CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Dance first or look for Alfonso Ramos first?” I ask Trixie and Shanelle.
“We can do both at the same time,” Shanelle says.
As usual she’s right. After I check his tweets to confirm he’s arrived on the premises, we three queens carve out some space on the dance floor.
It’s like that Dixie Chicks song “Some Days You Gotta Dance”: “Live it up when you get the chance / When the world doesn’t make no sense / And you’re feeling just a little too tense / Gotta loosen up those chains and dance.”
I don’t know if our pageant training is to thank for it but all three of us can bust a move. And we’re not too shabby in the looks department, either. So before long we’ve got more male partners than we know what to do with and are having one heck of a fine time, Mario Suave or no Mario Suave.
“Do you think we’ll see Mario again tonight?” Trixie asks at one point.
I can honestly answer that I don’t know and I don’t care.
Well, half honestly.
The evening takes another turn for the better when it occurs to me that I can ask a server to point out Alfonso Ramos. After all, he is a local celebrity and judging from his tweets comes to this club all the time. It turns out the weatherman in question is fairly close at hand doing a spectacular salsa. He’s so amazing that people have stepped back to watch.
He’s in his early thirties, I’d guess, and in the attractive rather than hot category. He looks smaller than he did on TV but is wearing pretty much the same thing: dark pants and a pastel slim-cut shirt with French cuffs. Enough buttons are undone on his shirt to reveal a gold chain around his neck.
His partner knows what she’s doing, too. When the crowd thins out and I edge closer, Alfonso sees me watching. In short order he swings his partner away and holds out his hand to me.
Now I’m no Julianne Hough but I dance in a fairly abandoned manner and am pretty good at mimicking what I see in front of me. (See pageant training above.) So after he busts out a salsa move I bust one back. I’m not nearly as good as the woman he was dancing with before but I’m not pathetic. I can keep up. Sort of.
An exhilarating minute or two later we swirl to a stop. He leads me off the floor and produces two flutes of champagne. Alfonso Ramos may appear on Spanish-language TV but he is speaking my language.
We introduce ourselves. “You must dance all the time!” I cry. “You’re fantastic.”
“That’s why I like living in South Beach. Lots of clubs.” He eyes me. “You’re not a bad dancer yourself.”
“Well, I’m not terrible.”
“You’re better than that. And I know a way you can improve and get into all the best parties.” He hands me a business card.
I’m about to say I’m not interested in salsa lessons when I see from the card that he himself is the instructor. “
You
teach salsa?”
“On the side. Mostly I do the weather on TV.”
“Really? How exciting!” I make my eyes go wide. “But I hope you don’t work for that station where the weathergirl was killed?”
He nods.
“Oh, how terrible!” I suck in a melodramatic breath. “Did you know her really well? You must feel awful!”
He edges close enough to whisper in my ear. “Between you and me, the way she treated some people this was bound to happen someday.”
“No! I can’t believe it! On the news all people can talk about is what a nice person she was.”
“They didn’t know her like I did. What do
you
do?” he wants to know.
“I’m an executive assistant.” I decide to be miserly with the personal details.
“I’m surprised
you’re
not on TV.” He gives me another penetrating look then cocks his chin at the business card in my hand. “Call me. I’ll give you a lesson on the house. It’ll be worth your while.”
“I would love that,” I say, and that’s no lie. I know an investigative opportunity when I see one.
Alfonso spins away. I find Trixie and Shanelle at our booth and spill the latest.
“Wow!” Trixie cries. “Investigating while doing salsa!”
“I wonder what he meant by ‘worth your while,’ ” Shanelle says.
“I wonder what he meant when he said Peppi Lopez was bound to be murdered someday.” Clearly Alfonso Ramos is not one of Peppi’s fanboys. Which puts him in the same category as Jasmine Dobbs.
“Do you think he wants to pick you up?” Trixie wants to know.
“I didn’t get that vibe from him. He wants something from me but I don’t know what.” So maybe he and I are starting out on an even playing field: we both have a secret agenda. “Ladies, I have a confession to make. It was really fun coming here but I’m ready to go home, check on Rachel, and kick off these stilettos.”
“I’m with you,” Trixie says. “Plus we haven’t had dessert yet.”
“I saw ice cream in the freezer,” Shanelle says. “When I went looking for it.”
We find Mario and Consuela together on the dance floor. At the rate Consuela is going I’d be amazed if she let Mario go to the men’s room on his own. As we say our good nights, I realize I fully expect to run into her in Mario’s kitchen in the morning.
Oh, well. That shouldn’t bother me and I’ll try not to let it.
When the cab gets us home, we find Rachel in bed snoozing and the light in Pop’s bedroom out. We three queens change into PJs and have our way with the ice cream. It doesn’t escape me as I climb into bed beside my daughter that it’s not Mario I miss.
It’s Jason.
The next morning I wake at dawn even though I went to bed late. I can’t help but feel a little anxious. It’s partly from staying in Mario’s house and partly from being so darn eager to dig deeper into Peppi’s murder.
As I pad down the hallway in my pink fleece pajama bottoms and gray rib-knit Henley top, I’m amazed to smell coffee. Somebody got up even earlier than me. It’s Mario I find in the slowly brightening kitchen, sitting alone at the island with a mug in his hand.
His face breaks into a lazy smile. I’ve never seen him like this before—unshaven, hair mussed, in faded jeans and tee shirt that look like battered old friends. This is the sort of intimacy you get from staying at somebody’s house, I think as he wordlessly pours coffee and milk into a mug and presses it into my hands. The barriers drop in the late night and early morning when sleep is just a suggestion away.
I join him at the island. If Consuela is on the premises, it will be but an instant before she heaves into view. Judging from her behavior last night, she’d leave no non-geriatric woman alone with Mario for longer than it takes to slide down her pole.
“Did you have a good time at Diego’s?” Mario asks me.
“Really fun. Thanks for getting us in there.”
“We didn’t have a chance to dance together.” No kidding, I’m thinking, when he chuckles and goes on. “Not that Consuela ever wants to get off the dance floor.”
“You two seem to get along pretty well.”
“She can come on a little strong but she’s got a good heart.”
I bite my tongue. As he eyes me, I realize Mario has never seen me like this before, either. Only half awake, not a speck of makeup on, the sunlight peeping through the window probably revealing those pesky little lines I’ve started to notice.
But the expression I catch in his eyes is admiring. I can only stare back for a few seconds before I have to turn away.
“You weren’t hurting for dance partners,” he says. “Not that I’m surprised.”
“One of them was Alfonso Ramos. The weatherman who worked with Peppi? He offered to give me salsa lessons.”
“Nice work. Be careful, though. Remember what happened last time.”
And the time before, I add silently.
“In fact the more I think about it,” he goes on, “the more I’m not sure your sleuthing is such a good idea. You’ve been really, really good at it,” he adds, no doubt seeing the dismay on my face, “but Consuela has a point. It is a police matter.”
“Mario—” I can hardly form words, I’m so surprised to hear this coming out of him. “It’s very important to me to do this. Most people think all I’m capable of is sashaying across a stage and saying I want world peace. I love being a beauty queen but this proves I’m so much more!”
“I know. But Consuela’s right—”
“I don’t care what Consuela thinks!” That slips out before I can stop it. “I’m sorry. What I mean is, she doesn’t understand. There’s a whole side to
your
life she doesn’t know about—”
“She knows I do some work for the FBI.”
“She does?”
“Of course she does, Happy. She’s Mariela’s mother. I trust her.”
Wow. I look into his dark eyes and realize that he does. I guess he and I are different that way.
I guess this also means there’s no way Mario would consider the possibility that Consuela might have taken a break from her pole-dancing maneuvers to strangle Peppi over the alleged anti-Mariela top five list.
“You know,” Mario goes on, “for Consuela and me, it’s like for you and Jason. We’ve got a daughter together. And a lot of history.”
I restrain myself from pointing out one gigantic difference: that Jason and I have been married all the while we’ve been raising our daughter.
“I didn’t want to bring this up,” he says, “but I can see you’re not a big fan of Consuela’s. And so something else she said last night has me a little worried. She told me she thinks you’ve got a bias against Mariela.”
I can’t believe I’m hearing this from him, too. “Why would she think that?”
“Because of what you said about not being able to give Mariela pointers. And, I guess, what she perceives as your general attitude. And she’s worried that since you and Shanelle are so close, you’ll affect her thinking, too. Which means there might be two judges’ votes Mariela loses before the pageant even begins.”
I have to clutch my coffee mug to keep from screaming. “Mario, let me assure you I have no bias against your daughter. But I have to be super careful not to favor her. I mean, imagine what Shanelle and me staying here at your house would look like to the other contestants?” That did occur to me once the glow of being in Mario’s orbit dimmed a bit. “Shanelle and I can’t give Mariela any special consideration. But I know I speak for both of us when I say that absolutely we will point your daughter fairly.”
“I don’t mean to insult you, Happy.”
Whether he meant to or not, he sort of did. “Did Consuela ask you to try to get Shanelle and me replaced as judges?”
It takes him a beat too long to answer.
I go on. “You know, Consuela didn’t like Peppi Lopez as a judge, either. Did she tell you about Peppi’s supposed top five list? And how Mariela’s name was crossed off? And how she and Mariela both threw a fit about that?”
“Of course that’d upset them. Wouldn’t you be upset if something like that happened to Rachel?”
“Maybe, but that’s as far as it would go! I would never tell anybody off or be so mad that I lost control and—” I stop myself just in time.
An awkward silence settles over the kitchen. I start hoping somebody will bound in seeking coffee but no such luck. Normally I grab all opportunities to be alone with Mario but this first time I don’t want to be, I am.
Mario sets down his mug. “What are you suggesting?”
Since I’m having trouble thinking of a nice way to say that the mother of Mario’s daughter had a motive to strangle Peppi Lopez, he goes on.
“I hope you’re not thinking Consuela had something to do with that murder. If you are, Happy, you have truly gone off the deep end. You’re not even thinking straight in this so-called investigation of yours.” He pauses to give me the sort of cold, steely look I never thought I’d get from him. “Consuela’s capable of a lot but she’s certainly not capable of murder. She may shop too much, sometimes she may party a little too hard, but she would never in a million years hurt a fly, let alone a human being.”
He lets that sink in then stands up. “I’m going upstairs to take a shower.”
“Mario, before you go.” I take a deep breath. I’m almost shaking from what he’s just said to me. “If you want me to pull out as a judge, just say the word and I’ll do it. I promise I would be perfectly fair where Mariela’s concerned and I know Shanelle would be, too, but if you’d rather—”
