“Gimme it!”
Good enough. I pushed the door open. Shanna had the shower door open, one well-muscled sudsy leg already out the door, a loofa in one hand, the other hand trying to grab the phone, and damn if the shower wasn’t one of those clear glass jobs, none of that pebbled stuff that leaves you uncertain about what’s behind it. Her handcuff-motif belly button ring glittered nicely in the light. The rest of her was simply panoramic.
“Don’t get my phone wet,” I said.
She grabbed it. “Get out.”
Brusque kid. And wet. But the seamless tan from head to toe looked good on her, and the hot-pink toenail polish.
I got out, taking with me a sight that would stick with me for a good long time. You wake up in the morning thinking you have an idea what the day will bring, but you don’t. Ever.
I stood outside the door listening to the animated stop-and-go burble of Shanna’s voice but couldn’t make out her words over the sound of the shower. Half a minute later, the burble of words stopped.
“Mortimer? You out there?”
“There’s no one out here by that name.”
“Oh, for chrissake, Mort!”
“Yep.”
“I put your phone by the sink. It’s still on. Danya wants to talk to you.”
“Great. How am I supposed to get it?”
“Come in and get it, dope.”
Good enough. I got my phone and another eyeful, thinking girls these days weren’t nearly as bashful as they were when I was in high school, and a football hero at that. I almost made it to the door when Shanna said, “Hey.”
I turned back. “What?”
“Danya and I have been married since April, if that answers a few questions.” She looked through the glass, blinking at me, water dripping from her hair into her face.
“It might. I’ll give it some thought.”
“Do that. Now go.”
“Newlyweds. Wow. Hey. Congrats.”
“Go. Leave. See what Danya wants, then have a smoke or something in the backyard until I get out of here.”
“I gave up smoking in the first grade.” Delaying tactics are one of a multitude of old codgers’ tricks. They usually work, too.
Her lips twitched in what might have been an attempt to keep from smiling. I wouldn’t have been able to see that through pebbled glass, so I was happy that the glass was clear. Body language is a big part of communication. “Good for you. Now get out of here,” she said, but her voice was softer than before.
I went back to the living room, put the phone to my ear. “So, what’s the story, Danya? What’s with the Celebrity News?”
“That guy didn’t see Shanna, did he?”
“Nope. Don’t think so, anyway. Not like I did.”
She hesitated. “What’s that mean?”
“Thought I mentioned that she was in the shower. You know, the one with clear glass?”
“Well . . . okay. That’s good.”
Fascinating. “I doubt that he saw her. But he knew her name. Shanna Hayes.”
Danya didn’t respond to that, didn’t give away any stray bits of information. I was still in the dark. She would’ve made a good CIA agent. When I caught up to her, I thought I might have to waterboard her. I especially wanted to know who her father was—the guy who didn’t like me. That still had me going.
“Anyway,” I said, “if you’re still looking for a gumshoe and think I might do, I probably need to know what’s going on.”
“A what . . . gumshoe, did you say?”
“An investigator.” Kids. I looked out a window and saw a red Chevy Cruze slowing as it went by. What were the odds?
“What do you charge?” Danya asked as I tried to keep track of the car.
“Hah? For what?”
“PI work, of course. What’re we talkin’ about?”
“You still lookin’ for a maverick?” At a sharp angle out the window I could see the Cruze idling at the curb, two houses up the street.
“Maybe more than ever, if that tabloid guy is still around. So, how much?”
Ma Clary went for one seventy-five an hour. I didn’t think Danya could afford Ma. On the other hand, Maude wasn’t here. By now she might be somewhere around Winnemucca, Nevada, headed east.
“Mavericks cost more than your basic run of the mill—”
“Seriously—?”
“How about sixty an hour?” Which is what Ma charged for my time, of which I got twenty-five. “And expenses. But I still don’t know what you need or what’s going on.”
“I’ll get back to you on that.”
“When do you—” She’d already hung up. Shit fire, she was a hard lady to converse with, but my mind was actually on the creep.
Out the front door, medium-fast jog up the sidewalk, and the Cruze took off, headed uphill—west.
I watched it for a moment, didn’t think I could put a bullet through the back window at that distance, then walked back to the house. On the way, I called Danya back. She needed a PI “more than ever,” but I still didn’t know why. The call went to voice mail again, which was just great.
Okay, there’s this tabloid creep nosing around two stunning girls married to each other—interracially, too, which hadn’t meant a thing for the past thirty or forty years—and me with no idea what the first girl wanted. Or the second. Which meant, in the absence of the Cruze, that I could sayonara and head down to the Green Room at the Golden Goose and snack on pretzels and beer nuts over a midmorning Moose Drool. Well-deserved, too, I might add, since I’d already seen a highly naked girl and tossed one guy against a garbage can today, and that was my daily quota for both.
The Cruze, however, was still hovering, so beer was out. Too early for beer, anyway, since it wasn’t yet noon. Then again, I didn’t know if I was being teased or hired. So far, teasing was in the lead—Danya on the phone, Shanna in the shower. If I was being hired, I still didn’t know what for, which left things pretty much up in the air, so I still didn’t have to call Ma and get her okay.
