CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The number I do call rings in Trixie and Shanelle’s room. We schedule an emergency powwow at Starbucks. I’m hoping that magical combination of caffeine and sugar will move my brain cells in a positive direction.
“One thing is for damn sure,” Shanelle declares. She and Trixie are already in their rehearsal outfits, reminding me just how busy today is going to be. “You must not give in to that jackass.”
“No chance of that.” I set down my cappuccino and pull off a piece of apple fritter. “But how do I stop him releasing that video? If it goes public, my crown could go bye-bye.” After all, the Ms. America pageant is for married women. No way could the titleholder get away with cheating on her husband, which is for sure what that video makes it look like I’m ramping up to do.
“That old moral turpitude thing again,” Shanelle says, and I’m reminded of my bikinied poolside dance Sunday afternoon, also captured on video. Now I know Mario Suave saw it. I wonder who else did.
“We beauty queens do have to be super careful.” Trixie licks latte foam off her upper lip. “This is in the racy pictures category and you know what happens when those come out.”
Queens lose their crowns. That’s what happens.
Trixie goes on. “Do you think if you got Hans’s stolen stuff from Cassidy and gave it back to him, he might give you that video?”
“The problem is,” Shanelle says, “he can always keep a copy.”
I only half hear her. “Wait a minute.” The caffeine and sugar do seem to be working. I get an actual idea. “You’re right, Trixie. Cassidy has some of Hans’s stuff. Like his laptop.”
Trixie gazes at me wide-eyed. Shanelle shakes her head. “Do not even think it.”
“Why not? We’ve done it before. And lived to tell about it.”
“Lived to tell about what?” Trixie wants to know. “What are you talking about?”
I dig my cell out of my handbag. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before.”
“Do not call her,” Shanelle says.
“Call who?” Trixie asks.
“It’s ringing,” I say. Then, “Cassidy? Hope I didn’t wake you up.” I don’t wait for her to inform me that I did. “Listen, I need something from you.” A few minutes later, having succeeded in my task by again threatening to tell Detective Perelli about Cassidy’s trick-roll career, I hang up.
“I get it now.” Trixie smiles at me. “Good thinking, Happy.”
“I did not say I’d help you,” Shanelle says.
“I know.” I also know she will help me when it comes down to it. I return my cell to my handbag. “No wonder both Hans and Danny got into blackmailing. It can be darn effective.”
“Danny was blackmailing somebody?” Shanelle asks, and I realize she and Trixie don’t have the 411 on what I learned last night from Cassidy.
I fill them in as we go upstairs so I can change for rehearsal. My mother is sufficiently rejuvenated to accompany us. “I wish you had the show next weekend, too,” she says as we pile into a cab, courtesy of her senior discount coupons. “Then we could stay longer.”
“Aren’t you getting homesick, Mrs. P?” Trixie asks.
“What have I got waiting for me back there?” my mother wants to know.
“Maybe you should consider some kind of volunteer work,” Shanelle suggests. “My mom does a lot of that through her church.”
My mother spins around in the cab’s front seat. She looks as horrified as if Shanelle suggested she start robbing banks to pass the time. “Have to show up someplace all the time and not get paid a dime? I need that like I need a hole in the head! I’d rather get a job.”
I have an idea where this is coming from. Pop’s new lady friend cum nail salon owner no doubt has Hazel Przybyszewski in a jealous tizzy. “I’m not sure you’d like the 9 to 5 grind,” I tell her. Not that I think she could land a job anyway, in this economy and with zero work history. “Shanelle makes a good point. You help out with bingo at church. That’s volunteer work.”
“That’s different. Bingo is bingo.”
I can’t dispute that. When we arrive at rehearsal, make the introductions, and settle my mother in a prime viewing position, we discover that we three newbies will begin by practicing costume changes. We’ll change twice during the show.
“In one case you’ll have 78 seconds,” trainer Elaine tells us. “In the other, 92.”
Both of which sound long enough until I realize we’re talking a minute and a half give or take, way shorter than the time frame we face in pageant competition.
“Liberace would change six or seven times in a show,” my mother calls out from her seat in the theater. “Some of his costumes weighed as much as two hundred pounds, more than he did. One was nearly that weight in turkey feathers dyed all shades of pink. He wore it to perform at Radio City Music Hall.”
Elaine takes a moment to process these Liberace factoids. I am thinking she might be regretting that she extended my mother an invitation to watch the rehearsal.
We Sparklettes will eschew pink turkey feathers in favor of a sexed-up version of Top Hat and Tails, then change into eighties-style Madonna-style get-ups with bustiers and fishnets. We’ll finish off in the so-called Diamond costume, which features black spandex and silver lame and enough sequin detailing to do any beauty queen justice. And in one number Trixie, Shanelle, and I will sport our Ms. America sashes: Trixie Ms. Congeniality, Shanelle Ms. Mississippi, and me Ms. America. I’m so proud of mine, I never tire of wearing it. Sometimes I put it on just because.
I quickly learn it’s not easy changing costumes with a speed clock running. I conclude that the key is to dispense with modesty. I nudge Shanelle. “Can you believe that tomorrow night we’re actually performing?”
“No. But ready or not, it’s happening.”
I’m panicked on more than one level. In just a few days our Sparklettes performances will be history. I’ll have to leave Vegas. And at the rate I’m going there’s an excellent chance I’ll do so without having figured out who shot Danny Richter.
After a more traditional warm-up, Elaine arranges us in our show positions. “Taller girls on the inside and shorter on the outside.”
We’re all within a fairly narrow range—given that the required height is between 5-6 and 5-10 and a half—but this means that Shanelle and I are closer to the middle and Trixie is halfway down one side.
“This is almost our last chance to focus on exact positioning,” Elaine reminds us. “Even a gesture as simple as placing your hands on your hips can be done in all kinds of ways. We want every girl to do every gesture the
same
way.”
No individualism here.
“There are no stars in this show,” Elaine goes on. “The goal is to have no girl stand out.”
Talk about another mongo difference from pageant competition.
Elaine strolls behind the line as each of us fastens her arms around the dancers to her left and right. “This is called linking up,” she tells us, adjusting my arms slightly.
Doing eye-high kicks in such close proximity to one’s fellow Sparklettes is no easy trick, especially for us rookies. All three of us feel bludgeoned by the time we’re released for the day.
I am myself again once showered and wearing my black and white polka dot tank dress. I trot down to the casino to find Cassidy. She gets another corset-clad server to cover for her while we conduct our handoff. It happens in the hotel parking structure.
“Thank you for doing this, Cassidy,” I say as she pops the trunk of her Corolla and hands me Hans’s Mac.
“You gonna give it back to me?”
“I don’t think so.” Not that I know what I am going to do with it.
“I got too much stress in my life,” she tells me, and slams her trunk closed.
After stowing the booty in my room away from my mom’s prying eyes, I call Samantha and invite her to lunch. Maybe I can rev up this investigation by getting her to divulge something more about her interactions with Danny.
“Lunch is a lovely idea, dear.” She sounds even more whispery than usual. “But my Cadillac made a funny noise and has to go to the shop. Will you pick me up?”
Danny must have had his hands full if Samantha requires so much escorting she won’t even hire a cab to take her to the Strip. “Sure.” I’m willing to go the extra mile, so to speak, for investigative purposes.
“Come in an hour. I have to wait for the tow truck. Ring the doorbell and I’ll come out.”
It seems she doesn’t want to let me in her house again. I guess we’re not BFFs. I phone another gal I wish were my BFF.
“You wanna talk, come catch me while I wait for my takeout,” and Detective Perelli names a greasy spoon close to the Cosmos.
I arrive to find her wearing a black check pencil skirt with a white shirt. She’s also sporting a really cute eyeglass leash made of black beads and tiny seashells.
“You ever had disco fries?” She opens a paper bag under my nose and I extract a French fry from a pool of melted cheese and brown gravy. “ ‘Course they’re not as good here as they are in Jersey.”
“How do you eat like this and look like that?” If I weren’t on the Sparklettes eye-high-kick regimen, I’d never burn off the calories I’m ingesting in Vegas.
“It’s all I’ll eat all day.” She makes for the exit and I follow. “So what’s up?”
“Have you run across a Travis Blakely?”
“Nope.” The Strip’s sunshine hits us and she sets her sunglasses on her nose. “Who’s he?”
“A friend of Danny’s. A drinking buddy, more like.”
“How’d you hear about him?”
“From Cassidy. I thought he might be another lead to pursue.” Then I relay Cassidy’s assertion that Danny was blackmailing somebody and segue into Samantha telling me she gave Danny access to her bank accounts. As usual, I can’t tell from Detective Perelli’s questions whether she’s already heard all this elsewhere.
She halts at the curb. “By the way, I paid Hans Finkelmeister a visit.”
I wish I’d been a fly on that wall. “He must’ve enjoyed that.”
“Especially since I caught up with him at the bar on the top floor of the Cosmos where he hangs out with his convention buddies.”
I wonder if he tried to pick her up before he realized she’s a cop.
“His alibi checks out,” Detective Perelli tells me. “He was at the Hoover Dam Saturday afternoon and has the photos on his cell to prove it.”
Those photos would include date and time. So Hans is a blackmailer but not a murderer. That raises him only slightly in my estimation.
Detective Perelli eyes me. “Still, it was a good tip.”
I preen. “Anything more on the counterfeit-money guy?”
“We got confirmation he fled the state. We’re after him. A few other leads I’m pursuing, too.” I’m concluding she won’t be sharing those with me when a black-and-white rolls to a stop in front of her and she gets in. “I appreciate what you’ve done and all, Happy, but I don’t want you getting more mixed up in this. It’s nasty.”
“I’m being careful.”
“Until you got a gun and a badge, you gotta steer clear. I mean it.”
I watch the cop car roll away and imagine having a gun and a badge. Just like Pop did.
Maybe better. He never got to work Homicide.
I’m in a good mood as I hail a cab. Soon I’m gaining entry to Samantha’s gated community. I spy a flatbed tow truck on its way out, transporting a cream-colored Cadillac with a pink interior, pink doggie carrier, and smashed windshield.
I’m wondering if the “funny noise” Samantha referred to on the phone was the sound of glass breaking. Was she so frazzled by the Tarot card’s revelations of treachery and dishonor that she went on a chardonnay bender and made the mistake of getting behind the wheel?
I tell the cabbie to keep the engine running and trot up the curving path to Samantha’s manse. No sooner does my fingertip leave her doorbell than she barrels out of the house and past me down the path, Pucci in her arms. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” she pants, flying toward the street.
“We can’t take Pucci to lunch!” I protest.
“I can’t leave her in there!” Samantha shrieks.
“Why not?” I race after her. “What’s wrong?”
I get my answer when we’re almost at the curb. I hear a bellow behind me and spin around to see a dark-haired thirty-something male hurtling down the path in my direction. That wouldn’t be so bad if he weren’t swinging a crowbar over his head.
“Brandon, no!” Samantha screams.
“Get back in the house, Mother!” he yells.
Not a moment’s hesitation on her part. She scampers right back up the path. I hear the front door slam shut.
“And
you
!” He points at me with one hand and swings the crowbar in an extra wide arc with the other. I’m just about concluding that it wasn’t white wine that did in the Cadillac’s windshield when my cabbie apparently begins to fear for his own vehicle. He guns the engine and peels off. That is unfortunate because I would prefer a few tons of steel between me and Brandon St. James. Desperate, I take cover behind a palm tree.
Brandon approaches with a menacing glint in his eye. “Don’t come around here anymore, you hear me? I don’t know what you’re up to but I want it to stop!”
“What’s your problem? You don’t want your mother to have friends?”
