Sammy Keyes and the Showdown in Sin City

  She’s walking beside me now and says, “Because it’s not fair.”

  I look at her and ask, “What’s not fair?” because it seems like she’s talking about more than just me knowing where she lives.

  “Any of it.”

  I kind of do a double take at her because her voice sounds so … small. And in all the time I’ve known Heather Acosta, if there’s one thing her voice has never even come close to sounding, it’s small.

  But before I can figure out what to say, she snaps, “Quit staring at me and start looking for your mother! And why aren’t you showing people that picture of her? We’ll never find them at this rate!”

  “Right,” I say with a nod. “How about I show my mom’s picture around on this side of the mall and you show your dad’s picture on that side?”

  “Fine!” she snaps.

  “I promise I won’t ditch you!” I call after her, and typical Heather, she flips me off.

  After that we hurry along, looking inside stores and showing our pictures to anyone who looks like a good target—salespeople hanging outside their shops or standing near the door, random tourists sitting on benches, the guy selling pretzels in the middle of the walkway—anyone who looks like they’ve been in one place for a while. Trouble is, we are totally striking out.

  And then I step inside a jewelry store.

  “May I help you?” a woman in a sky-blue blouse and heaps of jewelry asks.

  Now, this is more a jewelry/art store, and I can tell she’s worried about some ragamuffin girl with a skateboard knocking something over. So I hold out the photo card and say, “Just looking for my mother.”

  “Your …” And then she sees the card. “She was just in here!”

  “She was?”

  “Yes! She was with a man, admiring the Umber.”

  “The Umber?”

  “The glass cascade statue in the window?”

  I turn, and there in the window is what looks like a big, scraggly wig made out of strands of glass.

  “She didn’t stay long,” the lady tells me. “Just a quick question about price. I sensed they had somewhere else to be.”

  “How long ago were they here?”

  “Ten minutes? Maybe less?”

  “Do you happen to remember what she was wearing?”

  “Hmm. Nothing that really stood out. A gray tunic? But he had on a maroon leather jacket with fringe and beautiful tooling. Never seen one like it.”

  “Thank you!” And I’m about to leave but at the last minute I stop and ask, “Did you notice any jewelry?”

  She laughs. “I do pay attention to jewelry. She wasn’t wearing much. A long silver locket, a few bracelets—nothing of any value. He, on the other hand, had a heavy platinum chain on his wrist and Louis Vuitton sunglasses.”

  “What about rings?”

  “Didn’t notice any rings.”

  “Thank you!” I tell her again, then jet out of there. “Heather!” I shout, ’cause I can see her about five stores down looking around all over the place for me. “Heather!” I call louder, and I’m so stupidly excited that I run toward her like she’s a long-lost friend instead of my archenemy. “They were in that jewelry store ten minutes ago!”

  “Did they buy rings?”

  “No! They were looking at art.”

  “At art?”

  “Some big glob of glass,” I say with a laugh. “But the saleslady told me that they’re not wearing rings, and that my mom is wearing a gray tunic and your dad is wearing a maroon leather jacket with fringe.”

  “A maroon leather jacket? With fringe?”

  “Yeah! And sunglasses.”

  “Sunglasses?” she says, and although she’s squinting at me, it isn’t attached to the usual sneer. It’s more just a squint of disbelief.

  “Yeah, sorry,” I tell her, and decide to keep the platinum chain thing to myself. I mean, the times I’ve seen Warren, he’s been a pretty simple dresser, so even the jacket and shades seem like a big change. But my mother did the same thing when she moved to Hollywood, so I add, “My mom’s probably been his style coach.” Then I spread my arms a little and laugh. “Obviously she hasn’t gotten very far with me!” Heather just blinks at me, so I start moving again. “But knowing what they’re wearing should help us spot them, right?”

  “Right.”

  We walk along together for a minute before I say, “We should tell your mom, don’t you think?”

  Her eyes flash at me. “Stop with the ‘we’ bit. And stop telling me what to do!” She dials her mom, grumbling, “It’s so annoying.”

  I sort of keep my distance while she’s talking to her mom, but I do stay close enough to hear what she’s saying, which pretty much is just what we’ve found out. She doesn’t sound excited or even annoyed—and unless she’s buttering someone up, Heather always sounds annoyed. And then after she gets off the phone, she looks down at it for the longest time, and when I edge in closer, I see that she’s staring at that picture of her and her dad.

  “What’s the plan?” I finally ask.

  “Keep looking,” she says back. Then she asks, “Could I have this side?”

  It’s just a quiet question. No anger. No hatred. No demand.

  I shrug and say, “Sure,” and cross over to the other side. And as happy as I am about having gotten more information, in the back of my mind there’s also this new, quiet, sad feeling.

  Not for me.

  For Heather.

  From the way she’s been acting, I’m starting to see a new side to this whole situation. She doesn’t want to stop my mom from marrying her dad just because she doesn’t want me in her family.

  She’s also trying to hold on to something that has nothing to do with me.

  Something that’s already long gone.

  FOURTEEN

  Heather and I moved from store to store on opposite sides of the shiny walkway, peering through windows, talking to people, and also keeping an eye on each other. I actually got distracted, watching her show her phone picture around. It was like she was desperate for someone, anyone, to say, yes, they’d seen her dad, but all she got were head shakes.

  All I got were head shakes, too, but I could tell that in Heather’s mind it was Sammy 1, Heather 0, and that it was important for her to even the score.

  She’s always trying to even the score.

  Even though this time we were supposedly on the same team.

  Anyway, I go by a shop with sunglasses displayed on little Plexiglas stands, all spread out and dramatic-looking instead of stacked up on one of those carousels like you see at a regular store. There are huge posters of uber-cool people wearing shades plastered all over the walls and what look like jewelry cases of sunglasses in a horseshoe shape in the middle of the store. And I’m thinking that the store must be doing really bad business because (a) there’s nobody in it, and (b) they’ve got no inventory. I mean, the place could hold thousands of sunglasses and what’s it got? Maybe a hundred?

  A hundred pathetic, lonely sunglasses.

  So I’m cruising along with all this flashing through my mind when I see something that makes me do a double take.

  Right on the other side of the window, next to a small display of sunglasses, is a silver-and-black sign with two words: LOUIS VUITTON.

  A little bell goes ringing in my head, and then I notice that one of the price tags attached to one of the sunglasses in the Louis Vuitton display is faceup instead of facedown, and when I get a closer look, I can’t help it—I choke out, “Twelve hundred bucks?” and all of a sudden I’m mad. I mean, what kind of person wastes twelve hundred dollars on a pair of sunglasses?

  Grams had told me that my mom hadn’t saved up anything from being on Lords—that she’d been spending it on things that would give her an “aura of success.” And now Warren was doing that, too? I could just see Lady Lana cooing in his ear, telling him how great he looked in Louis Vuittons and that he needed to “invest” in his “aura of success.”

 
And I’m so ticked off about my mother and her evil influence on Casey’s dad that I turn to find the one person who will totally understand.

  Heather.

  But when I spot her across the way, I see that she’s talking on her phone. So I zip over in time to hear her say, “See you there.”

  I hold back what I want to tell her and ask, “Was that your mom?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And?”

  “She’s at the entrance to Planet Hollywood.”

  “Who is?” I ask, all excited-like.

  “My mother.” She rolls her eyes. “God, you’re lame.”

  “I thought you might have meant my mother.”

  “Because your mother is more important than my mother?”

  “No! Why do you say stuff like that? I’m actually even more ticked off at my mother right now because …” But I stop myself because what in the world am I doing, talking to Heather. I mean, I may be ticked off at my mother, but to turn to Heather?

  “Because what?” she says when I clam up.

  “Never mind.”

  “Tell me!”

  I shake my head.

  “That is totally not fair!”

  I give her a hard look. “What’s not fair is how you always sneer and call me lame or loser and bite my head off and then expect me to tell you something!”

  She gives me a hard look back.

  So there we are, having a stupid staredown instead of looking for our parents, when something weird and totally unexpected happens.

  Heather looks away.

  It’s not just that she looks away—although that is a shock all by itself. It’s the way she looks away.

  Like, Yeah, you’re right.

  She doesn’t say that, and it’s probably a good thing, because I might have fainted and banged my head on the shiny esplanade floor and died if she had. But her losing her hard edge made me soften up, too, and before I know what my mouth is doing, it’s going, “Do you know what Louis Vuitton sunglasses are?”

  “Yeah … why?”

  “According to the saleslady in the jewelry store, your dad’s wearing a pair.”

  “Of Louis Vuittons?”

  I point across the way. “And according to that store, they sell for twelve hundred bucks.”

  “Twelve hundred bucks? For sunglasses?” Her head wobbles back and forth. “He can’t afford that! And if he can, he’s sure been doing a good job of hiding it from Mom!”

  “My mom’s done the same thing. She never sends anything home, because she spends it all on herself.”

  “Seriously?” She hesitates, then says, “But it’s different because your dad’s the breadwinner, right? And he’s not paying her support, is he?”

  “Right,” I tell her, and change the subject quick. “So where’s Planet Hollywood?”

  We look around until we find one of those YOU ARE HERE signs and discover that Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino is only a little ways down from where we are, which is good news—but there’s also some bad news.

  “Look,” I say, pointing to different places on the map, “there are five ways out of here!”

  Heather studies it a minute. “Which means my dad and your mom could be anywhere.”

  “Maaaaaan. And we were so close!” It was so frustrating. I’d gone from thinking that Marissa was right—that there was no way I was going to find my mother in this big, crazy city—to being this close to catching her.

  It was like bobbling a game-winning pop fly.

  Candi gives a little wave when she sees us, but there’s no smile to go with it. “Dad’s wearing Louis Vuitton sunglasses!” Heather blurts out when we get close. “They cost over a thousand dollars!”

  Candi’s eyebrows stretch waaaaaay up. “How do you know?”

  “Sammy found out from the saleslady at the jewelry store! And they’re selling Louis Vuitton sunglasses right back there, so we know how much they cost!”

  Now, all this was true, and if it had been anyone else, it would have seemed like a perfectly normal way to word things.

  But this was Heather.

  She never called me Sammy.

  And the “we” bit?

  A small thing.

  Just a slip, maybe.

  But still.

  Huge.

  Candi doesn’t notice anything different about Heather’s words—she’s too tuned in to their meaning. Her eyebrows sort of crumble back down and her whole face seems to give up. Like it’s just tired.

  “Mom?”

  Candi shakes her head. “We’ve been scouring this mall for hours. My feet are killing me, and I’m starving.” She turns to me. “Maybe you can call your contact and let him know what happened?”

  I cringe a little. “He’s sleeping?”

  She sighs. “Let’s get something to eat and regroup.”

  So we go inside Planet Hollywood, find a sandwich shop, and get some food. And even though it’s almost three o’clock and I haven’t seen Candi eat a bite all day, she orders her sandwich with no mayo and no cheese and gets a Diet Coke.

  Heather has them hold “anything green,” but I just tell them to load it up. A box of Oreos is not enough to power you through a day in Las Vegas, believe me!

  As hungry as I am, it’s still weird eating with Heather. Really unnatural. See, my lunchtime encounters with her at school are always stressful. Sometimes painful. Like the first day of seventh grade when I was sitting down eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and she came up out of the blue and jabbed me in my derriere with a pin.

  Of course, after I’d gotten over the shock of what she’d done, I’d tracked her down and punched her in the nose, so it was actually more painful for her, but ever since that day I’ve been on guard when Heather’s lurking near me at the lunch tables.

  Anyway, we didn’t say much as we ate, but we did eye each other a lot. So finally I just look straight at her and say, “I’m remembering a pin, what about you?”

  “A broken nose,” she says, and there’s an angry glint in her eye.

  I chuckle. “It wasn’t broken, but you sure had everyone fooled with that big ol’ cast you put over it.” I glance back at her and ask what I’ve wondered since that first day of seventh grade. “Why’d you do it, anyway?”

  She studies me a minute and finally says, “Because you think you’re all that.”

  “I do not!”

  She snorts. “Right.”

  “What’s this about?” Candi asks.

  “Never mind,” Heather snaps.

  But now Candi’s looking at me, so I just shrug. “How I met your daughter?”

  “Oh, that vicious welcome-to-junior-high-school punch in the nose?” Candi asks, and she’s now looking very angry, too.

  “Never mind,” Heather says again, but as I look back and forth between Heather and her mother, the picture finally comes into focus. “No wonder you hate me,” I tell Candi. “You don’t know about the pin.”

  “What pin?” Candi demands.

  “The pin she jabbed me with? The reason I punched her in the nose?”

  “Never mind,” Heather snaps again, and it’s easy to see that I’m back on her kill list.

  Candi looks at her daughter, then at me. So I put my hands up and say, “Sorry I brought it up.”

  Candi turns back to her daughter, and they have some fierce silent conversation before Candi finally says, “I think we should focus on why we’re here.” She hands me her phone. “Are you ready to make that call?”

  “Maybe we should just go back to the Marriage Bureau?”

  She considers me a minute. “Maybe you should first call your friend.”

  Now, I don’t want to, but things are feeling really shaky, so I take the phone. And inside I’m cringing as the line is ringing, but Pete answers, sounding perky. “You’ve reached the King.”

  “Hey, I was afraid I’d wake you up!” Then I add, “It’s Sammy.”

  “Well, hello, Miss Sammy. Normally I’d be in Dreamlan
d, but it’s lovers’ weekend and Elvis is in big demand.” Then he says, “So what’s the good word?”

  “We almost found her.”

  “Oooh. Too bad you ain’t playin’ horseshoes.”

  “No kidding. So now we’ll probably go back over to the Marriage Bureau, but I was hoping you might get another tip.”

  He’s quiet a second, then says, “It might help if you would ante up. I offered fifty bucks for a credible tip.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah, well, the Elvis Army likes to get paid. It’s good motivation. And for you, I didn’t mind. But I can’t keep doin’ that.”

  “Hang on a minute,” I tell him, then look at Candi. “He paid fifty dollars for the last tip and wants to know if we’ll put up fifty for the next one.”

  “What kind of friend is this?”

  I shrug. “One with contacts who like to get paid?”

  Heather butts in with “You’re riding in our car, you’re sleeping in our hotel room, and you’re using our cell phones.… You’re the one who should pay, not us.”

  Candi looks at her like, Good point! So I go back to the phone and say, “I’ll put in the next fifty … and pay you back for the first.”

  “You sure?”

  I thought about my reward money, shrinking fast in my pocket. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “I’m on it!” he says, and gets off the phone.

  Heather’s got a sharp eye on me. “How can you just throw a hundred dollars around like that? You always act like you’re broke with your stupid peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and tacky torn-up jeans.”

  Candi hisses, “Heather!”

  “Well, she does! I told you it’s all just a big act!” Then she zooms in on her mother and says, “And stop hissing!”

  Normally I would have explained about the reward money, but since Casey and I had worked together to get it and I knew Candi knew about his share, I’d be getting Casey in a whole lot of hot water if I said anything.

  So instead I just say, “Think what you want, Heather, but I promise you, you haven’t got a clue about my life. I’m just trying to get the job done.” Then I turn to Candi and ask, “So are we going back to the Marriage Bureau?”

  She looks at her watch. “It’s already almost four? How late are they open?”