“That moustache looks pretty funky,” she said.
I touched it. Last year I’d worn one the size of a shoe brush, running around with Jeri while we dodged media jackals. This one was more sedate, two-thirds Pancho Villa.
“You no like, senorita?” The top was down on the Mustang, sun beating down. Hot. Lucy wore a floppy, wide-brim hat.
“Makes you look, I don’t know, with those shades and from a distance—Mexican, maybe Cuban.”
“So you got yourself a hot Latino. Be happy.”
She laughed. “Or not. But you look kinda Texan with the hat.”
I kicked the Stetson back on my head. “You no like the hat, too, Barbie? You’re a hell of a hard dame to please.”
“No, I like the hat. It’s just that funky ’stache. The thought of kissing you gives me the willies.”
“USA Today has me listed as more recognizable than the vice president, not that that’s a ringing endorsement—I’m not sure I could pick the VP out of a lineup—but still not good since we’re going to be in or around Jo-X’s place. So the ’stache, as you call it, shall remain in place.”
We were half a mile past the Mandalay Bay Casino, headed south. Lucy held her hat on with one hand. We were doing fifty in a forty-five zone. “Glad we got that cleared up, and since you brought it up, what’re we gonna do at Jo-X’s place anyhow?”
I shrugged. “Dunno.”
“Perfect. I’m learning stuff already.”
“If you must know, we’re gonna scout the place, see what we see.”
“Scout it, right. You should have a Dan’l Boone hat.”
In addition to the other disguise elements, I had four hats in the lockbox in the Mustang’s trunk. The box also held binoculars, a hefty .357 Magnum revolver and a little .32, a tool kit, other odds and ends. You never know what you’re going to run into. Lucy was proof of that.
But no Dan’l Boone hat.
Might have to pick one up to round out the collection.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
JO-X’S ESTATE WAS something shy of a full-on mansion, not like the kind of places you’d find in Florida—Naples, Little Bokeelia Island, Longboat Key. It only had two stories. How could you call it a mansion if it didn’t have at least three stories? But it was a nice stucco Mediterranean in shades of desert sand and basalt with a few desert palms in front, and, as advertised, it overlooked the fourteenth green of the Las Lomas Golf Club—a daily parade of color-blind guys in funny hats swatting balls and cussing. What more could anyone ask?
“Now what?” Lucy asked.
Now I still didn’t know what. A single patrol car was in front of the mini-mansion, a forensics van, and two unmarked cars that might have disgorged detectives, chiefs, and others of that ilk. No way in, nothing to do but gawk with the others, and there were a great many others—about twelve carloads, mostly young, mostly girls, which gave us plenty of cover as we cruised slowly by, also gawking. I slouched behind the wheel while Lucy sat up and gave the place a good long look.
The mansion was eighty-two hundred square feet plus the pool and grounds, so the forensics guys and gals had a lot of territory to cover. Jo-X had been found in Reno, but he could have been killed anywhere—and by anyone, including twenty million civic-minded adults. The size of the suspect list might’ve given Russell a modicum of comfort—if I hadn’t found Jo-X in his daughter’s garage.
But Lucy and I weren’t getting anywhere, which was par for me. I wasn’t sure about her. What had I expected, coming out here? A drive-by look at the house? What would that tell me? The thought that cops would be going through the place had occurred to me, but I’d wanted to check it out to be sure. Skulking Jo-X’s mansion in the wee hours might be out of the question, but not necessarily. However, I did something like that last summer and almost got myself killed.
“Now what?” Lucy the Trainee asked.
“Now—oh, shit, duck.”
“Duck?”
“Well, me. You don’t have to.” I slumped way down. “What I should’ve said was, don’t stare at that blue car at the curb.” Which was like saying, “Don’t think about elephants.”
“Which one?” Lucy asked, sitting up straighter, staring, head swiveling. “There’s two of ’em.”
“The one with the redhead in it.”
“How will I know which one not to stare at if I don’t look at both of them?”
Aw jeez. “Okay, then don’t look at either one of ’em.”
“If there’s a problem, how’s that supposed to help us?”
“Eyes front, girl.”
We kept going. I drifted to the curb when we were a hundred yards beyond the car with the redhead behind the wheel.
“What’s goin’ on?” Lucy asked.
“Remember Shanna?”
She thought for a moment. “Tall, busty, naked blond girl in the shower you described twice in profuse exuberant detail but who’s keeping track? Sure. So what?”
While briefing Lucy earlier, I might have given her an excess of information, but during investigations you never know what will be important. Cases often turn on trivia.
“That was her.”
“In one of those blue cars?”
“Yep. The Ford Focus, not the SUV.”
“You sure?”
“Nope.”
“Perfect.”
I handed her a digital camera. “Get a close-up of her. Make it look like you’re taking pictures of Jo-X’s place.”
She said, “I feel like Nancy Drew,” then popped out of the car and trotted back to where Shanna—maybe Shanna—was observing the activity at Jo-X’s house. I watched in the rearview mirror. Lucy looked seventeen or eighteen, not much older than the quintessential groupie.
