Death by Devil's Breath (20 page)

“I think anytime you get more than one performer in the room, there’s bound to be drama.” Yancy laughed. “Except if one of those folks is me, of course. I’m the most laid-back cat in the city!”

“I agree with you there!” I plunked down next to Yancy. “Is it like that all over the hotel?” I asked. “What I mean is, could there be other performers around here we haven’t looked at yet? Somebody else who might have had it in for Dickie?”

“Everybody who ever met the man had it in for him. But I see what you’re getting at. Sure. It’s true. It could have been anybody. Most of the waitstaff here are performers of some kind just waiting for their big break as dancers or singers or comedians. And most of the folks behind the bar, too. Why, I remember back in the day when they didn’t use Deadeye to host things like this Chili Showdown. It was sort of a carnival midway. You know, with a Western theme. And Reverend Love, one day when she was working—”

“Reverend Love used to work here at Creosote Cal’s?”

“Yeah, sure.” Yancy nodded and I told him to hold that thought when another group of shoppers came in. They were a demanding bunch, but I wasn’t complaining. By the time they left, they had enough spices with them to ignite their little hometown back in Iowa.

As soon as they were gone, I poured a couple cups of coffee and took one over to Yancy. “Milk,” he said, peeking into his mug. I went and got it, fixed it just the way Yancy liked, and when he looked it over a second time and nodded, I handed it to him.

“Tell me about Reverend Love working here,” I said. “Was there a wedding chapel?”

“No, no. Nothing like that! It was quite a few years back, but the way I remember it . . .” He tipped back his head, thinking. “Linda Love was Linda Green back then. Or some name like that, a kid fresh in from somewhere or maybe from nowhere like so many of them are. That was long before she married Bill Love. He’s the one who started the wedding chapel, but Linda . . . Linda was the one who made it into the glory it is these days. When Bill died, she inherited, see, but she wasn’t stupid and greedy. She took all his money and sank it back into the business. It’s paid off for her, too.”

“But back when she worked here at Cal’s . . .”

“That was long before she’d made a name for herself in this town,” Yancy said. “She was one of those folks over on the midway. You know, the ones who guess at your age or your weight, then give you a prize if they’re wrong.”

It was hardly the way I’d ever pictured the woman with the neat hair, the trim suits, and the pricey jewelry, and I laughed. “She doesn’t seem the type.”

“Oh, she was a cagey one. Knew all the tricks! You know there’s a formula for making the right guesses about those things. Still, it takes a slick personality to pull it off and make it look like it’s some kind of magic. The reverend? Oh yes, she was good at what she did.”

“Funny nobody ever mentioned it before.”

Yancy pulled himself to his feet. “Didn’t seem to matter. And besides, like I said, it all happened a long time ago. It’s not like it can possibly have anything to do with Dickie’s murder.”

*   *   *

I knew Yancy was right about how Reverend Love’s job years ago couldn’t have anything to do with what happened to Dickie, but later in the day when I took my lunch break and saw Reverend Love outside the Palace, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to question her about what I’d heard. Besides, I knew she was concerned about what had happened to me outside her chapel the day before, and I wanted to prove to her that I was as right as rain.

Before I could head her off at the pass (that’s Deadeye-speak), though, I ran into Creosote Cal.

“Hey, what’s the hurry, little lady?” Since Cal stepped directly in front of me, I had to look around him to keep an eye on Reverend Love. I saw her go into the auditorium. “You’re a-movin’ like your boots are on fire!”

I glanced down at my sneakers, then realized Cal was just playing his Western persona to the hilt, so I ignored the comment. “I just wanted to talk to Reverend Love,” I told him. “I hear she used to work here.”

“Darn tootin’!” Cal hooked his thumbs in his suspenders and rocked back on his heels. “And aren’t we just proud enough to burst our buttons to say that the little lady got her start right here at Creosote Cal’s Cactus Casino and Hoedown Hotel.”

“Funny place for a minister to get started.”

“Maybe.” Cal grinned. “But you know what they say about Vegas. It’s the city of miracles!”

I’d always thought that was Rome.

“Anything can happen here,” Cal continued. “To anyone. Why, look at me. Came here back in ’65 with nothing but a couple bucks in my pocket. And now all this . . .” When he glanced around Deadeye—from the painted sky above our heads to the phony street of shops around us and the made-from-recycled-plastic street dusted with just enough real Vegas dirt to make it feel gritty—he practically busted a gut with pride. “Same thing happened to our Linda. She started out here all right, but then she married Bill and became a minister herself and now she’s really something. One of the biggest names in Vegas. And I’ll tell you what, she’s not ashamed of her past, either. Oh, no siree. Not like a lot of people would be. She’s as proud as she can be of what she did here.”

“Guessing people’s weights?”

“It ain’t as easy as it looks,” Cal confided, and gave me a wink. “Takes a special talent. Oh yes, it does! And our Linda, she’s got plenty of that.”

When Cal stepped away, I headed for the auditorium. Both Hermosa and Osborn would be performing in there later in the evening, but for now, it was set up like an assembly line of sorts. Long tables filled the stage, and from where I stood near the doors, I could see that each table was lined with pieces of paper. Reverend Love went from paper to paper to paper, hitting each one lightly with an inked stamper.

“Hey, Reverend!” I called from the back of the auditorium. “Want to guess my weight?”

Her stamper poised above a paper, the reverend froze. But only for a second. She set down her stamper and waved me over.

“I see you survived your ordeal,” the reverend said. “I’m glad Nick was right and you weren’t seriously hurt. Has my insurance company contacted you?”

I told her they hadn’t, but when they did, I would cooperate fully. I didn’t bother to mention that it wasn’t her fault that Bernadette was a crazy person intent on revenge. There was no use muddying the waters.

“So . . .” By this time, I was up onstage with the reverend and I looked over the papers she’d already stamped. “What’s up?”

“The wedding licenses for tomorrow,” she told me. She started stamping again, lightly whacking page after page as she made her way up and down the tables. “I thought it would be easier to stamp them than to sign my name to each one, and my goodness, I’m glad I did.” She glanced at the sea of papers. “You don’t really get a sense of how many people will be involved until you see the licenses like this.”

“That’s a lot of happy couples,” I said.

The reverend didn’t exactly laugh. It was more of a snort. She kept stamping away. “Half of all marriages end in divorce,” she said, finishing up with the papers on one side of a table and starting down the other. “My guess is that the rate is higher for marriages I perform here in Vegas.”

It was a surprisingly candid—and skeptical—comment from a woman I expected to be anything but.

“Wow.” I looked over the sea of papers. “That’s a lot of couples who may not make it. Doesn’t that make you sad?”

The reverend glanced up from her work. “Welcome to the real world.”

Maybe I looked stricken by her cynicism. Maybe that was why the reverend smiled. “I didn’t really mean it!” She patted my shoulder. “You don’t think I’m that much of a curmudgeon, do you? I actually do believe in happily ever after.”

It was nice to know, but hey, I understood. When it comes to romance, I’m pretty cynical, too.

*   *   *

The note was waiting for me when I got back to the Palace.

It was a single sheet of paper, and the letters that had been glued on it were cut out of newspapers and magazines. Some of them were black and white. Some were colorful and glossy. The whole thing was such a hodgepodge that after I pulled the note out of its envelope, it took me a few moments of staring before I could focus.

By that time, Sylvia was already standing at my side, reading over my shoulder.

If u want to see the Chick again, I must talk to Jack.

“Are you kidding me?” The way my voice ricocheted from the rafters, I don’t think kidding had anything to do with it. My hands shook so badly, I had to set down the note or risk tearing it to tatters. “That crazy woman is holding the Chick for ransom!”

“She doesn’t know Jack is missing.”

Oh, how I hate it when Sylvia says something that I hadn’t thought of myself.

The idea brought me up short, and thinking, I narrowed my eyes and propped my fists on my hips. “You might be”—I had to swallow hard before I could get the word out—“right. That’s what this whole thing has been all about. She thinks Jack’s avoiding her. That he’s here somewhere and he’s dodging. She thinks that if she does enough weird stuff, he’s bound to show up to talk to her about it. And when he doesn’t, she ups the ante. That’s why she stole the Chick. She doesn’t know Jack is missing.”

“But she does know where the Chick is.” Was that blue fire I saw shoot from Sylvia’s eyes? In all the years I’d known her (and that was all my life), I’d seen Sylvia be calculating and sly. I’d seen her annoyed at the things I’d done to her (real and imagined), and I’d seen her royally pissed. Just a few short weeks earlier, I’d seen her scared and vulnerable when she was arrested for murder.

But I’d never seen the fire of righteous indignation in her eyes.

At the same time I marveled at how amazing it was that she cared as much as I did about the Chick, I worried about the fact that Sylvia and I might actually agree about something. If I wasn’t careful, I’d end up admiring her for her convictions.

The thought sat on my shoulders like a too-tight jacket, and I twitched and shrugged to get rid of it, and when that didn’t work, I cleared a ball of uncomfortable emotion from my throat. “We’ll get the Chick back,” I promised my sister. “We have to. She’s the symbol of everything Jack did in his career.”

Too late, I realized just how literally Sylvia would take my words. Oh yeah, the Chick was a symbol of Jack’s work, all right. The way he worked to steal Sylvia’s mother’s heart, and the way he worked (I hear it didn’t take him long) to cast her aside so he could win my mother over. The Chick was a legend on the chili cook-off circuit and I’d never thought of it before, but some of what was legendary had more to do with Jack’s love life than his chili spices.

I held my breath, waiting for Sylvia to remind me of all this in her snippy Sylvia sort of way, but instead, all she did was sigh. “It would be awful if we never saw the costume again. But now that we’ve got the note . . .” When I put a hand out to pick it up again, she stopped me. “Fingerprints,” she said. “We’ll give it to Nick and he’ll give it to the cops and they’ll for sure find out who took the Chick.”

“We don’t need to find out. We know. It’s crazy Bernadette.”

No truer words had ever been spoken because just as I said them, I glanced out the window and pointed.

“It’s crazy Bernadette!” I said when I caught sight of her outside in the street. “The woman has more nerve than a bad tooth.”

“Maybe. But, Maxie, you’re not—”

I didn’t wait around for Sylvia to tell me what I was
not
going to do. Before she could stop me, I stomped out of the bordello and into the dusty main street of Deadeye.

By now, Bernadette was two storefronts down from the Palace.

“You’re a no-good Chili Chick rustler,” I called out, and when I did, she stopped in her tracks.

Slowly, she turned to face me. That day, Bernadette was dressed all in black in vivid contrast to me in my khakis and a shirt the flaming red color of a Satan’s Kiss pepper.

She stood tall in her black boots. “You can’t possibly be talking to me,” Bernadette said.

I took one step forward. “You know I am. And you know why. You kidnapped the Chick.”

Bernadette took a step in my direction. “Did I?”

“You can’t deny it. I know you did. And you’d better give her back.”

“Or what?” She laughed and something about the brittle sound attracted attention. Before I knew it, the people who’d been browsing the shops of Deadeye were lined on the wooden sidewalk, watching the scene. Sylvia stepped onto the walk in front of the bordello. Gert walked out of the general store. I didn’t have to see Nick to know he was outside of the sheriff’s office with his eyes on me. I could feel the waves of heat coming from that direction, like the sun at high noon.

Bernadette hooked her fingers in her belt. “Even if it was true, what could you possibly do about it, Maxie? What could you do if you thought I had the Chick?”

“I could call the cops. I have called the cops. That costume’s worth a bundle. Stealing it is a felony.”

“That’s too bad for whoever stole it. If the cops ever find the person.”

The way the anger seethed in me, it was impossible to keep still. I took another step toward Bernadette. “Too bad for you, you mean. If you hurt the Chick—”

“Who said anything about hurting her? If all it takes is for Jack to make an appearance—”

“Aha!” I pointed my trigger finger at her. “I knew it was you. Only the person who wrote that lame ransom note would know that’s what it said. You want to see Jack. You’ll only give back the Chick once you talk to Jack.”

I guess she thought it was a real possibility because her gaze flickered over the crowd, hungry and searching. When she didn’t see Jack anywhere and looked back my way, she frowned. “Prove I took the costume,” was all she said.

“The cops will search your house. They’ll go over to Bibi’s Bump and Grind and—”

“And you think I’m that stupid?”

This was not the time for honesty. I drew in a breath and held it deep in my lungs, then forced myself to let it out slowly. “It’s not going to happen,” I told Bernadette. “You’re not going to see Jack.”