“You’re here; that’s all that matters.”
Of medium height and slight build, Charles had the slouchy, approachable look of a doctor; kindness surrounded him like an aura. His soft brown puppy-dog eyes were filled with concern. His close-cropped blond hair reminded me of Teddie’s—a thought that daggered my heart, momentarily stealing my breath.
Tracking him down had given Brandy a bit of trouble. Since he was a first-year medical student, reaching him by phone had taken me so long that I had almost gotten on a plane to look for him in person, like Diogenes with his lantern searching for an honest man.
After wiping my hand with a napkin, I shook his. “Nice to meet you.”
“I tried to stay out of this,” he said. “I mean, it’s really her decision, isn’t it?” He jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans as he cast furtive glances toward the house. “Besides, she’s not taking my calls. Last time we talked, she said she didn’t want to hear from me until it was over.”
“Understandable. If I were in her position, I wouldn’t discuss sleeping with someone else—even just for money—with the man I loved.” On occasion Vegas could be weirder than other times—this was one of the truly odd moments. “I know you think this is all Arrianna’s decision, but it’s not. First, we all need the advice of loved ones—especially when we wander off the path. Second, she’s going to be your wife. I’d say you have a right to weigh in.”
For some reason, I’d lost my appetite. I offered the remaining tamal to Charles. He shook his head, so I wandered to a nearby can and pitched it.
“If she goes through with this, I don’t know how we’re going to move on,” he said as he followed me. “I’m afraid it’s going to hang between us forever.” He looked at me with hound-dog eyes. “Like that movie, you know?”
“Indecent Proposal?” Movie nights with Teddie brought perspective at the oddest times. “With Robert Redford and Demi Moore?”
“That’s the one—damned depressing show.” His face held the look of a condemned man. “I feel like a creep letting the woman I love sell herself—for us. I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t try to stop her.”
I liked this guy—oh, I liked him a lot.
“As I said on the phone, I can get you inside and I can keep Mona occupied for a bit. The rest is up to you.”
* * *
TRUDI hadn’t been hard to bribe, although her price had been higher than I’d anticipated—a spa weekend at the Babylon. At my knock, she opened the backdoor. “Mona’s still preening for the cameras. Take the service stairs.” Trudi smiled at us and thumped Charles on the back. Just another sucker for love.
I pushed Charles ahead of me up the narrow staircase. “All the way to the top, then turn right. Mother’s suite is the only room up there. You’ll see the door.”
Like a gazelle, he bounded up the stairs two at a time. I darn near herniated myself trying to keep up—I should have known better. I arrived at the top landing in time to see him disappear through Mona’s door.
A voice behind me turned me to stone. “Why your mother won’t put in an elevator! I’ve been telling her to do it for decades.”
Aunt Matilda! I’d forgotten about that particular fly in the ointment.
Hoping my face wasn’t as red as a hothouse tomato, I collected myself and turned to face her. “The stairs are Mother’s final assurance her clients are healthy enough for sexual activity.” God, I sounded like one of those horrid commercials. “Ask your doctor if you’re healthy enough... and seek immediate medical attention for an erection lasting more than four hours.” Like every female I knew, I had been traumatized by that last part. Four hours! I’d be dead... or in need of immediate medical attention myself.
“Move aside.” Matilda tried to move me with her cane. Who was she kidding? I could take her with one hand behind my back, although she looked pretty scrappy. “That was the boyfriend, wasn’t it?”
“Leave them alone, okay?” I said, as I stood my ground. If he talks her out of it... from the look on her face, it was clear elaboration would be redundant. And I wanted her out of the way, but short of throwing her over my shoulder and toting her downstairs, I was fresh out of ideas.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said in the car.” For a moment Matilda looked almost human, fragile.
“That money is no compensation for a life poorly lived?”
“Is that what you said?”
“I’m paraphrasing, but that was the nut of it.”
She gave me a shrewd, appraising look. “I always knew you were smart, but I never realized you were wise.”
Well, knock me over with a feather boa.
Without giving too much away, and gaining an ally in the process. I was able to negotiate our return to the ground floor.
Melancholy washed over my aunt as I deposited her in an overstuffed chair in the corner of the parlor. “The best part of life had passed me by before I figured out the important parts,” she said. “I refused to let the same thing happen to your mother. I wasn’t entirely successful, as you know. But now, she’s still young enough to have her bite of the apple.”
“Perhaps she’s bitten off more than she can chew,” I stated, as I motioned to one of the extra staff Mother had engaged for the big event. “A gin martini, for the lady here. Make it dirty, please.”
“I heard she had taken up with your Big Boss,” Matilda stated matter-of-factly. Neither her tone nor her expression gave any hint as to what she knew.
“Yeah, it’s sort of a new twist on a old theme. Instead of sleeping with the boss myself, I sent my mother. Do you think that was wise?”
“You know, don’t you?” Matilda’s eyes fixed on mine.
“Know what?” I asked with a wink.
“He’s very sad that you won’t let him crow to the world.”
“I know.” I pulled a throw from the couch and tucked it around her bird legs. “In time. Life’s coming at me pretty fast right now; I’m having a hard time keeping up.”
* * *
WITH her dirty martini and studly waiter, Matilda was happy. I left her there and repositioned myself by the front door, where I could watch Mother’s series of interviews. She worked through the last of the lot as I arrived. When finished, she deigned to grace me with her attention. “I can talk to you now.”
“Am I lucky, or what?”
She gave me a stare, but, for once, she didn’t launch a return salvo.
“Remember, I’m not talking to you,” I said, as I took a good look at her.
A little ragged around the edges, Mona’s mask was slipping. “No, I didn’t remember. Apparently you didn’t either.”
“Good point.” Pulling the curtains aside, I looked out the window. The crowd pulsed with excitement. This was the biggest thing to happen to Pahrump since Mabel Jenkins ran down Highway 160 through the middle of town buck-naked in a desperate attempt to get her husband’s attention. I don’t know whether Mr. Jenkins noticed, but the rest of the town sat up and saluted. “Is this all you hoped it would be?”
“Are you giving me a hard time again?” Mona dabbed at the corner of an eye with a knuckle.
“Probably.”
“What time is it?”
“Ten minutes until the stroke of the axe.”
“Lucky, I swear!” She gave me a dirty look. “Time to go get our—”
“Sacrificial lamb?” Rubbing salt in the wound, I know. Sometimes shallow feels really good.
With a groan of frustration, Mother started up the stairs. As she disappeared around the first landing, I threw a look at my aunt over my shoulder. She gave me the thumbs-up sign. We’d put all our money on Charles—the dark horse in this race. I couldn’t wait for the big payoff.
I didn’t have to wait long.
A scream echoed down the stairs. “She’s gone!”
I pumped my fists in the air and did a happy dance.
Mona clacked furiously down the stairs. Like a jet on a strafing run
, the noise grew louder and louder until she appeared in front of me waving a piece of paper. “She left a note!”
“Really?” I widened my eyes in feigned innocence.
Tapping one stilettoed foot, she ripped the letter into tiny pieces in front of my face, then let them drift to the floor. “This was all your fault, wasn’t it?”
“I sincerely hope so.”
“You called the boyfriend, didn’t you?” A smile tugged at the corner of her lips.
“I’m a sucker for love.”
Then my mother did the darndest thing. She hugged me.
* * *
AS I piloted Miss P’s car back toward Vegas—which was now looking positively mundane compared to Pahrump—I marveled at my friends and family and their unusual behavior of late. First, Jordan wanting to marry Rudy, thereby shooting his livelihood through the heart, then Teddie and his little trust issue, and then Matilda and Mother.
It seemed they all were playing musical personalities and I’d been tossed from the game. Was I the only sane person left? Or maybe they were all sane and I’d finally lost it? Who knew? Either way, I was clearly out of synch. Perhaps I’d better keep my distance in case there really was something to the whole insanity-by-association thing.
Tortilla Padilla’s weigh-in lit off at four o’clock. I’d better hurry if I was to make it back, check in with the office, then be there to watch two buff males parade around in their underwear.
Stomping on the accelerator, then being underwhelmed, I remembered. Fast was not possible unless I could spur the squirrels under the hood to peddle faster.
MY office was empty when I breezed through the door, tossed Miss Patterson’s keys on the desk, then deposited my Birkin in the closet.
I had just settled a hip on the corner of my desk and was rifling through my messages when the outer door burst open and Miss P appeared in my doorway.
“How’d the auction go?” she asked, looking at me over the top of her cheaters as she handed me my phone.
“True love carried the day.” I pocketed my phone, then pulled a message from Romeo out of the stack. It read simply, “Nothing yet.”
“What does that mean?” Miss P asked.
“Huh?” I crumpled the paper and launched it toward the can. I missed. “Sorry. The auction was... interesting.”
Her eyes grew wider and wider as I regaled her with the Cliffs-Notes version of my morning. “So the girl bolted, leaving your mother holding the bag? And you set the whole thing in motion?” Admiration shone in her eyes.
I basked in her fleeting hero worship. “Very occasionally, I do something right.”
“I bet somebody sues your mother.”
“On what grounds? Raised... expectations?” I moved to perch in my chair. “And what would they sue for? Specific performance? I’ve met some interesting judges in my time, but I can’t see one ordering a young lady to sacrifice her virginity.”
“So you left your mother to clean up the mess?”
“It was hers to deal with, and besides, she had Aunt Matilda to help.” I pushed at a new pile of papers propagating on my desk.
“There is a God.” Miss P grinned at me.
“Any major fires I should know about?”
“I put Brandy in charge of our DJ—apparently he has some issues with the equipment setup.” Miss P consulted her clipboard. “Bakker Rutan, the actress, is coming but she must be flown in after dark, just prior to the party, then flown home again so she can see the sunrise in Malibu.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Apparently she finds Vegas depressing in the daylight.”
I couldn’t fault her there. “Have you made the appropriate arrangements?”
“I’ll meet her plane, then Brandy is going to do the return.”
“Anything else?”
“You’ve been invited to an ice-cream social.”
“An ice-cream social?” I hadn’t been to one of those since I was a very little girl, and even then they were few and far between for the daughter of a madam. “By whom?”
“Miss Maria José Padilla. Tonight at seven thirty in the Padilla’s bungalow.”
“Please tell her I am honored and will most certainly be there.”
Miss Patterson looked surprised. “You will?”
“Of course. Now, if you don’t have anything else for me, I’ve got to go ogle a couple of middleweights in their skivvies.”
A stage, bathed in the otherworldly glow of klieg lights, sat in the middle of one of our larger ballrooms. A large scale occupied the center of the stage and was the demarcation between Tortilla Padilla’s camp on the left and the European’s on the right. A tuxedo-clad man with a radio voice presided over the festivities. Both fighters bounced on their toes, jabbing the air. As expected, each of them wore next to nothing.
Television cameras recorded the event for posterity as a large crowd gathered in front. My eyes needed a moment to adjust to the darkness. Sidling out of the doorway, my shoulder collided with another. “Sorry.”
“O’Toole?” A familiar male voice.
“Daniel?” I squinted in the darkness.
The district attorney leaned against the back wall, clutching his daughter, Gabi, who rested against him.
“Hey, Gabi. What are you two doing here?”
“Glinda is one of the Round Card Girls for the fight. Gabi’s too young for the main event, so I brought her today to see her mother in action.”
As if on cue, Glinda, her figure beautifully displayed in an orange bikini and matching high heels, appeared on stage to numerous catcalls.
Gabi gasped, then she grabbed her father’s hand. “Isn’t she pretty, Daddy?” She didn’t seem to notice that her father didn’t answer.
The three of us watched as the fighters were each weighed and measured, then pretended to argue for the crowd. Periodically, Glinda would stroll across the stage with a sign igniting the crowd to a particular activity: boo, applause, cheer. All went swimmingly until one of the European’s handlers decided to take on Crash. With one punch, the big man flattened him. Security stepped in to restrain the rest of the group, who postured and preened, making a big show of their collective manliness.
Daniel, Gabi, and I walked out together.
The girl tugged her father’s hand. “Take me to the park. You promised. Remember?”
Daniel grinned like a fool. In his daughter’s presence, he looked ten years younger—if you ignored the black eye that had faded to greens and yellows and the new gash, closed with two butterfly bandages, on his left cheekbone. “She loves the new kid’s park in Summerlin. We go every Sunday after church.”
“You promised,” Gabi whined, playing her father as only young girls can.
“Go wait for me by the door. I need to talk to Ms. O’Toole for a minute.”
Gabi groaned and gave him an exaggerated eye roll, but did as he asked.
Daniel stepped in close to me, grasping my arm in a viselike grip. “If I were you, I’d quit digging into the Neidermeyer matter.”
Taken aback at his tone, I managed to hold my ground. “Why?”
“These sorts of things can be dangerous—not only to you but to the ones you love. A father, for instance.” His eyes, dark and fathomless, held mine.
“Is that a threat, Daniel?” I jerked my arm from his grasp in what I hoped was a show of strength—strength I didn’t feel as my stomach roiled. “You know as well as I, I don’t have a father.”
“You were warned, OToole.” He stepped away, his usual mask falling into place. “Be careful. Be very careful.”
* * *
NERVOUS energy pulsed through me, thoughts rattled my brain, feelings battered my heart. In short, I was a wreck.
I needed to walk—or have sex, but sex didn’t seem to be in the cards right now, so walking it was. After two circuits of the casino, the only thing I had accomplished was to add my feet to the long list of body parts that ached. On the verge of surrender, I heard a voice shout my
name.
“Lucky!”
I turned and scanned the crowd.
“Ms. O’Toole, wait.”
Arrianna, her face flushed, Charles’s hand clutched in hers as she pulled him along, broke through the crowd. Out of breath, the two of them arrived in front of me.
“Hey, you two. I am not going to ask you what you’ve been doing.” I gave them a group hug.
“We’ve been looking for you!”
“Really? What for?”
Charles, looking equally as giddy as his girl, stepped forward. “She said yes!’’ He proffered her left hand and the ring on her finger for my inspection.
I whistled appropriately. “Congratulations. And best wishes to you, Arrianna. What a day, huh?”
“It’s not over,” she said. “We’re getting married.”
“So I gathered.”
“Now! We’re getting married now, but we couldn’t do it without you.”
“Now? Me?” My heart filled to overflowing. I’d never been a required member at a wedding before.
She grabbed my hand and I raced along with the youngsters, high on the adrenaline spike of love... and youthful lust. True love was alive and well!
The personification of patience, Delphinia waited in front of the Temple of Love. A smile split her face when she saw us. “Fabulous! I was beginning to despair.”
As she ushered us inside, I drew Arrianna aside. “What about your parents?”
“They asked that you stand in, then we can have a full Indian wedding this summer between semesters.”
“I’m a poor substitute for parents—this isn’t one of my areas of expertise, but let’s see what we can do.”
Still dressed in her white sundress and sandals, Arrianna looked every inch the blushing bride.
“How does that ditty go? Something old, something new?” I said.
“My dress is new—my underwear is old.”
I gave her a look. “Old underwear is not what I had in mind.” I unscrewed my square-cut diamond earrings and handed them to her. “For luck.”
Lucky Stiff (Lucky O'Toole Vegas Adventure Book 2) Page 25
