Dylan was late, but not by a great deal. Mrs. P caught me checking my watch and craning my neck to check the side door. For once, she didn’t say a thing. Just smiled her knowing smile as she tipped up her third draft.
But before my neck developed a permanent kink, Dylan did arrive. His eyes caught mine as he walked in the door. And so did his smile. We were both on top of the world.
I couldn’t help but notice the dropped jaws on half the female (and quite a few of the male) patrons of the Six Shooter as he strolled in. But Dylan didn’t turn a glance toward any of them as he walked toward our table and pulled out the chair reserved for him to take, the one on my right.
“Hey, Dix. Sorry I’m late.”
I looked from his sparkling eyes to his forehead. The lump was gone, not so much as a bruise left. That war wound was officially behind us.
He plunked two packages on the table, and with a bent knuckle, knocked on the smallest one—a small white box. “Had to pick these up.”
Well, I knew what the smallest package contained. The business cards.
I’d let Dylan go ahead and order them. He told me he’d finally come up with the perfect slogan. So perfect, he was embarrassed he’d not thought of it before. He’d asked me to trust him.
And I realized—not without a little panic—that I did.
So I’d let Dylan order the business cards, slogan and all, without my sign off.
I moved a hand to open the white box.
And he placed his hand over mine. “Not yet.”
Well, hell! I was dying of curiosity.
With a casual signal to the server, Dylan ordered a beer.
“You... you going to sing tonight, Dylan?” the male waiter asked.
“Oh, yeah.”
The server walked away quickly, shaking his head all the way to the bar.
“Is it time for presents?” Elizabeth Bee looked quickly at the two packages Dylan had placed in front of me.
I was surprised she even had time to notice what was happening on the other side of the table. She seemed pretty happily occupied herself as she sat sandwiched between Cal and Craig Presley. Under the amused, watchful (and increasingly glassy) eyes of their mother, the two boys were each paying close attention to Elizabeth, and the young woman was soaking it up. Dylan had raised a questioning eyebrow when I’d announced I had invited Elizabeth to our little gathering. But I had a feeling about this young lady. She was smart, confident, and could lie like a rug—all qualities that came in handy in this business. And I just plain liked her. I wanted to keep her around.
“Sure, it’s time for presents,” Mrs. P answered for me.
I pretended to look surprised. Pretended not to have known that the gang gathered here tonight had been sneaking behind my back arranging for a cake (yes, provided by the one and only Kenny Kent, who’d also be joining us later) and presents for me. But hey, I’m a hotshot private detective. I’m smart as they come. I have intuition about these things.
Plus I’d overheard Dylan on the phone with his mother discussing the details.
Mrs. P handed me a parcel—small and flat, wrapped in brown paper. “This is from the boys and me.”
“Thanks Mrs. P,” I said. “Hmm, wonder what it could be?”
I unwrapped it, read the cover of the CD, and showed it around. It was a copy of Jailhouse Rock by Elvis Himself. But superimposed over the head of the dancing black leather clad Elvis, was a picture of me. Not just any old picture, but the horrible mug shot they’d used in the paper.
Mrs. Presley cackled. “I thought it was perfect for you, Dix, considering how close you came to singing it!”
“Er, perfect doesn’t describe it, Mrs. P. Thank you very much.”
“Me next, me next.” Elizabeth jumped from her seat—left hip banging into Craig, right hip banging into Cal (oh, she was good) as she scooted around the table to me. She handed me a small, red envelope. The familiar Bombay Spa logo was a dead giveaway in the top left hand corner. “It’s a gift certificate,” she gushed even before I had it open. “For a free massage.”
Dylan pffted a spray of beer onto his chin.
“It’s signed by Mrs. Pipps and everything!” Elizabeth said. “It cost me a whole week’s worth of tips. Oh, Dix, I hope you’ll come.”
I had to smile. First of all, there was no way in hell this was Ms. Pipp’s signature—too flowery, too large and loopy for such a crisp, efficient woman. Secondly, there was no way in hell the young Ms. Bee would be spending a week’s worth of tips on anyone but well, the young Ms. Bee. Thirdly, in faint print at the bottom of the certificate it read ‘display sample only’. Okay, now I had to smile widely. There was no way I would be going back to the Bombay Spa unless I had to for a case some time. Certainly not as Dix Dodd. And Elizabeth knew it.
“Thank you, Elizabeth. That was very kind of you.”
“Well,” Elizabeth said modestly. “It’s not much, but it’s the thought that counts.”
“Damn right,” Cal said.
“Double damn right,” echoed Craig.
Moving quicker than I’d ever seen these guys move, both reached to pull out Elizabeth’s chair as she returned to her seat. She smiled, sweetly, at them both, then slowly sat her butt down.
“This is from the judge and me, Dix.” Rather than rise, Rochelle handed the package to Dylan who handed it to me.
Rochelle was famous for her gifts. This had to be something spectacular. More Rolling Stones tickets? I knew they were touring again! It was a small package—hey maybe it was an iPod.
I tore open the package and held up—“Underwear?”
Rochelle and Mrs. P roared with laughter, smacking their hands dramatically on the table as I held the black, sequined thong thingie and clenched my butt cheeks tighter just thinking about it.
“Well, someone’s been talking,” I said, looking accusatorily at Mrs. P.
“Sorry, honey. Cat’s out of the bag. I cleaned your room, remember? It’s not green and tasselly like that other stuff, but its kind of... you.”
“Does Judge Stephanopoulos know about this?” I asked, trying—and failing miserably—to sound severe.
“Hell, she picked them out.”
Again, Mrs. P and Rochelle cracked up. Actually, now half the bar was laughing out loud, as I slowly lowered the underwear back into the package.
“Not in a million years can I imagine myself in this,” I confessed.
“I can,” Dylan said, waggling his eyebrows.
Eye waggle notwithstanding, he wasn’t laughing like the others. Smiling? Oh, yeah. But not laughing. Suddenly, it seemed like he’d moved closer, even though he hadn’t changed positions. I could feel the warmth radiating off his thigh, so close to mine. And even though it still kind of scared me, I let myself feel him close. And it felt pretty darn okay. He pushed his other parcel toward me.
Okay, I was getting the drift of this little gathering. Theme related—mementos of my tryst with the Flashing Fashion Queen. So when I examined Dylan’s parcel, feeling along the square edges and sharp corners, I half knew what it was before I had even opened the framed picture.
“Dirty picture, Dylan?”
“Fine art, Dix.”
It was the front page of the yellow legal pad that I’d been using the day that Jeremy Poole, decked out in drag as Jennifer Weatherby, had walked into my office. The tight little circles were there. The web-footed duck tracks I’d drawn as a subconscious reaction to the Flashing Fashion Queen’s use of the word “floozie”. (Hey, that’s just how my brain works. But say it fast five times yourself and see if it doesn’t sound like something that might come out of an inebriated Donald Duck). But now another part of that well-doodled legal pad caught my attention. The ladders. My eyes stung as I realized these were not ladders to nowhere that I’d been drawing. No, these open ended steps were ladders to anywhere.
“Ladies, and gentlemen,” the DJ, said, “Six Shooters karaoke night begins! Any brave souls willing to open the night w
ith a ballad? Maybe one of the ladies?”
The DJ looked hopefully around the room. Hopefully, then desperately, anywhere except where Dylan Foreman sat beside me.
“Guess that’s my cue,” Dylan said. “My public awaits.”
I cringed. He really had no clue how bad he was. “Dylan why don’t you—”
He stood, kissed me on the cheek. “You can open the cards now, Dix.” He straightened, then made his way to the waiting microphone and the increasingly unhappy looking DJ, walking with the easy, confident swagger of a rock star.
“Put on my usual, Charlie,” Dylan said to the DJ.
This wouldn’t be pretty.
I opened the business card box, pulled one out of the neat row, and held it up for inspection, not unaware that Dylan was watching me closely as I did.
I read:
Dix Dodd, Private Investigator.
There’s power in the truth. Let Dix Dodd empower you.
I looked to Dylan who, with a nod and raised eyebrows, sought my reaction. I raised my drink in a toast to him.
“To the future, Dix,” he said in the microphone.
“To the future, Dylan,” I replied. Though of course he couldn’t hear me over the din of the crowd. But he smiled, so I knew he’d read my lips.
I smiled back.
Oh boy.
~~~*~~~