2 Double Dip (11 page)

“Okay, Davis,” Fantasy said. “Let’s turn the tables. Let’s say you walked into Bradley’s office and the lawyer Mary was sitting in his chair, like you were sitting on the sofa. And standing one inch from her is Bradley. And he’s naked.”

“Oh, come on, Fantasy.”

“Seriously,” she said. “What would you think? What would it look like to you? What would you do?”

I had to admit, if only to myself, I’d probably have a fit. There might be some biting, scratching, and hair pulling. I know one thing I wouldn’t do: walk out without a word.

“Which puts a whole new wrinkle in it for you, Davis.”

“I have enough already, thank you.” I unconsciously reached to smooth the space between my eyebrows where Bianca kept telling me I was getting “elevens.”

“You two need to sit down and talk,” Fantasy said, “but you’d better save the big news until you cleared up the Eddie business.”

“What big news?”

“Davis. Bradley needs to know you’re pregnant.”

I clapped my hands over my ears and began singing, “La la la la la!”

She raised her voice. “For that matter, you need to know.”

I sang louder. “LA, LA, LA, LA, LA!”

Fantasy pulled my hands away from my ears. “If he thinks there’s something going on between you and Eddie, it paints an entirely new baby picture.”

I would happily share whatever frantic, desperate thought Fantasy’s observation prompted had I had one, but her words paralyzed me.

“And you need to get to a doctor, Davis. You’ve fainted twice this week. You need to have blood work done. A mosquito has a higher iron level than you. You need to be on prenatal vitamins.”

“No way. Those things are horse pills.”

“How late are you?” she asked.

“Dinner’s at eight,” I said.

“You know what I mean.”

I held up two tentative fingers. I reluctantly added a third.

“Days?”

I shook my head no.

“
Months
?”

“No!” No. Not months.

Just then, No Hair keyed himself in. He aimed at me. “Did you send your grandmother all the way to Pine Apple, Alabama, in a Bellissimo limo, Davis?”

Ooops.

“We’ve got way bigger fish to fry, No Hair.” Fantasy to the rescue. “These church people,” she waved a So Help Me God brochure, “are running a senior-citizen scam. They’re getting old folks to sign over every dime they have to the church, locking them up in their Senior Living Center, then making a killing off them.”

No Hair was still staring at me. “Where have you been all morning?” He turned to Fantasy. “That’s a very sad story, Fantasy.”

“It gets sadder,” she said. “We think they’re recruiting their old people
here
, No Hair, at our slot tournaments.”

TWELVE

Peyton Beecher Maffini had been a troubled youth. You know what they say about preachers’ kids. Her juvenile records were sealed, and had she misbehaved in any state other than my home state of Alabama, I doubt I’d have been able to get to them. Lucky for me, I had an Alabama Ace. My dad.

At age fourteen, Peyton had chained herself to the step railing in front of Beehive High School in protest of fetal pigs being mutilated at the hands of the ninth grade science teacher. According to the police report, she claimed the massive slaughter was “wreaking environmental genocide” and “represented animal brutality at its worst.” She used bright orange organic spray paint on the teacher’s white Chevrolet Impala.
KILLING BABY PIGS DOESN’T TEACH ANYONE ANYTHING
started at the driver’s door and wrapped all the way around.

At sixteen, she went on a hunger strike to protest school pizza. She decorated school hallways with a disgusting collage of photographs featuring rotted and decaying cafeteria offerings, and claimed Beehive High School was perpetuating “the gross obesity of an entire generation.” She broke into the school after hours and destroyed a snack machine and its companion soft drink machine with a sledge hammer. Two weeks later, when she was supposed to be in study hall, she slashed three tires on a food-service delivery truck. The girl had a knack for vandalism.

Her records show she was suspended a total of thirteen times between eighth grade and graduation. Five of those for refusing to go on mandatory school trips, because they wouldn’t let her ride her bike and she wouldn’t contribute to the hole in the ozone by traveling via bus or car.

Naturally, she started smoking pot, so by the time she reached the eleventh grade, the effects of her breakfast, lunch, and dinner marijuana kept her subdued. Still, her student-conduct incident file didn’t know the difference, because the drug offenses kept it fed.

Her twenties were a blur of protest—Kuwait, Iraq, Israel—five of those years married, with two short stints in jail for occupying foreign embassies. (How’d she get that far on a bicycle?) Then? Nothing. She wound up here. Lots of blanks to fill in. One thing seemed obvious to me: Had her parents not been so busy managing their fortunes in senior-citizen estate wealth, they might have sent up a prayer or two on this girl’s behalf. Peyton had not lived an easy life.

Photographs, starting with the one I’d taken of her after she was pulled from the dumpster and dating back to her high-school mug shots, would indicate that she’d had lifelong issues with cosmetic and hygiene products. She didn’t look as if she’d ever met a pair of tweezers, a bottle of No Frizz conditioner, or tube of lipstick. She was five-seven, one hundred twenty pounds, with hair and eyes of no discernible color, but both on the wild side. As such, she was easily lost in a crowd, and her looks, at first glance, were bland underneath her hair and Boho wardrobe.

However, the years of biking everywhere with an organic mango for lunch had caught up with Peyton Beecher Maffini.  The wild teenager had grown into a tough and beautiful woman. I knew she was tough: She’d tumbled down a thirty-story garbage chute and survived for almost five days. And I could see that she was beautiful. At some point, she gave up her Cousin Itt coif and began lassoing her hair behind her head, resulting in corkscrew tendrils that framed her very pretty face. Her skin was flawless, her body even more so. Let’s put it this way: if she’d been pulled out of a dumpster in New York City or Los Angeles, someone would have slapped angel wings on her and sent her down the runway.

Bianca Casimiro Sanders popped out of her bubble long enough to notice. It’s possible that her husband noticed too.

Was Peyton Beecher Maffini here as part of, or in protest of, the scam under the steeple?

I queued all four office computers with our face-rec software and asked it to zero in on choke points—all entries and exits from the Bellissimo properties at which hiding your face from the cameras was not an option. I went back three years, which was when Mr. Microphone’s reign at the Bellissimo began, and, worth noting, when casinos in Alabama began closing their doors. I got more than 1,700 hits. Peyton Beecher had worked here off and on the entire time her ex-husband had, in every entry level position Human Resources could think up. She’d pushed vacuum cleaners in the casino, she’d chopped vegetables, she’d served steak sandwiches, she’d pulled weeds in the gardens and had been on the midnight pool-cleaning crew. All under assumed identities, and all under our noses.

With twenty minutes to spare, I remembered I had a dinner date with her ex-husband. I raced from the office to the dressing room, where I caught my own reflection in the wall of mirror. I slowed down and stared at myself. What I need to do is slow down and work things out with Bradley Cole. I love Bradley. I really, really love Bradley. I till-death-do-us-part love Bradley.

*     *     *

I went all Ralph Lauren Black Label for dinner. I wouldn’t have gone at all had it not been for the fact that my dinner date’s former better half had spent five days stuffed in a dumpster elevator, and No Hair would stuff me in a dumpster elevator if I bailed.

The evening’s hot couture was a sleeveless silk dress with matching sheer wrap, that were, for the lack of a better word, purple. Perky purple. I couldn’t pull it off with my natural red hair, but sprayed medium-spice brown with medium-blue eyes, I was good to go. I went a little heavier on the eye makeup than usual, because I looked like I hadn’t had any sleep in a week. (I hadn’t.) I scooped out two handfuls of things from my real purse and dumped them into a Prada pleated clutch, including cell phones, Hershey’s Kisses, a lip gloss, and for all I knew, a toaster. On my feet, which hurt because I’d been on them so long, I wore Ralph’s Italian camel suede five-inch sandals with ankle straps. Here’s hoping I didn’t have to do any running.

I arrived at Violettes two minutes late to find that Mr. Microphone wasn’t there at all. He was in the casino, a city block away, calling out names for the eight o’clock drawing.

“This is for you.” The maître d’ passed me a folded note.

Laura, I double booked myself! Duty calls!

My car is out front. Go ahead. Enjoy it.

I’ll be there in 20. Or 25.

Gripping the note, I made my way through the lobby and out the front doors. The night was clear, nippy, and smelled like the sea. Three valets appeared, then looked straight down the front of my dress. “Mr. Thatcher’s car?” Three arms swept west, but their heads didn’t move. I probably should have worn a bra.

I’m not much of a car person, but there was no ignoring his. It was a silver Porsche Boxter.

Oh, dear.

The personalized Mississippi tag read EMCEE. No surprise he drove an obnoxious vehicle. No surprise at all. (Bradley Cole—sob—drives a very Republican black BMW 528). And no surprise that his was the car that had pulled away from Biloxi Memorial with Peyton Beecher in it. If we hadn’t had eight million irons in the fire, we’d have looked in this direction first. What did stop my $600 RL shoes in their tracks was the sticker in the corner of the Porsche windshield, driver side.

It was a small, red coat-of-arms for The Regent.

Mr. Microphone lived in the building I’d just moved into, Bradley Cole (whimper) had just taken his toothbrush out of, and Peyton Beecher Maffini was probably holed up in.

A twelve-year-old valet was guarding the car with his life.

“I need the keys.” I held my hand out.

The boy choked. I showed him the note written on Matthew Thatcher’s personal stationary that clearly invited me to go ahead and enjoy it.

“He’s waiting on me.” I tapped one of my RLs, and the boy passed me two electronic fobs on a ring. One for the Porsche, one for the Regent.

Where did all the keys go?

*     *     *

“You
what
? You stole his
car
?”

“I didn’t steal it,” I said to No Hair as I ground the Porsche gears (so crunchy) and ran a red light (barely). “His note said ‘Go ahead.’ What does ‘go ahead’ mean to you?”

“It doesn’t mean ‘take my sixty-thousand-dollar car for a joy ride,’ Davis.”

“I can get Peyton out of his place in ten minutes,” I said. “But you’ve got to keep him distracted in the casino.”

“Turn around right this second and take the man’s car back, then we’ll go together and get the girl. For one, you don’t know that she’s there. If she is, you don’t know that she
wants
out, Davis, and you can’t go in there without backup.”

I hung up on Plan A and called Plan B.

“Davis,” Fantasy whined. “Seriously? I have one foot out the door.”

“Give me fifteen minutes, Fantasy.”

Plan B hung up on me.

Good communication among coworkers is vital and I facilitated most of it among the three of us all by my lonesome.

A few miles north on Beach Boulevard, I was on two wheels taking a right into the Regent. I didn’t know this place all that well, having spent so little time here, but I did know how to get into the parking garage. I pushed Thatch’s fob into the slot and the pearly gates parted, just like with my own fob.

Regent residents parked on an interior level in the middle of the building, which I thought was clever. No running to and from the car in the weather. To get there, we scaled an interior concrete corkscrew that you’d think a Porsche would be good at. It wasn’t. At all. There must be something wrong with the steering in this car too, because I had a small right fender scrape on the first bend and a medium right fender scrape near the top. Finally, I got the damn thing to the parking level.

The fob was unmarked, so if you dropped it on the street, someone picking it up wouldn’t know where to go to wipe you out. By the same token, if you dropped it on the street and someone picked it up who knew to go to the Regent to wipe you out, that person still wouldn’t know which private elevator led to your unit. That someone would have to traipse around the parking level, trying the fob in every private elevator until they found the one it fit, which is what I did. In five-inch heels. There were twenty-six units in the Regent, so twenty-six elevators, and I only knew one that it wasn’t. That left twenty-five that it might be. I knew to start at number twenty-six and work my way back to save time.

Matthew Thatcher’s unit was number three.

I had to hike back to his car (in seven-inch heels) (they’d grown), grind it into reverse, park it where it was supposed to be, in front of the Unit Three elevator, so it wouldn’t look out of place. You’d think it would be easy to park such a small car straight, but it’s not. I accidentally bumped the garage wall—ooops—and had to find reverse
again
. I did
not
like this car. Too sensitive.

The private elevator that led to my unit was oak-paneled. Thatch’s was five solid sheets of mirror. Ceiling too. Disgusting.

My knees were knocking when the doors parted and Matthew Thatcher’s living quarters were laid out in front of me. It was deathly quiet, dark, and it smelled like footballs.

I stuck my head out of the elevator. “Peyton?”

As soon as I said it, an electric shock ran through my body, and I jumped straight out of my skin. When it happened a second time, I decided it was a phone in my Prada bag. The text was from Fantasy.

I PICKED A FIGHT WITH A DRAWING WINNER, CLAIMING SHE WAS IMPERSONATING ME, AND SHE HAS ALL BUT KICKED MY ASS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CASINO, THANK YOU, DAVIS. SECURITY HAULED US BOTH OFF. THEY’RE GOING TO OPEN THE DRAWING AGAIN AND LET BOTH OF US HAVE A TURN. I’LL DRAG IT OUT AS LONG AS I CAN, BUT HE’LL BE OUT THE DOOR IN JUST A FEW MINUTES. HURRY.

I texted back. I’VE GOT TO HAVE MORE TIME!!!!!

YOU’D BETTER GET YOUR BUTT BACK HERE, DAVIS.

And my last text. FAINT. FAINT DEAD IN THE FLOOR IN FRONT OF HIM.

“Peyton?” I finally let the elevator go and took a step inside that sounded like a one-ton TNT bomb detonating. I slipped out of my nine-inch heels and tiptoed barefoot from there.

The floor plan on this side of the building was flipped from mine; everything was to the right of the foyer—kitchen, study, bedrooms—where in our place (sniff), everything was to the left. All the lights were on sensors, because with each step I took, another spotlight came to life. The general decorating theme of Matthew Thatcher’s home was Concrete, Leather & Mirrors. The walls were covered with reflective surfaces of all shapes and sizes. The floors and countertops were cold, stained concrete, and everything else was leather. The
rug
under my bare feet was leather. Every stick of furniture was dark, distressed leather. He probably had leather towels.

The first room down the hall appeared to be an office, complete with a wall of fame displaying framed photographs of Thatch cozied up with visiting Bellissimo celebrities. I’m sure that beyond the photos there was excellent stuff in there, but I didn’t have time. Next was the master bedroom where I found more of the same: mirrors, photos of the owner, concrete, and leather. I made a U-turn to the third closed door, which I guessed would be a guest room.

It was. There was a guest. Peyton Beecher Maffini was gagged, bound, and tied to the bed.

I rushed in. “Peyton!” Digging through her Rapunzel hair trying to locate the source of the gag, I wished I’d taken a second to notice that she was none too happy to see me, thrashing around beneath the restraints, screaming into the gag, and that the look in her eyes was one of sheer terror. Had I taken the time to make even one of those observations, maybe I wouldn’t have been so shocked when I loosened the gag and she bit the holy shit out of me.