Jump the Gun (7 page)

“Where did you park the cab?” one of them asked. The guy with hair. The other guy was bald. They didn't wear uniforms or hats.

“On Locust Street, not far from my house.”

“Was it there when you got back last night?”

“I didn't look last night, but when I went to get it this morning, it was there.”

“All right,” Baldy said. “Give me your card. We may want to get in touch with you again.” Luis reached in his pocket and pulled out two business cards, one each for Moe and Curly. Then Moe turned to us. “Are you staying at this motel, just in case we need to contact you again?”

Great. Do we make this up, too? See what I mean about telling the truth? When you don't, you just have to keep making more stuff up.

Mickey answered. “No, in fact we're leaving today for San Francisco. But let me give you my card with my cell phone on it; feel free to call me.” Mickey patted his pockets and then shrugged. “Sorry, I guess I'm out. I'll write it down on Luis' card.”

Moe handed him the card and gave him a pen. “All right, thanks, Mr. Paxton. Ms. Starkey. Hey, you're not related to Ringo, are you?”

I shook my head and groaned. “You wouldn't believe how often I'm asked that.”

Moe and Curly got back in their Buick and drove away. I turned to Luis and Mickey. “Would either of you like to clue me in here?”

Luis answered. “They're not the police. I gave Mick a signal and he picked up on it. Nice to be working as a team.” He nodded at Mickey and Mickey nodded back. Man stuff, I guess.

“How do you know they're not the police? Do you know every single cop in these here parts?” I was starting to talk like a cowboy, but there was some male-bonding thing going on, and I got sucked in.

“No, I don't,” Luis said. “But I saw the bald-headed one's revolver, a Smith and Wesson .38. It's not a gun that any policeman on duty would carry. And, I didn't recognize them. And, their shoes were wrong. They were fancy leather, with thin soles.” To tell you the truth, this last statement made the most sense to me. I'm a firm believer that you can judge a person by his or her shoes. I looked at Mickey's feet and was relieved to see that he was wearing a nice pair of Cole Hahn brown casuals: stylish, but not flamboyant; practical, but not clunky; masculine, but not macho.

“Okay,” I said. “So let's get the hell out of Dodge.” Mickey and Luis each had a slight smile as I turned away from them and walked back to the cab. I hoped they'd notice I was swaggering a little. I turned around to face them. “You know, if those guys weren't cops, and they're looking for Mary, then Mary is hooked up in something bad, and probably
is
connected with Jake. And we really don't know anything about her at all and we can't trust her at all. And we're still in a lot of trouble.”

“Yes. All true. We don't know who we can trust, except each other.” Mickey patted Luis on the back.

“Well, Mickey, we could trust a United Airlines pilot, couldn't we? How about we go to the airport and trust one of them to get us to San Francisco? How about we skip the hotel escapade, compadre?” It was really hot and my glasses were slipping down on my nose and I was pushing them back up as I posed this very logical question.

Mickey walked up to me and touched my cheek. My scar. “If we go to the hotel, we might be helping Luis. We'll make it quick, I promise. And then, as you say, we'll get the hell out of Dodge.”

His touch alone would probably have been enough to make me agree with him. But something else was holding me there. That gut thing again. A little-voice thing. Maybe a macho thing. I couldn't let go of the idea that Nana could have been murdered. I was getting in touch with my inner male. “Luis,” I said, “Let's go to the Royal Opal. One hand shakes the other, my friend.”

I have no idea, really, what I meant by that. But Luis and Mickey were kind enough to let it slide, and we all got in the taxi and headed for the Strip.

Chapter Eight

Las Vegas really is hell on earth. At about 11:00 in the morning the temperature felt like seven hundred degrees. Without my contacts, I could measure the heat by the rate of speed at which my glasses flew down my nose. Plus, I had been wearing the same clothes for far too long, my hair was plastered to my head like a bathing cap—and I had no hat to hide under—and I was developing some sort of rash—a heat rash, no doubt—right at my waistline where my pants buttoned. While my right hand was busy pushing my glasses up my face, my left was scratching around my navel. Luckily I had on my favorite pink T-shirt and my Levis because I look good in them, but at this point they were stretched out and wet and probably smelled.

Mickey and Luis were quiet, and I started thinking about the two of them in the front seat, while I sat in the back. Why do the men always assume the front seat is theirs? Then I remembered that I had gotten in the cab first and had chosen the back seat, and come to think of it, I was more comfortable back there, as comfortable as I could be in Las Vegas. Apparently, they haven't invented air conditioning cold enough for that wasteland. Either that or Luis' cab's AC needed a rebuild. I was hot and itchy and it was just as well that no one was sitting very near me. Luis, for some mysterious reason, did not seem to be sweating. This is as weird to me as people who eat whatever the hell they want and don't gain any weight.

I was looking at the back of Mickey's head. Nice shape. Nice thick hair, black with some gray starting to show up. He told me that first night we met in Chicago that his mother had been a hair stylist and his father, a plumber. He was an only child and his parents doted on him and saved everything they could to put him through college. A real American story. But they were killed in a car accident when he was twenty-five. I thought about that, staring at his head, and my eyes filled up.

He was looking for a stopgap job after college when he got into publishing. He found out he was good at sales and stuck with it. Sales people in publishing—and probably in any business—make the most money. Editors don't make squat, unless they handle acquisitions for megapublishers and have their own imprints. It used to be that a sales rep could sell a blockbuster to Barnes and Noble and put his kid through college on that order alone. Okay, I might be exaggerating, but not by much. All of that was changing, what with e-books and iPads, but Mickey prepared well for that and was scouting for new opportunities. I wasn't sure what that meant. Anyway, he didn't have any kids, he had only himself to support, so for the time being he was sitting pretty, financially. Physically, too, as I've already stated.

Luis pulled up in front of the Royal Opal. “Here we are. How do you want to do this?”

“Nothing special,” said Mickey. “Let's just go up to the room and pack, and then come down and check out, and we'll keep our eyes open for anything.”

Luis said, “Okay.” Mickey turned to me. I didn't move. I didn't want to move. I sure as hell didn't want to go back into that hotel. This was a very bad idea and I should have insisted on going to the airport. But Mickey and Luis started getting out of the car, and I didn't want to stay there by myself. I didn't want to do anything by myself right then. So I opened the back door and stepped out. Mickey shut the door and took my hand.

Luis told the bellman that we'd be right back and tipped him so that the taxi could sit there for a while. We headed toward the elevators—a straight shot this time—and breathed a sigh of relief when the doors shut after us. We got out on eighteen and walked down the hall to our suite. Mickey pulled the key card out of his wallet, opened the door, and we walked in.

My stomach lurched. Not from buffaloes this time. Just pure fear.

The place was ransacked. Trashed. Furniture turned over. Drawers turned upside down. The fruit basket—which, when I was kidnapped by Jake, had a couple of mangoes, a pear, and lots of strawberries left in it—had been stomped into a gooey mess. The bed looked worse than the morning after the most raucous night of sex I could ever imagine, with the sheets and blankets and pillows all balled up and on the wrong ends. The pictures had been removed from the walls. The stupid little hotel safe had been busted open. My clothes were thrown all over the place. Mickey's, too. It looked like the wake-up scene in
The Hangover,
but there was nothing funny about it.

I lost it. I started shaking so hard I sat down on the nearest sittable thing, which happened to be the coffee table, tipped over on its side. I was hyperventilating and crying at the same time. Apparently, Mickey and Luis didn't think this response was inappropriate. They simply let me sit there and shake and cry. Mickey went back to the door and engaged the dead bolt. Luis opened closet doors. Then they started drifting around the room like homeless people, picking through stuff, holding up a sock here, a belt there, and dropping the items back on the floor. Eventually they came over and sat on the couch and just kind of watched me. I guess it was a shock thing.

When you lose it like that, you only have so much to lose, and then it is lost, and you can breathe again. This happened to me. I suddenly took a deep breath, wiped my eyes, and swallowed hard. “We should get out of here, right now.”

Mickey reached his hand out to my knee. “Whoever did this is gone. Let's get what we need and then split.”

“To the airport, right?” He squeezed my hand. “Right.”

So I got up, went over to a pile of my clothes, picked up my khaki pants, a white t-shirt, and clean underwear, and headed for the bathroom. I stripped, got in the shower—even though it had only been about three hours since my last one—stood there for as long as it took for my shoulders to unhunch, turned off the water and dried myself, and got dressed. That's when I realized I had picked up Mickey's khakis instead of mine. They were comfy and not so tight around my waist, and that could help the rash situation, so I kept them on and rolled up the legs so I wouldn't trip on them. I combed my hair straight back, wet, cleaned my glasses and put them on, and walked back out into the suite. I found my SF Giants baseball cap, put it on—bill forward—and sat down with Mickey and Luis. They hadn't moved an inch.

“Okay,” I said. “I'm ready.”

Luis got up and headed for the bathroom, and I could hear him running the sink water. Mickey patted my knee. “You will never be able to say that I was not an exciting date.”

“No, I will never be able to say that. Now change your clothes. Maybe put on your khakis.”

Mickey stood up, leaned over, and kissed me. The bill of my cap hit his forehead. He turned it ninety degrees and kissed me again. “I'll be right back, and then we'll get out of here.”

A feeling of panic filled me. “Where are you going? The last time you said you'd be right back, you were not right back!”

Mickey tilted his head toward the bathroom. “I'm going in there to change my clothes, okay?”

“Okay. But before you do, there's something I've been meaning to ask you.”

“Okay, shoot.”

“My present. When you left me in this suite before, you were getting me a present at the hotel store. What was it?”

Mickey hit his head in an oh-right, now-I-remember motion and came back over to me and sat down. He reached in his pants pocket and brought out his hand in a fist, holding it toward me. I opened my hand flat out and held it underneath his. He let go of his fist and a small brown object fell into my hand.

I examined it closely: a beautiful animal, carved out of some rich brown stone. “A mountain lion?”

“Yes. It's a fetish.”

“It's wonderful. I love it. Does it mean something special?”

Mickey laughed then. “Yeah, in fact part of Mountain Lion's power is to protect you while you're traveling.”

I laughed, too. “I'm not so sure he's doing a very good job.”

“That depends on your point of view. You're still safe so far, aren't you?”

“I can't argue with that. Do you give mountain lion fetishes to all your first dates?”

He put the palm of his hand on my cheek. “Never before. I saw it in the shop window when we came in. I collect them.”

I gave Mickey a kiss, and he got up and sorted through clothes in a pile on the floor. I watched him find a t-shirt, socks, and boxers, and search for a pair of pants. He finally grabbed his jeans. Then he stood up and kind of looked me over. He turned my cap back around. “Nice pants.” We laughed. Luis came out of the bathroom, and Mickey went in.

I had no reason to think it was anyone but Jake who had ransacked our suite. He'd had enough time while we were locked in the conference room. Clearly, he was looking for something. The question was, what?

While Mickey was cleaning up and changing his clothes, Luis resumed his wandering around the room, and I picked up my stuff to repack it in my suitcase. This was a problem, because my suitcase was ruined. I found it sliced to shreds. I pulled out three dry-cleaning plastic bags from the closet. I shoved my clothes into them as I gathered them up from the floor, the furniture, the counter top, all the while taking inventory of what I was finding and trying to remember what I wasn't finding, straining to imagine anything at all that Jake would want to steal from me. That he would want to kidnap me for. I didn't have any fancy jewelry with me. I'm someone who pretty much wears the same jewelry all the time, so it's always on me: five rings, three bracelets, and a toe ring when I have sandals on.

I do like to change my earrings and usually travel with about ten pairs, even when I'm gone on two-day trips. I like choices. But my earrings tend to be costume jewelry—not valuable. The extra pairs I had packed were all there, dumped out on the floor next to my jewelry case.

I also like interesting pins, and I had brought a stick pin with me to Chicago. I wear it in the lapel of a jacket, now and then I add it to a hat. It has a big fake pearl mounted on a blue enamel square. It was not with my earrings, it was not in my case. I wondered if I left it in Chicago, or if it was stolen. Maybe Jake couldn't tell a fake pearl from a real one.

I found my laptop tossed on the floor behind the couch. It didn't seem damaged. I turned it on and waited for it to boot up, checked the history of the document files—I keep only a few files on my laptop, just those I need with me when traveling—and noticed that each one of them had been opened the previous afternoon. This was an “Aha!” moment. Files. Jake wanted information I had, or thought I had.

I started mentally going through my current projects at work, all of the books I was promoting for the current season.
Take It Easy: A Thinking Man's Approach to Life; What, Me Worry?: A Pictorial History of
Mad Magazine;
My Father, Who Aren't in Heaven, Harold Be Thy Name: The Irrelevance of Religion in Post-Vietnam America;
and
The End of
Law and Order:
How One Show Changed Television Forever.
I couldn't see how any of these would encourage the wrath of thugs, mobsters, old women, or Las Vegas police. In fact, I doubted that much reading went on at all in Las Vegas, what with everyone gambling. Whatever books were available here probably amounted to fifty percent John Grisham and Sue Grafton, forty-five percent romance novels, and the balance, how to's and cookbooks. Okay, so maybe the
Mad Magazine
book would find an audience here, but why would anyone hold anything against Alfred E. Newman?

I shut down my laptop. Mickey was out of the bathroom, in clean clothes, going about the same business of gathering his belongings. He was checking his computer, too. We looked at each other and he shook his head. “He opened my files, but I don't know what he was looking for.”

“Me neither,” I said, “unless he collects unusual pins.”

“What?”

“I'm missing a pin from my jewelry case. But it's not valuable. I probably left it in Chicago.”

Mickey turned back to his laptop. Luis was still wandering around the room, examining everything like a cop would. He'd squat now and then, pace some more, then look up toward the ceiling at god knows what.

“Cassie,” I suddenly said aloud. Luis and Mickey looked at me, waiting for more. “Cassie, my friend. She's staying at my apartment, housesitting Bonkers, my cat. I should call her, tell her I'm coming home today.” They nodded and continued with what they were doing.

I got an outside line on the hotel phone and dialed my home number. It rang twice, then I heard a man's voice answer, “Hello?” My heart jumped. I was unnerved.

“Who is this?” I asked. Mickey and Luis stopped what they were doing, picking up on my weird voice.

“You've reached the Starkey residence. Who's calling, please?”

“Who are you and why are you in my apartment?” I wasn't yelling. I was quiet. I was getting used to being scared, and I got scared a lot sooner than perhaps I would have on any other day.

“This is Beatrice Starkey?”

“Yes, yes, it is, where is Cassie?”

A pause. Oh, the worst pause of my life.

“Where are you, Ms. Starkey?”

“Where is Cassie? What is going on?”

Another pause. Some voices in the background.

“Ms. Starkey, this is Sergeant Franklin, SFPD. I'm sorry to tell you, Cassie Hobbs is dead. It appears she was murdered.”

That's when I yelled something unintelligible, some animal scream buried deep inside me. Mickey leaped over the coffee table in time to catch me before I fell to the floor.