“Felix.”
Then I cocked my fist back and punched him squarely in the nose.
Chapter Twelve
“Bloody hell!” Felix staggered back, holding one hand to his face and the other straight out as if to ward off the psycho barging her way into his hotel room.
I slammed the door shut behind me.
“What the hell was that for?” he asked, his accent as thick as the blood starting to seep through his fingers.
“That,” I said, still advancing on him, “was for making my mother cry.”
He stared at me, uncomprehending. “Lady, you’re nuts.”
“Thanks to your sleaze factory, she may very well disown me now. Stop printing pictures of me!”
He pulled his hand away from his nose. A small trickle of blood still remained on his upper lip. “Sorry, love, I can’t. That’s what I do.”
“No,” I said, advancing on him again until my index finger jutted into his chest. “You print stories about Bigfoot having the Abominable Snow Monster’s love child and Anna Nicole Smith’s affair with a three-headed alien. You write about the government’s secret plot to cover up the Loch Ness monster.”
“Don’t knock it. I think I’m up for a Pulitzer with that Nessie expose.” He did a slow grin, his eyes crinkling at the corners. On any other day, his brand of self-deprecating humor might have passed as charming. As it was, I fought off the urge to hit him again.
“You work for a tabloid,” I said, enunciating as if I were talking to a two-year-old. “You make crap up. You do not cover real stories about real people.”
His Hugh Grant-blue eyes lit up. “So there is a real story here?”
“No,” I quickly covered. “No story. None at all. I’m…here on vacation.”
“Funny, I thought you were vacationing in Palm Springs.” He broke into a self-satisfied grin, leaning casually against the wall as his arms crossed over his chest.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “How do you know about that?”
“Sweetheart, I know everything about you. I’m a very good reporter, you know.”
“Ha! That’s why you work at the
His grin faltered. “Touche. All right, how about this. I know that last week I got a call from a man who’d seen your picture in our humble little…uh, how did you so charmingly refer to it, ‘sleaze factory’? He claimed to be your long-lost father and wanted to know how to get in touch with you. Not being able to resist a schmaltzy sob story, I gave him your number. Then I followed you around, waiting for the big tearful reunion. Instead, I got a dead body at a drag club. Which, by the way, is a very fun angle,” he added with a wink.
My hand balled into a fist again.
“And,” he continued, “I know that the deceased is reported to have jumped off the roof. Only any idiot who’s ever seen a real jumper could tell you the trajectory was all wrong. Put that together with the fact that you’ve been questioning friends of the deceased, and I’ve got a headline that reads: ‘Santa Monica’s Favorite Amateur Sleuth at It Again.’”
I felt sick to my stomach. Though, I noticed hopefully, he hadn’t mentioned Ramirez or the Mob. Apparently he wasn’t
He threw on his charming face again, all boyish smiles. “No need to be hostile. In fact, let’s make things easier on both of us. How about an exclusive, huh, love?”
“Stop calling me ‘love’!”
“Why, are you going to hit me again?”
I was seriously thinking about it.
“Ever heard of slander? Libel? I could easily sue you for that Bigfoot story.”
Felix held a hand to his heart in mock horror. “Heaven forbid.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re mocking me.”
“Indeed, I am.”
“I hate you.”
“Aw. I’m crushed.”
“Listen, pretty boy, if I see one more picture of myself in your little tabloid, I swear to god I will come back here with my best friend who happens to be an Urban Soldierette and knows a hundred and one different ways to make a man sing soprano. And she’s not afraid to use them!”
He just smiled. “Oooh. Sounds kinky.”
I shot him a look that could freeze the devil himself (who was also probably a tabloid reporter). “Quit following me!” I stalked to the door and pulled it open so hard it rattled against the wall.
“Lovely to have met you, Maddie,” he called after me.
I flipped him the bird as the door slammed shut behind me.
I silently seethed as I rode the elevator back down to the casino level. I went straight to the American Restaurant and ordered a plate loaded with pancakes, waffles, French toast, and crepes that was so high I couldn’t see around it. All served with a mound of whipped cream and a river of gooey maple syrup. By the time I was done I felt totally sick to my stomach, but the anger hadn’t really gone away. It had just morphed into slow-burning anxiety. With Tabloid Boy following me around like a lost puppy, things had suddenly become much more urgent.
If Monaldo saw Felix’s story, it wouldn’t take much digging for him to put two and two together and realize I was Larry’s daughter. I wasn’t sure how this fared for Larry’s safety, but I didn’t think it would endear him to Monaldo much more.
Not to mention me.
Whatever Larry had gotten himself into I needed to get him out. And fast.
By the time I got back up to the room, Marco was strategically fitting a collection of souvenirs into his leopard- print luggage while Dana got in one last poker lesson from the casino channel.
Dana took one look at my low-cut tank, liberally dotted with maple syrup, and started clucking her tongue.
“Oh, Maddie. Pancakes? Do you know how many carbs are in those things? Not to mention the refined sugars.”
“I only had three.” I didn’t tell her about the waffles and crepes.
“All that white flour goes right to your midsection. I bet you just ate two hundred sit-ups worth of simple carbohydrates.”
I shuddered at the mere mention of the “S” word. “I couldn’t help it. I needed comfort food.”
“Why, what happened?” Marco asked, tucking a “Vegas Vic” coffee mug between a pair of loafers.
I flopped down on the one functioning bed and told them about my morning’s series of disasters. How one person’s life could disintegrate so quickly, I still wasn’t sure. And it wasn’t even noon yet!
When I was finished, Marco had stuffed the last of his commemorative postcards into the one square inch of space left in his bags and Dana was doing a series of “ohmigods.”
“Ohmigod! That creep! He almost ran us off the road for a freaking picture?”
“Well, he didn’t exactly run us off the road,” I conceded. In fact, now that I knew my “stalker” was nothing more than a tabloid hound, the whole thing seemed almost petty.
“What a putz,” Dana said. “I ought to go kick his ass right now.”
While I appreciated the sentiment, I had a terrifying vision of
Instead, I turned to Marco, who was sitting on his carry-on, trying to force the zipper closed. “Any luck with Madonna last night?” I asked.
Marco got a wicked look in his eyes, dimples creasing both his cheeks. “Tsk, tsk, Maddie. You know I never kiss and tell.”
I rolled my eyes. At least someone around here was getting some. “I meant about Bobbi.”
