Iced (16 page)

In a tightly controlled voice, Bessie began again. “I’m not about to accept the fact that we’re both dead meat. Because we are, you know. You don’t think that they’re going to let us out of here alive, now do you? Do you? We can both identify them.”

Eben wished he could scratch the stubble on his face. He hadn’t shaved in more than a week now. Normally that time off would have been a treat. Shaving was such a nuisance, but now he’d give anything for a sink of hot water, a little lather and a nice sharp razor. What he could do with that! And how about a shower? They’d have to let him have some bathroom privileges pretty soon. It was only human.

“Get a grip, Bessie,” he said slowly. “We’ll figure out something. As you know, I was a con in my time—”

“That’s all they’re talking about in town,” Bessie interrupted.

“Thank you, Bessie.” Eben sighed. “I’m ashamed to admit that I landed outside the law....”

“On more than one occasion. Now everybody thinks that you’re an ungrateful jerk who cheated Kendra and Sam Wood after they trusted you.”

“But I didn’t do it, now did I? What I was saying was that maybe I can call on all that experience distracting people. That was the key to getting all that jewelry, simple distraction. Most people are incredibly absentminded and you just have to take advantage of that.” He lowered his voice. “Let’s face it, that Willeen is no Einstein. Um-hmmm. Distract, distract, distract. Poof—your pocketbook is gone off the back of your chair in even the best restaurant. Poof—your favorite necklace is a memory.”

“I don’t think Willeen’s purse or jewelry is going to do us much good, Eben,” Bessie grunted.

“I’m not talking about that.”

“Then what are you talking about?” Bessie’s angry whisper was positively raspy. “We’re tied up by two losers who are probably going to kill us. We’ve got to get out of here! Vamoose!”

“There’s an old saying, Bessie. ‘If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you . . .’ ” He immediately shut up when he heard the door to the bedroom open.

“How was your first night together?” Willeen asked in a tired, hung-over voice.

“Willeen, you really have to let me take a shower,” Eben said in a pathetic voice.

“Judd’s in there now,” she answered practically.

“Please,” Bessie whined. “I’m downwind of him and it’s not healthy. I would like to take a bath, but at least I had one yesterday.”

Willeen scrunched her nose. “There aren’t too many towels here. The ones we’ve been using are little scraggly things that could barely dry a flea. Some luxury vacation in Aspen, huh?”

Towels, Eben thought. I just bought a bunch of towels! Two bags’ worth. One bag I’m ashamed to think I brought into Kendra’s house to use in the suite so I wouldn’t have to use her good ones. The others I never carried up to my apartment the other day. They’re still in the trunk of the car! The car that’s parked out back! Eben had bought them at his favorite store, the Mishmash, which was in Vail. He’d taken a ride down there on Friday to do some Christmas shopping. Not that I have that many people to shop for, he thought sadly, but he loved to putter around that establishment.

The Mishmash was one of those discount joints that sold a hodgepodge of items, everything from decorative plates with sketches of the Rockies and plastic dog heads on springs that are designed to bob around on the back dash of your car and drive the people riding in the vehicle behind you crazy to irregular sheets, towels, underwear and socks. Sometimes it took a while to pick through all the sorry-looking merchandise in the bin in the corner, but with patience he usually came away with at least half a dozen decent briefs and three or four pairs of socks. And this time, the green towels.

Aspen’s boutiques had gotten so exclusive that you couldn’t even find a store within the city limits that found the sale of everyday underwear worth their bother.

Aspenites had to have them express-mailed to them through a catalog company or go on a field trip to find them. That’s progress for ya, Eben often thought.

“You’ll never guess what, Willeen,” he said excitedly.

“No, I probably won’t,” she agreed, rubbing her eyes.

“I have a whole bag of new towels in the trunk of my car. If you go get them, we’d be all set.”

Willeen looked at him and scrunched up her face. “I don’t know.”

“Please,” Bessie shrugged. “For my sake.”

Willeen shrugged her shoulders. “What’s the harm? I wouldn’t mind using a new towel myself.”

Eben and Bessie listened as the back door slammed and Willeen crunched across the yard to the garage where Eben’s car was hidden. A few minutes later she was back.

“I guess you like the color green, huh?” Willeen commented. “Ya know, sometimes it’s good to buy two different colors that complement each other.”

“Since I never really had a permanent home,” Eben said in a dejected voice, “I never learned the tricks of decorating.”

“Enough of your dismal stories,” Willeen said. “Let me talk to Judd.”

When Judd came out of the shower, Willeen tugged at the flimsy towel wrapped around his waist. “Our guests would like to go under the sprinkler, as it were.”

Judd grinned at her. “We’ll let them take a shower. Hey, Eben,” he yelled, “do you two want to take one together?”

“NO!” Bessie bellowed from the depths of her being.

Judd got a good laugh out of that one. “Come on. Isn’t there any sexual tension in that room?”

“Absolutely not!” Bessie croaked.

Eben rolled his eyes at Bessie. “You didn’t have to be so definite. Would you like to go in the shower first?”

“No, you’re more desperate than I am.”

They had to wait until Willeen took her shower, after which there was no hot water left. Eben and Bessie still took their turns, and after they had both spruced up, they were allowed to sit at the scarred Formica kitchen table. Under Judd’s watchful eye they ate their cereal with plastic spoons. The air was chilly and what could have been a cozy farmhouse filled with inviting smells and crocheted doilies instead reminded Bessie of an abandoned flophouse. How did they end up with this place? she wondered.

Willeen was sitting on a broken-down love seat a few feet away, filing her nails. The sound drove Bessie crazy. It went right through her, like fingers on a blackboard. Bessie’s nails were strictly no nonsense, clipped to the quick, kept short to make her housework easier. They required a minimum of fuss, the way Bessie liked most things.

Willeen bit down on a cuticle and it seemed to relay a thought to her brain. “Ya know, I wonder if that washer and dryer work. I have some laundry and I didn’t use Eben’s towels because I hate to use towels before they’re washed. Other people’s germs are on them.”

But it’s all right for us, Bessie thought.

Judd opened the kitchen cabinet under the sink and discovered an almost empty box of laundry detergent. “There’s some soap here, Willeen. I got some things that need to be washed too.”

“Goody gumdrops,” Willeen said as she put down her nail file and headed into the bedroom.

Bessie and Eben were eating in silence, except for the snap, crackle and pop of their cereal. They both munched slowly, savoring the time they were allowed to sit up and have a different view. For both of them, even the sight of the tacky furniture was better than staring at the four walls of the bedroom. Finally Judd grew impatient.

“Hurry up, you two,” he ordered. Quickly they gulped the rest of their food, were allowed to use the bathroom once again, and then were escorted back to their holding area. Judd yelled to Willeen to give him a hand.

After Eben was secured, Willeen left the rest of it to Judd. She went back into their bedroom and gathered up his pants and socks and underwear and a few of her own unmentionables off the floor. The Mishmash bag, containing two leftover towels, was on the couch in the living room. As she passed by, she scooped it up and carried it with the rest of the laundry over to the prehistoric washing machine by the back door. She stuffed everything in, poured in what soap was left, and closed the lid. After a few minutes of pulling and yanking the two lone knobs, she was rewarded by the sound of water rushing in.

“Voi-lah,” she said aloud. “What a glamorous life I lead.”

From behind, Judd put his arms around her. “After we finish this job, we’ll go someplace great.”

“I hope so.”

“What do you mean, you hope so?”

“If we don’t pull this off...”

Judd put his hand over her mouth. “We are going to pull this off. No problems, no complications...” He tilted his head in the direction of the guest room. “And no witnesses to worry about.”

33

R
EGAN WAS DREAMING that she was in an audience somewhere, watching a play. The actor was onstage knocking at an apartment door and no one was answering. He kept knocking.

“Nobody’s home,” Regan wanted to yell, but in the way of dreams, she couldn’t form the words. Instead she squirmed, moving from side to side, and finally drifted into consciousness. “Hmmmm. What? Oh.” She sat up in the bed. Kit was still out like a light. The knocking was for real, coming from a few feet away.

Regan pulled on her bathrobe and answered the door. Tripp was standing there with a breakfast tray.

“Did I wake you?” he asked.

“Yes,” Kit called from the cot. “But I’ll take some coffee and then go back to sleep.”

Tripp grinned and came in, setting down the tray on the dresser. “Louis thought you guys might like an eye-opener. Juice and coffee.”

“What time is it?” Regan asked him.

“Nine o’clock.”

“Nine o’clock! I wanted to get up early anyway,” Regan said. “There are a few things I wanted to do this morning.”

Tripp poured coffee for both of them. Regan took hers and sat on the bed. “How are you doing today, Tripp?”

He shook his head woefully and pushed back the ash-blond hair falling over his forehead. “My old man already called me from his office this morning.”

“Is that bad?” Kit asked, as she sipped the freshly squeezed orange juice.

“He wants me to fax him my re´sume´.”

“Louis has a fax downstairs,” Regan said. “I’m sure he’d let you use it.”

“He might have a fax. But I don’t have a re´sume´. He’s sick of me being a ski bum.”

“Sit down and talk to us for a few minutes,” Regan urged.

“Yeah,” Kit agreed. “If you have a couple of hours, I’ll tell you my problems.”

Tripp laughed and sat on the room’s only chair.

“My cousin is home for Christmas and was over at my parents’ house last night. He’s just gotten a really good job on Wall Street and now my father’s all bent out of shape. He wants to see the re´sume´ that I’m supposed to have been working on.” He sighed. “My cousin is such a nerd.”

“I think I’ve met him,” Kit said.

“What?”

“Never mind.” Regan laughed. “We’ll help you with your re´sume´ if you want.”

“But I have no experience doing anything but working in this kind of job in ski resorts.”

“We’ll call in Regan’s mother,” Kit said. “She writes fiction.”

Regan grabbed the pad next to the bed. “Tripp, what’s your full name?”

He hesitated. “Are you ready for this? It’s Tobias Lancelot Wooleysworth the Third.”

Regan stared at him. “That’s pretty heavy.”

“You think my old man would have shown a little mercy,” Trippsaid. “But misery loves company. He’d been saddled with that name since birth, so why not old sonny boy? At least I’m a third, so they called me Tripp.”

“Very preppy. Where are you from?” Kit asked.

“Connecticut.”

“Me too. I’m from Hartford. And you?”

“Greenwich. But my parents are getting ready to retire to Florida. My father wants me to be ‘settled’ before they move. I told him I’m twenty-five years old, leave me alone.”

Regan wrote his name on the top of the pad. “That name will impress the personnel department of any major corporation. Or at least raise their curiosity. It sounds like you come from somewhere. I should introduce you to the guy I met last night. He’d kill to have a name like that.”

“So what do I put on the re´sume´ after my name?”

“The schools you attended.”

“I went to boarding school in Switzerland for a couple of years, then to Stanford,” Tripp offered.

“Sounds great. Then, after listing your education, you just have to embellish the wonderful experiences you’ve had,” Regan said with enthusiasm. “Like right now you’re part of an international management team getting this restaurant off the ground.”

“International?” Tripp asked.

“Louis’s mother came from France.”

“Cool.” Tripp pointed to the canvas of Louis XVIII. “Speaking of France, what are you going to do about getting that cat framed?”

“I’ve got to find out this morning where to take him.”

“If Louis lets me out, I’ll help you carry it.”

“Thanks, Tripp. I’m sure he’ll let you. I’ll get dressed and come downstairs.”

Tripp got up. “I’d better head down. Louis is going to be looking for me. Thanks for your help. Maybe you two should do an infomercial on motivation or something.”

Kit’s head was buried in her pillow. “I don’t particularly feel like a role model for motivation at the moment.”

“Seriously, Tripp, when we get some time I’ll help you with the re´sume´ if you want,” Regan said.

“Being a private investigator, she can spot lies,” Kit said. “So she’ll make it seem as truthful as possible.”

“Anything to keep my father off my back,” Tripp said and closed the door behind him.

“He’s cute,” Kit said. “Other than the fact that he’s six years younger and has no clue what he wants to do with the rest of his life, I’d go out with him.”

“Maybe you can teach him how to use the computer,” Regan suggested.

“Now it’s your turn to shut up.”

Regan got up and stretched. “It’s terrible to be that age and so unsettled.”

“Not like us old broads, huh.”

“You said it.” Regan told Kit of her plans for the morning. “So why don’t you take it easy? I’ll come back to get you and we can go meet those guys at Bonnie’s for lunch.”