Barbara Silkstone - Wendy Darlin 04 - Miami Mummies (6 page)

I threw my case in the backseat taking a quick scan for stowaways. “I just remembered Tippy had a tomahawk on her doorstep yesterday.”

Stranger nodded, “I know.” He pulled a bag of gummy bears from his pocket and tore the cellophane.

He offered me the bag.

“No thanks. I’m trying to quit.”

I turned on the ignition. “Why are you here? Do you have something to ask me?”

“You pretty much answered it.” he turned and ambled away, his scrunched jacket revealed the butt of his trousers, which appeared to have spent the night in a venetian blind.

I closed Goldie’s door, snapped the locks, amped the air conditioning, and dialed Roger, not that I needed him. No answer. I was ready to click off when he picked up.

“You rang?” he said with a smile in his voice.

My heart was suddenly so full it reached up and plastered a silly grin across my face.

“How are you?” he said

I sighed and cut to the chase. “Fine. Listen… What do you know about sitting mummies?”

“You’re such a flirt.”

“I’ve got a mummy problem.”

“So we
are
pregnant, little mommy. It’s not a problem. It’s wonderful.”

“I said mummies as in desiccated corpses.”

“You are the least romantic woman I have ever impregnated.”

“Exactly how many women have you… never mind.” My jaws slammed shut.

“Did you say sitting mummies or hitting mummies? The line was garbled.”

I filled him in on Tippy’s predicament carefully avoiding the part about the dead dude for the moment.

“Something’s hinky. Native Americans didn’t bury their dead in a sitting position. That’s a Mayan thing. Now you’ve got me curious. There’s never been a mummy discovery in Miami. The soil is too moist.”

“Just my luck I’m the mummy-ville broker. I could use your expert advice. I’m being threatened off the case and it’s not even officially a case.”

“I’m in Palenque in southern Mexico, up to my elbows in cinnabar, red metallic powder. The Mayan Red Queen mummy has been targeted by antiquity traffickers and we’re beefing up her security. Thirteen centuries old and she’s just made the International Museums’ hot list.”

“I thought you were on the trail of what’s his name?”

“Hush. Not over the phone.”

He paused. I could almost hear him thinking. “The Miami mummies intrigue me. My team will have to finish without me. I can be back by Friday.”

Some romantic words would be nice.

He read my mind. “I really miss you.”

My heart did a pitty-pat.

“Hurry,” I whispered. “That’s two whole days away.”

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Fine. Gotta run. Need to find a cat burglar.”

Reluctantly I pushed thoughts of a shower and scotch aside. I didn’t have much time to fulfill Hic’s wish of seeing the bronco melted down before he died.

Kit Kennedy was my best friend and consigliore. His nightclub, the Queen’s Croquet was the place to see and be seen. He drew the glitterati from around the world. Okay maybe just South Florida. He ran an upscale nail salon where pampering was the primary commodity.
Get Nailed
was low key but snazzy.

According to my White Rabbit watch, it was leaning hard on four o’clock when I entered the salon. The tan and ivory walls offset the black marble floor and brushed-steel manicure tables. Classical music played, softening the sound of gossip at the stations. All the techs were male and could have been in the latest issue of
Vanity Fair
.

I spotted Kit talking to a client. He looked up and shot me a million-dollar smile. He tapped his client’s hand and whispered something to her. She tittered, kissed Kit on the cheek, and sashayed out the door.

My buddy placed his hands on his chest and belted out the first lines of
Que Sera Sera
à la Doris Day. I joined in the chorus. It was our version of fist-bumping.

Kit’s singing voice was a deep Natalie Cole. Mine was more Lucy Ricardo with strep throat. One of the nail-techs covered his ears and scurried into the facial room.

Queening-out, Kit waltzed toward me, his hand held high over his head. I reached up, grabbed his fingers, did a little pirouette, and yowled the next lines.

We hit the chorus together but the drag-queen supreme had to finish solo when I choked on a
Sera
and fell giggling into his arms.

“You look like road kill and smell worse.” He examined my nails, his voice going down two octaves. “You just had a mani and a pedi.”

“I need something a wee bit more special.”

“How about a daisy on each pinky and a diamond in the center?”

“You know me better than that. I said something
special.”

He raised his perfectly arched eyebrows. “Oh, oh.”

“If a person wanted to burglarize a gallery in an office lobby at the tippy top of a Miami high-rise, whom would she contact?”

“Would this person be anyone we know?”

I shot him a shut-your-mouth-honey grin. “I’m just saying… Do you know a trustworthy burglar?”

He put his hands over his eyes, peeked out and said… “What tall building?”

“The North by Northwest Financial Center.”

“Oh cookie… can’t you… I mean this person aim lower? That’s almost the tallest building in Miami.”

“She anticipates a few challenges.”

“I don’t think this person should get involved.”

“It’s an obligation. This person needs to recover something that’s been stolen. She needs to catch a thief.”

“I don’t know crooks. I’m an honest queen. I might know rumors. You met one of those rumors at my Fourth of July party. Archie Leech?”

The name sounded familiar. My mental mug shots pulled up a handsome black dude with dreadlocks. “Tall, thin, good looking? Braids to his butt?”

“That’s him. Leech was arrested for cat burglary. I think it was an art gallery heist. He bragged about getting off but he was dead guilty. The dude gets his jollies climbing tall buildings.”

“Buildering! That’s the kind of dude I need… I mean this person needs. I’m not telling you what she’s after or who it’s for. It’s a humanitarian caper.”

Kit gave me a lifted eyebrow. “It always is with you… I mean this person.” He put his arm around me.

“Think of it as the opposite of re-gifting. It’s re-thefting,” I said.

“Leech usually does street performances for the after-work crowd. Acrobatic stunts like jumping over cars and climbing the outside walls of buildings. His troop is called
The Birds.
They work for tips. We can probably find him down on Biscayne Boulevard.”

“You sure about him? Works for tips? The kind of thief I was thinking about was more like
Ocean’s Eleven.
George Clooney cool, not so much panhandler.”

“It’s not like I have a list of robbers in my perfectly coifed head. By the way, like my highlights?”

His sun-streaks always made me a tinge envious.

He patted my noggin. “We’ll head over to Biscayne. If he’s there, it’s meant to be. Use your instincts, they’re almost always wrong. Do the opposite of what your gut tells you. And please inform this person no outside climbing jobs. That’s a freakin’ tall building and I look dreadful in wake black.”

He didn’t have to warn me. High on my list of phobias—after holes in fabric and getting my face wet—was heights. I make Mel Brooks in
High Anxiety
look like the Flying Wallendas. But a promise made is a promise kept. I meant what I said, and I said what I meant, an elephant’s faithful one hundred percent. Horton and Dr. Seuss would be proud of me. I was babbling in rhyme.

Kit grabbed an unlined suede sport coat that screamed Armani, looped his arm in mine, and we were out of the salon after a short delay for air kisses he exchanged with a tone-on-tone redhead entering as we exited.

We crossed against the light and were on our way to find a mountain-scaling low-life. “Your friend might consider an insider snatch and grab. I could be the distraction. I’m good at that,” Kit said.

In full drag Kit could distract a nun from catechism class. “With those size thirteen tootsies in stilettos you’d be stopped in the first floor lobby.”

“Profiling is illegal, immoral, and fattening,” he snapped.

Forming a box camera with my hands I peeked at him. “I’m guessing the gallery is wired and camera-ed up the tushie so I was thinking more along the lines of ducking under laser beams like in that Sean Connery movie
.”

“Catherine Zeta Jones! You’re going to need a cat suit with a racing stripe and a mask. I know just where to get one. Calligraphy and Cat-Scans!”

“Ooo!” I shivered with excitement. I always wanted a slinky cat suit.

We strolled up Biscayne Boulevard. I perused the high and mid-rises for a dreadlocked climber. Nothing. “Not meant to be,” I said to Kit.

“Yikes!”

Leech leaped down and under the Capricorn restaurant’s copper awning. He looked like a skinny version of the Fly dressed in black-on-black, his dreads held in a low ponytail. He patted Kit on the back. “Whatsup, girl? Saw you strutting with your lady friend. Fine looking woman.” He grabbed my hand and kissed it.

Kit chuckled. “This lady is my good friend, Wendy. She might be in the market for your special skills.”

Leech looked me up and down and leaned over to eyeball my butt.

“Not those skills, you beast,” Kit said and whapped him.

We stood on either side of Leech. The slender dude smelled of sweat and Versace’s Eros. I lowered my voice. “You know the North by Northwest Building? I need after-hours access to the top floor.”

“Whoa, woman. You are a radical chick.”

I ignored his teen compliment. “What I want is in the secured lobby of the Cowboys Pension Fund.”

Leech pulled away from us, his braids swinging, “Just so happens I’m working on my CV right now. I could use that building on my Buildering resume. You’re talking about the fifty-first floor. I got me a goal of beating that Frenchman who holds the world’s record for climbing the outside of skyscrapers.”

Kit shot me a look of pure terror. He grimaced and shook his head.

“Gotta get back to work before the cops come,” Leech said. He whapped Kit on the back and me on the butt. “Meet me at the Cracker Box tomorrow at nine. You’re buying breakfast.” He eyed me up and down. “Pull on your tights woman and get ready to rumble. Watch this!”

The urban climber tore across Biscayne Boulevard, bouncing off the hood of a Cadillac and ricocheting from a Mini Cooper. He ran up four stories of the Jamaica Inn, a Key West Art Deco mutant, waving to the crowd from a balcony.

“I want what he’s drinking,” I said.

“He’s better than Spiderman.”

Sirens howled and a police car squealed to a stop in front of the Inn. Two uniforms leaped from the car. In the moment it took to follow their actions, Leech vanished.

Kit cut his eyes to me and wrinkled his nose. “The Cracker Box? That chicken-fried steak place? Don’t inhale while you’re there. You can gain five pounds. Drop by the salon after five tomorrow. We’ll go cat suit shopping. Meantime, spend an hour in a shower. And do
something
with that hair.”

I caught a glimpse of myself reflected in a café window and shuddered. Popping on my sunglasses I stepped behind Kit. “Why didn’t you tell me I looked like road kill? Cover me until we get to my car.”

Kit ran interference as we eased down Biscayne and made our way to my car. I pulled down the vanity mirror and gasped as Baby Jane gazed back at me. Patting my hair was useless, it sprang in all directions like a cartoon poodle. I scrunched down behind the wheel thanking the salesman at the dealership for tinting Goldie’s windows.

A long shower, some protein, and a stiff drink, I dangled them in front of me like a mental carrot. The ride home took forever. I caught every light and the need to pee outran my need to eat. I waved to the security guard and pulled into my garage; the thought of Mrs. Lipschitz cruised through my mind but didn’t make a stop. I tumbled out of Goldie feeling rode hard and put away dirty.

Galloped to the bathroom just in time. Sitting there I knew I’d not get a decent sleep unless I had answers about the mysterious Mrs. MacGuffin. Avoiding the mirror, I washed my hands and grabbed my phone from my purse.

Hic’s phone went unanswered. Dang that man! I had questions about his so-called after-life coach. I’d try again when I’d showered and had a bite to eat. I thought of my dinner with Hic and grabbed the bottle of mouthwash from the counter. I swigged and spit and swigged again. Last night was like a bad dream.

I dropped my clothes in the bathroom trash, I’d never wear them again. The hot water felt so good I could have stayed in the shower forever. But the thought of the Lobster Pot leftovers in the refrigerator and a glass of scotch put a hustle in my bustle. I poured handfuls of Johnson’s Baby Wash and lathered every reachable part of me enjoying the cuddly smell and allowing myself a one-minute pity party. No baby. I sure did love the smell of babies. I brushed a tear or maybe it was just shower spray.

That odd mix of emotions, loss and relief, hit me again, only to be cut off by an image of me falling from the side of a building, slow motion, with a look of terror on my face. How the hell did I let myself get talked into flinging my only body up and down the side of a building? I toweled off, shaking and not from the cold.

With a short scotch and a cold lobster tail in my belly, I crawled into bed but sleep wouldn’t come. Had I made the mistake of my life agreeing to a high-stakes theft with an idiot partner?

Dressed in black jeans, a matching pullover, and black Keds—the uniform of choice for stylish burglars—I sauntered through the parking lot. My mouth watered as the aroma of fried chicken and bacon wafted from the Cracker Box… breakfast was served.

I followed the aproned hostess to a table in the back. Fifteen minutes later my fingers ached from drumming the sticky surface. Since I was putting my life in Leech’s hands, punctuality would give me a tad bit of comfort. I scanned the tables wondering if there was a more reliable robber in the room.

The waitress poured bubbling hot coffee into a cup perched precariously on her tray. Liquid nerve-enhancer. I sipped the brew while I studied the tchotchke-laden walls. A battered black and orange metal sign boasting Eveready Batteries hung below a barely green Bubble-Up Soda Pop plaque. Vacant-eyed prairie folk stared from daguerreotype portraits, a Dali-like contrast to the day-glow garbed tourists wolfing sausage biscuits and eggs.