DOUBLE MINT (16 page)

Eighteen

One phone call is never enough.

“I had a small errand to run and what did I find in my parking place? Eddie the Idiot’s
mobile taxidermy. I swear, No Hair, I will never be the same after driving around
with dead raccoons.”

“He says they died of natural causes, Davis, and all he did was skin them.”

“Since when is buckshot a natural cause?”

“Why didn’t you drive Fantasy’s car?”

“Someone slashed her tires.”

“Days ago,” he said. “What’s she been doing she couldn’t call someone in transportation
and get new tires?”

“What?”

“Davis,” No Hair said, “move on. Next subject.”

“They’re holding us on driving a stolen vehicle, reckless driving, criminal possession,
carrying concealed without a permit, destruction of government property, and animal
abuse.”

“What did you destroy?”

“An exit sign and a bunch of guard rail.”

“What’s the criminal possession?”

“A bunch of counterfeit money,” I said. “A bunch.” I took a peek around the corner.
I had a huge audience, so I covered the mouthpiece of the phone, a desk phone, formerly
Greg and Marcia Brady’s desk phone, with my hand. “You tell Baylor I’m going to kick
his ass.”

“Davis,” No Hair said, “you’re in jail, and you’re not going to kick anyone’s ass.
Why you’re calling me is what I want to know. I’m a five-hour drive away.”

“I tried Calinda. She didn’t answer.”

“That’s because she’s busy doing your job while you’re out rubbing Magnolia’s nose
in it, and I swear, Davis,” I could hear him huffing and puffing, “if you don’t get
your act together,
I’m
coming home and kicking
your
ass.”

Pfffffft. “This is all Baylor’s fault, No Hair. If he’d have swapped cars yesterday
like I told him to, I wouldn’t be in jail.”

“I wish you could hear yourself.”

“Did you see Baylor when he was there? Do you know what happened?”

Nothing but static.

“No Hair?”

“We’re going to talk cars later, if that’s okay with you.”

Dammit. What had Eddie the Ass done with my car?

“Let’s slow down and talk about work for a second.”

“First, tell me how I’m supposed to get out of jail.”

“Call your husband.”

“I’m not calling him.”

“Call Fantasy’s husband. He has all kinds of Louisiana connections.”

Under the circumstances—she sat cross-legged on a cot behind me, her head resting
on painted cinderblocks, her eyes closed, it was all very Zen—that probably wasn’t
a great idea. “He’s out of town.”

“Right,” No Hair said. “I can’t keep up with her.”

“Get in line.”

I was in a front corner of the cell, lacing my fingers around the coils of the phone
cord and trying to talk No Hair into busting us out. And he wanted to talk about work.
Like I could work from jail.

“I heard back from the warden at Pollock, by the way. Christopher Hall didn’t break
out of prison. He’s in the last stages of liver failure. Cirrhosis. It was a compassion
release two weeks ago, so he could die on the outside.”

“First, I’m sorry to hear that. Next, they should have kept him in, because the first
thing he did was rain hell on me by bringing counterfeit money to the Bellissimo.”

“I don’t know why he’d want to spend the last few days of his life pulling a con.”

“I don’t think it was a con, No Hair. I think it was a payout.”

“To whom?”

“Magnolia.”

“For what?”

“I haven’t gotten that far.”

“You might be right on the payout end of things,” No Hair said, “but you’re dead wrong
about Magnolia. Christopher Hall has no reason to want Magnolia Thibodeaux in federal
prison. Where you’re headed.”

(Pffffft.)

“He and Holder Darby were an item back in the day, No Hair.”

“I think I knew that.”

“So maybe he just wanted to be with her again before, you know, the end,” I said,
“which is sweet. Until they told Magnolia my house was full of money and platinum.”

“I don’t believe for a second you could live there with a stash of cash right under
your nose and not find it by now. The platinum was there, yes, but that doesn’t mean
there’s millions of dollars there too.”

I turned to check on Fantasy, who was now stretched out on the cot like it was a fluffy
day bed, singing to herself. An old song, an old Dionne Warwick song, about never
falling in love again.

“Magnolia Thibodeaux sure thinks there is.”

“Here’s an idea, Davis. Get yourself out of jail, go home, and find it. Lock yourself
in there and find the money you insist is there.”

“If Paragon doesn’t already have it,” I said. “My new theory is Paragon is behind
everything. They’re the ones who nabbed Holder and Christopher with the bad liver.”

“When did you come up with that theory?”

“Just now.”

“And you think that why?”

“Because I no longer think Magnolia nabbed them.”

“And why would they bother kidnapping a special events coordinator and a dying convict?”

“Because Holder Darby and Christopher Hall know where the real money and platinum
is.”

“Obviously they don’t, Davis.”

“What?”

“
You
found the platinum.”

No Hair had a bad habit of taking the wind out of my sails.

“
Someone
is behind all this, No Hair, and if it’s not Magnolia, it’s Paragon.”

The square base of the retro telephone was in the floor outside the jail cell. I only
had the clunky receiver. A deputy walked up and tapped his watch, then leaned over
to disconnect the call. “No! No! Please! Two more minutes!” He held up a finger. One
more minute.

“Here we go again. Paragon is not behind this and Conner Hughes isn’t the bad guy.
Have you even met him? He’s too boring to be a bad guy. He’s an honest man, Davis.
Get that through your thick skull. You saved the day finding the platinum, you were
right about Magnolia sneaking around looking for it, but you’re wrong about Paragon.
I want you off that dead-end road. Conner Hughes is not a thief or a kidnapper, and
if you ever manage to get out of jail, you should probably look for Holder Darby and
Christopher Hall at a hospital. I don’t know what happened, but I strongly suspect
it was related to his health, not our valued business partner.”

Christopher Hall’s liver did put a whole new spin on things.

“You do know Paragon has three convicted criminals on the payroll, don’t you, No Hair?”

“Yes, Davis. I’m aware. And so does the Bellissimo.”

“Who?”

“YOU!”

He had me there.

“I’m getting ready to say something, Davis, and you listen up.”

(As if I hadn’t been listening.)

“If I hear you say Paragon Protection one more time, we’re going to have a more serious
talk than this one. We’re going to have a come to Jesus talk.”

“I know for a fact their game is rigged, No Hair. They’ve already chosen the winners.”

“It’s their game, Davis, and as long as they keep it in that room and don’t violate
the agreement they made with the Gaming Commission, I couldn’t care less.”

The deputy came back. I squeezed my eyes closed, cradled the phone receiver between
my ear and shoulder, clasped my hands in prayer, and had my own come to Jesus talk.
“If you’ll forgive me of all my sins, Lord, all of them…”

“What?” (No Hair.)

“Oh, holy night. Praise be thine name.”

“Who?” (No Hair.)

“Amen and amen.”

I peeked. The deputy was gone.

“DAVIS!” (NO HAIR.)

“WHAT?” (ME.)

“Let’s wind this up,” he said. “You’re wearing me out.”

“When are you coming home, No Hair?”

“In two weeks,” he said. “Five minutes after the grand opening.”

“That’s too far away.”

“Did you tell Bianca she had menopause?”

“Uh, not in those words,” I said. And I’m missing her gyno appointment right now.
“Are you going to call the governor and bust us out before Bradley finds out about
this?”

“No,” he said. “I’m not. But Baylor is on his way.”

“What’s he going to do? Flirt us out of here?” I asked. “We need a presidential pardon,
No Hair, or Michael Bublé. They’ve got a million pieces of evidence against us.”

“They’ve got nothing,” No Hair said. “Cop a plea to the car theft. Tell them you found
it on the side of the road with the keys in it and knew nothing about the contents.”

“I would have gladly told them that an hour ago, No Hair, but there’s a small problem.”
It was Eddie the Ass’s car. I’d never hear the end of it if I let Eddie go down on
the counterfeit possession charges. He’d be in prison for the rest of his life. Not
a bad place for him, but still, probably not the right thing to do.

“He never registered the car, Davis. And he paid cash for it to a drug dealer. Let
St. Tammany keep the car and the counterfeit money. Chasing down the owner will give
them something to do for the next six months. They can’t charge you or Eddie.”

A light at the end of this dark dark tunnel.

“Please tell me you’re not joking, No Hair.”

“A bondsman should be walking in the door any minute, and Baylor is on his way to
pick you up.”

Good. When he gets here, I’m going to rip him to shreds over this car business. Then
I’m going to find the absolute nastiest job in the three million square feet of Bellissimo
property and give it to him. Permanently. While I hole up at my computer and nail
Paragon. They have Mint Condition rigged for a reason, and I’m going to find the reason.
I thought it best to keep it to myself until I found something concrete—I couldn’t
tell Fantasy anyway, because she was asleep, napping away the infidelity—lest I be
accused of harassing our Valued Business Partner again. I stretched out on my cot
and stared at the cracks in the ceiling. Something was going down. I could feel it.
I didn’t know what, but something.

* * *

Stepping off the elevator a free woman, I saw my new neighbors. In the seven hours
I’d been gone on Wednesday, to New Orleans and to jail, Jay Leno’s place had been
dehydrated, because there was a flurry of activity down the hall. I spotted Lover
Boy Miles standing off from the group; he pretended he didn’t spot me. I probably
should have shot him in the elevator that first day.

Not only was Jay’s place in working order, Bradley and I had a new chandelier, a normal
chandelier, above our new front doors, normal front doors made of solid wood, and
best of all we had a new doorbell, one I was sure didn’t sing about saints. I couldn’t
get in the new front doors (and neither could Magnolia), so I rang the doorbell.

Ding. Dong.

It was a miracle.

Sears opened the door wearing Bellissimo coveralls.

“Hey, there.”

“How’s it going, Sears?”

“Pretty good.” Behind him, a piecemeal trail of canvas tarp covered the floor coming
out of the secret door in the fleur-de-lis wallpaper and across half the foyer. New
to the foyer, and hugging the east wall, were four metal mountains. “I’m breaking
the machines down to the nuts and bolts, rolling the scrap out here, then packing
it on pallets.” He pointed to the mountains. I had the world’s most beautiful foyer:
a fake magnolia tree in a cast iron tub, an Igloo refrigerator, and now a scrap-metal
junk display on pallets. “Mr. Cole wants to recycle all this. Say,” he said, “have
you been back there?” He threw a thumb in the direction of the Bourbon Street Bank.

“No.”

“Huh.” He scratched his neck. “Pretty interesting.”

“Keep dismantling it, Sears. Everything you see. Bust it into a million pieces.”

“You got it.”

“And not a word to anyone.” He zipped his lips. I hiked my spy bag a little higher
on my shoulder. “By any chance, would you like a big cooler?”

He eyed the Igloo refrigerator. “Sure.”

“Have you seen the cat?”

“Not so much,” he said, “but your lady doctor is here.”

I’d missed Bianca’s gyno appointment. By a mile. “Where is she?”

Sears pointed in the general direction of Who Dat Hooters.

* * *

Dr. Paisley Caden, board certified doctor of obstetrics and gynecology, had offices
on Prytania Street in New Orleans that made Jay Leno’s place look like subsidized
housing, but she mostly worked out of her six-room suite at the Hotel Monteleone on
Royal Street in the French Quarter.

She had one of the rooms set up for brain transplants. Very medical. Very discreet.
Her patients were rich, famous, and paid her a fortune to cover up their Big Easy
indiscretions before they went home to their husbands in LA, DC, and HC. (Hot Coffee.
It’s in Mississippi. A real place, a hundred miles from Biloxi, just northwest of
Hattiesburg.) Paisley is five feet tall, of Chinese lineage, but having been adopted
by a Louisiana husband and wife cardiology team when she was three months old, was
an All-American Girl. Proof? I found her with her Jimmy Choos propped up on my grave
marker coffee table, eating popcorn, and watching the Bravo Channel. I plopped down
beside her.

“Do you watch this show?” she asked.

“Never. I don’t know who these people are.”

She passed the popcorn, her eyes glued to the big screen. “Fascinating,” she said.
“I can’t figure out what they’re famous for, other than their decadent lifestyles
and willingness to let cameras follow them into the bathroom.”

“How long have you been waiting on me?”

“Four episodes,” she said. “I’m trying to figure out who their vagineer is.”

“That,” I said, “is gross. Is that what you call yourself?”

“I call myself a genius,” she said. “You should see my portfolio. I’m up seventeen
percent in this ridiculously depressed economy.” She ate popcorn. “Where have you
been?”

“Jail.”

“That sucks.”