“His son, yes.”
An emotion, one that didn’t look pleasant, pulled Teddie’s lips into a thin line. “You didn’t waste much time.”
I rolled my eyes. “You know me, never let a warm bed cool.” Turning, I resumed my stalk down the hall. Teddie knew me well enough to know that wasn’t even close to being true. The sad truth was, he probably knew me better than I knew myself, which put me at a distinct disadvantage.
“Lucky, you shut me out.” Teddie dogged my heels. “Would you stop for a minute?”
“Go away, Teddie. Leave me alone. I don’t want to talk to you.” I tossed the verbal arrows over my shoulder. “I have nothing to say.” Okay, that was a lie—I had a ton to say, but now was not the time, especially with a five-year-old on my back. Besides, I didn’t like to be ambushed.
Apparently, my verbal darts had finally penetrated his thick skull. When Teddie spoke again his voice held a quiet, plaintive tone. “I couldn’t stay away.”
“Pity.” With Teddie I had never known where the act ended and sincerity began. I still didn’t, but I’d built up immunity to the whole show. My phone rang at my hip, but with both arms full of little boy and my thoughts gyrating wildly, I had more than I could deal with already, so I ignored it. “Lucky for Me” jangled into the sudden silence. Thank God ringtones were only a few seconds long.
Christophe laid his head on my shoulder, his fingers entwined in my hair. The poor kid had traveled halfway around the world from his grandparents’ farm in Provence, arriving last night, then had been too excited to sleep for long.
“I had to come home. Especially when your father called.” With pitch-perfect comedic timing, Teddie could deliver a punch line better than Jerry Seinfeld.
I threw on the brakes mid-stride—Christophe didn’t move. “What?”
Obviously taken by surprise, Teddie skidded to a stop. He stepped in front of me, then, at the look on my face, took a step back. Everyone in my sphere knew, when my eyes got all slitty it usually meant “run.” Foolish man, he stood his ground. He even squared his shoulders. “Your father called.”
“I heard you the first time.” Teddie couldn’t be lying, could he? That would be way too stupid, even for him. “Why did he call
you
?” I left the last word hanging, poised like a wrecking ball beginning its arc.
“He offered me my old job back.”
“Really?” I tried not to let him see the effect of that low blow. Betrayed by my own father and blindsided by Teddie—could life get any better today? My father was the owner of the Babylon and, as such, complicated my life immeasurably, but usually not quite this boldly. I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “And?”
“We’re working out the terms, but I think we have a deal. He made his offer contingent on your approval.”
“So that’s really why you’re here, to get my blessing.”
Careful not to upset the resting boy, I stepped around Teddie and strode to the elevators. I angrily poked the down button, even though I knew the speed with which the elevator would appear bore an inverse relationship to the fervor with which I punched. Teddie’s perfect reflection eased in beside my rather ordinary one. Light brown hair, blue eyes, high cheekbones, angry scowl, a hint of hurt under a layer of homicide—not my best look.
“That’s not why I’m here.” Teddie’s voice held a softer tone, inviting, cajoling.
Reeking of self-serving insincerity, his plea was too little, too late. I cocked a disbelieving eyebrow at his reflection.
He shrugged, apparently deciding that truth might be the salve to soothe the wound—he was wrong. “Okay, it’s part of the reason I’m here. But you are the main reason.”
“I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.” Sarcasm dripped from every word. “So, being a rock star wasn’t enough? Now you have to come back here to mess with my magic?”
His voice dropped. “I love you.”
“Low blow.” Thankfully, the elevator doors eased open. I stepped inside, then turned and put a hand out, stopping him from following me. Unwilling to be singed again, I pulled my hand back before it made contact.
“Not now, Teddie. Maybe not ever.”
Maybe
? Where the hell had
that
come from?
The doors slid shut, saving me from further humiliation as tears welled in my eyes.
“Damn!” I shouted, the word echoing in the empty elevator. Christophe’s head popped up and his body jerked in surprise. “Sorry, honey.”
“I don’t like that man. He made you mad.”
I took a deep breath and calmed myself down as I dabbed at the corners of my eyes with the knuckle of my forefinger and sniffed back further emotion. “He’s a nice man, and he didn’t make me angry. I had expectations he didn’t live up to—my fault, not his.” Saying the words was easy, believing them, not so much.
The boy’s quizzical look reflected back to me in the polished metal doors. His face peering at me over my shoulder reminded me of an angel whispering in my ear. Stranded in the quicksand of my own confusion and ambivalence, I wished he had words of wisdom, but he was just a boy.
“Maybe he is like a puppy who has been scolded—he bites even though he is the one who has been bad.”
Wow. That stopped me for a moment. My experience with children had been limited, but I guessed that whole out-of-the-mouths-of-babes thing had some truth to it. “You’re probably right.” I hitched him higher on my hips. “Teddie can be quite charming. You’ll like him . . . everybody does.”
“But you don’t?”
“I like him, but with us, it’s a bit more complicated.” I rolled my eyes at myself. Relationships. I totally sucked at them. Pasting on a smile, I contemplated who to kill first—my father, Teddie, Mona—I wasn’t sure the order mattered. Of course, I could line them up and rid myself of the lot of them all at once—a Thanksgiving Day Massacre. Tempting.
“Ms. O’Toole,” a disembodied voice asked—the eye-in-the-sky, our omnipresent security system, “Mr. Jerry asked me to find you. He said you weren’t answering your phone.”
“One can run, but one can’t hide?” I asked the voice.
“No, ma’am, I’m afraid you’re screwed,” the voice said, then paused awkwardly. “That probably isn’t how I’m supposed to talk to a vice president, is it?”
“Well, since this vice president just yelled a not-so-nice word to an empty elevator in the presence of a youngster, I’d say you were well within propriety.” The elevator stopped, and the doors eased open. A middle-aged couple stood there, waiting to enter.
I stayed where I was. “Now, did you want something?”
At first the couple looked taken aback, as if I were talking to them. Then they leaned forward slightly and glanced around the empty elevator.
“Yes,” came the voice. “Mr. Jerry is apoplectic. He said to tell you that your mother is not answering her phone.”
Stepping to the side and holding the door, I motioned the couple inside. At first they hesitated, but then they moved past, eyeing me as they did so. “What floor?” I asked them.
“Twelve,” the lady responded.
I punched the appropriate button, then answered the voice. “Tell him I’ll be on my way after I make a quick stop in the Bazaar, and I’ll bring Mona if I have to shoot her with a tranquilizer dart and throw her over my shoulder.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Letting loose the doors, I stepped out. As the elevator closed, I overheard the man say, “A tranquilizer dart. I wonder if she would do the same to Irene.”
* * *
I paused for a moment staring at myself in the elevator doors, gathering my wits, or what was left of them. Irene? The man’s comment to his female companion certainly triggered an interesting visual.
Vegas, where two is a date and three is . . . an even better date.
Carefully, I shifted the boy on my back. Once again, Christophe’s head had sagged onto my shoulder, his eyes fluttering, then remaining shut. The ability to sleep anywhere—if only I could bottle some of that.
Thanksgiving was three days away—an eternity in my world. The holidays were supposed to bring families together, to let bygones be bygones, giving us a chance to relax in the presence of folks who—short of homicide—couldn’t get rid of us.
I wasn’t feeling the magic.
Apparently, I was the lone lump of coal floating in a sea of the milk of human kindness—or I was the only sober one in a sea of well-oiled humanity. Excited voices swirled around me as I turned and strode through the lobby. As they waited for the next check-in clerk, travelers in their Bermuda shorts, sundresses, sandals, and goose bumps rubbed their bare arms, some cuddled against the chill. Most swilled the free Champagne passed by cocktail waitresses in their barely-there togas with gold braid belts, strappy gladiator footwear with five-inch heels, pearly smiles, and other Vegas assets properly displayed.
Vegas’s location in the middle of the Mojave Desert fooled most folks into thinking summer was a year-round season. Not true. Winter could be windy and chilly. Today was a perfect example—a cool breeze wafted in each time someone pushed through one of the multiple sets of double-glass doors forming the Babylon’s grand entry, letting in a taste of the out-of-doors. To be honest, I welcomed the change in the weather—while my life kept me teetering on the brink of insanity, twelve months of hundred-degree days would shove me right over.
For a moment, I let myself absorb some of the crowd’s energy and enthusiasm. Glancing at the ceiling, I smiled at the Chihuly blown-glass hummingbirds and butterflies arcing in flight. A dozen skiers bombed down the indoor ski slope sheltered behind a wall of Lucite on the far side of the lobby. Multicolored cloth tented above Reception. Equally colorful mosaics decorated the white marble walls and floors, hinting at the Babylon’s Persian motif. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a problem to solve—everything hummed with a well-timed precision. Darn.
Guess I had to deal with Mona and her turkeys.
Then a dead woman and a smoking thing, which sounded like the perfect recipe for a migraine.
I eased Christophe to one hip as he slumbered, freeing a hand. With a practiced motion, I grabbed my phone from its holster and flipped it open. My thumb found Mona’s button. After the fifth ring, I started to ring off when she answered, her voice breathless.
“Lucky, honey. This isn’t a good time. Your father and I . . .”
“TMI, Mother.” I stifled a shiver of revulsion. No matter how old I got, how worldly I became, there was just something so . . . disturbing about picturing my parents inter-coitus. “And, come to think about it,” I grimaced at the unintentional pun as I once again shifted the boy who clung to my back like a monkey, “are you supposed to be having S-E-X in your condition?”
“S-E-X? Why are you spelling? And what are you talking about? We’re hanging pictures.” She stifled a giggle.
“Right.” I shifted the phone to my other ear, holding it with my shoulder, then put a hand on my hip, nearly taking out a cute Marine as he dodged around me.
“Sorry, ma’am,” he said as he shot me a grin.
Even though the “ma’am” thing rankled, I allowed myself a moment to admire his ass as he hurried on. “Mother, Jerry needs you downstairs. Basement Level Two.”
“Honey,” her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, “can’t it wait?”
I tried to picture Jerry, his well-armed staff, and a thousand turkeys. “No, I don’t think so. Jerry needs your help with the turkeys you ordered.”
Mona’s voice turned brusque. “Oh, well, I already had the staff clear enough room in several of the walk-ins. I don’t see what he needs me for.”
“I think he wants to blindfold you and stand you against a wall.” I started laughing; I couldn’t help it. “Seriously, Mother. I know your heart’s in the right place. But couldn’t you at least have ordered the turkeys already dressed?”
“But Chef Omer said he would make the dressing.”
The sea of humanity in the lobby flowed around me as I let my head drop forward. My emotions, ragged and somewhat irrational, burbled up. I didn’t fight them. Instead, I relinquished myself and laughed until I cried. It was the only non-self-destructive antidote to Mona and a day that, with Teddie’s sudden reappearance and Romeo’s little bombshell, had taken a hard turn toward abysmal. And to think, it had started so well. Warmth suffused me as I pictured my chef in his shorts and a smile. “Mother.” I managed to squeeze the words out with what little air was left in my lungs. “‘Dressed’ means plucked, gutted, and ready to stuff.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line, which gave me time to compose myself somewhat. I wiped my tears on the shoulder of my blouse—I never did like the color of this one anyway—then I bit my lip as I fought down another burble of laughter.
“You mean they’re . . . alive?” Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, Mona apparently still had a bit of an edge.
“Mmmmm.” That was the only sound I trusted myself to make.
“Oh, my!”
I took a deep breath. “Mother, at your behest, the press is coming tomorrow. And you’ve given the go-ahead to Crazy Carl to invite all of his fellow storm drain dwellers for the big feast on Thursday. The staff is ready to go, but I feel pretty sure they’ll mutiny if you expect them to behead, gut, and pluck a thousand turkeys.”