1 Hot Scheming Mess (20 page)

Madison’s hands came up to push him away but before she had a chance, from nowhere, a figure in black pants and shirt shoved an elbow upward in faded orange t-shirt guy’s nose, causing him to let go of Madison’s arm. “ARG!” He bent over, both hands covering his nose, blood dripping. The first guy who had put his hand on Madison’s shoulder was turning in a circle trying to see who was attacking whom.

Madison bent to help the bloody nose guy and realized the black figure already had a foot in cigarette guy’s groin, as she grabbed the ears of gauge guy, yanking downward and coming up with a knee in his face, as both men crumpled to the ground.
It’s a woman!
The black figure twisted around, her hair flying, dark in the night, and stomped down on the foot of the first drunk guy who had started all this by putting his hand on Madison’s shoulder, his cry cut off when he hit the ground holding his foot. As the four men rolled and groaned, she eyed Daniel as he sat up from the ground, putting her foot on his neck and shoving him back down, his head thumping the sidewalk when Madison screamed.

The woman stopped, breathing a little heavy, and asked Madison, “Is he a friend?”

“Yes!” Madison was desperate to make it all stop.

“Do you feel safe now?”

Hell, no!
“Yes! Yes, just stop!”

She lifted her foot off of Daniel, as Madison dove down to the ground where Daniel slowly rolled over, holding his head. “Are you all right?” she asked, the sounds of groaning all around her.

Trying to sit up, he rubbed his throat saying “Who the hell was that?”

Madison looked up, looked around, but didn’t see her anymore. Across the street, the dark car pulled away, its shadow occupants disappearing past the street revelers, the colorful doors, and the deep bass rhythms.

Chapter Twenty

Dim morning light filled her bedroom revealing a blanket on the floor, the sheets kicked down to her feet. Sleeping had been difficult on yet another hot summer night. But as temperatures cooled just before dawn, the comfort level had gone up, allowing Madison’s fretful sweaty sleep to turn into a welcome comfortable slumber.

Madison was not quite aware yet, her breathing still rhythmic and even. But the restful silence of the morning was interrupted by a gentle tweedling sound from her cell phone—she had a message. Inhaling deeply, she rolled to reach for the cell phone on her bed stand, and noticed how comfy this new position was with her face down and her arm reaching across the mattress…

A peaceful dream of senseless frolic pulled her down till she was nudged awake again by the soft tweedling.

She lifted her face from the pillow and managed to get propped up on her elbows, head hanging, staring at the pillowcase, her hair making a dark curtain. A long list of things to do came to mind as the sleepy fog gave way to the new day. She had a singing telegram to deliver as the Bumbling Waitress at one o’clock at Giovanni’s, a swank restaurant down on the waterfront overlooking Puget Sound.

Last night, after realizing that agents from DC must immediately have jumped a flight for Seattle, Madison thought it would be best to come back home. Her grandfather must have told them about the metal box and for some reason they had taken it seriously, though she wasn’t sure why. She wondered why they hadn’t returned yet for the paperwork. Grandpa still wasn’t answering the phone. Was he avoiding her?

She needed to get to Robot Moon Productions to retrieve the paperwork from the old Victorian grandfather clock. Having FBI agents show up at Robot Moon Productions might not go over well with Target. Unless they were cute. Then Target would thank her for sending some eye candy her way.

Madison reached for the tweedling cell phone. She had a new gig sheet waiting for her attached in an email, and a voicemail from Phil.

“Hey, Chocolate Mint,” his voicemail started, “I’m sorry I got a little carried away yesterday. You surprised me when you upped your fee for this funeral gig. Sometimes I forget who I’m dealing with Minty, and you’re no fool. Hell, this is such a weird one, you should get paid more. The gig’s in your inbox. It’s at noon. That’s a tight squeeze with your Bumbling Waitress at one o’clock, but the places are only minutes away from each other, so I okayed it. Leave a message if you have questions. I’ll be busy on the phone. I have to find a stripper telegram substitute and fast! Jen pulled a groin muscle yesterday at the princess birthday party. She swears she did it climbing some stairs, but I’ll bet she was in a back room again, adding an extra show for the uncles and extra tips, if you know what I mean.”

Madison hung up and pulled up the gig sheet on the screen of her phone. Crap. She’d forgotten about the deal with Phil. She was supposed to sing at a funeral today at Holme’s Memorial Chapel. Only it wasn’t supposed to be dignified. It was a tasteless joke that the deceased had arranged just before he passed away. For the first time in all the years of working as a singing telegram, Madison considered going against the gig sheet. If the guy was dead, who would be the wiser? Who would know that she had taken the rough edges off of his joke by dressing appropriately for a funeral, and singing a nice song to the audience gathered there, instead of parading around the casket in a pregnant costume, singing about how he made her love him? A plan formed in her mind. She had to make sure Phil didn’t find out. She wasn’t sure he would object in this instance, but she didn’t want to take the chance. After all, there was one thousand dollars riding on it.

She hopped in and out of the shower, pulled on her last clean pair of jeans, and the last clean tank top. In spite of the world falling apart around her head, there was one fact she could no longer escape. And that was laundry. She would take Spenser up on her offer to do laundry this morning. She’d better hurry.

Her hair dryer was loud but not loud enough to drown out her thoughts. She thought about Spenser and her simple answers to life’s problems.
Get to know your own mother, she said. Use adult eyes, she said.
Well, holy crap, what a mixed bag of results. Her mother was more complicated than Madison had remembered. She almost missed those childish eyes that made everything black and white and easy to know what to do.

She tried the fresh perspective that a good night’s sleep could bring while her half wet hair slowly returned to its lustrous state of dark silk. Ann’s deception about the apartment was indeed sobering. Madison recognized control issues when she saw them. But she could see that ExBoy had a point. Her mother was trying to help. The hard part now was trying to figure out what to do. Should she move out of this apartment to make a point? Stay on and try to pay all the rent herself? She’d spent most of what she had getting in here. It would take a while to save up for deposits on another place. Her response to her mother on the phone last night may not have been great, but Ann needed to know she had crossed a line.

While packing for her gigs, she pulled out her various wigs and makeup kit to take to Spenser’s place and picked out something nice to wear to the funeral. She would get ready at Spenser’s house while laundry was in the dryer.

She opened her purse and saw the fake handgun.

She knew Target was right; it was potentially dangerous to let people think she was actually armed with a real gun. But she’d been feeling so vulnerable, and the prop looked so real when she’d seen it. Her first thought was that it could be used in an extreme emergency. She’d never held a real gun and wouldn’t know what to do with it if she did.

She pulled it out, noticing that it was a perfect fit, or at least it seemed so to her. She didn’t know how a gun was supposed to feel, but she liked the smoothness and the way the contours fit her small hand. She wondered if real guns were supposed to fit like this.

Holding the gun, she stood in front of the mirror and struck a sexy pose, her left hand on her hip, the gun near her face but pointed at the ceiling. She watched in the mirror as she moved her left shoulder up and around in a sultry circle.
Hot!
In a slow pull, she took the gun down the side of her face, a delicate sliding touch on her skin. Her eyes heavy lidded, she slowly turned her lips toward the gun and watched the mirror as she blew imaginary smoke from its barrel.
That’s right mother fucker. Don’t mess with me.

She put both hands on the gun, again pointing at the ceiling and suddenly backed up against her bathroom wall, the mirror forgotten. She turned her head quickly to the right and watched the shower nozzle for any sudden move.
You piece of shit!
She whipped the gun around, taking deadly aim at the shampoo bottle. She whipped back around to the other side to aim at her hair dryer and cowed it into submission.
Don’t move!
She whipped it dead ahead in the mirror and saw the end of the barrel pointed at herself.
Oh God!

The effect surprised her. She let her arms drop as she stared at herself, the reality sinking in.

If she couldn’t get past the fear of playing bang-bang in the mirror, how could she ever learn to use a real gun? How did her mother do it? She wondered if Spenser had ever handled a gun before. She put it back in her purse.

Her phone tweedled again. She’d missed a call while the hair dryer was on. She was surprised to see Jerry Rosser’s name on the caller ID. She called him right back.

“I was wondering how it went yesterday,” he said.

She sighed. “I thought it went great, at the restaurant at least. But later on, I don’t know Jerry, I’m so rattled I’m afraid to even talk about it. I’m getting mad all over again.”

“My goodness. What happened?”

“She told a friend of mine that she was going to surprise me with a nice apartment. She had him tell me about the place, and she had the landlord lie to me about how cheap the rent was. So I got all excited and moved in here a few weeks ago. Then I find out that she’s paying the rent for me!” She paused. She hated the way that had sounded whiney. “Wait,” she continued, “I’m not saying it right. She wants reasonable things for my life, but she’s willing to be all sneaky and go to unreasonable lengths to accomplish it!”
Argh! I sound like an ass.
Somehow she wasn’t capturing the injustice of it all. “The point is she tricked me. I can’t trust her.”

“Well, actually Madison, I called because I wanted you to know that I’m worried about Ann. Please keep this confidential. I’m hoping that you will help me to help her, before I have to leave my post here as the SAC. Would you meet with me today?”

“Uh, okay.” She hadn’t expected anything like this. “Where?” she asked.

“I’ll meet you at the Seattle Library at 3:00. It’s two blocks away from my office, so I won’t be gone long enough to be missed. Is that all right?”

“Yeah, that’s all right.”

After she hung up, she located the envelope of old pictures that Ann had given her to make the montage for Jerry’s retirement party. Last night in her anger she’d told her mother that they should go back to the way they had it—in essence, not seeing each other anymore. Now she hated herself for saying that, but she didn’t know how to take it back. Maybe she should continue working on the montage while she waited for her mother to apologize.

She looked at the large envelope, wondering what Jerry was worried about regarding her mother. Maybe Ann had come into work with red eyes this morning. The thought that her tough mother, who never cried, had actually cried on the phone last night, left her feeling shook. She’d never realized that she meant that much to her mother.

She added the envelope to the pile of things she was taking to Spenser’s house. She missed her big black tote bag, having left it at Spenser’s house yesterday.

Minutes later she was in the parking lot packing her things into the car; her arms were awkward and did a poor job of hanging onto everything while she unlocked her car door.

Nearby, Crystal had just parked and was coming over to her. She waved at Madison, and Madison smiled at her, but then dropped the car keys, a hair brush, and her purse on the ground. Crystal stepped up and helped her with the items that had dropped. “Thanks,” said Madison. “Guess I’m starting the day out klutzy.”

“No problem,” said Crystal. “Actually I wanted to thank you for being so nice to my Aunt Toonie. I knew you were covering up for her yesterday. I was annoyed about it, but then I realized that you were being a friend to her. She’s had a tendency to be a loner for too long now, watching life go by through that window.”

“I didn’t know that,” said Madison, looking up at Toonie’s window. “She’s been really good for me.” She remembered Toonie’s stories of her time working in Las Vegas and of lost friendships.

Crystal said, “I wish I could find a way to get her out once in a while and do something different.”

“I might have something in mind for you,” said Madison. “Let me look into it and I’ll get back to you.”

*****

Of course there would be a fresh pot of coffee waiting at Spenser’s house. But Madison chose to take a detour instead. She couldn’t resist. After all, Jason Clark wouldn’t be at Spenser’s house, he would be here at The Loony Bean on barista duty.

She walked straight up to the counter where customers picked up their latte orders. “Jason?” He looked up, a light in his hazel brown eyes but pressed his lips shut, looking back down at his work, ignoring her. His t-shirt was once again a bit snug around his biceps. His strong steady hands set cups of lattes out on the counter. “Jason, please, can we at least talk later? There’s a lot you don’t understand.”

“That’s for sure,” he mumbled. He turned around and reached down in a cupboard, searching around for something. Madison tilted her head, watching that fine backside, her fingers coming up to her lips.

An older man said, “Excuse me,” reaching over to the counter for his order. Coming back to herself, she quickly stepped out of the way while customers picked up their lattes. Jason started the next cup. “Well, can—” she started, and accidentally bumped someone trying to get around her, “…can you at least tell me how Mitch is? Is he any better today?” Jason set down a few more cups. The initial rush subsided as the customers picked up their lattes and walked away. He looked up at her and said, “He’s better. I’ll be picking him up later today when they release him.” He measured out some espresso shots and asked, “How’s Pizzaman?”