“Don’t start with me,” I warned. “These are five-inch heels. I could kill a man with these.”
His grin widened, but he held up his hands in surrender and wisely refrained from comment. Instead he handed the valet his ticket (and a fifty-cent tip-cheapskate), and ten minutes later we were on the road.
I fidgeted nervously in my seat as we motored up the 15, my stomach tying itself in enough knots to macrame a plant hanger. The thing is, I wasn’t the world’s biggest fan of undercover work. Once, last summer while investigating the disappearance of my ex-boyfriend Richard, Dana had convinced me to go undercover as a hooker. As if the neon spandex she’d made me wear wasn’t bad enough, the evening had ended with a dead body. And considering I was currently the only player in this little drama without a gun, I really hoped tonight wasn’t a replay.
I was chewing the Raspberry Perfection off my lips, debating whether I could tell Felix to turn around and forget the whole thing, when we pulled into the employee lot of the Victoria. The two Town Cars were still parked up front and the lot was populated with half a dozen more rent-a-wrecks than it had been earlier in the day. Though I was relived to see Ramirez’s SUV conspicuously absent. I prayed Bruno had the night off. (Or was spending it out trying to find one escaped blonde.)
I stared at the back door as Felix killed the engine. Okay, I could do this. I was a tough chick. I was dangerous. On a mission. Take no prisoners.
“You ready?” Felix asked, grabbing his camera case from the backseat.
“Hell yeah!” Only somehow my pep talk hadn’t convinced my body. My feet had turned to lead and my butt was glued to the faded seat.
“So…you want to go in, then?” he asked.
I nodded. “Nuh unh.”
Felix paused. “You know, it’s not too late to change your mind. If you don’t feel comfortable with this, we can call it off.”
Did I feel comfortable with it? No. But neither did I feel comfortable in my gorgeous four-inch, leather Gucci logo pumps that angled in at the tip until my pinky toes turned blue. But if I could survive cutting off circulation to my feet for fashion, I could survive a knotted stomach for my father.
“No, I’m fine,” I lied. “Let’s do this.”
Somehow I pried my booty off the seat despite feeling like it was covered in Elmer’s, and crossed the few feet of pavement to the back door. All the while feeling the heat of Felix’s camera lens at my back.
The steady beat of dance music vibrated through the thick walls of the building, spilling out into the night as I opened the door. I blinked in the dimly lit interior, wishing I could take my dark glasses off. I took a moment to orient myself. I was in the backstage area. To my right was a panel of levers and pulleys, behind which sat a guy in a John Deere cap with a cigarette hanging out one side of his mouth. To the left, a changing room, the sounds of clacking heels, hair dryers and catty gossip mingling with the dance rhythms.
I went to the right, trying to look as inconspicuous as I could. The changing room was a small ten-by-ten affair, crammed with vanities topped by mirrored lights. Makeup bags and wig stands littered every surface and a rolling wardrobe rack sat by the door. Luckily, no one really seemed to take much notice of me. A skinny black guy in a Tina Turner outfit rushed past me yelling about her cues, and two of the yellow sequin “girls” sat at one of the vanities, trying to get their feathers pinned on their heads and gossiping about someone named Molly. (Who, apparently, had slept with half the men in the club.)
I scanned the room for a red crocodile bag and came up with pay dirt next to the vanity at the far end of the room. Ducking my head down, I stepped over discarded shoes and costumes on the floor, quickly grabbed the bag, and ducked out again before the sequin girls could question me.
The bag was a lot heavier than I had expected. I needed two hands to carry it as I backtracked to the outer door. By the time I reached it, my heart was pounding in my ears and my stomach had knotted itself an entire afghan.
I stepped back out into the night, letting the door close on the club music behind me, and did a quick scan to make sure a black SUV hadn’t miraculously appeared while I was inside. None had, so I jogged (which in fiveinch heels was more like a series of baby steps on speed) to the Neon and quickly slipped into the passenger seat.
“Go, go, go!” I commanded as Felix put down his camera. He did, pulling out of the parking lot and taking a quick right onto Fremont. I heaved a sigh of relief that was much too big, considering Operation Mafia Takedown was only halfway done. Getting the bag had been the easy part; the hard part would be coming face to face with the living breathing models for the
I shivered and flipped on the heater.
To distract myself, I looked down at the bag in my hands as Felix drove south on the 15. It was a soft crocodile skin dyed a deep burgundy color with little gold buckles and a bamboo handle. Actually tres chic, if you asked me. My hands shaking only slightly, I peeked inside. It was filled with wads of hundred-dollar bills. I did a low whistle. As I may have mentioned, Tot Trots was not the Rodeo Drive of shoes. I made enough to cover my rent and keep me in Top Ramen and heels, but this was way more money than I’d ever seen in one place before. I put my nose down in the bag and inhaled deeply. The unmistakable scent of cash mixed with leather. This must be what real Pradas smelled like.
Fifteen minutes later we’d passed by the Mandalay Bay, the Bellagio, and the Treasure Island and were heading into the no-man’s land between Vegas and Los Angeles. Tumbleweeds began to replace casinos until we spied the sign for Lone Hill Road. Felix turned off the highway, onto the roughly paved two lane. Two more turns and we were reduced to a dirt road which might have been fun to navigate in my four-wheel-drive Jeep, but was just plain bumpy in a late-model Neon. We bounced about three more miles in silence before a building came into sight on the horizon of the sparse, rocky terrain. Felix pulled the car over to the side.
“This is where I get off,” he said, his voice betraying a hint of the jangling nerves I felt.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, for fear something like, “Don’t leave me! I’m just a little girly girl!” would pop out.
“You sure you’re going to be okay alone?” he asked and in the rapidly settling dusk, I could have sworn he actually looked concerned.
I nodded again, hoping he couldn’t tell what a bad liar I was.
Apparently not, since he grabbed his camera case and exited the car, doing a quick survey of the landscape before settling into position behind a rock formation. He gave me a thumbs-up, which I guess was supposed to reassure me as I slid over to the driver’s seat.
I gave myself a little mental pep talk again, watching Felix’s form disappear in the rearview mirror as I continued down the dusty road alone. Only the closer I got to the squat building in the distance, the less convincing I became.
I flipped the radio on to fill the silence. After playing with the dial I finally found a station playing ’60s hits. It’s hard to be freaked when you’re listening to the Beatles. I tried to sing along to “Good Day Sunshine,” but I found my eyes darting to the rearview mirror every three seconds, watching for black Town Cars.
This was it. If this didn’t work…I didn’t even want to think about it. And, I had to admit, I was beginning to seriously question the wisdom of not telling Ramirez about this plan. Sure, he would have nixed it from the get-go, but maybe he could have sent one of his operatives to do this? Maybe he could have convinced Larry? Maybe we could have had sex at least once before I drove to possible maiming and death in the desert.
By the time I pulled up to the warehouse, my hands were sweating, my lips had been bitten raw, and I was beginning to get a nervous tick in my right eye. If I didn’t already have a bag full of cash sitting beside me, there’s no question I would have turned around and fled right then and there.
Instead, I parked the Neon in front of the warehouse. It was a nondescript building, square and large with concrete sides and a corrugated metal roof. Around it was a whole lot of dusty nothing.
No other cars were visible.
I sat there for a full two minutes, trying to talk myself into getting out of the car. I was halfway there. I had the cash, I was at the meeting place. So far so good. All I had to do now was hand over the bag and all was well. (What can I say, I was becoming a pro at this denial thing.)
I opened the door and stepped out. The night air was cool and eerily quiet. Not even a cricket chirping anywhere. Picking my way over the hard-packed dirt, I slowly made my way to the warehouse, clutching the crocodile bag so tightly my knuckles were turning white. Three loading bays spanned the length of it, with a smaller
