At Caesar’s Palace where Bubbles last worked, we split up at the roulette wheel and agree to meet there in two hours. I look across the sea of people and see nothing but bad haircuts and split ends.
If I’m ever going to find Dr. Laton’s corpse I’ve got to quit thinking like a hairstylist and start thinking like Humphrey Bogart doing Phillip Marlowe.
I pick out a distinguished-looking gray-haired couple who would have been old enough to afford show tickets around the time Bubbles was probably in her performing prime. Translation: before she started needing a forklift to hold up her breasts.
I head their way and prepare to exaggerate my drawl. A southern accent is a good ice breaker if you’re outside the Deep South.
“Hello, I wonder (pronounced wonnndah) if you nice folks could help me (he’p meee).”
They stare at me as if I’ve landed from another planet and plan to start eating senior citizens first.
“I’m (ahhh’m) from a little ole fan club in Dallas called FTS—that’s Find the Stars—and I was hoping I’d (ahhh’d) find somebody who might know one of my favorites. Bubbles Malone.”
“What’d she say, Gertrude?”
Pointing to his ear, Gertrude yells, “Turn on your hearing aide, Hubert.” Hubert complies, then winces when she yells, “She’s from the PTO and wants to know about somebody named Bubble Along.”
He taps me on the shoulder. Hard. “Young lady, I’m from the MYOB club. That’s mind your own business.”
They turn and walk in the opposite direction, but not before he shoots me the bird.
“That didn’t go so well.”
“What didn’t go well?”
I nearly jump through the gaudy two-ton chandelier. If it fell on somebody, it’d kill them.
Lovie has sneaked up behind me, apparently determined to cause my first gray hair.
“Where’d you come from?”
“Two proposals and six indecent propositions. Let’s get out of here. My butt’s black and blue from unsolicited pinchings.”
“Okay. Maybe we’ll have better luck at the MGM Grand.”
We weave our way through the crowd and onto the Strip to hail a cab. There we are, minding our own business (almost), when a young man in torn jeans and a dirty muscle shirt streaks by and grabs my purse.
“What next?” I say.
“We catch his skinny carcass and beat the daylights out of him. Come on.”
Lovie steamrolls down the street with me barreling along right beside her. I’d hate to be in our path.
Elvis’ Opinion # 3 on the Southern Mafia, Rocket Science, and Garbage Cans
My plan was to take a few days off to get to know my little French sweetie, show her the sights, then head on home and introduce her to my human mom.
You know what they say about the best-laid plans of mice and men, and I reckon that includes basset hounds. Callie’s not home.
For one thing, Ruby Nell has moved into our house. That would never happen unless (a) one of them is sick or dying or (b) Callie’s gone. Not that they don’t get along. They do. You just can’t coop two strong-willed women up together for more than twenty-four hours and expect peace in the valley.
For another, I can smell Callie a mile.
She smells like a flower. Gardenia. And it’s not perfume, either. She has a natural set of powerful pheromones that roped in my human daddy and made him forget he’d planned on being a bachelor till the day he died. Which could be sooner than later. You ought to see his arsenal. Knives, guns, rifles, machetes. He’s got ’em all, and he knows how to use them, too.
Of course, he’s an expert at keeping secrets. The only weapon Callie knows about is the Colt .45. And I’ll never tell the rest. She’s got enough on her mind keeping up with the Valentines and the Latons’ dirty laundry.
And I’m not talking blue jeans.
Just because I’m taking a little R and R, don’t think I don’t know what’s going on. Finding stuff out’s not rocket science if you know the fine points of eavesdropping.
Yesterday when I was on the farm showing Ann Margret around (well, bragging, if you want to know the truth), I overheard Ruby Nell and Charlie talking about the body snatching. (Obviously, they’d met down there to talk about things they didn’t want the Latons to know.)
If they had put me on the job, they’d never have lost the body in the first place. But what can I say? Don’t step on my blue suede shoes? Everybody in the world loved me when I was crooning gold and giving away Cadillacs, but Callie’s the only one of the Valentines with a true appreciation of my talents.
Of course, if they’d put me on the job I wouldn’t have met my little French poodle. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not one to get my head turned by every Raquel rottweiler and Shelley sheepdog that walks by. But let a honey like Ann Margret come along and a basset hound can’t help falling in love.
But even fools have to eat.
I sashay over to the garbage can behind the truck stop to see what’s cooking. Coleslaw. Cabbage. Dill pickles. It might do for stray cats but not for a King.
I head down to the farm with Ann Margret trotting along beside me to see what I can find in Ruby Nell’s garbage cans. Day-old meat loaf, half a loaf of Wonder bread, a big hunk of lemon pound cake. The woman’s a kindred spirit. I wonder if she was a basset hound in another life.
After lunch Ann Margret and I take a dip in the lake and are just vegging out under the oak tree when this sleazy-looking character I’ve never seen shows up with his rod and reel. If you ask me, something fishy’s going on, and it’s not catfish.
If I were a Doberman I’d haul off across the pasture and take a bite out of his leg, but I’m nonviolent by nature. I prefer to sit back and see if we can settle our differences by peaceful means.
The stranger meanders around the east side of the lake, looks over his shoulder, then heads toward Ruby Nell’s house.
“Take another step in that direction and you’ll wish you hadn’t, Buck.”
I can smell Buck’s fear all the way over here. Obviously he didn’t see Charlie Valentine coming and neither did I. Maybe the rumors about Charlie are true: a man who can move with that kind of stealth just might be mixed up with the Southern Mafia.
“I was fishing. Your brother said I could.”
“He didn’t know what I know. I’m making you an offer you can’t refuse. You can leave politely and never come near Ruby Nell again or I’ll help you pack and escort you to the state line. You don’t want to have to do that again, do you, Buck?”
Apparently there’s a long history between these two, and I plan to find out about it. But not today.
Charlie watches Buck scuttle back toward his truck, while I take advantage of the diversion to vanish into the woods with my sweet Frenchie. If Charlie sees me, he’ll insist I go home, and I’ve still got a lot of business to take care of.
Elvis has left the building, baby.
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