Death by Devil's Breath (19 page)

“Maybe, maybe, and maybe.” Nick actually had taken notes after he arrived at the RV and Sylvia and I explained what was going on. He flipped his notebook closed. “It’s not like I have any jurisdiction,” he explained. This, he had already said, but I guess he thought the way I was jumping around meant I needed the reminder. “We’ll take care of it.”

“And by then, who knows what Bernadette might do to the poor Chick!” The scenes flashed before my eyes, each more terrifying than the last.

The Chick hanging off the front car of one of those crazy Vegas roller coasters.

The Chick, roasting over an open fire.

The Chick, locked in that closet with all those flickering candles and the pictures of Jack.

I shook away the thought before it could derail what little self-composure I had left. “You know she’s got it, Nick.”

“I can go talk to her.”

“And I can come with you.”

Really, he didn’t have to look at me that way.

Nick reached into his pocket and pulled out one of those gaming cards that activate the machines in the casinos. “Go play some slots or something,” he said, pressing the card into my hand. “Relax.”

“You mean, stay out of your way.”

“I mean, relax.” He folded my fingers over the card and left the RV.

“Well, he’s got a lot of nerve,” I grumbled.

“That’s not all he’s got.” When I turned to her, I saw that Sylvia was staring at the door, a smile on her face.

And I mean, really, I should have to put up with that? After the hogwash I’d just put up with from Nick?

Rather than think about it, I grabbed my purse and headed out of the RV and back into the casino. In Vegas time, the night was still young, and don’t think I forgot that I owed myself a beer.

A couple minutes later I was settled in at the bar, a chilly one in front of me, watching The Great Osborn do a card trick on the other side of the room. No doubt he’d decided to pick up a few extra bucks, and maybe sell some tickets to his show the next night while he was at it, by shmoozing with the bar crowd. He was decked out in his tux and that silly blue cummerbund of his. At least there was no sign of the Afro.

Hermosa was there, too, enthroned at a table on the other side of the bar, her diaphanous green gown spread out around her so that she took up one entire side of a booth. Maybe she hadn’t sold as many tickets to her show as she would have liked. Or maybe she was thinking about Dickie Dunkin and (go figure) getting all mushy. Either way, there was an empty glass in front of her and a fresh drink next to it, and the way the light above her table cast a glow on her, I swore her cheeks were wet. Even as I watched, an elderly guy in a golf shirt and khakis sat down across from Hermosa and ordered drinks for the two of them, and her expression brightened considerably.

“You look like you had a hard day.”

I’d been so absorbed in my own thoughts, I hadn’t noticed anyone sit down next to me. I glanced to my right and into the most glorious set of hazel eyes I’d seen in a month of Sundays.

The face that belonged to those eyes was just as delicious. Square jaw lightly dusted with honey-colored whiskers, a nose with a bump on the bridge of it that made me think its owner had been in a fight or two, and a smile . . .

A few minutes earlier, I wouldn’t have thought I was capable, what with having survived a murder attempt, learning the Chick was missing, and being annoyed past all reason by Nick, but I found myself smiling back.

“That’s better.” The guy next to me stuck out a hand. “Noah,” he said.

I could have kicked myself for the breathiness of my voice. “Maxie.”

Those astounding eyes traveled to the bandage on my arm. “You’ve been hurt. And just recently. If I buy you a drink, will it make you feel better?”

I was pretty sure it would, but before I had a chance to tell him, Osborn oozed over. “Pick a card, any card,” he said, ruffling the deck right under my nose.

Since I was pretty sure he wouldn’t get the subtle message of a not-so-subtle look, I threw Osborn a smile that would have frozen any man with half a brain. “I’m a little busy here, Osborn,” I said.

“But it’s a new trick.” He rippled the cards another time. “And I need to practice before my show tomorrow. Besides, there’s a photographer here from the
Review-Journal
.” Osborn looked down the bar out of the corner of his eye toward a shaggy-haired guy in jeans and a T-shirt. “If I make the trick really showy and you pretend you’re really impressed, maybe he’ll take a few shots and that will get me some free PR. Come on, Maxie—”

“You know this guy?” I’d seen similar scenarios played out so many times in so many bars, that the way Noah asked it, I knew what was coming. If I said Osborn was a stranger and he was bugging me, there would be a fight. Sure, Osborn was a little strange (and he might actually be a murderer), but he was old enough to be my father and he wouldn’t stand a chance against fit-and-trim-looking Noah. If I said Osborn was a friend, or at least a friendly acquaintance, Noah would get all huffy the way guys do when it comes to things like this and find someone else to spend his time and his money and that great smile of his on.

I gave Noah what I hoped was a reassuring look before I turned back to Osborn. “Get lost,” I said.

The Great Osborn got lost.

I spent the next fifteen minutes in pleasant conversation with Noah. He was in town for a convention, a tax accountant from Portland, and so all right, I knew from the start that things would never work out between us, what with me not even knowing what a tax accountant did, but hey, who am I to question it when sparks fly? Fly they did, and even before I finished my drink and started in on the one Noah ordered for me, I knew where things were headed. Since I also knew Sylvia was back at the RV, I hoped Noah didn’t have a roomie.

“So . . .” He sat back, and even though I knew what was coming, I tensed just a little. That was fine. Anticipation was part of the game. “If you’re not busy for the rest of the night, how about if we—”

“Poison!” As Hermosa had proven onstage, she could hit the high notes when she wanted to even if they weren’t always on key. The way she screamed this single word nearly shattered the glass in my hand. Like everyone else in the bar including that photographer, who sat not too far away, I looked her way and found her crumpled against the faux cowhide bench, her jaw slack and her eyes shooting daggers at The Great Osborn, who stood near her table.

“You!” Hermosa pointed an accusatory and very shaky finger in Osborn’s direction. “You dare to approach Hermosa . . .” Was it my imagination, or did she really make sure she got her name in there just a little louder than she said the rest of her piece? “You dare to come over here and offer to buy me a drink? You don’t think I know what you are really trying to do?” She put the back of one hand to her forehead.

“Poison! Poison! Poison! You’re trying to poison me the same way you poisoned Dickie, my dearly beloved Dickie. You are trying to take advantage of a woman with a”—her voice clutched and she pressed her hands to her chest—“broken heart whose soul has been ripped in two by the terrible tragedy that has befallen her.”

The Great Osborn stood with his arms hanging at his sides. “But, Hermosa, I was just—”

“You are jealous! You are seething with anger as only a man who has been rejected can be. You know that Hermosa . . .” She sat up a little straighter and, while she was at it, smoothed a hand over her hair and shot a look in the direction of the bar. Believe me, I didn’t think she was looking at me. “You know that Hermosa has turned her back on your love, that she has left you for another man. You can no longer live with the terrible truth or with the heartache that haunts you day and night. This is why you poisoned my beloved!”

Her say-so said, Hermosa topped it off by tossing her drink in Osborn’s face. She swept out of the bar but not—it should be noted—before she stopped long enough at the door (one hand on the jamb and the other resting over her heaving bosom) and had a photo snapped.

Damn, how I hate it when investigations get in the way of my real life!

Knowing it might be my only chance to seize the opportunity, I told Noah I’d be right back and scooted over to where The Great Osborn stared down at his wet suit coat and pants.

“Looks like you could use some help.” I plucked a pile of paper napkins off a nearby table and handed them to the magician, who didn’t bother to thank me.

The Great Osborn blotted. “She’s out of her head.”

“Well, you did say you and Hermosa were once an item.”

“Yeah, everybody knows that.” When one pile of napkins was soaked, he took the second pile I offered him. “But that doesn’t mean I killed Dickie. And it sure doesn’t mean I tried to poison Hermosa’s drink just now. I didn’t go anywhere near her drink, did I?”

The Great Osborn looked toward the guy in the khakis who’d sat down with Hermosa only a little while earlier. The poor guy was as pale as a corpse and couldn’t catch his breath. “You people . . .” He shoved out of the booth and headed for the door. “You theater people are all crazy!”

“Is that what it was?” I asked Osborn. “Just Hermosa being crazy?”

His gaze slid toward the bar. “And making sure she got a few inches’ worth of coverage in tomorrow’s paper. That had to be it, because I’ll tell you what, I didn’t try and slip poison in her drink. How could I?”

How could he, indeed, but don’t think that I forgot that The Great Osborn, for all his stumbling and bumbling, was a magician.

And magicians are all about sleight of hand.

I pushed the thought away and decided to concentrate on better things. More interesting things. More exciting things.

Like Noah.

“Noah.” The name fell from my lips with a proverbial thwack when I got back to the bar and realized that some guys don’t like to play second fiddle, especially when first fiddle is a woman’s investigation.

Noah was already long gone.

CHAPTER 13

Without the Chick, I was condemned to working behind the counter at the Palace. First thing Saturday morning, I rang up a bunch of sales for a ladies’ group before they got on a bus and headed home to Albuquerque. I’d just finished up when I heard a familiar tap, tap, tap.

The ladies, just trooping out the door, stepped aside to let Yancy in, and a couple of them shook their heads as if to say
poor, blind man
. I wondered how much he saw of that, and how much it annoyed him.

Yancy waited until the ladies left, then he scooted over to the counter. He had a copy of the day’s newspaper in his hands, and with a look over his shoulder to make sure there was no one around to see, he spread it open and pointed.

“Lookee here! Hermosa got herself some major publicity this morning!”

The picture showed our resident diva just as I remembered her from the bar the night before, leaning back in the doorway, one hand on the jamb and the other pressed to her broken heart.

“I was there,” I told Yancy. “I saw the whole thing. She accused Osborn of trying to poison her.”

“So it says here.” Yancy inched his dark glasses down the bridge of his nose so he could look at me over them. “You think he really did it?”

“I think he’s way too bad of a magician to pull that off right in front of Hermosa. And I think Hermosa worked a little magic of her own to get her picture in the paper.”

Yancy chuckled. “You got that right. But I’m the one who sold out my show last night!”

“I know. I heard part of it.” A customer came in and I gathered up the newspaper and tucked it behind the counter, then waited while the man decided what kinds of spices he wanted to take home to Buffalo. Since I’ve never been that far east, I can’t say for sure, but something told me New Yorkers in general aren’t anywhere near as adventurous as Texans, say, when it comes to chili; I recommended our mildest mixes. He made his purchases and left and I turned back to Yancy.

“You’re really good,” I told him. “You should be a star.”

He waved a hand like it was no big deal, but I didn’t fail to catch Yancy’s smile. “I wouldn’t have the job at all if folks around here knew I could—”

Another customer walked in and Yancy didn’t say another word. By the time I was done taking care of that lady, Yancy had gone over to sit on the red velvet fainting couch against the far wall of the bordello.

“I don’t know,” he said when I went over there. “I mean about Osborn and how he’s not skilled enough to slip something in Hermosa’s drink. Maybe he’s just playing at being a bad magician.”

“Maybe.”

“And he was plenty steamed when Dickie stole his girl.”

“Plenty steamed at Dickie, maybe, but now that he’s out of the picture, maybe Osborn’s going to try to get Hermosa back.”

Yancy nodded. “Maybe.”

“So he wouldn’t be trying to poison her.”

“Unless she needs to be taught a lesson.”

The comment brought me up short and made me think that the blues song I’d heard Yancy sing the night before wasn’t full of heartbreak and longing for nothin’.

“You think the fight wasn’t just for publicity? That it could have been the real thing?”