Jump the Gun (3 page)

Chapter Four

When I was five, I went to the circus with my best friend, Ethan, and his parents. The featured attraction was the “tallest giraffe in the world,” and when Ethan's dad told me this, I said, “Oh, really!” It was the first time I had ever said such a grown-up thing, and I felt old and wise beyond my years.
Take me anywhere,
I thought,
a circus, a cocktail party, you name it, I can talk to grown-ups.
Actually, I couldn't wait to see this giraffe, but either Ethan's dad got it wrong or the giraffe had another engagement, because he didn't show.

When I got home from the circus, I was so tired I went right upstairs to lie down on my bed. As I drifted off to sleep, my mother called me to dinner. I knew I should go downstairs to eat, or I'd be in trouble. But my eyelids got heavier and heavier. Her voice got softer and softer. When I woke up, it was morning.

It had been quite a day. I had started using grown-up talk, and I had defied my mother: my first steps toward independence.

When Jake said, “Hey, lovebirds, we'll be leavin' here in a coupla minutes. There's a car waitin' outside,” the first words out of my mouth were “Oh, really!” and I suddenly flashed on that day. I concentrated on Mickey's eyes when I said this, and he stayed fixed on mine.

Then he said, “Just where are we going, Jake?”

“That's somethin' for me to know and you to find out, huh!”

I said, “Huh.…Why don't you take us to see the world's tallest giraffe?” Now, this didn't make sense, but I was stalling and, once again, talking was all I could come up with.

Apparently Mickey was doing the same thing. “Yeah, Jake, why don't you take us to see the world's tallest giraffe?”

“You two are somethin' else. You talkin' crazy cuz you're afraid? Is that it? I don't know nuthin' about no giraffes, and even if I did, I wouldn't take yous to see 'em. Now get up and come with me. We're leavin'.”

“I can't leave—” I was still transfixed by Mickey's peepers—“without knowing where I'm going.”

Jake sniggered, a nasty, phlegmy sound. “Right. Like you're makin' the rules here. Like I care what you want here. Now stop talkin' and makin' goo-goo eyes at each other. Let's go.”

I didn't move. Neither did Mickey. And we kept staring at each other. “Jake, if you shoot us here, because we won't go with you, I bet whoever you work for will not be too happy. I bet whoever you work for doesn't want us dead, because if whoever you work for did want us dead, you would have already killed us. So we know you're not going to shoot us. Tell us where we're going. Maybe we'll cooperate.” This was Mickey talking, cool and collected, like he talked to psycho maniacs all the time.

“I work for me, not some boss. I ain't gonna shoot you, wise ass, but I can crack your head again easily enough…”

“And drag us through the casino to your waiting car? All by yourself? Come on, Jake, you aren't that stupid. Tell us what's going on.”

He really might be that stupid
.
Stupid is as stupid does, as Forest Gump would say.
But I followed Mickey's lead. “Yeah, Jake, either tell us or take us to see the tallest giraffe in the world.”

“Cut out that giraffe shit. Both of yous shut up.” Jake walked behind me as he said this, and right then I shoved my chair back as hard as I could into his overextended belly. He lost his balance and fell down. I was up like a shot and sat on his chest while Mickey dove to the floor and grabbed Jake's arms. Jake tried kicking his feet but they were tangled up in the chair legs.

“Dental floss!” I yelled.

“What?!”

“Dental floss! Dental floss! It's in my purse!” I always have a super-size floss dispenser with me. I'm convinced that leafy greens get stuck in between my teeth more than anyone else's in the world.

Jake was big and squirming. I was having a hard time staying on top of him. Mickey repositioned himself to straddle Jake and lean over his head, while still holding his arms down. For a moment we were riding a one-humped camel over a bumpy desert. I raised myself up and grabbed my purse off the table, fished out the floss, and climbed under the table to tie Jake's ankles together. He was still kicking and squirming, and I couldn't manage it. Then I heard a crack, and an “Ooof!” and the legs slowed down. I pulled out and wrapped several yards of the stuff around his ankles and tied them to the leg of the conference table, which weighed about a ton. When I emerged from under the table, Jake had blood all over his face, and Mickey had blood all over his hand.

“Is he dead?” I gasped.

Mickey shook his head. “Not even close. I broke his nose.”

Jake began to wriggle again. I moved up to his wrists and Mickey held his arms well enough for me to wrap the floss around and tie it. Then we managed to roll Jake over on his side and push him so that he was lined up between two of the table legs, and I tied his wrists to the second leg.

Jake was yelling now, so I stood up and grabbed a bunch of napkins from the table and jammed them in his mouth. “Shut up, Jake! Just shut up!”

I picked up the vase and turned it upside down, splattering him with flowers and water.

Mickey stood up, panting, and studied Jake, who was red all over from blood and daisies. I was shaking; Mickey seemed calm. He walked to the sink, washed the blood off, and dried his hands on more napkins. Then he went back to Jake, knelt down beside him, and felt in his pockets.

“No phones. He must have ditched them.” He stood up. “Let's get out of here, Beatrice Annabelle.” I picked up my purse and followed him to the door.

When we stepped into the casino, no one took any notice of us. Mickey held my hand and whispered, “Let's walk calmly and normally, like nothing is going on. Let's not draw attention to ourselves. We don't know if any of Jake's friends are around.” I gave him a sporting smile, and then I saw a side door and sprinted for it, pulling Mickey with me. We tore out of there like racing cheetahs, dashing across the street and away from the casino. We hailed a cab that was coming out of the hotel's front driveway. It didn't have its light on, but it stopped anyway.

Mickey opened the back door for me, and I was about to get in, when I stopped. “Oh!”

“What? Get in!”

But someone was already in the cab, and it was Granny Mae, the Tarcelloni hat lady.

“Hello, dear!” She smiled sweetly and beckoned to me. “I asked the driver to stop—you both seem to be a bit frantic. Please get in. I'm happy to share the taxi with you.” Her hat was on the seat beside her. She picked it up and moved over, holding her hat on her lap.

Mickey nodded. I jumped in while he ran around to the other side and piled into the cab, out of breath.

“Where to?” asked the driver.

“Police station. The nearest one.”

I was so happy to hear Mickey say those words.

“You two all right?” the cabbie asked, looking at us in the rear-view mirror.

“We're all right. Thank you.”

“Señora, do you want me to drop you off first?” We were idling at the curb.

Tarcelloni started fidgeting with the brim of her hat, clearly upset. “Oh, dear. This could be a problem.”

“Mickey, this is, uh, what is your name?”

“Doris Stonington, dear. What is yours?”

I looked at her, a little breathless, and suddenly choked. I knew her, not only from the elevator encounter, but from before. But Doris Stonington? That wasn't her name. Speechless, I studied her face.
Mary.
That was it. Mary something.

Mickey frowned at me and then answered Mary. “This is Annabelle Starkey, and I'm Mickey Paxton.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Paxton. Annabelle, dear, what a lovely name!”

“Oh, thanks, yes…”

“Look,” said Mickey, “I don't mean to be rude, but we were on the way to the police station, remember? And we're in a hurry, remember? And what exactly are we doing now?” He sounded a little bit edgy.

The cab driver's cell phone rang. He put the car in park and took the call.

“Mickey,” I started slowly, still looking at Mary, “Doris was very kind to me on the elevator when I was abducted.”

“Abducted? But he was a policeman!” She reached over and patted my hand.

“Well, he wasn't really a policeman,
Doris.
He pulled out that badge, but he couldn't have been a policeman because he took me from my room at gunpoint.”

“Well, dear, this is very distressing. Have you called your son? He must be worried about you.”

“Your SON? You have a SON?” Mickey turned in his seat as best he could to look at me across Mary.

“No, no, no, Mickey, I do not have a son. Really, I don't. Doris, please, I can't explain all of that now.”

At this point the cab driver hung up and turned around in his seat and faced all of us. “Excuse me for interrupting, but do you want me to take you somewhere, or do you want to sit here with the meter running while you all chat back there?”

“Hold on for just a minute, please. Don't go anywhere yet. Now, Doris, tell me, what is going on? You seem very nervous, and you're going to ruin your Tarcelloni if you keep twisting the brim like that.” I glanced at Mickey, who was scowling at me.

“Well, it's a bit embarrassing, I'm afraid. You see, I love to gamble—I made a bundle at the Royal Opal, by the way! But my family doesn't approve of my pastime—they call it a nasty habit, in fact—and so I came to Las Vegas without telling anyone, and I was planning on staying at another hotel tonight, hoping they wouldn't find me.”

“Ms. Stonington…” started Mickey.

“Please, dear, call me Doris.”

“Fine, Doris. None of this is any of our business. Why don't we drop you off and then we'll go to the police?”

She let go of her hat and clasped her hands together. “Well, I hadn't really decided yet where to spend the night, you see.”

Mickey sighed. “You can ride with us if you like, and then the cab driver here, I'm sure, would be happy to take you wherever you wish, won't you, sir?”

“If the señora has the ample fare, I will take her anywhere.” Apparently this guy's day job was writing poetry.

“Well, I could do that, I suppose…” Mary gave Mickey a tiny smile.

“Good! Fine! Great! Let's get out of here!” Mickey was as antsy as Woody Allen. The cabbie put the car into gear and started to step on the gas.

“Well, except there is just one little problem,” I said.

The cabbie braked. Mickey gaped. “What! What! What!”

“Can I talk to you for one moment, outside?”

Mickey looked like he was going to explode, but I held his eyes and he finally said, “Fine,” and opened his door.

The cabbie sighed, put the car back in park, leaned against his door, and stretched his feet out on the front seat. “Meter's still running, amigos.”

Mickey and I both got out of the cab and walked around to the back. “This date of ours is getting weirder and weirder,” I started.

He barked a sarcastic laugh. “You think?”

“I know her.”

“Yes, you've already made that clear, that you saw her in the elevator, and yes, it is really weird that she stopped for us, but…”

“No, Mickey, listen. I know her. From before. She lives at Tall Oaks, a nursing home in Santa Rosa, where Nana, my grandmother, lived. Sometimes when I'd visit she'd be sitting in the lobby and we'd say hello, mention something about the weather, stuff like that. I don't know much about her, but…” I paused.

“But…?” Mickey's jaw was clenched.

“Her name isn't Doris Stonington. It's Mary something.”

Mickey stared. “You've got to be kidding me.”

“I wish.”

He leaned against the trunk of the taxi and looked back down the Strip. “Do you think she recognizes you, from there?”

“I don't know. She might be up to no good, but she might be crazy. At Tall Oaks, Nana lived in the Alzheimer's wing. I don't know where Mary's room was, but maybe she has some sort of dementia. Maybe she really thinks her name is Doris. Maybe she doesn't remember me at all from before. But she seems very lucid. My grandmother wouldn't have even known how to hail a cab, let alone find her way around Las Vegas.”

Mickey thought for a moment. “So how'd we end up in the same cab as a woman who knew your grandmother?”

“Yet another question for us to answer.”

“Or not. I'm not sure I care very much about the answer. I do care about getting out of Las Vegas before I get hit over the head again.”

“Look, Jake knows who I am, and now Mary is here, and maybe she knows who I am, too. I say, let's play dumb for a while and see what we can find out. We can ask her some questions on the way to the police.”

Mickey rubbed his face with his hands. “All right. Let's go.”

We got back in the cab and shut the doors. I felt a little chill when I noticed my purse had been moved. I had left it on the seat, I was sure, but now it was on the floor. I picked it up and put it on my lap.

Mickey glanced at the cab driver's ID pasted on the back of the front seat. “Luis? We're ready.” Luis turned to put on his seat belt when Mary piped up.

“Actually, I'd rather not go with you. Why don't you let me out here, and you two go on without me. I hope everything turns out all right.”

This time I patted her hand. “You'll stay with us, and then Luis will take you to the hotel of your choice, remember?” I smiled at her.
“Mary?”

Turned out I couldn't play dumb. Mickey sighed.

She jerked her head around to face me. “Mary? No, dear, I'm Doris, and…”

“Cut it out, Mary. We know each other, remember? From Tall Oaks. I recognize you now. You dyed your hair, didn't you? Nice highlights, by the way. Anyway, now we're all going to have a nice little chat.”