Barney gave her an adoring smile. “Okay, Miss Davis.”
When Barney had strolled away with the air of a conquering hero, Dixie swung desperately on Flynn once again. “Come in with me for a few minutes. Please?”
He glowered after the doorman. “Listen, Miss Davis—”
“Please. I may need some help with my luggage or with the police, so—”
“Police?” he repeated, forgetting the doorman’s insult. He frowned at Dixie.
She felt herself blushing. “Oh, don’t go being afraid of a little ol’ posse! They’ve been trying to get into my suite for weeks, and I just don’t feel like fending them off by myself anymore. You could just stand in the doorway and look dangerous, couldn’t you, sugar?”
He hesitated. “What are the police looking for?”
“Incriminating evidence, I suppose.” Dixie sighed in exasperation. “Joey isn’t exactly an angel, you know, so they’ve been trying to weasel their way into my bunkhouse for weeks. Oh, come on. It will only take a few minutes, sugar. Can’t you play Galahad just a little longer?”
He considered the situation for another moment. He seemed to wrestle with his thoughts, then said almost unwillingly, “All right. A few minutes, that’s all.”
“Wonderful!”
Impulsively, Dixie gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. She couldn’t help herself. He was adorable, really. Dixie knew she shouldn’t be passing out those potent Butterfield kisses right and left, but she couldn’t resist. For the first time since hitting New York, she found herself with a man who really had some appeal. He was good-looking and delightfully wary of her flamboyant appearance.
He reacted to her kiss as if he’d been stung by a bee—a response that made Dixie laugh. “Sugar, I think you’re trying too hard to be a tough guy!”
Her laughter flooded Flynn with irritation. He liked her kisses, damn her, but he suddenly had an inkling that something about Dixie Davis was a little dangerous.
She grabbed his hand. “Come on, sugar. My suite is upstairs.”
Her touch was almost as electric as her kiss. “What about my bike?”
“What about it?”
“I can’t leave her here.”
She laughed again. “Her?”
Flynn’s temper began to flare. “This is a valuable piece of machinery.”
“I’m sure,” she said, clearly not believing him for an instant. She turned and waved to summon the doorman again. “Barney will look after it. Especially if you tip him well. Barney!”
Flynn felt a moment’s panic. “How much of a tip?”
“Joey usually gives him a hundred dollars.”
Flynn choked. He had about twenty-two bucks in his pocket—a sum that was supposed to pay for lunch and gas for the Harley. “But—”
Too late. Dixie was already using her sweet talk on the overstuffed doorman—an older man whose ears turned bright red when Dixie leaned close and cajoled him to take special care of the Harley.
Moments later she grabbed Flynn’s hand again and dragged him into the Plaza Hotel.
Of course, he’d been in fancy hotels before. Plenty of times. Not exactly as a paying guest, of course, but police work tended to take a cop into all sorts of places—both good and bad.
But he’d never entered the Plaza with the likes of Dixie Davis.
Everyone in the lobby stopped doing whatever they were doing to get an eyeful of the Texas Tornado. The bellman leaned out over his desk to call his hello. The reservation clerks actually looked up from their computers to wave cheerily at their most infamous guest. Tourists turned and gaped. Some applauded.
Bold as brass, Dixie laughed and tilted her hat, then waved to her admirers like a beauty queen sailing down Main Street on a parade float. She kept moving at a brisk sashay—mostly, Flynn noted, to dodge the horde of people who pressed forward for her autograph.
With Flynn in tow, she dived into the nearest key-operated elevator. Dixie used a special security key conjured from inside the bodice of her dress, then she hit a button and collapsed against the rear wall just as the doors closed on a pushing crowd of fans.
“Whew!” She took off her hat and fanned her face.
“Is it like that everywhere you go?”
“Everywhere,” she agreed. “Except when I’m not Dixie Davis.”
“What?”
“You’ll see,” she said with a wink. The elevator whisked them upward, and in a matter of seconds Flynn found himself following Dixie out of the elevator, through double white doors and into a luxury suite big enough for the NBA play-offs. Creamy white furniture, white carpets and a subtle white-on-white wallcovering stretched all the way to the huge windows overlooking a spectacular view of Central Park.
And there were flowers everywhere—roses in graceful arrangements, a single bud here and there, all with cards from fans.
But the suite’s primary form of decoration was a life-size poster of Dixie Davis herself—spangled and primped and posing like a cowgirl from Mars who had just landed in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Her red, white and blue costume barely covered her spectacular figure, and her white boots were tasseled and pom-pommed. Her blond hair was huge. She was holding a shiny silver pistol that appeared to be shooting fireworks. Standing smack-dab on the coffee table in the middle of the living room, the poster created an awesome kind of altar to a living sex goddess.
Dixie threw her Stetson onto a sofa. “Make yourself at home, sugar.”
“Miss Davis—”
“Dixie, please. Let me change out of this getup and we’ll talk, okay?”
“But—”
“And if anyone knocks on the door, don’t let them in. Unless it’s Maurice.”
“Who’s Maurice?”
“The concierge. He’ll be here any minute, I’m sure.” She exited the living room and half closed the door. She began to undress, Flynn judged by the sounds of swishing satin, but she continued to talk through the door by raising her voice. “Maurice is a worrier. Joey told him he’d better keep me happy while I’m staying here, and Maurice understood that to be some kind of threat, so he’s always panicking when I change my plans. Poor Maurice will go ballistic when he realizes I’ve run out on my wedding.”
“It’s not Maurice’s fault.”
“Of course not. But he’s afraid of Joey, you see. I can’t imagine why. Joey’s usually a teddy bear.”
Flynn considered what he knew about Joey Torrano, and nothing in the mobster’s past made the man sound the least bit like a teddy bear. A grizzly bear, perhaps—one with a streak of vengeance and a nasty habit of making his employees disappear when they knew too much.
“Make yourself at home,” Dixie called from behind the half-closed door. “Sit down and relax. Or get yourself a drink. I’ll only be a minute.”
Half to prevent himself wondering what Dixie Davis looked like while undressing, Flynn strolled around the suite to see what he could learn about its occupant. After all, for weeks the cops had failed to get into the suite to look for evidence that might help send Joey Torrano to jail. Now here was Flynn—actually invited into the perfect place to find something useful.
He studied the suite through narrowed eyes. A white grand piano stood in one corner, its surface scattered with sheet music covered with pencil notes. A skimpy black