The Big Dirt Nap

Vigoriti gave off the very appealing scent of whiskey, sweat, and, if I remembered correctly from two boyfriends ago, a dash of Armani—ordinarily a winning trifecta and one I'd succumbed to in the past. But I was tired from the long drive and wasn't feeling particularly friendly. Besides, this was an all-girls weekend. Lucy and I each had work to do, but it was really about two old friends catching up. I flashed him the fake one-second, toothless smile you use to acknowledge someone's existence, then fixed my gaze straight ahead at the diamond pattern on the wall of the elevator until six pings told me I'd reached my floor. Vigoriti got out, too.

For an instant, my antenna went up, but he turned left before I'd committed to either direction. Happily, my room was on the right and I rushed down the hall, shifting my bags to one side and trying to remember which pocket I'd stuck the room key in.

I fished the plastic card out of its sheath and slipped it into the lock. Nothing. I tried it stripe up, stripe down, toward me, and away from me. Five minutes later, after repeated wipes against my sweatshirt, the uncooperative sliver of plastic still refused to admit me to my room. I sank my forehead against the door and let out a low groan like a wounded animal.

'They're a pain, aren't they?' Vigoriti said, standing over my shoulder.

I hadn't heard him approach, and was so startled I bumped my head looking up. Assessing the damage with one hand, I gave him the key with the other. 'I'm not proud. You try.'

He dipped the key once and the light flashed green.

'How did you do that?'

'Magnetism. You have to have a magnetic personality.'

He had spared me a return match with the sweet but dopey desk clerk, so I resisted the urge to snort at his lame come-on.

'I'm kidding,' he said. 'Sometimes technology just likes to . . . mess with you.' He held on to the key a few seconds longer than necessary, slapping it against his palm. Then he blew on it—as if to blow imaginary cooties away—and handed it back to me.

I picked up my bags, held the door open just a crack with my hip, and waited for him to leave. 'Thanks,' I said, hoping he'd take the hint.

He shrugged and strode down the hall to the elevators. Trailing him, in the air with his pheromones, was the word he almost said, but didn't. Fuggedaboudit.

I wouldn't have been at Titans at all if Lucy Cavanaugh hadn't lured me there at the last minute with the offer of a free room, a spa weekend, and the promise of a corpse flower just about to bloom. Any one of those might have done the trick, but all three were irresistible. And I needed to believe I still did things spontaneously.

I'd gotten freebies all the time in my old television job, but they were few and far between since I'd started Dirty Business a couple of years back. Dirty Business was going through the terrible twos—sometimes wonderful and sometimes not. This was one of the not periods—before the season started, when I was planning my year but some of my clients still had holiday wreaths on their front doors. I had jumped at the chance for a few days of rest and relaxation on someone else's dime. Once I knew we were going to Titans, I managed to squeeze a few bucks and a byline out of my local paper to let me write a piece on the rare corpse flower on display at the hotel. If nothing else it would get my name out in front of potential clients.

Lucy was venturing outside of New York City to chase down a story for Sin in Suburbia, a cable series I'd inadvertently helped her start a year ago. The series had seemed like a good idea at the time and the network had ordered more episodes, but it hadn't initially registered with Lucy that she'd actually have to spend time in the suburbs, and that was tough duty for a woman who got vertigo anytime she went farther north.

If we hadn't planned to meet at the bar I'd have been in bed with room service and the remote, and I'd have saved my picture taking until the morning. As it was, I swapped my sneakers for short cowboy boots and my T-shirt for a plain white shirt, which I tucked into my jeans. With a not-too-out-of-style dark blazer and a little bronzer I convinced myself I looked professional, French—simple and elegant.

Not that Titans had anything remotely like a dress code—the few people I had seen when I checked in could have been going to a kids' soccer game. But I spent most of my days in gardening gear—pants tucked into socks to avoid ticks, baggy long-sleeved tops to avoid scratches, and when necessary a white mesh bug suit that covered me from head to toe and made me look like something out of a 1950s horror movie about the aftereffects of the hydrogen bomb. I welcomed any occasion to clean up my act.

An hour later, after taking more than two dozen pictures of the corpse flower, I was at the bar nursing my third club soda, feeling bloated and losing patience. There was a grand piano in the bar but judging by the amount of dust on it I didn't think I was in for any live music. I tried to ignore the third Muzak go-round of that weepy song from Titanic and passed the time by filling in the details for the corpse flower story. I Googled the hotel's history and checked out the clientele. No one was paying any attention to the plant. The seven- foot object in the glass box might have been a priceless sculpture or a giant turd for all anyone at Titans seemed to care. I scoured the room for someone to interview but the pickings were slim: a few Asian guys, a skinny blonde reading a romance novel, and a twitchy guy who looked like he desperately needed a drink. Then I saw him again.

Vigoriti entered the raised bar area and surveyed the place as if he owned it. He unwrapped a candy and popped it in his mouth, tossing the wrapper at a nearby ashtray and missing. I hoped he wouldn't notice me or would have the good sense to realize I wasn't interested, but my limited experience with him already told me what to expect. Uninvited, he slid onto the bar stool right next to me.

'You going gambling? If you're calculating the odds on that computer I can tell you they always favor the house,' he said, his breath first-date minty. He must have been joking with that line.

This time I took a better look at him. He was handsome in a banged-up, been-around-the-block way. Built like a quarterback, or at least what they look like with all the padding—big shoulders, small hips. And he had great hair. Long, but intellectual long, not aging-record-business-skinny-ponytail what are you thinking? long. Then there was that intoxicating scent. There was no denying it, Nick Vigoriti smelled like trouble, or at the very least, an adventure. And I hadn't had one lately.

'No kidding,' I said, snapping out of his thrall. 'And is that your finding after years of careful research?' I flipped the computer screen halfway down.

'I just got back from Vegas,' he said. 'Thought I'd save you some dough.'

'I'm waiting for a friend,' I said, hoping to head him off before the pass.

'Could be I'm that friend.'

He was losing points rapidly. Good looks got you so far with me, but a guy needed to have some gray matter. 'Do you get many takers with these lines?' I asked.

'Depends. On how young they are, how smart they are,' he said, smiling and eyeing the other women at the bar. He turned back to me. 'Now, those girls are girls. I'm looking for a woman, about thirty to thirty-five, long dark hair, athletic build,' he said, giving a pretty good description of me.

I held up my hands to stop him. 'I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. This may not even be where you're going, but I'm not looking for a good time. Not that kind of good time. I'm waiting for a friend. A real one, not one who's in town for the widget convention. And she's late. Other than her, the only reason I'm here is the titan arum,' I said, attempting to scare him off with a little Latin. 'The corpse flower.' I motioned in its direction.

'Corpse flower? Is that what they call that stinkweed in the glass box?'

He pointed to the plant we'd been looking at earlier, the titan arum, the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world. In simple terms, the biggest flower that isn't on a tree. Spectacular and rare, but unsettling, since the corpse flower looks like a giant phallus, and smells, well, like rotting meat; hence the name, and the need for an enclosure. I was guessing some dumb schmuck who didn't know any better thought the titan arum would be a clever promotion for Titans. I was also guessing same dumb schmuck was currently looking for another job.

'I heard the Mishkins had to fork over five grand for that box,' he said, 'to keep the stench away from the paying customers. And they're probably going to trash it once the damn thing blooms and it's shipped back to the jungle.'

'I doubt they'll do that. Smarter to donate it and get the tax deduction. The University of Wisconsin has a few corpse flowers. I'm sure UConn would love to have it; theirs bloomed a few years ago.' He eyed me as if I'd just