Ill Gotten Gains: Diary of a Gentle Grifter, page 18
That made me chuckle. “I didn’t catch your name, ma’am.”
“It’s Mrs. None-of-Your-Goddamned-Business,” she spit. She pointed another boney finger at me again. “Get this done for my sister, Macon Lence. Or else.” She then unceremoniously scooped up her little dog and headed toward the front door, leaving me standing in the lobby by myself.
A bar waiter appeared next to me. “Your bill, sir.”
“My bill?”
“For the lady’s martini.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Of course.”
After a short search, I found Drucilla lounging by the salt water pool. Thankfully, her string bikini left absolutely nothing to the imagination. I quickly decided the inventor of the bikini deserved his own statue. If he didn’t have one somewhere, I’d commission it. No one anywhere would take offense to memorializing that great man.
“You’re over-dressed,” she said when I walked up. She pulled her large white-framed sunglasses down the bridge of her nose and squinted at me in the mid-day sun. “Why don’t you go change and join me?”
“I’m not really the sunbathing kind of a guy.” It was true. And I was about as pale as a moderately hairy ghost, with a slight belly I wasn’t especially proud of displaying for all to see. “I hate sitting out in the sun cooking my skin. I never understood the appeal.”
“Then sit under the umbrella. You can’t just stand there in your stupid jeans. You look like an out-of-place idiot.”
“Thanks.”
“What did you learn?” she asked as she lay back on her chaise.
I looked around. There were too many people in listening distance. “It can wait.”
“At least tell me if it’s out there yet.”
“It’s out there.”
“And?”
“It’s gone our way, apparently. So far so good.”
“That’s very good news.”
“Did you know Mother has a couple of sisters and that one of them lives here in Palm Springs?”
Drucilla opened her eyes and looked at me. “No. And how do you know that random fact?”
“One of them was waiting for me in the lobby,” I said under my breath.
“What?” Dru sat up straight. “I couldn’t hear you. Why are you whispering?”
I sat down on the chair next to her and leaned in. “One of Lucia’s ancient sisters intercepted me in the lobby just now. Mother apparently got wind of what happened. And she is not happy. But I think I appeased the old woman.”
“And how exactly did this old woman find us?”
I cringed a bit. “Apparently I talk too much.”
Drucilla nodded her head slowly. “I see. Once upon a time you told Lucia that the Parker is your favorite hotel.”
I smiled.
“You’re a dummy sometimes. But you managed to buy some more time?”
I shrugged. “I think so.”
“What’s next?”
“I think you need to call Peter’s beneficiaries. Sooner than later.”
Drucilla checked her watch. “Give me another half hour, and I’ll come back to the villa. I left my phone there. And Mitch’s business card.”
That didn’t make sense to me. “Why would you not have your phone with you? That would drive me crazy, not having it. I even take mine with me into the bathroom. It goes where I go. Always.”
“I’m not attached to mine like that. The bathroom? Really? Gross.” She waved her hand about in the air. “You’re in my sunlight. You’ve got to move.”
“We’re not on vacation, Drucilla.”
She abruptly sat up for the third time and pulled off her shades. “I know that, Macon! But I can’t have a few measly minutes? Huh? I’m simply traumatized by what we witnessed yesterday; I need my decompression time. Time to heal. Anyway, I thought I was doing you a favor.”
“A favor? I’m paying you,” I said a bit too loudly. That caught the attention of the middle aged, Mediterranean-looking gentleman on the other side of Drucilla, who shot me a wicked, knowing smile. “Not like that!” I called over to him.
Drucilla turned to the man. “How dare you.”
The man raised his palm. “What? What?! I said nothing.” Then he snickered.
“Uh huh. Right!” Drucilla suddenly started collecting her belongings. “Okay. Fine. Let’s go. I guess I’m done with this damned sun.” She glared at the Mediterranean man again. “How dare you, sir?”
“Calm down, Dru,” I pleaded. “Don’t make a scene. Let’s just go.”
We started across the pool deck, and I lightly placed a hand on her bare back.
“Unhand me,” she exclaimed, scooting away from me. “I’m nobody’s whore.”
“Come on. Forget that douche, will you please?”
“How can I? That was uncalled for. So insulting.”
“I’ll take you to an over-the-top dinner tonight, okay? One of my favorite places downtown. Will that cheer you up?”
“I guess so. But you were going to do that anyway.” She picked up her pace and started leading the way. “And it better be expensive, bub. I’m simply traumatized. Traumatized, I tell you.”
But I ignored her over-dramatic words. I was wholly focused on her barely-covered perfect ass, swaying back and forth as she fast walked away from me.
23
BASICALLY, IT’S HOT WATER
“Mitch, honey,” Drucilla said in a sweet, affected voice I’d never heard before. “Trace and I just heard the news, and we are devastated. Absolutely shocked. Tell me it’s not true.” She was using the phone’s speaker so I could hear, too.
“Traci, it’s so nice of you to call.” Mitch seemed distracted. “We…um…yes…it’s true. We were wrapped up with the police most of yesterday afternoon. They wouldn’t let us in the house, though.” There was an awkward moment of silence. Drucilla was about to open her mouth to speak again when he finally said, “I understand it was quite a disturbing scene.”
“I bet. We are both so very, very sorry, honey.”
“Thank you.”
“My brother and I are in town until the end of the week.” Dru looked at me for affirmation; I nodded enthusiastically. “And we’re here for you and Christopher if you need anything. Anything at all, doll. I know we all just met on Saturday, but Trace and I felt an instant connection with all of you. Especially poor Peter and Andy. It’s just tragic. So very tragic.”
“I do appreciate that, Traci,” the realtor said. “Listen, I have to run.”
“Of course, darling. Please—I really mean this—if you need anything, Trace and I are right here. We’re checked in at the Parker now.”
“What the fuck,” I mouthed to Drucilla. Why would you tell them that, stupid woman?
She crinkled up her face, shrugged, then waved me off. “Talk soon, honey.” Then she ended the call.
“What is wrong with you, Dru? For Christ’s sake.”
Dru cringed. “What does it matter if he knows where we’re staying? We’re checked in as…what names did you use?”
“Does it matter?”
“Well, yeah. What if I need to charge something to the room? I need to know our damned names, don’t I?”
I sighed, not because of what Drucilla said, but because I continued to be the stupid one. “Trace and Traci Harrington.” It would have probably made more sense to check into the Parker as one alias and into Peter’s place as another, but it was too late for that now. I silently cursed myself; I was usually better at such things.
“Well, that’s smart,” she said sarcastically. “But don’t fret. Why would Mitch and Christopher give a shit where we’re staying? Mitch probably won’t give us a second thought now that he’s hung up the phone. He’s got bigger fish to fry.”
“He better not get too busy frying fish, because we need to get closer to those two fellows. And it’s got to be lickity-split. The clock is ticking.”
“We’ll get it done.”
I shook my head. “How exactly?”
“I don’t know yet. We need to figure out a way to get them to reach out to us. They need to need us somehow.”
“Okay, sure,” I said. “That’ll be easy.”
She suddenly broke out in a huge smile. “Hold on. I think I have an idea.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Let’s go to that Palm Springs casino Andy was talking about the other night and acquire some cash. Then, dinner can be on me.”
I brightened. “I like the way you think. I’m not sure how that helps our most pressing problem, besides lining our pockets, but I’m always game for that.”
“It’ll take my mind off the bloodshed.” She actually looked serious. “I can’t erase that imagery out of my head. I’ve never, ever seen something so ghastly. Not in real life. Right in front of me like that.” She shuddered.
I had to agree. “Same. You’re just lucky you didn’t see Andy pop back up.” I shook my head to try to erase my own memory. “That’s going to be with me forever, like a bad, bad horror movie, I’m afraid. No one forgets something like that.”
We parked in the crowded lot at the Agua Caliente Casino and sauntered inside, careful to survey the security measures in place. I noticed a few roaming guards and scores of cameras; it was a fairly typical set-up.
It was one of the more upscale, modern Native American casinos I’d visited, with a decidedly affluent looking clientele. And at two o’clock on a Monday afternoon, the casino floor and restaurants were a bit busier than I would have imagined they’d be. But then again, it was located in a higher-end resort town with tons of deliciously well off retirees.
“Let’s not get pinched,” I said under my breath as we walked past the buffet. “That’d ruin everything.”
“Don’t get pinched. Got it. That’s always my goal, dummy.” She seemed more stimulated than usual. Back on the hunt. Back in her natural stomping grounds. Perhaps this was the medicine she needed. “You go right, I’ll go left,” she said. “Then we’ll meet there in the back. Let’s scope out this joint.”
“We need an escape plan. We’ve never not had one.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know what’s in the area, really. I wasn’t paying attention as we drove over. McDonald’s?”
“No. Too far. There’s a huge Hilton hotel just to the south. One block down. We’ll meet there at the entrance to their spa. They’ve got to have a spa.”
“Got it,” she sang as she breezed away. “But we won’t need it.”
I watched her go. She’d changed her clothes yet again—her third outfit for the day and it was only the early afternoon. What she had on wasn’t the best choice for staying on the down low though. Skin-tight white pants, dangerously high heeled red pumps, and a shimmering red tank top. She had her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail because she didn’t have time to ‘do it up right,’ she explained earlier, blaming it on the hour or so she spent by the Parker pool.
But I didn’t really care about her hairdo. I was staring again at the extraordinarily shaped caboose as she strolled away from me.
I quickly thought better of it. There I was, ogling my partner-in-crime’s ass—I must have looked like a dirty old man, so I stopped. I started down a path between the newer model slot machines, on the lookout for a payout.
After a few minutes, I thought I found what I seemed like the perfect set-up. An older, white-haired woman sat on the end of a row of video poker machines. There was no one to her right and just one person behind her, facing in the other direction. A camera hung high above, of course, but if this went well, we’d be long gone before they’d have a chance to review the footage…and I had no plans to return any time too soon.
But, alas, that mark was a wash—she had less than seven bucks on the machine. I fancied a cup of Starbucks, sure, but didn’t need it badly enough to steal it from Grandma.
So I moved on.
Not five or six seconds later, a flash of something red caught my eye off to my left.
Drucilla…was…running.
I turned and hurried in her direction, careful not to break into a gallop myself for fear of attracting unwanted attention.
What the hell have you done, Dru?!
I squinted my eyes. She had her high heels dangling from one hand and some sort of piece of paper in the other.
Did you pull a job without me? What were you thinking?
I struggled to keep up. But I must have tripped over the leg of a stool or something, because I went down hard onto the floor.
“Are you okay, mister?” a young kid asked me, bending down to help me to my feet. “You’ve got to slowdown in here.” I rolled over and glanced up at him. He appeared to be a slot tech with a casino name badge that read ‘Miguel Rodríguez.’
I was more embarrassed than anything else. “I’m good, Miguel.” I clambered to my feet and flashed him a quick smile. “All good.”
“Be careful next time, sir.”
I scanned the room. I didn’t see a sign of Drucilla anywhere. What the hell happened? Why would you be so reckless, today of all days?
I spent a good ten minutes searching for her. And with each passing minute, I was certain my blood pressure was rising.
Nothing.
Nothing at all.
She was nowhere.
At one point, I thought I saw her standing by the coffee shop, but when I got closer, I realized it was a pot-bellied, long-haired redneck in a red Ford truck tank top and a John Deere cap. My bad. I quickly decided not to tell her about that.
Fifteen minutes later, I arrived at the Hilton’s Elements Spa and there she sat, perched on a bench in the hallway with a navy-blue windbreaker draped over her shoulders. She looked sheepish when she saw me approaching. She slowly rose to her feet.
“I am so sorry.”
“What the hell happened?” I asked. “And where’d the jacket come from?”
She pulled it off and threw it on the bench. “I swiped it off the back of someone’s stool as I was leaving. I knew I was going to stick out like…”
I cut her off. “What did you do?”
She shook her head from side to side. “I screwed up. I saw an amazing opportunity, and I was afraid it couldn’t—or wouldn’t—wait. I just acted. It was worth it though. I promise.” She pulled several slot tickets from her pocket and handed them over. “Because there’s these.”
I took the tickets from her and did some quick math in my head. “There’s over ten thousand dollars here.” I had trouble trusting my eyes. I counted the dollar amounts again. “Eleven thousand, four hundred? Holy crap, Dru.”
“Yeah.” She laughed. “Some dumbass just had a stack of them on his machine next to a pack of cigarettes. He must have been on a winning streak. I mean, who does that? Who just leaves them sitting there out in the open?”
“That dumbass.”
“Right. Thank God for dumbasses.”
“So, you just nabbed them?”
“Well, duh.” She looked proud of herself. “I saw him turn to chat with his wife or girlfriend or whoever it was sitting next to him. I never even stopped walking. But then as soon as I had them in my hand, I freaked out, because I saw a security guard directly in front of me. I’m not sure why I didn’t play it cool. I’m always cool. Cool as a cucumber, usually, right? I’m so very disappointed in myself for running like that. It was beyond stupid. I know that now.”
“How’d your shoes come off?”
“I already had them off.”
I was so confused. “What? Why? That’s gross, isn’t it? In a casino?”
She crinkled up her face. “I guess, but they hurt my toes so bad.”
I shook my head and eased down onto the bench. “Drucilla, why do women insist on wearing shoes that kill their feet? I will never understand that.”
“Then you’re a total idiot,” she said flatly as she sat down beside me. “It’s because they look so damned good, and you know it. The pain is usually worth it. They’re from Sarah Jessica Parker’s collection. I got them at the Bellagio.”
“That’s so nice for you and…wait. Sarah Jessica Parker? From Sex and the City? She makes shoes?”
Dru rolled her eyes. “What rock do you live under?”
“The point is, sexy, expensive shoes aren’t worth it if you can’t operate at full capacity while on the job.”
“Can we focus on the fact that I scored eleven grand in less than five minutes? Can we please focus on that instead of my choice of sexy, expensive footwear? Jesus.”
You broke every rule we’ve ever made together, lady, but, “Fine,” I said.
“Good.” She got to her feet again. “Let’s go back to the hotel. I deserve a nap before dinner.” She took the tickets back from me. “And these will still be good in a few days. We’ll disguise up and go cash them in on Wednesday when they’ll have forgotten all about us.” She started down the hall, shoes in hand.
“Cool,” was all I could think of to say, but I don’t think she heard me.
I slowly followed behind her, enjoying the view yet again.
And, yes, I am that dirty old man.
We were no closer to figuring out how we were going to get our hands on Peter’s hotel, but we were slightly richer—on paper tickets, anyway—and happily heading to dinner at the famed Copley’s restaurant downtown, when Drucilla got a phone call.
“Jesus Christ on a cracker,” she said from the passenger seat.
“I’m afraid to ask, but what now?”
“It’s Mr. Bender.”
I brightened. “Oh, fun. Let me listen. I’ll be super quiet.”
“No way. I’m letting it go to voicemail. I can’t imagine what he could even want from me.”
I threw her a side eye. “That’s a weird thing to say. You said you’ve been married for twenty years. I assume husbands and wives have lots to talk about on a regular basis.”
