I slowly turned around to find Ramirez giving me the death glare—arms crossed over his chest, vein in his neck bulging, jaw clenched so tight he could crush diamonds with that thing.
“Uh…hi?” I did a little one-finger wave at him.
“Hi?” he gritted through clenched teeth. “Is that the best you can do?”
I gulped. “Hi there, handsome?”
He looked to the ceiling and muttered something in Spanish. Probably praying to the saint of ditzy blondes again for the patience not to strangle this one.
“See, I can explain,” I said, knowing I was gonna have to talk fast to get myself out of this one. “I was going to stay in the room. I really was! But then the latte was so good, and I really needed a change of underwear, and it had been such a long night with the tossing and the turning and the trying not to maul you with my leg stubble. So I went to the New York, New York, and I was just going to be a second, but then Dana told me about the visions, and we had to stop Mom, but we were too late and she’d already zapped Monaldo.”
Ramirez narrowed his eyes at me, that vein in his neck pulsing double time. “Zapped Monaldo?”
I nodded. “Just a little. He should be waking up soon.”
He opened his mouth to say something (which I’m pretty sure involved more naughty words), but was interrupted as the cell phone on his belt chirped to life.
He looked down at the readout. “Shit. Monaldo.”
I gulped, my eyes instinctively going to the hallway where any minute I expected to see a red-faced, jimmylegged mobster with a gun.
“See, I told you he’d be waking up soon,” I said, trying to put a positive spin on things.
Ramirez ignored the comment, instead doing another growl slash glare thing and grabbing me by the arm. He steered me around the bar, carefully avoiding the private offices, and through the maze of mostly empty tables, toward the back of the club.
“Where are we going?” I asked as I stumbled over my feet, trying to keep up with him. “Hey, not all of us have 6′1″ long, I-can-leg-press-a-Buick strides, you know.”
“I am going to convince Monaldo he was not just zapped by some nosy blonde’s mother,” he answered, not slowing his pace any. “And you are going to wait for me. Then I am going to drive you to the airport and personally put you on the first plane back to L.A. Got it?”
“But what about Hank and Bobbi and Lar—”
But Ramirez cut me off, giving me that death look again.
Right. Never mind.
He pushed me ahead of him through a door in the back of the club leading out into a small parking lot behind the building. A handful of cars filled the spaces, mostly second handers spotted with an impressive variety of dents and dings. Two long black Town Cars that I recognized as Monaldo’s preferred method of transportation were parked in the spaces up front. In the back corner of the lot sat Ramirez’s black SUV. He marched me in front of him and unlocked the doors with his remote before shoving me into the backseat.
“You,” he said, pointing a finger at my nose, “stay.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m not a puppy, you know.”
His eyes narrowed again. “No, you’re not. You’re a little pain in the ass that’s driving me up a wall. And, by the way, you’re also running precariously close to being hauled downtown for obstruction of justice, assault with a semi-deadly weapon, and pissing off an officer of the law.”
“You made those last two up.”
His eyes narrowed into fine slits. “Don’t try me.”
I gulped. Trust me, trying Bad Cop’s last nerve was not high on my list of to-dos.
“I’m sorry,” I said instead.
His eyes softened just a little, his jaw relaxing as he rubbed one hand over his eyes. “Maddie, you make me crazy, you know that?”
“I know. And I’m sorry,” I said again.
He shook his head. Then let a little half smile play at the corner of his mouth. He reached one hand out and fingered a lock of my hair. “It’s a good thing you’re so cute, you know it?”
Generally I’m not fond of being called cute. Cute is for drooling babies, dogs in sweaters and cartoon teddy bears with rainbows on their bellies. I prefer “beautiful,” “sexy,” even “da bomb” in certain situations. But somehow, delivered with Ramirez’s husky growl and dark bedroom eyes, the word “cute” instantly switched my lever from cold to hot in two seconds flat.
Suddenly being in the backseat of his car didn’t seem like such a bad thing.
His hands left my hair, snaking around my middle as his lips moved in slow motion toward mine. The heat from his body suddenly washed a menopause-worthy hot flash right through me. His tongue brushed against my lower lip and he let out a low groan. Or maybe I groaned. I wasn’t sure which. In fact, I wasn’t sure of anything except the warm, wiggly feeling settling somewhere in my panty region and the fact that I was a freaking idiot for not sleeping with this guy last night. Seriously, what was I thinking?
His hands slid down my arms, encircling my wrists as his thumbs caressed slow, small circles on my skin. He was kissing me in earnest now and I was so engrossed in the heady rush of hormones Mr. Big Guns had coursing through my body that I didn’t even realize what he was doing until I heard the unmistakable click of metal on metal.
“What the—?”
I broke our lip-lock just as I felt something cool circle my left wrist. I looked up. Ramirez had handcuffed both my hands to the headrest of his car.
My turn to give the death glare. Remember that whole cold-to-hot thing? I could go the other way too. Much faster.
“What the hell is this?” I yelled, jingling the two-inch metal chain between my wrists.
“This,” he said, gesturing to the handcuffs, “is to make sure you’re still here when I get back.”
I stuck my chest out, mustering up as much indignation as a woman handcuffed to an SUV could. “Are you saying you don’t trust me?”
Ramirez pinned me with a look. “You’ve got to be kidding me, right?”
And with that he shut the car door and I heard the automatic locks click down as he walked away.
Great. Oh, this was just great!
I admit, in those lonely weeks of waiting for my phone to ring, I’d played out more than one scenario involving me, Ramirez, and a pair of handcuffs. But none had ended like this! That was it. This whole couple/non-couple thing we had going on was so not happening. If he though he could treat me this way and still get a sneak peek at my sexy Frederick’s lingerie, he was more delusional than both Mrs. Rosenblatt and her spirit guide!
Men. They were nothing but trouble anyway. I mean, really, look where the men in my life had gotten me. Handcuffed, fingerprinted, jailed…then handcuffed again! That’s it, I washed my hands of the whole lot of them. In fact, I was actually looking forward to flying home, sitting in my cozy studio and spending the evening alone with Joanie, Chachi and the Keebler elves. Now those were my kind of men.
Minutes ticked by, during which my hands grew increasingly numb and my list of tortuous ways to get back at Ramirez grew increasingly longer. I was up to number five (stuffing rotten eggs down the seats of his precious SUV) when my purse rang on the seat beside me. I looked up at my hands. Crap. I shimmied my butt over to the far side of the seat and lifted the purse strap with my foot. Had I actually attended Dana’s Power Yoga classes instead of just signing up and blowing them off in favor of a pint of Chunky Monkey, I might have been able to lift my purse high enough to grab the phone with my teeth. As it was, I made it to my belly button before the strap slipped off my foot and the bag fell to the floor. Luckily, my cell spilled out onto the floor mats. I slipped off one slingback and managed to hit the “on” button with my big toe.
“Hello?” I shouted in the direction of the floor.
I leaned as far down as I could to hear the response. It was faint, but I could make it out.
“Maddie, it’s Felix.”
Fabulous. Speaking of men I’d like to
seek revenge on.
“What do you want?” I shouted, stretching my head down between my knees to hear the response.
“I need to talk to you.” He paused. “Are you alone?”
I looked around the backseat. Unfortunately.
“Yes. Why?”
“Because I have someone here who wants to speak to you.”
I heard noise as the phone was passed. Then an all-too-familiar voice rose up from the floor mats. “Maddie, honey?”
I froze.
Larry.
Chapter Seventeen
“Larry!” I shouted, leaning so far south metal cut into my wrists. “Where are you?”
He hesitated. And I feared for a minute I’d lost the connection.
“Larry? Can you hear me?” I asked, my voice starting to go hoarse from shouting.
“I need to talk to you,” he finally answered, so quietly it was barely more than a whisper. “But I don’t want to do it over the phone. Can we meet somewhere?”
I looked back up at the handcuffs.
“Uh…I’m kind of tied up at the moment. Can’t you just tell me what’s going on now?”
“No. No, it’s too…I’d feel better doing this in person.”
I sighed. “I’m not exactly mobile at the moment.” Understatement alert.
“Fine,” Larry responded. “I’ll have Felix come pick you up.”
“No, I—”
But he’d already handed the phone back to Felix. “Maddie, where are you, love?” he asked.
“No,” I shook my head at the phone. “No, you can’t come here. Ram-uh, Bruno will be out any second.”
Felix paused. “What’s going on over there?”
I sighed. “I’m handcuffed in the backseat of Bruno’s car.”
I wasn’t sure being so far away from the earpiece, but I could have sworn I heard Felix laughing. “Kinky.”
“No, not kinky. False imprisonment. And quit laughing!”
I think I heard him snort. “Okay, where exactly is this car?”
“The employee parking lot of the Victoria Club.”
“Give me five minutes.”
“No, Bruno will be back any—” But he’d already hung up.
I hit the end button with my big toe. So much for my date with the Keebler boys.
I watched the numbers on Ramirez’s dash clock crawl by, all the while keeping one eye on the back door of the Victoria. If Ramirez came out before Felix got here, I had no doubt he’d make good on his promise to shove me onto the first flight home, and I’d miss my one chance to see Larry. Maybe forever. I wondered what Larry wanted to tell me. I hoped something bad about Monaldo. Really bad. As in bad enough for the Feds to arrest him and end this whole Godfather meets Tootsie my life had become. Then I could go back to my real life where my biggest worries included finishing the Rainbow Brite jellies on time (which, the longer I stayed in Vegas, was becoming a bigger worry), sitting in traffic on the 405, and wondering when those adorable wedge sandals were going on sale at Macy’s.
I was just wondering exactly when the sales clerk had said those wedges would be on sale when a blue Dodge Neon pulled into the parking lot and killed its lights. I waved the best I could with my foot (since in addition to being immobilized, my hands had completely fallen asleep), and finally Felix spotted me. He pulled the Neon into the empty space beside the SUV and got out. He allowed himself a little smirk for my benefit before trying the door handle. Not surprisingly, it didn’t open.
“It’s locked!” I shouted through the tinted windows.
Felix nodded. Then he went back to his car and returned with something that looked like a long nail file. With a little maneuvering, he wedged it between the doorframe and the window of the passenger side. I kept one eye on the back door of the club, knowing that if Ramirez caught him tampering with his car, Felix was a dead man.
The nail file wiggled and twisted, making a couple of awful grinding noises that I prayed weren’t the sounds of black paint being chipped away. Finally the door locks popped up. I was so happy I could have laughed.
Felix opened the door. He took one look at the handcuffs and did laugh.
“It’s not funny.”
“No, not at all,” he responded, starting to snort again.
“Just get them off, smartass.”
He pulled a pocketknife out of his khakis and flipped it open. To my surprise, it didn’t contain scissors and bottle openers, but a series of different sized and shaped files. He fit one in the keyhole of the handcuffs and after doing the same sort of shimmy and wiggle thing he’d done with the giant nail file, one metal bracelet finally popped off my wrist.
I could have hugged him. That is, if I’d had any feeling left in my arms whatsoever. I shook my hand, feeling little pins and needles race over my skin as the blood surged back into my limbs. Felix made short work of the second bracelet and as soon as I was accessory free, I jumped out of the SUV and into the Neon’s passenger seat.
“Let’s go!” I shouted as Felix tucked his handy-dandy lock picks back into his pocket. “Trust me, you do not want to be here when Bruno sees this.” While no paint had been actually chipped in the making of this great escape, the little rubber strips between the car door and his window were kind of stretched out. And bulging. And there might have been one or two teeny tiny marks on his windows. Those, coupled with the fact that an empty pair of handcuffs was dangling from his passenger seat, were enough to put Bad Cop in a really bad mood. We’re talking back-in-a-holding-cell bad. Not something I wanted to be around to witness.
Felix seemed to get my drift, sliding behind the wheel and gunning the engine. I kept my eyes on the back door, chanting “please don’t open, please don’t open, please don’t open,” as Felix flipped on the lights and pulled out of the parking lot, heading west on Fremont.
I heaved a sigh of relief as the Victoria shrank in the rearview mirror, glad that at least one thing had gone my way today.
“So was that a reporter thing back there?” I asked, rubbing the feeling back into my hands.
“What?”
“Breaking into cars. Picking locks.”
He grinned. Then did a noncommittal “Maybe.”
“Not that I’m being judgmental or anything. I’m actually quite impressed. I know how hard it is to open a locked door. Trust me, that whole credit card thing they do on TV doesn’t work.”
Felix raised an eyebrow at me. “Been doing some breaking and entering of our own lately, have we?”
I shrugged and mimicked his “Maybe.”
“Touché,” he muttered.
“So where did you learn how to do that?”
“Liverpool.”
I gave him my “and…” look, gesturing for the long version of that answer.
“Tell you what,” he said, turning to face me as we stopped for a red light. “I’ll answer your probing question if you answer one of mine.”
Uh oh. Never good when a reporter used the word “probing.” But, then again, I reasoned, what did I really have to lose? This guy already knew everything about me. Besides, it wasn’t every day a girl ran into someone with his very own lock-picking set outside of HBO’s primetime lineup. I admit, curiosity won out over good judgment. (And for those of you keeping track, yes, this was a recurring theme in my life.)
“Deal,” I said.
Felix swiveled back in his seat as the light turned green. “All right then. When I was a kid, my friend Rodney’s father owned a towing service. When we got bored we used to borrow his tools and break into parked cars.”
“You’re a car thief?” Okay, I knew tabloid reporters were pretty low on the food chain, but hadn’t figured I was actually riding with a criminal.
“No, no, no.” He shook his head. “We just borrowed them for a bit. Always put them back.”
“More like a car borrower, then?”
“More like, yes.”
“Did you ever get caught?”
Felix shook his head at me,
doing a tsk, tsk, tsk thing with his tongue. “That’s two questions, love.”
“Hmmm.” I sat back in my seat, pretty sure I wasn’t getting the whole story out of him.
“My turn,” Felix said, his eyes twinkling.
“All right, what do you want to know?”
“You and that Bruno fellow. What’s really going on there?”
“Nothing,” I said, a little too quickly.
“Nothing?” Felix gave me a sidelong glance.
“Absolutely nothing,” I replied. Which was almost the truth. (Almost.) From Ramirez I got no sex, no trust, no respect…see? Nothing.
“So,” Felix prodded, not any more satisfied with my answer than I had been with his. “The words ‘boyfriend,’ ‘dating,’ not entering into this situation at all then?”
I shook my head until whips of blond hair smacked against my cheeks. “Nope. Not at all.” The whole truth and nothing but the truth this time. Ramirez hadn’t uttered either one of those words. And I had a sinking feeling it would take an event more miraculous than the Red Sox winning another World Series to make it happen. Bad Cop didn’t have happily-ever-after in his repertoire. Hell, we couldn’t even do happily-sleeping-together-just-once.
“Hmmm,” Felix said, taking his eyes off the road to give my barely-B-hugging tank top a healthy stare. “Interesting.”
I shifted in my seat, not sure I wanted to probe what that “interesting” might mean. “So, uh, where are we going anyway?” I asked instead, clearing my throat.
Felix gave me a little half smile and I could swear he was enjoying how uncomfortable his attention made me. “The New York, New York. Larry’s waiting for us in my room.”
“What’s he doing there?”
“He called me about an hour ago, trying to get a hold of you again. Said he needed to see you.”
“Any idea what about?”
Felix shook his head. “No. But he seemed rather shaken up about something. I almost didn’t want to leave the poor fellow alone, but he said there was no way he was going near the Victoria again. Apparently some bad blood there.”
I cringed, thinking of Hank’s swan dive. Felix didn’t know how true that statement was.
Killer in High Heels Page 21
