Hound Dog Blues (36 page)

Tootsie looked up when she went back into the reception area. “From the expression on your face, I’m guessing you didn’t get a bonus.”

“Unless you want to look at a required safety course as one, no. Not that it matters. I still have the Crimestoppers cash as a bonus.” Harley slumped against the edge of Tootsie’s desk. “Being famous isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“So I see. Don’t worry. Fame never lasts.”

The lobby of The Peabody Hotel
on Union Avenue in downtown Memphis always teemed with tourists in shorts and tee shirts. They crowded around the elegant marble fountain in the center, taking pictures of the ducks that paddled around and around. It was also a meeting place for the business lunch crowd, and it took Harley a few minutes to find a seat that wasn’t so near the fountain that she’d get splashed or elbowed by a fanatical tourist with a Nikon. It seemed somehow fitting that the hotel’s custom of keeping plain mallard ducks in the fountain had begun with a drunken hunter. The Peabody had made the fowl their mascots and sold everything from duck-shaped mints to duck shoehorns in the gift shop. The one thing
not
served on any menu in their restaurants and delis, however, was duck. They limited duck to the ones treated royally in the marble fountain during the day, and in a palatial duck house at night. A marketing tool that was a huge success. The Peabody liked to advertise that it was the “Meeting Place of the South.” Probably true. At any given time you might see Hollywood actors or Saudi sheiks in the lobby.

Subdued lighting, plush carpeting, lots of gold gilding, hanging crystal chandeliers, and marble-topped tables surrounded by comfortable chairs and cushioned couches made waiting in the lobby easy, if not timesaving. Aunt Darcy was late as usual.

A perky waitress bounced over to take her order, and she asked for a Coke. Aunt Darcy arrived at the same time as the Coke, and she ordered a gin and tonic as she kissed the air beside Harley, then took a chair next to her. She wore an exquisite red silk suit that complemented her slender frame, fair features and short blond hair. Gold gleamed at her throat and wrists, equaled only by the flash of diamonds on her left hand. A drift of Chanel wafted above the round marble table, but it was quickly eradicated by a cloud of cigarette smoke as Darcy lit up.

“You don’t mind, do you?” she said, and before Harley could say yes, went on, “I’m just so nervous. It’s so trying. I had no idea you’d be of any use at all, but when I read the article this weekend, I knew at once that you were the answer. It has to be kept private, you see, and I didn’t want to risk dragging in outsiders. You know how people can be, I’m sure, always talking and saying things, because they’re jealous or envious or just spiteful. Well, on top of everything else, I surely don’t need that, Harley, and so decided that I’d just get you to fix it. You can find out if it’s true, and if it is, why then you can just get that friend of yours, the Italian boy, to make him stop and everything’ll be just fine after all. Don’t you think?”

“Uh . . .”

“I knew you’d agree. Now, don’t you say a word to Mama about this, because she’d never understand, especially when she told me I shouldn’t have a partner at all, that I should keep it all in my own name and hands, but you know how it is nowadays, with the economy and all. I swear, I don’t know what the world is coming to with all those Republicans in Congress. It’s just a shame, is all, a dreadful shame. We’ve been Democrats all our lives, and even with that scandal—well, he was still better than a Republican, don’t you think? Though it
was
such a nasty business with that cigar and all, and so unnecessary. Maybe—oh well. Not that it matters. This isn’t about politics.”

“Well,” Harley finally got in, exasperated that a woman who talked so slow could say so much so quickly, “what
is
it about, Aunt Darcy?”

“Why, sugar, it’s about illegal smuggling. Didn’t I say? Someone is smuggling illegal goods into my shop, and I think my partner is behind it.”

(Continue reading for more information about the author.)

As a long-time resident of Mississippi, award-winning author Virginia Brown has lived in several different areas of the state, and finds the history, romance, and intrigue of the Deep South irresistible. Although having spent her childhood as a “military brat” living all over the U.S. and overseas, this award-winning author of nearly fifty novels is now happily settled in and drawing her favorite fictional characters from the wonderful, whimsical Southerners she has known and loved.

Visit her at virginiabrownauthor.com