you did, I’d shoot you.” I aimed at the tight jeans. That stopped his smiling.
“You don’t have it in you.” He backed up anyway.
“You aren’t half as charming as you think you are.”
“Definitely true.”
“Change,” I ordered. I stood there and watched while he stripped off the blue gingham shirt and exchanged it for the black one he’d worn before. Heart swelling with newfound power, I let my eyes skim over the impressive planes of his chest and stomach—kinda muscled, but not too much. Brown hair trailed its way from his pecs down to underneath his jeans. I might or might not have had fantasies about the end of that trail.
When he finished with his shirt, I ordered him into a stall so I could change. I doffed the terrible dress in favour of jeans, tee and a jacket from the stuff he’d brought back from my apartment. The blue gingham nightmare got stuffed in the bag for future use. A girl never knew when she might want to look like a reject from the Country Bear Jamboree. “You didn’t bring me any shoes?” I asked.
“They were all covered in glass from your broken window. And they’d been in such a tidy heap. It’s really too bad.”
“Unlike your escapades, which are so neat and orderly.”
“If you had a superpower, it’d be calamity.”
“I have a gun, jerk,” I said through gritted teeth.
Nate emerged early and watched me zip my jeans. His green eyes scanned my tight white tee, emblazoned with—“Xanadu?” he asked. “Xanadu.” Revulsion emanated from his every pore.
“You brought it.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t see what it said. That’s the worst movie ever.”
I pointed the gun at his jewels again.
He put his hands in front of his crotch. “I mean—Olivia Newton-John is hot.”
“Damn Skippy she is.” Now I knew why people carried weapons—everyone agreed with you. “Get moving. We’re going to the valet stand to hail a cab.” I giggled at the absurd city in which I lived. Even malls in Los Angeles had valet parking. “Don’t try anything funny, see.”
“Are you going to talk like Jimmy Cagney the entire time you have the gun?”
“Don’t be a sucker. Shut up and look pretty, doll-face.” A sneaky smile played on my features, and I narrowed my eyes. Maybe I would tie him up later, just because. The notion caused my blood to rush everywhere at once. I leaned against the sink to steady my everywheres.
“Oh, Jesus, I’ve created a monster.” He grabbed his bag and left the bathroom.
“Hey, wait!” I ran to catch up.
Chapter Five
My Kidnapper, Myself
Int. A sleazy hotel room—night
‘Bubble Butt’ Lytton and the wise guy known as ‘Dimples’ are on the run from a couple of hatchet men.
Angle On: Bubble Butt holding a Tommy gun on Dimples, who seems blasé about the situation.
Bubble Butt: Who’s got the upper hand now, see?
Dimples: You can’t have the upper anything.
Bubble Butt: My Chicago typewriter says otherwise.
Dimples: It’s a joke. Because you’re short.
Bubble Butt: I got it. It just wasn’t funny. You betta smarten up or I’ll make you holier than the Pope. That’s not a joke, genius.
Dimples holds up his hands in mock fear.
Dimples: I’ll split the dough with ya, kitten, fifty-fifty. Anything you want—jewels, furs…
Bubble Butt: I’d look great in a mink.
Dimples: You’d look great in a bed sheet.
Bubble Butt slaps him.
Bubble Butt: Don’t get fresh with me, Dimples.
Dimples puts his hands down and makes puppy eyes at Bubble Butt.
Dimples: I guess we’re past our expiration date, ain’t we?
Bubble Butt: I didn’t say that. I’ve just had a burning itch to slap ya since we met. You’re the kind who needs slappin’ on the regular.
Dimples takes Bubble Butt in his arms.
Dimples: I’ve got a topical cream for that, doll.
He kisses her passionately. The lip-lock is hotter than a New Jersey sauna on top of a boiler adjacent to a pizza oven in the middle of July.
Bubble Butt pulls away.
Bubble Butt: That ain’t exactly the most romantical thing I ever heard.
Dimples: You’re the one who brought up burning itches.
Bubble Butt: ‘Cause I gotta bad feeling you’re gonna scald me, Dimples.
Dimples: I’m on fire for ya, babe. If that’s a crime, then lock me away till they invent flyin’ cars.
Bubble Butt: Flyin’ cars is just one more thing for you to steal.
Dimples: Don’t gimme any big ideas. C’mere and kiss me, muffin. We’re holed up like a buncha gophers, there’s only one good thing to do.
Bubble Butt: Do ya mean we’re gonna have to go to the mattresses?
Dimples winks.
Dimples: You always was a smart gal, Bubbles.
I entered the Beverly Hilton with elaborate fantasies about heists on my mind. It felt good to be a participant instead of an unwitting kidnappee. Wonder if Nate would be willing to call me Bubble Butt from now on?
The Hilton was a vast improvement over the last no-tell motel room, thanks to Nate’s credit card, which displayed the name ‘Richmond M. Tunney’. How many identities did the man have? Richmond couldn’t be his real moniker. I refused to imagine screaming, “Oh, Richmond!” in the heat of passion. Not that I would find myself in the heat of passion with Nate. No. I was a responsible woman of chastity.
“This is more like it.” I twirled around in the delicious, chilled air of the room. Tasteful, striped cream wallpaper adorned the walls and wide windows surveyed the twinkling lights of the city. I had always wanted to come here—to get tipsy with Kiefer Sutherland at the bar, receive a Golden Globe and deliver an I-told-you-so speech directed at my mother. In my head, the hotel had appeared exactly this way—pricey, beautiful, exclusive. Maybe Lucy and Desi had stayed in this very room.
I settled on the velvety couch—it sank beneath me as I wiggled my bottom into the pliant cushions. I sat back and used the gun to order Nate onto the bed. He grinned, the bastard. Rummaging through his bag, I found another pair of handcuffs. I hocked them gently at his head. “Cuff yourself to the headboard, Richmond.”
Nate’s eyebrows shot up as his shoulders slumped. “Oh, come on! I promise I won’t run away. I know I have to help you out of this mess.” The dimple pleaded. The jeans clung. “You don’t think my name is Richmond?”
I snorted.
“Maybe it’s a family name.”
“Get on the bed.”
He took a step towards me. “My poor grandfather is weeping in his mausoleum because you’re mocking his heritage.”
“I didn’t mock it.”
He took another step. “You said it in a tone. That Samantha tone.”
“I don’t have a tone,” I said in my tone.
One more step, and he was entirely too close. “That tone of yours makes me want to smack that little
bottom.”
“Cuff. Bed. Now! I’ll shoot!”
Face set to smug, he crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. “You won’t. People will hear.”
My neck grew hot. I’d had it up to the stratosphere with his smirk and his bottom-smacking and his everything else. With a sadistic smile, I turned on the TV and switched stations until I found something appropriate—Rambo filling America’s enemies with hot, molten lead. I cranked the volume—the gunfire deafened. “It can’t be much louder than this, can it?” I yelled. “Besides,” the AK-47 receded into silence, “you’ve kidnapped me. I’ve given Ell—er, my mother a description of you and told her everything, accountant Sam. If I shot you right here, right now, nothing would happen to me.” I thrust out my bottom lip and simpered, “It was self-defence, officer! The big, mean criminal kidnapped me”—my face turned hard—“so I had to blow his head off.”
I straightened my shoulders. “My life may be pathetic, but I’m willing to hurt you to preserve it. If you’re so interested in helping me, prove it.”
The sneer left his face, replaced by a wary respect. He turned on his heel and cuffed himself around a slat in the headboard.
I couldn’t believe that had worked.
Never taking my eyes from his, I tucked the gun into the back of my pants the way I’d seen Angelina do. I stared at him. He stared at me.
“Your plan doesn’t go any further than this, does it?” he asked.
Of course it didn’t. “Shut up.” Just to get away from that sarcastic nincompoop, I marched into the bathroom and slammed the door.
The last day had made me dirtier than I could ever remember. The kind of dirt that was stubborn. The kind that only came clean with a late-night infomercial product called Bam! or Wam! or similar. I ran the tub. There was no Bam! but the Beverly Hilton courteously supplied a watermelon bubble bath. My shoulders fell a bit. They ached. I ached everywhere all of a sudden.
I decided to open the door so I could hear Nate/Sam/Richmond/Asshole. Asshole didn’t make a peep.
I stripped off my Xanadu tee, gazing at it lovingly—a rainbow and glitter-bedecked beacon of my former, normal life. Maybe that life hadn’t been so fabulous. Whose life was? This new existence full of criminals wasn’t any better, just more dangerous. I peeled my jeans away and nearly dived into the warm, soapy water of the bath.
“I have a few ideas. Ways to fix this,” Asshole said.
I bit my lip and inhaled picnic-y watermelon smell. “Can’t talk now. Bathing. You got me dirty.” I should not have said that.
“I have a way of doing that.” His voice dipped—I almost couldn’t hear the last part. Almost.
There was no good answer. I swallowed despite my dry mouth. I scrubbed one layer of the horrible day away with a washcloth. My head fell back and dipped under, my hair fanning in a halo before I massaged shampoo into it. Silence enveloped me, save for the echoed ripples of the water. The tiny, lapping waves almost quieted the hamster running on the wheel in my head. I allowed myself to sink to the bottom, into the blackness.
Up for air, I wiped the bubbles from my face with a slow hand. Every month or so I’d have a recurring dream. I would be acting in a movie I was completely unfamiliar with. The cast and crew stared—they expected me to say my lines, but which ones? Nothing came to mind except panic. Pretty standard dream, I supposed.
Now my life had become this nightmare—only Nate seemed to know the dialogue, the blocking. And there was no waking up.
What on earth was I going to do?
I set my head down on the side of the tub. The cool enamel eased my pounding headache—the headache lasting for a day, since I’d kissed him. He should come with a warning—‘Product may cause dampness and headaches, with strong probability of bullshit. Consult your psychiatrist before using.’
I wanted to linger in the heavenly water, but curiosity won. Had he really contrived a plan? Who knew? The man lied like a carpet.
My gaze wandered to the mirror across the room from the tub. It glistened with fog—not enough steam, however, to hide Nate’s face in it. From his vantage point on the bed, he had a clear view. And he’d taken advantage of it, staring straight at me. My heart seized. I slipped under the furiously splashing water, a mermaid glimpsed by accident. In the warm bath, the pulse pounded between my legs. I ought to be angry, but these perpetual high emotions had exhausted me, and I abandoned all pretence.
Peeking over the rim of the tub, I saw he’d turned his head away. I sighed. Modesty required more energy than I possessed. I needed my fortitude for other, important-er matters. Like climbing into bed with him.
No.
Like escaping this adventure alive.
But…maybe I could have my cake and eat him, too. So to speak.
Nate’s head was still turned away at an embarrassed angle when I rose from the bath. I had left the door open. What man wouldn’t peek? Gay ones, I supposed.
Enveloped in a giant white bathrobe—and my less-giant pride—I emerged from the bathroom to talk business with the criminal. He still looked chagrined. Good.
“Spill it. What’s your big idea?” I was businesslike and didn’t ogle him lying there on the bed, all languid and adorable.
“I should give you some background.” He stretched, his shirt slipping to reveal his taut, yummy tummy. “The Picasso called ‘Harlequin with Wine’ went missing during the Holocaust. Pre-war, it had a solitary owner, a gift from the artist, and no photographs have yet been found of it—only a few mentions in older works about Picasso. About a year ago, a guy in Brazil contacted the Picasso Museum in Barcelona for an authentication of a painting of a Harlequin he’d picked up at an estate sale. The curator who took the call contacted my boss and, for a nominal payment to that enterprising young person, we ‘intercepted’ it. It turned out to be the real thing. Your man Oliver stole it from my boss.”
“How did Oliver get wind of it?”
“We’d love to know.”
“Does your organisation have a name?” I asked.
“Not really.”
“Shouldn’t it have a stupid name? Like El Scorpio does?”
Sighing, he snipped, “El Escorpión. It’s an animal, not a horoscope.”
“Why is it in Spanish? Oliver is the whitest White who ever whited.”
“Well, I didn’t name him! I think he named himself.”
“It does sound like something he’d do just to be fancy—”
“Enough!” His hair would have been out in clumps if he weren’t cuffed. “My group and El Escorpión’s have a gentleman’s agreement of sorts. He should not have taken the painting from us. Bad form. There’s no need for that sort of skulduggery. It leads to violence and other unpleasantness.”
For a moment, he’d sounded like a fastidious biddy. “Indeed. Honour among thieves, old chap.”
“There’s that tone again…”
“A thousand pardons, good sir.”
He nodded his head magnanimously. “I was sent to retrieve the Harlequin, which is what brings us here. Got it?” Brown eyes wandered to the V of my bathrobe, which had slipped open a bit.
“Yes.” I pulled the robe together.
He twisted, his face scrunched in irritation, or pain, or both. The backboard of the bed groaned against his pulls. “If I offer the painting back to Oliver, he may agree to a truce.”
“But it’s not your Picasso, it’s your firm’s or whatever, right?”
“Yes.”
“Where does that leave you?”
A vague shrug flickered through his shoulders. His face was the perfect picture of bland nonchalance.
I frowned and clutched my robe. “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you’d do that for me. Why should you?”
“I have my reasons.”
“Why?”
He studied his feet and lifted one eyebrow. “I’m a sucker for a damsel in distress.”
“The ones you create?”
“The ones who subdu
e me.”
I had not missed that he hadn’t answered the question. There must be more to this—he wouldn’t screw himself with his bosses for my sake without a damn good reason. Whatever the hell it might be.
His eyes fluttered up to meet mine. “You don’t deserve this, Sam. You make me laugh. You have since I met you in the office.” His entire demeanour shifted to one of melting, smouldering innocence. It was the kind of look pandas would envy. “You wore a purple dress that day and dropped a bottle of tea in the kitchen. It shattered everywhere. You turned bright red and laughed in the middle of the disaster.” He chuckled and shook his head. “You were cuter than a sack of puppies.”
I resisted an urge to applaud. His audition for the role of guileless hero had been executed beautifully.
My bruised ego ached from the way I had thrown myself at him, at the way I wanted to believe his florid tale of smitten-at-first-sight. Had I worn a purple dress when I’d dropped the tea? Why did he remember that?
Suddenly I seethed with fury. Damn his manipulative crap! It took two to dance the thumbscrew tango, and I wasn’t in the mood to be dipped. “You should tell simple lies. Elaborate ones sound like the bullshit they are.” I stormed into the outer room and closed the bedroom door behind me, twisting the lock with evil satisfaction. For once I’d delivered a great exit line.
He called my name. It hung in the air like the stench of old takeout curry.
* * * *
The next morning Nate lay, rumpled and stiff, on the bed. He looked like hell—wrists chafed, eyes red and face splotchy from the beating I’d delivered yesterday. He sat up awkwardly when I entered the room. A twinge of guilt pricked me. My mouth opened to say, “I’m sorry,” but I stopped myself. Last night had been no more than he’d deserved.
I lifted my chin and tossed him the key to the handcuffs. Of course, he was handcuffed, so it bounced off the side of his face. “Nice,” he muttered. Smiling my slight apology, I played fetch and let him out myself.
The Dimple of Doom (Samantha Lytton) Page 6
