Undercover in High Heels (3 page)

If I grew any smaller I’d be looking up at the bottom of my broken heel. “Oops, sorry?”

He narrowed his eyes and made a growling sound deep in his throat.

Suddenly I kind of wished Isabel
had
taken me with her.

“It would be one thing, ” he said through clenched teeth, “if this were an isolated incident. But this isn’t the first time you’ve butted into a police investigation. What, exactly, do you suggest I tell my superiors?”

I bit my lip again, eating off any remnants of lip gloss. He was right. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the first time I’d stuck my nose into his police business. That was actually the way we’d met. He’d been investigating my last boyfriend, a prominent L.A. attorney, for
fraud and, subsequently, murder. I’d sort of inadvertently gotten in the middle of that investigation when I’d popped the real murderer’s breast implant and stabbed her in the jugular with a stiletto heel. After that there’d been the incident last fall involving my father, a bunch of drag queens, and the mob, which had ended with me getting kidnapped and Dana blowing a hole through some guy’s chest. So, I could see why this was something of a sore spot with him. Not to mention his superiors.

“Look, Jack, I’m really, really sorry.”

He took a deep breath and did some more head shaking. He opened his mouth to say more, but was cut off by the uniformed officer with the cute butt.

“Hey, Ramirez?”

“What?” Ramirez called over his shoulder.

“It’s the captain.” Buns of Steel held up a cell phone. “He wants to speak to you.”

Ramirez shut his eyes in a two-second meditation. “Shit.” He turned and grabbed the cell phone, then paused, jabbing a finger my way. “You—go home. We’ll talk later.”

I nodded meekly. Later was good. Later was after he’d had time to calm down and hopefully gotten that whole bulging-vein thing under control.

After Buns of Steel took my statement (where I relayed the events of the evening as best I could without making it sound like his coworker was dating a loony) and the paramedics checked me out (scrapes and unattractive bruises, but not much more), Dana bundled me into her Saturn and drove me home. She offered to stay the night with me, but from the way she was frothing at the mouth over every guy we passed (including the greasy-haired attendant at the Chevron
station), I figured she needed an SA meeting more than I needed a sleepover.

Instead, I climbed the steps to my cozy second-story studio alone.
Cozy
, of course, being real estate slang for
dinky
. My foldout futon, a drawing table, and three dozen pairs of shoes had the place fuller than Paris Hilton’s BlackBerry. Still, it was near the ocean, relatively quiet, and most important, fell within my
cozy
budget.

As a young girl I had dreamed of being a runway model in Paris. But since, as I may have mentioned, I top out at just below Tom Cruise height, genetics worked against that career plan. Instead, I went to the Academy of Art College and got a degree in fashion design—namely, designing shoes. Unfortunately, the job sounds way more glamorous than its paycheck. As an unknown designer, I’d been able to get steady work so far only at Tot Trots children’s shoe designs. And, thanks to my recent brushes with the law, even those jobs were becoming fewer and farther between. Sure, I was still working on the Pretty Pretty Princess patent leathers for Easter, but they’d given both the Superman flip-flops and the summer line of Disney water shoes to someone else. In hopes of someday moving beyond SpongeBob slippers, I’d lately started doing a little freelancing on the side, for—wonder of wonders—actual adults. Okay, so I’d designed and constructed a pair of purple size-thirteen sequin-covered heels for my father’s birthday. (Yes, you heard me right. Father. He danced in a Las Vegas all-male “showgirl” revue.) And I’d recently put the finishing touches on my first Maddie originals for myself: pink pumps with three-inch heels, leather ankle straps, and tiny crystal details on the buckles. All in all, I was rather proud of them.

I let myself into my apartment and kicked off my abused heels, then dragged myself into the shower, careful to rinse all the bits of broken auto glass out of my hair. I pulled on an oversized Guns N’ Roses T-shirt, left over from my college days, and curled up on my futon with my TV remote. Three late-night episodes of
Cheers
later I was fast asleep.

I wasn’t sure how long I’d actually been asleep, but I knew it wasn’t long enough. My phone was ringing from somewhere deep inside a lovely dream of Ramirez and me doing horizontal acrobatics across my kitchen counter when I cracked one eye open to stare at the digital clock beside my bed. 6:15 A.M. Ugh. I’m not exactly what you’d call a morning person. I’m more of a stumble-out-of-bed-at-ten-and-make-a-break-for-the-nearest-Starbucks kind of person. Which may be why my voice sounded like I’d been sucking on sandpaper as I croaked out a “Hello?” in the vicinity of my phone.

“Maddie! Oh my word, honey, what happened?”

Instinctively, I pulled the phone away from my ear. 6:15 A.M. was too early for anyone to be that loud.

“Mom?” I croaked out again. “You don’t have to shout. I can hear you.”

“Sorry. I’m on a cell phone, sweetie, ” she yelled.

I felt a headache brewing between my eyes.

“Maddie, what’s going on? I was having breakfast with Mrs. Rosenblatt, and we saw a man reading the
L.A. Informer
at the next table. Honey, your picture was on the front page. Were you involved in a shootout last night?”

I smacked my palm to my head. Leave it to L.A.’s sleaziest tabloid to sensationalize a simple misunder
standing between a girl and her beau into a Wild West showdown at the OK Corral. “It wasn’t a shootout, Mom. Just…a misunderstanding.” Okay, I admit, when I said it out loud, the
Informer
’s version sounded closer to the truth.

“Are you okay? They said you were taken hostage.”

I groaned again. “Mom, I’m fine. I promise.”

“Oh honey, I’m coming over right now.”

“No!” I fairly screamed into the phone. Don’t get me wrong, I love my mother. But the last time she was in my apartment she insisted on organizing my underwear drawer, covering my cooktop in aluminum foil, and feng shui-ing the entire place by moving my television into the bathroom and my futon next to the refrigerator. “No, I’m fine, Mom, really. Never better.” Except for the headache that seemed to be spreading to my temples.

“Now, don’t try to be all adult and independent on me, Mads. I know when my baby needs me.”

I rolled my eyes. I was facing the big three-oh this year. God forbid I should be adult and independent.

“Mom—”

“Nope. No protests.”

“But—”

“And no buts.”

I rubbed my temple, hoping I still had that travel-size bottle of aspirin in my purse. “Okay, how about this, Mom. How about I just come down to the salon later? That way you wouldn’t have to drive all the way out here, and I could get my pedi fixed at the same time?” I asked, hoping for a compromise that didn’t involve rearranging my furniture.

Mom paused, considering this. Luckily, I knew how
much she hated to drive the 405. “Well, if you’re sure you’re okay…”

“Right as rain!” I said, doing my best perky-cheerleader impression.

“All right. Why don’t you meet me at Fernando’s after lunch and you can tell me all about it. Okay?”

I did a silent sigh of relief. “Perfect. I’ll see you then.”

I hit the end button and flopped back down on my pillows. 6:20 A.M. and already one crisis averted. My day was off to a smashing start.

Fernando’s Salon was located on the ultrachic, ultra—high rent corner of Beverly and Brighton, one block north of Rodeo and smack in the center of Beverly Hills’ Golden Triangle. It was the kind of neighbor-hood where the champagne was free and the pumps cost more than a small country. My stepfather, Ralph (or as I had affectionately dubbed him, Faux Dad), started out in a small strip mall in Chatsworth, but his mastery of the cut and color soon earned him a place in the hearts and hairdos of the rich and not-quite-famous. Only, knowing a salon called Ralph’s wouldn’t fit in with the Versaces, Blahniks, and Vuit-tons of BH, Ralph reinvented himself with a faux-Spanish ancestry and twice-weekly spray-on tans, and thus was born Fernando, European hair sculptor. When I first met him I was convinced he was gay, but considering he and Mom have been married nearly nine months now, I’m almost sure he’s not.

In addition to Faux Dad’s skills with a blow-dryer,
he’s also quite the interior decorator (hey, I said I was
almost
sure), a fact illustrated by the metamorphosis his salon went through every few months. Today, as I walked through Fernando’s polished glass doors, I was treated to a Caribbean theme. The walls were done in watercolor-washed turquoise blue with knotted bits of rope hung like swags along the ceiling line. Bright pictures of exotic beaches, along with bits of fishing net, decorated the walls, interspersed with large, leafy green plants and bright tropical flowers in artfully chipped planters. The reception desk was paneled in white clapboard with silk flower leis glued to the sides. And, I kid you not, in the corner sat a three-foot-high birdcage holding a bright green parrot.

He squawked at me as I approached the reception desk. “Hips don’t lie. Sqwuak!”

I turned to Marco, Faux Dad’s receptionist, who was slim, Hispanic, and probably the only person in the world as addicted to
Project Runway
as I was. “What did he just say?” I asked.

Marco rolled his heavily lined eyes. “Oh honey, tell me about it, ” he drawled in an accent that was pure San Francisco. “The previous owner apparently had a thing for pop music. This damn bird has been singing Shakira all day.” Marco shook a finger at the bird. “You stop it, Pablo, you naughty boy.”

Pablo the Parrot tilted his head to the side. “Hips don’t lie. Sqwuak!”

“Ay-yi-yi!” Marco clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes again. “We couldn’t get a nice quiet goldfish. Nooooo, it had to be a parrot.”

“Sorry, ” I sympathized.

“So…” Marco leaned his elbows across his desk.
“I heard about your big shootout last night.
Ex-ciiiiii-ting!
” he said, drawing out the word.

My turn to roll my eyes. “It wasn’t a shootout. It was a simple…misunderstanding.” That was my story, and I was sticking to it.

“Do tell, dahling, ” he prodded me on.

Since Marco practically lived for gossip, and the
Informer
had already beaten me to it anyway, I filled him in on the latest entry in my top-ten not-so-finest moments. So unfine, in fact, that as I related the story I felt worse and worse. Geez, had I really thought Ramirez was cheating on me? How paranoid was I? To be quite honest, Ramirez had every right to be mad at me. I mean, only
I
would turn a little thing like a canceled date into a shootout.

I mean
misunderstanding
.

True to his Queen of the Beverly Gossip status, Marco hung on my every word, and when I got to the part about Ramirez doing his Bad Cop face at me, Marco did an exaggerated swoon and started fanning himself. “That man is hotter than my mother’s chili con carne, honey.”

I had to agree. Unfortunately, he had a temper to match. “Yeah, well, I think he’s just a wee bit miffed with me at the moment. And speaking of miffed people…” I surveyed the room behind Marco, scanning the hairdresser stations and buzzing blow-dryers. “Are Mom and Ralph here?”

“
Fernando
, ” Marco chided, “is with a client. He’s doing a weave for Mrs. Banks.” He leaned in close and did a pseudo-whisper that could be heard all the way to the Valley. “Tyra’s mom.”

“Oh.” I nodded, appropriately impressed.

“But your mother’s in the back doing a pedi.”
Marco gestured toward the rear of the salon, where a line of foot tubs flanked the turquoise walls.

“Thanks.” I waved as I walked off.

“Hips don’t lie, hips don’t lie!” I heard behind me.

Then Marco mumbling another, “Ay-yi-yi…”

In keeping with the island-paradise theme, the pedicure chairs had been covered with red tropical prints sporting large, colorful hibiscus flowers. Which completely clashed with the neon green muumuu covering the woman getting the pedi. Though, to be fair, Mrs. Rosenblatt was one of those people who clashed with just about anything. She was a five-time divorcée who weighed three hundred pounds, wore her hair in a shade of Lucille Ball red, and talked to the dead through her spirit guide, Albert. (Yeah, I know: only in L.A.)

She’d met my mother when, after a particularly depressing Valentine’s Day, Mom had gone to Mrs. R for a psychic reading. When the very next day Mom had met the dark-haired stranger Mrs. R had pre-dicted, Mom was hooked. Never mind that the stranger turned out to be a chocolate Lab named Barney; Mom and Mrs. R had been firm friends ever since.

“Mads!” Mrs. Rosenblatt called as I approached. “I heard about your shootout last night. Very impressive!”

I gritted my teeth together. “It wasn’t a shootout.”

Mom looked up from Mrs. R’s toes. She dropped a bottle of green polish on the floor and immediately grabbed me in a fierce hug. “Oh my baby, I’m so glad you’re all right!”

“I’m fine, Mom.” Which actually came out sounding more like, “I fie, Ma, ” considering she was cutting off my air supply.

“I was so worried about you! My poor, poor baby.”

“Really, ” I said, extracting myself from her death grip. “I’m fine. It was just a little…misunderstanding.”

Mrs. Rosenblatt nodded sagely, her chins (plural) bobbing up and down. “It’s Mercury. Mercury’s in retrograde this month. Makes for a whole heap of misunderstanding.”

At least someone understood.

“So, did you have a gun during this ‘misunderstanding’? You pop anyone?” Mrs. R asked.

I rolled my eyes. “No, I did not pop anyone. No one got popped.”

“Bummer, ” Mrs. R said. “I always wanted to know what it would be like to shoot a gun. My first husband, Ollie, had all kinds of guns. He used to hunt quail with ’em. Never let me shoot one, though.”

Ollie had been a smart man.

“What did happen last night?” Mom asked, sitting down and wiping the spilled nail polish on her black skirt. I grimaced. At the nail polish stains, yes. But more at the skirt.

When I was ten, Mom was the hippest mother in my Brownie troop. Unfortunately, she hadn’t changed her fashion style since then. Today she wore a lacy black skirt that was about two inches too high for comfort, black mesh leggings, ballet flats, and three different tank tops layered together above about a billion jelly bracelets in every color of the rainbow. A little mole and she’d be the perfect postmenopausal Madonna.

Ignoring the urge to comment on her outfit, I gave Mom a much-edited version of the previous night’s events. However, by the end, her plucked eyebrows were still hunched together in concern.

“Maddie, you could have been killed!”

“I’m fine, Mom. Really, ” I tried to reassure her.

“I think you should think about carrying some protection.”

“Protection?”

“What you need is a gun, ” Mrs. Rosenblatt offered. “I think I might still have one of Ollie’s in storage.”

“No!” I said a little too loudly. “Look, I’ve got pepper spray at home. I’ll be fine.” I didn’t add that when I’d gotten it I’d been so scared of accidentally spraying myself with the mini canister of eye-scorching stuff that I’d promptly shoved it to the back of my junk drawer, and it hadn’t seen the light of day since. My idea of protection was a ribbed Trojan. Carrying actual weapons was a little too Rambo-chick for me.

“I don’t know, Maddie…” Mom said, still not convinced.

“Honest, I’m fine. Look, this was just a fluke. A misunderstanding. Isabel is probably in Mexico by now. I’m fine. There’s nothing to worry about. Really.”

“Wait!” Mrs. Rosenblatt held up a pudgy hand, then smacked it on my forehead. “I’m getting a vision.” She rolled her eyes back into her head until she resembled a
Dawn of the Dead
reject. “I see a woman with long dark hair. She’s screaming. And destroying a bug.” Mrs. R opened her eyes. “You got a roach problem or something?”

Mental forehead smack.

After I reassured Mom for the bazillionth time that I was not likely to encounter a bullet anytime soon, I left the salon (to the tune of Pablo still singing Shakira and Marco still threatening to have roast parrot for dinner if he didn’t shut up) and hoofed it the two
blocks to my Jeep. The first thing I did when I got in was crank on the air-conditioning. Even though it was barely the end of March, we were nearing triple digits this week. One of those freak heat waves that seem to hit L.A. more and more often. I blamed global warming. Though, personally, I’d still rather break out the tank tops and flip-flops in March than give up my aerosol hair spray and gas-guzzling Jeep.

I let the air blast over me as I made my way down the bumper-to-bumper afternoon traffic on Pico, people watching the Saturday-afternoon shoppers, admiring the Lexus dealerships, taking in the latest billboards. I passed one of a man popping out of the page three-D style, carrying a cell phone and advertising something about a long-distance carrier. There was another that featured huge Dumbo ears and urged me not to let the magic of Disneyland pass me by. But it was the one on the corner of Pico and Westwood that made me sit up and stare in earnest.

A woman, lying on her stomach, spanned the length of the billboard, clad in only a teeny, tiny pair of lacy panties that would make a Playboy Bunny blush. Two big round globes of double-Ds peeked out between her strategically placed arms. She had one finger seductively touching a glossy red lip, the caption LIKE TO WATCH? underneath her with a Web address to view her twenty-four-hour Web cam. But the part that almost made me gag was the woman’s name: “Sexy Jasmine.”

Last year when I’d been involved in the murder investigation that resulted in my meeting Ramirez, Jasmine (or, as I was more fond of calling her, Miss PP—as in Plastic Parts; seriously—you think those kind of
boobs grew naturally?) had, at one time, been my prime suspect. But, instead of her offing embezzlers, it turned out Jasmine’s biggest sin was moonlighting on a pay-per-play adult Web site. Apparently, after being fired from her day job as a receptionist, she’d turned her hand to full-time cyber whoring. And, by the size of that billboard, it looked like it was paying off.

I shook my head and marveled at the fact that I was schlepping through traffic and Jasmine was now famous (or infamous, as the case may be). In New York you’re no one until you’ve made Page Six. In L.A. you’re no one until your face has been plastered on a twenty-foot-tall billboard.

By the time I got back to Santa Monica, it was nearing noon and the smog index was creeping up to that level where you could almost taste the air. The radio deejay advised schoolchildren to stay indoors, and the fire marshal declared the Hollywood Hills a high-hazard area. Instinctively, I cranked my air up.

As I rounded the corner, pulling off Venice, my apartment came into view.

As did the guy standing outside of it.

His tall, solid frame leaned casually against the side of his black SUV, both arms crossed over his chest. His eyes were unreadable behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses, but if the tension in his stubbled jaw was any indication, they weren’t twinkling with glee.

Ramirez.

I paused, warring between apprehension and total lust as I pulled into my drive. Finally lust won, and I got out of the car.

“Hey, ” I said tentatively.

Nothing. He didn’t move, didn’t nod, just kept his
cop face on as he stared at me. Yep. He was definitely a little miffed.

“So, uh, have you been waiting long?”

I think I saw his shoulders shrug half an inch. Or it might have just been a smog-induced illusion.

“Um…are you going to say something? Anything?” I squeaked out, my voice doing that caught-coloring-on-the-walls falsetto again.

He took a deep breath in, then out, his nostrils flaring. Then he reached up and slowly took off his sunglasses. Yikes. Nope, his dark eyes were a far cry from twinkling.
Seething
might be appropriate. Or
searing
,
penetrating
.

Pissed off.

“Do you have any idea what kind of trouble your stunt last night caused?” he asked, his voice low and strained, a clear undercurrent of “dammit, you really screwed up this time, Maddie” running through it.

I wondered if it was too late to jump back in my car.

“Um, lots?”

He took a step forward. I instinctively took one back, coming up against the driver’s-side door of my Jeep.

“Thanks to my association with, and I quote, ‘that crazed shoe girl, ’ my captain has reassigned me.”

“Reassigned?” I repeated. “Like, demoted?”

Ramirez made a low growling sound deep in his throat.

Yep. Like, demoted.

“Isabel is MIA, her boyfriend got the tip-off that she’s been talking to the police and now he’s in the wind, and my captain has busted yours truly down to celebrity bodyguard duty.”

Ramirez had been advancing on me as he spoke, until his face was just inches from mine, those granite
features starting to twitch as if they might crack into a full-blown rage at any second. I leaned farther back into my car, and I think I may have whimpered.

“I’m sorry, ” I squeaked out.

His eyes narrowed, and he placed a hand on either side of my head, barring any ideas of escape. “Sorry?”

I gulped. “Really, really sorry.”

He did that low growl in the back of his throat again. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but it didn’t sound a whole lot like, “I forgive you.”

I gulped again. “But being a bodyguard isn’t all that bad, right? I mean, celebrities can be fun.”