Cat In A Zebra Zoot Suit

13

Call Girls Inc.

“I’ve found the visiting house louse. Are you game for some vermin extermination?”

Temple blinked to hear her cell phone’s rude but mystifying announcement this late in the evening. The gritty voice didn’t even sound like Electra’s. Her watch showed 11:06 p.m. She’d just finished packing. She and Matt could nap on the plane, but Temple was eager to get some sleep now.

“What kind of vermin? Something creepy invaded the Circle Ritz?”

“Just my dirty rat ex-husband, who hasn’t been in town for years, and who swore he wouldn’t sell his land without telling me first.”

“He’s here? Now?” Temple’s adrenaline was kicking into overdrive.

“No. In town, hiding out. At the Araby Motel.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, that dump. He must have needed money fast.”

“How’d you find him?”

“I called his latest ex-wife, Diane, and she wasn’t surprised he hadn’t told me he was in town. His recliner furniture business in St. Louis hit the skids in the Great Recession. Jay has been gambling again to get back on his feet, which means he’s only losing more money.”

“You certainly have colorful exes.”

“Look who’s talking? And that’s why they’re exes.”

“So what do you need me for?”

“I’m not dumb enough to go to the Araby Motel at this hour. Alone.”

“And little me would be a witness and protection? Matt’s already left for his midnight show, but I could call—”

“No. I want as few people as possible to know my business.”

“So a Fontana brother or two—?”

“Out of the question. This is women’s work. I’m not afraid of Jay. It’s just that the Araby Motel is a two cell-phone destination. One with a 9-1-1 autodial for me, and one with a 9-1-1 autodial for you, if I have to resort to violence. That’s how the hookers work it, in pairs.”

“Oh, great.”

“Great witnesses, though, if something goes wrong.”

“This is crazy, Electra. It’s late, and Matt and I are leaving early in the morning.”

“I have to talk to Jay, and he’s liable to move around, dodging people he doesn’t want to see, like creditors or ex-wives. Listen. Jay is really a pussycat. I just need to do some instant lion taming. There’s got to be a way out of this deal he supposedly wrangled. We split the Circle Ritz and some surrounding acres in the divorce, with him agreeing to give me right of first refusal on a deal for his acreage. I can’t imagine him reneging like this. Please!”

“Okay, Electra. I’ll go with you, but you’re forcing me to do the unthinkable.”

“What is that?”

“Wear jeans and my ugly running sneakers. At least it’s dark out.”

Temple had slipped her cell phone into a wrist case so she could use it fast.

They drove Electra’s old Probe. Temple rebelled at her landlady’s suggestion of them riding the Hesketh Vampire motorcycle that had originally been Max Kinsella’s. It was fast but noisy at high speed (hence the screaming vampire reference), and not low profile. For the same reason, Temple was not about to take her Miata convertible.

Sixty years ago, the motel had been a chi-chi little motor lodge, the latest thing in Western Accommodations for travelers wishing to see the U.S.A. in their Chevrolets. Today it was someplace Bette Davis could loathe. Dump Central. Not many cars littered the asphalt, but they all were missing something—paint, various windows, wheel rims.

It wasn’t that the Araby Motel didn’t have the usual Vegas vibe, including a snazzy neon sign. The Araby Motel was laid out like an exclamation point: a long, low one-story string of rooms stretching out from a registration office that sat under a tower of tired neon. Earthworm-pink neon cursives spelled out ARABY MOTEL above a sputtering green minaret and a huge purple genie wafting up from a blue bottle.

Every entertainment Mecca has its low-rent areas where the offbeat, the broke and broken, and the slightly criminal congregate. Temple remembered Matt visiting places like this when he first came to town hunting his stepfather.

“Room 16,” Electra said as the Probe turned into the motel courtyard. That proved to be one of the few units where the light above the door hadn’t failed, or been turned off by the occupant.

As Electra knocked at the metal door, Temple couldn’t decide if standing in the light was a good or a bad thing. She’d glimpsed shadowy women along the street, and men in cars cruising slowly.

“Don’t worry. I’m armed,” Electra whispered, worrying her again. Again? You bet.

“Jay. Jay.” Electra leaned out to knock on the picture window glass instead of wearing her knuckles out on steel. “I know you’re there. We’ve got to talk.”

The dust-stained lining of the window curtains edged back at one edge.

“Jeesh. How’d you find me?” a man exclaimed through the glass.

“Diane.”

The pinch of lifted curtain fell back into place.

Temple turned to face the parking lot as a low-rider grumbled through. When she turned back, the steel door was opening.

“Jeesh, Electra.” The man stepped back with the half-open door as a buttress. “You and Diane in cahoots. Makes my blood run cold. Who’s the kid?”

Temple was used to being cut down to her petite size.

“My bodyguard,” Electra retorted.

Jay’s jaw dropped. “Funeee. You girls better come in. This can be a rough neighborhood.”

Inside the room, by the insipid light of a floor lamp, Temple saw a big man both high and wide. Yet he stood like a guilty kid, neck bent forward and blue eyes peering out from under a forelock of thick white hair.

“We wouldn’t be in a ‘rough neighborhood’,” Electra said, hands on hips, “if you weren’t in one, or in Vegas at all, for God’s sake.”

“You’re looking…festive,” Jay said.

Temple bit off a laugh. Electra, with her colorfully patchwork white hair that predated the fad for purple and indigo chalk streaks, was her own eccentric self. Festive was the perfect word.

It did not appease. “Festive? I am furious, fellow. You show up in Vegas just as some scumbag is fixing on building an extreme strip club a rhinestone’s throw from my residential building and its attached wedding chapel. There goes the neighborhood.”

“I’m sorry about that, Electra.” Had Jay owned a hat, he’d have been holding it in front of his generous belly and turning it around and around. Aw, shucks.

“You swore I’d have first crack at the land. It’s in our divorce settlement.”

“Weel, I need the money.”

“So Diane told me. So you sold me out.”

“I didn’t know about the strip club, honest.”

“Oh, now you’re being honest.” Electra looked over her shoulder. “Better take notes on your phone, Temple. Jay Edgar Dyson is being honest.”

The name made Temple blink, but Electra seemed to think nothing of it.

“This is a red-letter day,” Electra said. “Or night, rather. Honest as a…carnival barker. So my livelihood has to go down because yours crashed?”

“Folks aren’t much into big recliners, except old people, Electra.” He shrugged. “I didn’t want to do it, but these big-time Vegas investors are real persuasive. I actually got comped at Harrah’s when I arrived, and I thought I could win the money to tell them to go fly a Fokker 100.

“That’s an early airplane, isn’t it?” Temple wanted to know. “And who comped you?”

“This rep for the buyers. Nemo is his name.”

“Wait.” Temple’s suspicions were confirmed, but she wanted to make sure. “Leon Nemo isn’t the buyer?”

“Naw. Some other parties, I guess. Real estate investors.”

“Buyer-schmuyer,” Electra said. “What I need to know…is it a done deal?”

“I signed something.”

“What?” she demanded. “An intent to purchase? A deed?”

Jay’s wrinkled brow just aggravated her more. “You always had the business head of a turnip,” she told him. “I don’t. I do have the divorce agreement, and it states I have a right to buy the property first.”

“Maybe.” Jay shrugged again. “But the property’s in my name and our divorce papers are what you might call a gentlemen’s agreement.”

“No gentleman involved,” Electra shot back.

“Anyway, these people got the money to get their way. They are made of money down to their undies, I’d bet.”

“How much did they offer?”

“That’s private,” Jay said. “And so’s my room. I’m thinking you and your pint-size deputy better leave.”

He shuffled forward, a wall of high and wide, but not handsome, bulk. Electra retreated in revulsion, pushing Temple into the doorway.

“You…cheap, thieving jerk,” Electra accused as she backed away into the noisy night. “Some people aren’t fit to occupy space on the planet. How much did they pay you? I want my money from our deal.”

“None of your beeswax, hon.” Jay grabbed the door edge to shut them out.

“You can’t run away from me. I know people you don’t want to mess with in Vegas,” Electra fussed. “You’ll be sorry—”

“I’m betting my people are nastier than your people, Electra,” Jay said as he slammed the door closed in her face.

Behind her, Temple teetered on the edge of the concrete walkway, even though her sneaker soles were flatter than a morning-after wallet.

Electra backed right into her. “Sorry, hon! Hon. He called me ‘hon’, can you believe it?”

Temple edged around to Electra’s side. “We better leave.”

They stepped forward into a waiting circle of women. Black, white, Asian women, and one maybe-woman, all on six-inch hooker heels.

“That old guy cold cock you, sistas?” asked a black woman in a blonde wig.

“It’s all right,” Electra said. “I have some persuasive bill collectors.” She pulled a bit of gun butt out of her shoulder bag.

“Some kink you must have on,” another Sister of the Night commented. “What is it, grade-school girl and nun clown?”

Temple just wanted to be away from there. “You got it. We are a sister act,” she said, citing some TV show icons of the past forty years. “The Flying Nun and Betty White. Red-hot act. We have a tight schedule. Gotta go.” She grabbed Electra’s elbow and propelled them both toward the car.

“Weird. Must be doing well with that,” a last comment drifted after them.

“Oh, my Lord,” Temple said as she buckled her passenger seatbelt. “That was a weird, useless outing. I thought for a moment you were going to pull out your gat and shoot him.”

Electra’s profile was grim as she turned the Probe under a streetlight and into the traffic flow. “That was a useless ex-spouse. What a louse. What a coward.”

“Maybe,” Temple said. “Maybe not.”

“You’re standing up for him?”

“No. I’m saying maybe he’s been dealing with some local Big Bad Wolf worth being scared of. I don’t like the vibe I’m getting off the people associated with this strip club project.”

“Me neither. It sounds like they’re putting pressure on Jay Edgar, but, believe me, baby. Nobody can do that better than I can, and I have just begun to fight.”