“I can’t believe you made up the whole thing about Palm Springs, Maddie.”
“Okay, technically it was Marco who made that up. But let’s get back to the whole you-never-telling-me-my- dad-was-a-she thing. Do you know how many letters I sent to Billy Idol?”
But nothing I said was going to get through to her. Mom was the guilt master and she was in her zone now. “I raised you. I fed you and clothed you; I changed your poopy diapers…”
Ew! “Mom, I was just here for a couple days-”
“…and this is the thanks I get. Betrayal! Lies! I would expect this from Larry, but from my own flesh and blood? How could you?” Mom punctuated this with another raise-the-dead wail.
“Mom, I swear I’m coming home today-”
“Where did I go wrong? How did I a raise such a deceitful child?”
“Mom-”
“The trust is broken, Maddie. You’ve broken my trust and my heart!”
“Look, I didn’t mean-”
“And to think, I bought you a ficus!”
“Mom, I-”
But it was too late. The line was dead. My mother had hung up on me. I thunked my head against the side of a mega bucks machine.
“Ow.”
I shoved my phone back in my purse and backtracked to the front desk, that headache pulsing behind my eyes with every step.
Slim Jim was checking in a couple with four little kids in tow, all four pointing in different directions and arguing over what they were going to see first.
“Hey!” I called, waving him over.
He gave me a one finger “wait” sign, while he handed the harried parents their room keys, then sauntered over. “Yeah?”
“Do you have a copy of the
“I dunno.”
“Well, could you check?” I asked, forcing myself to paste on a smile.
Slim Jim let out a dramatic sigh, as if doing favors for barely B’s was so not in his job description. However, he did look behind the counter, popping up a minute later with a copy of the tabloid in his hands.
“Thanks,” I mumbled as I grabbed it from him.
I scanned the front page. The headline read “Local Sleuth Snoops into Mysterious Drag Death.” Great. Tot Trots was just going to love this! I felt my headache threatening into migraine territory as I read the rest of the story. The reporter started with a blurb about last summer’s mishaps and the popped boob, then went on to say I was investigating another suspicious death, this time involving an alleged suicide off a Vegas nightclub roof. He even had the nerve to tell all the Vegas women with implants to stay out of my way.
Beside the story they’d printed two pictures, one of me outside the nightclub and a second of Dana and me at Maurice’s condo yesterday. I stared at them both. Who even knew I was in Vegas, let alone going to Maurice’s house?
I scanned down to the byline. Felix Dunn. The same guy who’d left all those messages on my machine last week. And, I realized with a surge of triumph as I looked at his fingernail-sized black and white photo, the same guy I’d seen behind the wheel of a certain blue Dodge Neon. Sonofabitch! Neon Guy was a reporter.
“Excuse me,” I said, hailing Slim Jim back over.
This time he was in the middle of checking in a short Asian man and a long-legged model dressed in an outfit that made me wonder if the New York, New York, rented rooms by the hour. Jim shot me an annoyed look and gave the finger again. The “wait a minute” one, not the other one. Though if he could have gotten away with it, I think he would have used the other one.
Finally he finished with the odd couple and made his way over to me. “What now?”
“I need a room number.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Didn’t you just check out?”
“No, not for me. I need you to look up the room number of a guest. Felix Dunn.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”
“You don’t understand. This is an emergency. This is a real story. I’m not the bride of Bigfoot. Tot Trots is going to fire me. Good god, I may end up pounding lemons in one of those Hot Dog on a Stick Hats again. Don’t you understand, I can’t go back to those hats!”
He stared at me. Clearly, Slim Jim didn’t understand. Slim Jim thought I was nuts.
“Sorry. It’s against hotel policy. We can’t give out guests’ room numbers. I can get a message to him if you’d like.”
“I don’t want to leave him a message. I want to kill him!” Which didn’t do much to further my case.
I paused. I counted to ten. Okay, fine, I only made it to five before I started to lose it again. I decided to try a different tactic.
“Tell you what. How about you bend the rules just a teeny tiny bit for me and maybe I can do something in return for you.”
Slim Jim narrowed his eyes at me. “What kind of something?”
I mentally cringed, hoping Dana would forgive me for what I was about to do. “How about a date with my friend, Dana?”
His eyes lit up. “The one with the double D’s?”
I nodded.
Slim Jim did a quick over-the-shoulder supervisor check, then leaned in close. “Think she’d go to the Bette Midler show with me tomorrow night? I’ve got two tickets right up front.”
I crossed my fingers behind my back and I nodded. “Absolutely.” That is, if we weren’t going to be back in L.A. by then.
He paused. But the allure of a night with a stacked blonde was more than any man could resist. “Okay. But if anyone asks, you did not get this from me.” Slim Jim did a couple of quick clicks on his keyboard. “1504.”
“Thanks!”
“Hey,” he called as I walked away, “tell Dana to meet me here at seven!”
I gave him a wave over my shoulder as I stalked to the elevators with renewed purpose. In the last three days I’d had to deal with not only my so-called boyfriend showing up undercover in a drag club, but also my mother’s tips for the best places to have sex in Palm Springs, my best friend turning into a gambling addict, a dead drag queen, his weepy boyfriend, a zapped yapper dog, my MIA dad’s propensity for go-go boots, and, oh yes, last but not least-the Mob! The last thing I needed was for my big fat drag club life to be splashed across the front pages of L.A.’s sleaziest tabloid.
The elevator opened and I jumped in, slamming my palm onto the button for the fifteenth floor. Well, I might not be able to do much about the Mob or the crappy state of my nonexistent love life, or even the facts that Mom was going to lecture me into a coma and my employment with Tot Trots was likely to terminate so fast I’d be eating Cup-O-Noodles for the rest of the year.
But I could do one thing about this tabloid guy.
I tapped my foot. I fumed. I tapped and fumed some more. Finally the doors slid open at the fifteenth floor.
I stomped down the hallway, steam starting to come out of my ears as I made my way to room 1504. I rapped so hard on the door my knuckles stung.
“Hang on,” a male voice, tinged with a hoity-toity British accent, called from inside.
Then the door was pulled open by Mr. Neon himself. He was wearing the khakis again, this time barefoot, with his shirt open as if I’d caught him in the act of getting dressed. He paused for just a second before recognition hit him.
“Maddie?” he asked, a confused expression washing over his face.
