“You mean just give up?” I said.
“Yeah, and get on with my life. Take care of my family. This is really hard on them, and it’s not their battle.” She paused and looked at me again. Our eyes met. “I think if I hadn’t met you, I really would have burned the box.”
“What do I have to do with it?”
“You’re a journalist, you’re a woman, and I think you might care,” Victoria said. “If I give you my files, will you tell my story?”
I stared at Victoria. If I hadn’t been so surprised, I would have cackled.
Chapter 4
On our way back from the Sekhmet Temple, Victoria told me that she was expected back at the Beavertail Ranch on Thursday, and she wouldn’t be off again until New Year’s Eve.
“Once you check in for work, you don’t leave the ranch until your next break,” she said. “I wanted to be off for Christmas, but nobody wants to work on Christmas. So we had a lottery, and I had to settle for taking New Year’s off.”
I don’t know what my face was saying, but it made Victoria smile. “I think of it as working on a cruise ship. If I were a massage therapist on the Emerald Princess, wouldn’t this all sound perfectly normal?”
Victoria didn’t seem to expect an answer, so I didn’t say anything.
“I started working at the Beavertail after Richard’s accident,” she continued. “When we first started talking about it, it was just a joke. But I don’t have a college degree, and I’m over forty. Makes it tough in this town. I couldn’t find a job worth doing that paid more than eight bucks an hour.”
“What about your beauty business?”
“It’s funny how things worked out. Four years ago, Richard brought home a good paycheck. American Beauty bought us a few extras, like dinner at Andre’s or a trip to Tahoe. A good little housewife hobby—that’s all it was. I sold lipsticks to girls I met at the gym or the beauty salon.
“Then came the midnight call from University Medical Center. Richard was working late on a crane at the Fashion Show Mall. A metal beam fell on his arm, and it almost had to be amputated. He’ll never have total use of his left hand again, and he still needs more surgeries on his elbow.”
“May I ask you something?” I said.
“Anything you want.”
“What does your son think?”
Victoria didn’t say anything for a minute or two.
“Up until a few days ago, Jason thought I worked as a massage therapist on a cruise ship.”
“And now?”
“I had to tell him. I couldn’t let him find out on TV or from kids at school.” She paused, and when she looked at me, her eyes were glistening with unshed tears. “The toughest part wasn’t telling him, though. The toughest part was admitting I lied in the first place.” She paused and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “That poor kid. And I can’t even be home with him for Christmas.”
“Do you have plans for New Year’s?” I asked.
“I have plans for a better new year,” Victoria said. “Everything will be better once American Beauty coughs up a good settlement.”
Back at the Silverado, I pulled in next to Victoria’s blue Taurus.
“We have a lot more talking to do, Copper,” she said. “We can do it by phone, or you’d be more than welcome to come out to Pahrump.”
As curious as I was about the Beavertail, I decided to go with the telephone idea. Victoria said she’d call me around ten on Sunday morning, when she’d be “off shift.” I drove home, debating the whole way about whether I’d tell David Nussbaum about the box behind my seat.
:: :: ::
Thursday, December 15
Wednesday disappeared in a hectic blur of holiday updates, but Thursday started off quietly. Not long after I arrived at work, Chris Farr asked me if I wanted to write a movie review. The regular reviewer’s father had come down with meningitis in Colorado. It wasn’t a sure thing, because the reviewer had an intern. But if the intern was too busy, I would get to go to an advance screening of an independent flick called Toto Too at the Village Square. The Village Square is one of the few theaters in Las Vegas that shows stuff besides the latest blockbusters. I had never heard of Toto Too, but a review with my byline would make a nice addition to my portfolio.
Everything settled down into the usual routine after that, but a triple latte had given me an energy boost. I was alert enough to realize I had better read Victoria’s files before Daniel flew in from Costa Rica and my parents arrived from Connecticut.
Christmas hadn’t started out as a family reunion. My original plan was to go to Costa Rica for a week, but Daniel had never been to Las Vegas, and we decided that New Year’s on the Strip was too good to pass up. Then Sierra asked my parents to come for Thanksgiving, but they’d already decided to spend it in Rhode Island with my mother’s sister. So now everybody would end up here on December 23rd—God, it was only a week away. Thinking about Daniel brought a warm glow to my belly. Thinking about Mom and Dad turned the glow into a knot.
Just before I left for the day, David Nussbaum stopped by my cube.
“I’m glad I caught you,” he said. “I’ve been swamped all day, but I wanted to ask you how things went Tuesday night.”
“I liked the Sekhmet Temple,” I said, still unsure whether I should tell him about Victoria’s box of documents. “Everyone was really friendly.” I paused. “I like Victoria, too. I think she deserves a lot of respect for what she’s doing.”
“Maybe,” David said. “Or maybe she just likes all the attention.”
“There’s a lot more to her than that,” I said. “I’ll keep you posted. I’m talking with her again on Sunday.”
David raised his eyebrows.
“I’m only taking your advice, David,” I said. “Remember how you told me that the best way to move up is to sell a good freelance piece?”
“Just be careful. Victoria’s got an agenda.”
So do I, I thought, but all I did was nod.
Chapter 5
Friday, December 16
No more than two minutes after I arrived at work, David Nussbaum appeared at my desk and said, “The Alliance for the Homeless is holding a press conference this morning.”
“I know,” I said. “Say hi to my brother for me.”
The Alliance for the Homeless is Michael’s big community project. He and his fellow board members were finally ready to announce that they had succeeded in acquiring a piece of land for a new service center across from Willow Lake, a wastewater treatment plant in the old part of Las Vegas. Tonight, they were holding something they were billing as a “gala” in a big white tent they had pitched on the property.
“You can say hi yourself,” David said. “You’re going with me.”
“What are you talking about?” I said. “I’m not going to any press conference. It’s bad enough that I have to go to the party tonight.”
“You have to come,” David said. “Chris’s orders.”
Just then, my phone rang. It was Chris Farr.
“David Nussbaum needs you to help him cover a press conference, Copper. We’re in good shape here. Get David what he needs, then you can take the rest of the day off.”
“I’ll meet you in the lobby in half an hour,” David said when Chris hung up. “The conference starts at eleven.”
It was very, very weird. Why was the arts and entertainment editor sending his Calendar Girl to hear about the plight of Las Vegas’s homeless population? And where did David Nussbaum get off ordering me around? The guy was way too pushy, and he also talked way too loud.
As we climbed into his Jeep, David said, “Copper, I really am covering the press conference, and I really do want you to come with me, but I also have something to tell you.”
Weirder and weirder, I thought. David hadn’t even put the key into the ignition.
/> “I had to check out a police investigation early this morning,” he said. “Down near Blue Diamond Road. A jogger found a body just before dawn. Have you heard about it?”
“What? No.”
David paused and locked his door. He reached up and adjusted his rearview mirror. Then he sighed and looked at me.
“I thought there was a chance you hadn’t, even though it was a freaking media circus. I wanted to be the one to tell you if I could.”
I stared at him.
“Who was it?” I asked.
“Victoria McKimber.”
What?
Was I hearing right? Victoria McKimber? How could she be dead? She was just riding in my car on Tuesday night. She was fine! She had plans!
“Victoria is dead?” I said. “What happened?”
“There still has to be an autopsy, but it looks like she bled to death,” David said.
Nothing was making any sense. What was Victoria even doing on Blue Diamond Road? She was supposed to be at the Beavertail.
“I’m so sorry, Copper,” David went on. “I know you were getting to know her. It’s such a shock.”
“How could she bleed to death?” I interrupted. Was she shot?”
“No, no gunshot wound, but that’s the only thing that’s clear. She might have been hit by a car, or she might have been beaten.
“God. She told me she had enemies, but—”
“They’re still trying to figure out whether she was killed where she was found or just dumped there.”
“So she was murdered?”
“Not necessarily. It could have been an accident.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Like I said, she had enemies.”
“The police will sort it out,” David said.
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know. All we can do is give the detectives a chance to do their work.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Anyway, I really am sorry,” David said. “It’s always hard when you know a victim. And I can see you liked her.”
“I don’t know if I liked her. But I did respect her.”
:: :: ::
I was grateful that the press conference was unpleasant enough to take my mind off Victoria’s death. The Alliance for the Homeless had been trying to close the deal on its godforsaken piece of land for over a year. The property was a large desolate triangle wedged between railroad tracks and the wastewater treatment plant. The only “improvements” on the property were a warehouse with a caved-in roof and a dilapidated trailer. The police swarmed the place every few days to evict homeless men, and every so often there’d be a fistfight. You’d think the city and the county and the other powers that be would be thrilled that a nice nonprofit organization wanted to invest in a piece of land less inviting than the surface of Mars. It was crazy that they were giving Michael and his well-intentioned colleagues such a hard time, when all they wanted to do was clean up an eyesore and get some homeless people off the streets.
The press conference was held on the property, which had been spiffed up considerably for the party later that day. Sierra was one of the organizers, and she’d been complaining all week about how hard it was to cover up oily dirt. They’d had to rent at least an acre of Astroturf. Fortunately, the big white tent hid the crappy buildings pretty well, and with the forest of potted palms they’d trucked in, the whole place would look pretty decent after dark.
Things were going okay until a gadfly columnist from the Las Vegas Herald-Dispatch asked a question that made everyone in front of the microphones stop smiling.
“What happens if the deal doesn’t close?” Randolph Berman asked.
“It’s as good as closed,” said the woman standing next to Michael. She was wearing a rust-red power suit that almost exactly matched her hair. “If it weren’t, we wouldn’t be going ahead with the gala tonight.”
“Don’t you lose your funding on December 31st?”
“We aren’t losing any funding, and—”
“Let me say something,” Michael interrupted. My brother smiled beatifically and took his time before he spoke. It’s his favorite tactic for calming difficult situations.
“Mr. Berman,” he said after a long minute. “It’s true that the final documents haven’t been executed, but this has been a complex transaction. Everything will be finalized tomorrow, and the Alliance for the Homeless will at last be able to—”
“But Reverend Black—”
Michael has always hated being called Reverend, but he didn’t let it ruffle him. He just started talking again in his Sermon on the Mount voice.
“We are grateful to all of you for joining us here this morning, and we’re looking forward to an even happier day when we open our new service center’s doors. Now, if you’ll join me in prayer—”
He pulled it off. Michael actually made Randy Berman shut up. The only sad part was that the stories in tomorrow’s papers, including David’s, wouldn’t be about the Alliance’s altruistic plans, but rather about all the legal and financial troubles.
“I have to write about it, Copper,” David said as we left in his Jeep. “The land isn’t theirs, and it’s true that the matching grant money disappears at the end of the year. That’s not much more than a week away, if you subtract holidays and weekends. The deal was supposed to close over a month ago, and it still hasn’t. I’m sorry, but that’s—”
“I know. You don’t have to tell me. That’s the story.”
And then, damn it, I cried. I don’t even know why. I didn’t give a rat’s ass about the Alliance for the Homeless, and I hardly knew Victoria. I couldn’t believe it, but I also couldn’t help it. I sat there snuffling, and I didn’t even have a Kleenex.
“Cleopatra must die.”
I didn’t mean to say it out loud, but the words popped out.
“What?” David asked.
“Oh, nothing,” I said, still sniffling. “It was just the name of my—no really, nothing.” But I’d said too much. David was staring at me.
“‘Cleopatra Must Die’ was the title of my senior thesis.”
“That sounds like a history topic. I thought you majored in English.”
“I did. It was about—do you really want to hear this?”
“I do.”
“Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Antigone—strong women … ”
“Who die,” David finished.
I nodded. “I tried to make the case that as literary characters, they’re killed off to maintain the status quo.”
“I guess they are,” David said. “Uppity women, all of them.”
“Yeah, I admit it. It was a feminist rant, and I’m not even sure I proved my point, but—”
“Victoria.”
Fresh tears sprang to my eyes. I nodded, unable to speak.
“You’re right,” David said. “She was trying to disturb the status quo.”
“And she’s dead,” I said. “Just like she would have been in a play by George Bernard Shaw.”
We just sat there for a minute or two.
When I finally stopped hiccupping, David said, “Have you ever been to the Art House?”
“No,” I said, but I knew about it. The Art House is a trendy downtown restaurant favored by people who work for the city and county.
“Want to grab a bite to eat?” David asked, and I readily agreed.
I felt better as soon as I walked inside. The lunch rush hadn’t begun, and the hostess told us to sit wherever we liked. David ushered me to a booth in the corner. A big framed print of Marilyn Monroe trying to keep her dress from flying up hung over the table. Another dead woman, I thought, but I refused to let it bother me. It was time to pull myself together and act like a grownup.
“What do you want to drink?”
“Iced tea,” I said. Later,
when I took a sip, I realized he’d ordered the “Long Island” kind.
“You don’t have to drink it,” David said, “but I thought you could use it.”
He was right, even though it was only 11:30.
:: :: ::
At home, I was immediately tempted to zone out on beer and DVDs. I wished I didn’t have to go to the gala, but I had promised Michael and Sierra I’d play handmaiden to the celebrity guest. It was going to be Wayne Newton, but he had cancelled a week earlier. His replacement was a Cuban singer-comedian-dancer named Mirandela, and I was supposed to hold her pink guitar while she struck a photogenic pose with a decorated shovel.
God! I couldn’t help wondering why I wasn’t teaching kindergarten in Connecticut.
That always works. Whenever I picture myself wearing a denim smock and asking a roomful of five-year-olds whether they have to go “Number One or Number Two,” I come to my senses. Victoria’s demise had been a shock, but I had to get used to things like sudden death if I was going to make it as a journalist.
Limiting myself to one pale ale, I started organizing all the stuff in the box Victoria had given me. It didn’t take long to think she really might have been a victim of foul play. American Beauty’s executives and attorneys had been trying very hard to shut Victoria up. There were several cease and desist orders in one of the folders, and a restraining order requiring her to stay away from American Beauty headquarters. Newspaper articles quoting American Beauty representatives accused Victoria of pandering and illegal solicitation—an obvious smear campaign. All that effort had to be expensive. Killing her and making it look like an accident would be an effective and permanent way to silence her.
I also discovered that Victoria was in an ongoing feud with the owner of the Beavertail Ranch, a guy named Kent Freeman. He had made it clear in a couple of terse memos that he didn’t like the kind of publicity Victoria was generating for the brothel, and he had even threatened to bar her from working there. What if his next step had been to dispatch someone to take care of things?
Full Service Blonde Page 4
