Okay, so it was
I was about to say something snarky when Harry suddenly straightened up and turned, not toward us, but in the opposite direction. It looked as though he was about to greet someone, but right at that moment, a wedding party moved in between us. The bride was decked out in a flowing white dress and long veil, four giggling bridesmaids in pink taffeta clung to each other, and a groom and three other young guys in tuxedos surrounded them.
I tried to see through them to whomever it was Harry was greeting, but all I caught was a flash of blond hair and a pair of jeans.
“Is he meeting up with a girl?” I asked, realizing that Jeff couldn’t see any more than I could and he’d shifted a little to the right to try to get a better view.
Jeff shrugged. “Can’t tell, but I think so.”
So maybe she hadn’t seen the blog pictures of Harry and me. After a second of feeling resentful that my boyfriend broke up with me because of Harry, I realized that Harry had been stepping out, too.
“Wonder who she is,” I muttered.
“Jealous?” Jeff gave me a wink, and I knew he was teasing.
The wedding party had paused to take some pictures against the backdrop of the flamingo lagoon, but Harry and the blonde walked a little farther down the path, past the little ducks and birds and pheasants that were wandering on the grass, toward the fountain. Because night had fallen and their backs were to us, we still couldn’t make out the girl’s features. Jeff and I sidestepped a few people, trying to stay far enough behind so they wouldn’t notice us following them.
“This is ridiculous,” I finally said when another couple stepped between us in front of the little waterfall that provided a backdrop for wedding pictures. The flamingo logo of the resort was strategically placed for advertising purposes. “Why are we doing this, anyway? So he’s meeting up with a girlfriend. Big deal.”
Jeff nodded. “You may be right.”
“I know I’m right.”
He studied my face for a second, a grin spreading wide. “Is it tiring being right all the time?”
I slugged him on the arm and turned around, wincing slightly as the newfound blister caught on the leather of my shoe. Socks are underrated.
Suddenly, I felt Jeff’s hand on my arm, tight, stopping me. He cocked his head back toward Harry.
The twosome was becoming a threesome.
I froze.
Ace van Nes, my employee, was laughing as he approached them. He held a case that I recognized. It was the case he used for his tattoo equipment.
I could put two and two together. All that time at the shop and the oxygen bar clearly had created a friendship and possibly more. With Jeff’s information about Harry’s tattoo parties, it seemed likely that Ace was moonlighting with Harry.
I wanted to think that I paid him enough so he wouldn’t need to do that. And anyway, what was up with all his whining about how tattooing was not his life’s calling, that he was so frustrated as an artist because he couldn’t express himself the way he wanted?
I took a step toward them, but felt Jeff’s hand holding me back.
I could see in his face that he’d drawn the same conclusion I had, but he was shaking his head.
“They can’t know we’re following them,” he said softly. “How would we explain that? You can talk to Ace tomorrow about this.” And he indicated I should follow him back toward the building.
Once safely inside and definitely out of sight, I let out a deep breath. “That was something I didn’t expect.”
“You can talk to him tomorrow,” Jeff said again. “We’ve got to get to the MGM.”
But we were without a car now.
Jeff was reading my mind. “We can pick up the monorail here at the Flamingo,” he said. “It’ll take us straight to the MGM.”
I’d been on the Las Vegas Monorail before. It ran back and forth between the MGM and the Sahara, stopping occasionally. More and more people were taking it these days, but it was still mostly tourists.
There were enough people so we couldn’t sit down, but had to hold on to the silver poles in the middle of the car. It reminded me-sort of-of the New York subway, but it was a tad too clean. I noticed Jeff was checking out a girl standing close to him, long blond tresses, tasteful makeup, a tight red dress that left nothing to the imagination. Was that his type? I looked down at my own jeans and black T-shirt with the skull, my tattoos bleeding down my arms. Couldn’t be more different.
Jeff caught me watching him, but instead of looking surprised, he merely winked.
I made a face at him and turned toward the guy next to me, a white kid who had aspirations to be a black rapper, wearing a wife-beater T, jeans hanging precariously around his hips, strands of gold “bling” around his neck. I bet this guy grew up in the white suburbs somewhere, had never been in a ’hood in his life.
He caught me looking at him and a leer crossed his face.
I had to stop paying attention to people. It was safer to be oblivious.
The monorail slowed at the Bally’s/Paris stop. I could see the tip of the Eiffel Tower from the window, all lit up like a Christmas tree. I imagined the real thing, and wished I were there, away from all this. Would I be a coward if I left town now?
I felt the slight jolt as the monorail began to move again, and because I’d shifted my feet a little, I fell against the white rapper guy. I felt his hand cup my ass and I jerked away, my face growing hot with anger.
Before I could say anything, Jeff had the guy by the scruff of his shirtfront and had lifted him to his tiptoes.
“That’s not a way to treat a lady,” he growled in the guy’s face, which was now even whiter with fear.
Jeff let him down with a thud, then turned to me and winked, putting his arm around me to herd me a little farther away. It reminded me of the time Tim had come to my rescue when Danny Brody had grabbed me during a game of capture the flag, his hands reaching toward my newly budded breasts.
Let’s just say Danny stayed away from me after that.
The monorail slowed again at the MGM stop. Everyone filed out, the white rapper giving Jeff furtive glances as though he were afraid Jeff would come after him again. The girl in the red dress batted her eyelashes at Jeff, and I wondered if they had made an unspoken date.
“Thanks for that back there,” I said as we walked from the monorail station to the MGM.
“Guy was out of line.”
“It happens,” I said.
“Shouldn’t.”
“You seemed to like that girl.”
“What girl?”
“The one in the red dress.”
Jeff chuckled. “What are you after, Kavanaugh? Trying to figure out my type?”
I shrugged. “I guess it’s just that you’ve met Colin Bixby, and you knew Simon Chase, too,” I said, referring to a casino manager I’d dated several months earlier. “I’ve never even seen you with a woman.”
Jeff’s face grew a little dark. He pursed his lips and stared straight ahead. “You knew about Kelly.” He was referring to his ex-wife, who had been murdered. He’d wanted kids with her and found out when she died that she’d been pregnant. I’d thought that because he never talked about it, he wasn’t still thinking about her. But I guess I was wrong. Hard to get over that sort of thing. Even for Jeff Coleman.
This was getting a little too personal. I was relieved to see we’d reached the entrance to the arena where the Flamingos were playing. I stepped up to the box office and told them my name.
“Melanie Black said she’d have two tickets for me,” I said.
The woman barely looked at me, rummaged in a drawer, and produced a small envelope, slipping it out through
