Lounge Singers And Liars In Las Vegas

by A. R. Winters

  “And if she’ll go as far as convincing someone else to kill Roger…”

  “Then,” I said, finishing Ian’s thought, “she’d definitely try to get Roger framed for murder!”

  Suddenly, we heard the noise of an engine, and then headlights drew close.

  A taxi stopped in front of Gladys’s house, and after a few seconds, a tracksuit-clad Gladys emerged.

  Moments later, the taxi had driven off and Gladys was standing on the pavement, rifling through her bag, clearly looking for her keys.

  “Now!” I said to Ian.

  We dashed out of the car and raced toward Gladys.

  No more Miss Nice Girl. Or Mister Nice Guy.

  By the time Gladys realized what was happening and turned to look at us, Ian and I were almost by her side.

  She twisted, dropped her bag, and made to run off, but I reached out and grabbed her wrist.

  “Gladys!” I said softly. “I just want to talk to you.”

  Chapter 30

  I don’t know who was more shocked, me or Ian, when Gladys managed to pull her wrist away from me and take off at a trot across the road.

  “Wait!” I called softly. I wasn’t going to let her get away again.

  Ian split off in one direction, and I went the other way, carrying Gladys’s handbag.

  When she got to the pavement on the other side of the road, Ian was to her left, and I was to her right.

  She chose to make a mad dash toward me.

  Wrong choice.

  I threw her handbag as hard as I could toward her head, and it made contact. Boink!

  Gladys stopped running, and stood there in shock, as Ian caught up to her from behind.

  “I have a taser!” he lied. “Don’t move!”

  But she did—she made as though to dash across the street again—and this time, Ian grabbed her leg and held on.

  Gladys kicked hard, trying to get Ian off, but she couldn’t.

  I snuck up behind her, grabbed her wrist, and snapped on a handcuff.

  Gladys looked up from Ian, who was holding on to her ankle, to me, and then to her wrist.

  I snapped the other side of the cuffs onto my own wrist, and held it up for her to see.

  “Besties, see?” I said helpfully. “Together forever.”

  Gladys didn’t find that particularly funny, judging from the scowl on her face.

  “Let me go,” she said in a surprisingly deep voice. “What do you two want from me? Money? Because I’ll pay you. I’ve got Social Security, and I won a few hundred at blackjack today. Let me go.”

  “We need to talk,” I said, forcing her to walk with me toward her house.

  Ian gathered up her bag, and together, the three of us trooped inside.

  Once inside, Ian switched on the light, locked the front door behind us, and put Gladys’s handbag down on the floor.

  I glanced around the inside of Gladys’s house, and I took a good, long look at Gladys. Under the bright fluorescent lights in her kitchen, I could finally see the truth.

  “You’re not Gladys,” I said. “But I know who you are.”

  Chapter 31

  “Tiffany?” a bleary-eyed Susan Hartley stared at me and blinked. “What’s going on? What time is it? Why are you video calling me at this ungodly hour?”

  “I know it’s too early,” I said. “But we needed to talk. And I couldn’t wait.”

  Susan yawned and rubbed her eyes, and her image moved slightly. I guessed we’d woken her and she was sitting up in bed.

  “This better be good,” she grumbled. “I hired a PI to make my life easier, not to wake me at—two in the morning?!”

  “Time zones,” I said sheepishly. That was only part of it. “But this couldn’t wait.”

  I handed the phone over to “Gladys.”

  We’d given “her” a few minutes to wash up and change, and she’d returned a completely different person. Literally.

  “James?” Susan sounded even more surprised than before. “What’re you doing here? Tiffany, why is my son with you?”

  “Hi, Mom.” James smiled wanly and waved at the image of his mother in the phone. “How are you?”

  “Great!” she snapped, sounding anything but great. “Why are you with Tiffany? What’s going on?”

  “Uh.”

  James looked at me uncertainly.

  He seemed young, in his early twenties, and was mostly skin and bones. His hair was scraggly and a tad too long, and now that he’d washed off the elaborate “wrinkles” makeup, I could see that his skin was slightly acne-prone.

  “Talk to Tiffany. She can explain.”

  James passed the phone over to me before I could protest.

  “Hi Susan,” I said awkwardly.

  “Tiffany. What is going on?”

  “So… I’m afraid I’ve got some very bad news. About your mother.” I paused for a moment, giving her a moment to prepare. “I’m afraid Gladys has passed away.”

  Susan gasped. “No! That can’t be possible! You told me yesterday—or was it the day before? —that you saw her on the street. And she was so quick you couldn’t even catch up with her.”

  “I know I said that,” I said soothingly. “But I was wrong. I wasn’t seeing Gladys. I saw your son, James, dressed up as Gladys.”

  Susan scowled at me, clearly not buying a word of it. “That makes no sense. Pass the phone back to James.”

  James waved his hands at me frantically, refusing to accept the phone. When I failed to force it on him, I stood in front of him and held the phone at the height of his face. “Talk to your mother,” I commanded.

  “Hey Mom,” he said weakly.

  “James! Why are you in Vegas? Why aren’t you in LA?”

  “Well…” he scratched the top of his head. “You know how I went to LA a year ago to become a makeup artist?”

  “Yes?”

  “Er, well. See, I met this girl. Julie.” He beamed at her name. “We’re in love.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  James hesitated. “Well, see, Julie’s pregnant.”

  I heard Susan gasp. “You got a girl pregnant?”

  “No, no.” James shook his head back and forth rapidly. “I didn’t get her pregnant. I’m not the dad. I mean, I’m not the biological dad. I mean—what I mean is—Julie was already pregnant when I met her. Some deadbeat got her pregnant and ran off. He doesn’t want to be the dad.”

  Susan’s voice echoed through the living room, harsh and unforgiving. “What’s this got to do with you? Some girl gets pregnant by another guy and he runs off. Happens all the time. Why are you involved?”

  “Because I love her.” James’s voice sounded strained and his eyes had a desperate, almost manic light. “I didn’t tell you earlier because I knew you wouldn’t understand!”

  “No,” said Susan flatly. “I don’t.”

  “I love her, Mom. I love Julie and I love the baby she’s carrying. Our baby. It doesn’t matter that some other guy’s the biological dad. I’m the real dad. I’m going to have a baby!” he paused, looking at the phone hesitantly. “You’re going to be a grandma, Mom. Aren’t you excited?”

  There was no response from the other end, and I peered over to glance at the screen. Susan was staring at James stoically.

  After a few seconds of no response, James went on, sounding slightly dejected. “I’m going to have a family. I’m going to be a dad. Which means I need to provide for them.”

  Still no response from Susan.

  James took a deep breath and went on. “I took a bus into Vegas to talk to Grandma. I knew she’d understand. I thought maybe she could help out.”

  Ian said, “Did she understand?”

  “Who’s that?” asked Susan sharply.

  I swiveled the phone around so Susan could see Ian.

  “Who’re you?” she asked, not sounding pleased.

  “I’m Ian,” said Ian proudly. “Ian Ewanson. Thought maybe I should be like James Bond and lead
with Ewanson. That might be more impressive. Ewanson, Ian Ewanson.”

  I peered at the phone. Susan did not look impressed. In fact, she looked downright annoyed. “Is this some kind of joke?”

  Quickly, I turned the phone around to face me again. “Susan, Ian is my partner,” I said. “He helped me apprehend Glady—I mean, your son.” I swiveled the phone around again, so that it faced James. “James, go on.”

  He shrugged. “I guess Grandma was happy enough to see me. I spent two days here. Helping her out and stuff. I was meaning to tell her about me and Julie, but then one morning, I woke up. And Grandma wasn’t up ‘til noon. So after lunch, I went to wake her up.”

  He fell silent for a few seconds. Finally, he took a deep breath and went on. “I went to wake her up,” he repeated. “But she wouldn’t get up.” He blinked rapidly, fighting back tears. “She was dead.”

  I peeked at the phone again. Susan’s face seemed to be frozen in place, as though my phone had stopped working.

  James must’ve thought the same thing, because he said, “Mom, are you listening?”

  “Go on.” Her voice was flat and emotionless. Just like her face.

  James took another deep breath. “So. She was dead. I spent a few minutes thinking. I didn’t know what to do, so I… I put her body in that chest freezer there.”

  He pointed toward the kitchen.

  Ian and I shuddered simultaneously.

  Susan said, “You what?!”

  She sounded as horrified as Ian and I felt.

  James looked at the ground and swayed slightly from one side to the other.

  “I didn’t know what to do,” he muttered. “I didn’t know where to put her.”

  “How about calling 911!?” Susan yelled. “Good Lord, James, have I not raised you with any more sense than a doorknob? My mom just died! How could you do this? How could you not tell me? Did you think I wouldn’t want to know? Did you think, maybe, in an emergency, you call 911? You call a hospital? Good Lord.”

  Her voice shrank away. “Good Lord,” she repeated softly.

  “I’m sorry, Mom.” James sounded as contrite as he looked. “I guess I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  I held my breath, waiting for Susan to go off on another tirade, but I was met with silence from the other end of the phone. I peered over—Susan was quietly wiping away tears. “My own son,” she muttered.

  “She was already dead,” James protested, suddenly defensive. “Telling other people wouldn’t help me! But she was getting Social Security, and she liked going to the casino—she had ten grand in bills in her bedside table! So I dressed up as her and got her Social Security checks. And I pretended to be her so no one would get suspicious. I even went to the casinos she liked and won a bit of money. I think Grandma would’ve liked that.”

  “I think she’d rather not be in that chest freezer,” Ian muttered.

  Softly, Susan said, “How could you do such a thing, James?”

  “But Mo-om.” James’s voice took on a whiny quality. “I’m going to be a dad! I need to provide for my son! It’s a boy, did you know?”

  He looked at the phone hopefully.

  Susan didn’t reply.

  After a few moments of silence, James shrugged. “I knew you wouldn’t understand. And I knew Grandma would’ve wanted to help me. So I did what I had to. I needed to do this. For Julie. For the baby.”

  He stared at the phone as he spoke.

  For a few moments, there was no response from the other end.

  Finally, Susan said, “Tiffany, can I speak to you now?”

  “Sure.”

  I turned the phone around so that it faced me, and smiled cheerily. And then I saw Susan’s tear-stained face, and dialed down my cheerfulness a bit. “What did you want to talk about?”

  “Do we need to report this to the police?” she asked. “What happens now?”

  I bit my lip. “I’m not really sure. I’ve never been in a situation like this.”

  Ian piped up. “It’s not illegal to put someone who’s already dead into a chest freezer.”

  I nodded. “Ian’s right. I’m not sure what crime’s been committed here, but I guess you do need to give Gladys a proper burial—or cremation, if that’s what she wanted. And it might be a good idea to get the authorities involved, clear things up, stop committing Social Security fraud.”

  “Does that mean I’d get arrested?” asked James suddenly. “I can’t get arrested! I’m going to be a dad!”

  I gulped. “Susan,” I said to the phone, “I can’t advise you on what to do. You hired me to find Gladys. I found Gladys. The rest is between you and your son.”

  Susan nodded grimly. “Thank you, Tiffany. I appreciate it.”

  I looked hesitantly at James. And then, I looked back at my phone. To Susan, I said, “I should go. You and James have a lot to talk about. Why don’t you fly out here, and sort things out? I’m only a phone call away if you need me.”

  “Thank you,” Susan said weakly.

  She looked tired and shocked, and I didn’t know that the next few days would be any easier for her.

  But there was a hopeful light in James’s eyes.

  I hung up, and said, “I’m leaving. Talk to your mom about when she’ll arrive.”

  “Have a copy of the ultrasound on hand,” Ian said suddenly. “I’ve seen ultrasounds of unborn babies. They have a way of breaking your heart.”

  James’s eyes welled up. “I know,” he said. “I just hope my mom feels the same way about this baby.”

  Chapter 32

  It had been far too long a night by the time I got back to my apartment. Except, it wasn’t night anymore; it was almost dawn.

  I said goodbye to Ian at his apartment, and then trudged the last few steps over to my door.

  I was ready to collapse into bed right that moment.

  I opened my door and closed it behind me, flicking on the light.

  That’s when I sensed it. Someone else’s presence.

  “Hello?” I called out. “Stone? Are you in here again?”

  I was too tired for games. I checked in the kitchen by rote. “Stone?” I repeated. “I’m really tired. I’m checking the place like you said to, but I’m really t—”

  The balaclava-clad man stepped out of my bedroom, and I screamed. “You’re not Stone!”

  He was shorter, and besides, Stone wouldn’t bother to wear a balaclava.

  Worse, he had a long, ugly-looking knife in one hand.

  In a low, gravelly voice, he said, “Prepare to die!”

  I screamed again, flinging open a kitchen cabinet. Ryan had given me a can of pepper spray, and I kept it in here. It would come in handy tonight.

  I pulled out the bottle, opened the cap, and sprayed in the direction of the man.

  The air smelled vaguely oily and I realized I’d sprayed olive oil in the man’s direction.

  Before he came to the same realization as me, I hurled the can toward the knife, knocking it out of his hand.

  The man looked down and stared at the knife in dismay.

  “I’ve got a gun,” I said. “And I know Krav Maga. I’m going to shoot you, and then I’m going to kick you in the nuts.”

  The man looked at me, his dark eyes wide with horror.

  “You’re crazy,” he said. “This isn’t worth it!”

  And then he turned and ran out.

  I held on to the kitchen countertop, my knees shaking.

  “That’s right!” I yelled out loud. “I’ve got a gun! If anyone else is in there, come out right now! Before I blow you to bits!”

  Nobody came out.

  I took a deep breath. My pulse was still throbbing, my heart thudding loudly.

  But I knew what had to be done.

  I walked to my bedroom and flicked on the light. I checked inside the wardrobe, under the bed, behind the curtains. I checked the bathroom.

  Finally, satisfied there was nobody in there, I returned to the living room and locked the
front door.

  I sank down onto my couch.

  My previous sleepiness had evaporated.

  Pulling out my phone, I began to dial Ryan’s number.

  And then I remembered—Ryan was no longer here. I couldn’t call him.

  Gulping down a sudden lump in my throat, I called 911.

  “Someone broke into my place,” I said in a slightly shaky voice. “He had a knife.”

  “Stay on the phone,” the operator said, “Don’t hang up. Is there anyone with you now? Are you safe?”

  “I’m safe,” I said. “No other intruders.”

  I then walked them through the attack, and the operator promised a police officer would be around shortly to take my statement and to make sure I was okay.

  I hung up the phone, closed my eyes, and leaned back against the couch cushions. I could fall asleep right there. The adrenaline that had been coursing through my body just a few moments prior seemed to have left in one big whoosh, and now I was exhausted and empty, and ready to crash.

  I stayed like that for a few seconds. Just when I was about to fall asleep, there was a knock on my door.

  I jumped up, rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand, and opened the door.

  “Stone!” I’d been expecting to see a police officer, not him. “What’re you doing here?”

  He stepped inside and surveyed the place. “One of my guys heard about it on the radio dispatch.” He peered at me. “You okay?”

  “I chased him off with a can of olive oil spray.” I jerked my head at the can that was now lying on the floor, next to a big, ugly knife.

  Stone let out what sounded like a small groan. “Where’s your gun? You might not be so lucky next time.”

  I snorted. “I know Krav Maga, remember? My bare hands are weapons.”

  Stone looked at me doubtfully. “When was the last time you went to practice?”

  Oops. Time to change the subject.

  “So,” I said brightly. “I finally caught Gladys! You know, the old lady I chased down the other day.”

  Stone’s expression didn’t change. “You need to go to Krav Maga class if you want to stay safe.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Sure, sure. I’ll take Ian with me.” I grinned. “He cries like a baby whenever he thinks of the instructor.”