I turned in my seat to get a good look at her.
"Okay," she said, "I asked, but she/he didn't want to play show and tell."
"Can we trust this information?"
"Why not? It's all we've got."
True enough.
She found a place to park in an overpriced lot near the river. We hoofed it three blocks to the Blue Zone. It was clear where the nickname had come from: All the neon signs along the street were blue, casting an eerie blue glow over everything.
"Where do we start?" I asked.
She handed me a picture of Jean-Claude. It was his mug shot, the one that looked nearly identical to Hugh Grant's, which had been cropped to just see his face. "Flash that around, see what you come up with."
We split up, and I crossed the street carrying a somewhat heavy load of guilt. Because I knew that if I found JeanClaude first, I'd probably warn him off.
If Ana found out . . .
I didn't even want to think about that. After all, she had a little bit of our Nana Ceceri's temper in her too.
The first storefront I came to was a nightclub called Bump. I waited my turn in the long line to get in, a sore thumb in my jeans and white T-shirt. Everyone else was dressed tramp-style, in microminis and barely there tube tops. Even the men had dressed skimpy, in chest clinging T-shirts and hip-hugging sleek pants. Some of them had incredible bodies.
Hey, I'm human.
When I got to the ticket booth, I held up Jean-Claude's picture. The girl, dressed head-to-toe in black—even black lipstick—motioned for me to talk to the big African-American bouncer guarding the door.
I moseyed over. "Hi."
One of his eyebrows dipped as he scanned me up and down. Then he shifted his weight—all four hundred pounds of it—and stared at me, a smirk on his face and a no way look in his eyes.
"Oh no," I said, "I don't want to come in."
"Good thing too. Dressed like that, you could maybe wash the dishes."
My feathers ruffled. My shoulders stiffened. Okay, so I wasn't exactly a fashion plate, but still. I held up the picture of Jean-Claude before I started a fight I'd never win. "Have you seen this man?"
The door opened behind him as someone came out of the club. Loud music with a heavy bass thumped against my ribs. The door closed, and the sound dimmed to a dull whump, whump, whump.
He smiled. "What's it worth to you?"
He had nice teeth, bright white and gleaming. I realized I'd been expecting gold caps, and yelled at myself for buying into stereotypes. Then it registered what he was saying. Ana hadn't mentioned anything about paying for information. In my head, I calculated what money I had. I fished in my leather backpack, pulled out my wallet.
Three fives and two ones. Not likely to buy me much. I held out a five.
He laughed.
"Ten?" I asked, pulling out another five, and giving him my best please-help-me look. I batted my eyelashes and everything.
He rolled his dark eyes, snatched the money. "That's JC."
JC. Jean-Claude. "Does he work here?"
The giant shook his head.
"Around here?"
He shrugged.
Great. I pulled out my last five.
"I've seen him at All Shook Up a few times."
"Does he work there?"
Another shrug.
I was down to my last two bucks. I figured I'd try my luck at All Shook Up. "Down that way?" I asked, pointing down the street.
The giant blew me a kiss, then brushed me aside as he let in two stunning young things with four-inch heels, mile-high legs, and way too much makeup.
In my humble opinion.
I found All Shook Up midway down the Blue Zone. It wasn't another dance club like I'd expected, but a martini bar. When I pulled open the door, I felt like I'd stepped into a zone of another sort—the Twilight Zone.
I was suddenly surrounded by Elvis. At least a hundred of them. Rhinestone jumpsuits, gold lamé, big glasses and all.
A hostess, dressed like Ann-Margret in Viva Las Vegas, must have caught my surprise. "Every Saturday night is Elvis night," she said. "Did you want a table?"
I shook my head, still taking in the differing Elvis hairstyles. From pompadour wigs to greased-back black dyed hair.
I held up Jean-Claude's picture. "Do you know him?"
She frowned, pulling in her bottom lip. I couldn't help but notice her breasts spilling out of the skimpy top. She'd have had no problem getting into Bump.
"He looks familiar," she said over the karaoke crooning of "Blue Moon." "Maybe ask Jake?"
"Jake?"
She pointed to a thirty-something man tending one of the three bars in the place. He too was wearing an Elvis costume.
I thanked her and started across the room. "Blue Moon" ended and someone took up the mic and started in on "Blue Suede Shoes." Sure enough, I looked down and saw that my Keds were the only white shoes in the vicinity.
I felt my phone vibrate on my hip. I flipped it open, saw Ana's name.
"Where are you?" she said.
I covered one ear with my hand, shouted, "At All Shook Up."
"Be right there!"
I slipped my phone back onto my waistband.
"Hey, baby." Elvis's hand snaked around my waist, pulling me up close and personal with his chest hair.
"Hi," I said, trying to wiggle free.
"Now now. Let's dance." The opening lines of "All Shook Up" played and the room went wild. I was definitely in the Twilight Zone.
"Really, I—"
Before I could get away, Hairy Chest had me spinning and swirling to the music. Every so often I'd look up to find him smiling at me, one corner of his mouth lifted in a classic Elvis grin.
I clutched his white jumpsuit with my left hand to keep from falling, and kept Jean-Claude's picture tight in my right hand, which was being held captive by Hairy Chest. My backpack thumped my back.
As he twirled me, I said sarcastically, "Come here often?"
He either missed the sarcasm or ignored it. "Every Saturday. You're new, though. We've got to work on your outfit. I'm thinking Joan Blackman in Blue Hawaii, except you'd have to go brunette."
Brunette. Right. I'd forgotten about the wig.
"Um, maybe."
The song came to a hip-jarring end. "Want a drink?" Hairy Chest asked.
More than anything. But I only had two dollars.
"My treat," he said, winking. He had pretty blue eyes, and I assumed he knew it—which was why he didn't wear those big aviator glasses like every other Elvis in the room.
"Sure." I figured he owed it to me, grabbing me like that. Though if I were really honest, I'd have to admit I'd had fun dancing. It had been a long time.
He followed me to the bar, where there were two open stools. Hairy Chest held out his hand. "Alan," he said.
"Not Elvis?"
He shrugged. He was kind of cute, and I wondered where Ana was. Maybe I could match-make while I was at this whole Jean-Claude recon thing.
Which reminded me. "Are you Jake?" I asked the bartender, just to make sure.
He winked at me, Elvis-style. I was starting to feel claustrophobic. "That's me, darlin'," he said. "Can I help you?"
After Alan and I ordered a drink, I showed him JeanClaude's picture. "Do you know him?"
Someone started singing "Love Me Tender." Off key. I winced, wishing I'd brought ear plugs.
"Sure. That's JC. Comes in all the time."
"Really?"
"Sure. After work."
"Where's he work?"
"Can't say."
"Can't as in won't or can't as in you don't know?"
"Don't kn—"
He was cut off when I was jostled on my stool by some one sitting down next to me. It was a slightly pudgy Elvis, who would have been better off portraying an older Elvis, but had opted for a Jailhouse Rock look. Except he had on the glasses.
"Hey," Alan said, sticking up for me. "Watch it."
"Sorry." The O
ld Elvis swiveled our way.
I gasped and fell off my stool, spilling my drink down the front of my shirt.
Pudgy Elvis squinted. "Nina, is that you?" He reached down, pulled off my blonde wig, and held it out like it was something toxic.
I looked up, my mouth open, my eyes blinking as if I was hallucinating. "What are you doing here?"
Twelve
Hairy-chested Alan snatched my wig back, set it on my head, and helped me up. "Do you know him?" he asked me, sounding like he was looking for a fight.
I saw Pudgy Elvis take note of Alan's hands. They lingered on my bare arms. "I suggest you take your hands off of her, sonny."
"Says who, chubby?"
My father's chest puffed. I stepped in between them before punches flew. "Alan, this is my father, Antonio Ceceri. Dad, this is Alan."
My father's eyebrows, dyed freakishly black, slashed downward. "Who was just leaving, right?"
"That's up to her," Alan said, apparently having a death wish.
Just then Ana hustled in, elbowing her way through the crowd. She stopped just short of us, took in the scene. "Why do I always miss all the fun? Uncle Tonio, is that you?"
My father murmured something under his breath, ordered a drink from Jake.
Alan took one look at Ana and lost interest in me. I sat down next to my father while a female Elvis took the karaoke mic and started singing "In the Ghetto." She was booed off the stage.
"Do I even want to know?" I asked my father, dabbing at the front of my shirt with a cocktail napkin. The outline of my pink Victoria's Secret bra was clearly visible for all to see. "Mom thinks you're at some club meeting or something."
He picked up his shot glass. "This is one of the club's outings."
"What kind of club are you in? It's certainly not Historians Unite, or whatever Mom told me."
My father's chest puffed again. "It's called 'Elvis Lives.' We meet twice a month and come here every Saturday night. And your mother knows what I'm doing. She just doesn't want to admit it."
I could see why. "Does that goop come out?" I motioned to his eyebrows. I didn't even mention the pitch-black toupee. I had my limits.
"All water soluble."
"Ah."
"Am I really chubby?" he asked, running a hand over his stomach.
"In a good way," I said. "Think Santa."
He frowned, took another sip of his drink.
Over my shoulder I saw Alan give Ana his phone number. She put it in her pocket and sat on the other side of my father. Alan headed for the karaoke line.
"Uncle Tonio," Ana said, "you look cool!"
He kissed both her cheeks. "Am I fat?" he asked her.
"In a good way," she said.
My father grunted.
"See, I told you so." I wanted to order another drink but didn't want to have to borrow money. I asked for water instead.
"You're Italian," Ana said, as if this explained everything
from chubbiness to the Darwin Theory. She then leaned across the bar top and said to me, "Did you find him?"
"Him who?" my father asked.
"Jean-Claude," Ana said to him.
"Who's Jean-Claude?" he asked.
I picked up another napkin, kept dabbing. "He works for me, remember?"
My father shook his head, the weird toupee flapping.
I dabbed harder.
"Well, Nina thought he might have been a prostitute."
"A gigolo," I corrected. I looked up at Jake, who was hovering. "That's right, right? Girls are prostitutes, men are gigolos?"
"I think both prefer 'escorts' these days," he said.
My father made the sign of the cross.
"Well, we're not sure he's any of those," Ana said. "He's moonlighting but we don't know where."
"Do we care?" my father asked.
Ana ordered something I'd never heard of before. "He could be violating his probation."
"Ah."
I told Ana about my trip to Bump. She laughed about the fifteen dollars. "I'm surprised you got any information about Jean-Claude with only fifteen bucks."
Jake set Ana's drink down. It was pink with a little umbrella. "Oh, is this about JC again?" he asked, looking at Ana's copy of Jean-Claude's mug shot.
"Who's JC?" Ana asked.
"Jean-Claude," I explained.
"Since when does he go by JC?" she asked.
"I've only known him as JC." Jake swiped the countertop. "His real name is Jean-Claude?"
"Does anyone, perchance, have an aspirin?" my father asked.
I fished in my backpack and pulled out a tin of Advil.
"Jean-Claude Reaux."
Jake put another stack of napkins in front of me. "I know him as JC Rock."
"JC Rock?" Ana laughed, tossing her head back. The curls of her red wig flounced.
"Do I want to ask about the wigs?" my father asked.
I gave up on my shirt. "Only if you want us to ask about yours."
He pressed his lips together, signaled for a refill to his Jim Beam.
"Do you know where he works?" Ana asked Jake, switching back to the topic of Jean-Claude.
"No, but he comes in almost every Saturday night." He looked at his watch. "Usually around three."
"Three? A.M.?"
"What?" Ana said to me, "too late for you?"
"Don't give me that." I slid my water glass in circles, wishing it were something pink with an umbrella in it. "It's past your bedtime too."
My father said, "Don't look at me. One o'clock is my limit."
Ana and I looked at Jake. "Want to do a little recon?" I asked.
He set the bar rag over his shoulder. "Like a Tom Clancy novel?"
"Exactly," Ana said.
We explained what we wanted to know, and Jake promised he'd try to get the information for us in exchange for a date with Ana.
My ego was bruised, but I was glad we were finally going to find out what Jean-Claude was up to.
"Speaking of Tom Clancy," Ana said to Jake, "who do you think was better in those movies? Harrison Ford or Ben Affleck?"
Someone sang "A Little Less Conversation" as Jake said, "Harrison Ford. Everyone knows that."
I woke up the next morning to a ringing sound and Ana thumping my head like it was the snooze button of her alarm clock.
I lifted a heavy eyelid and searched for a clock. It was ten in the morning. The ringing continued, and I wondered if I had a hangover.
Then I remembered I'd only had one drink—barely.
"Phone," Ana mumbled, pulling a pillow over her head.
My cell phone, I realized with a start. I rolled out of Ana's bed, stumbled toward my backpack, which was still buzzing. I found my phone, flipped it open, and mumbled something in the way of a greeting. I think it might have been "Hello" but may have come out as "Yo."
"Sleeping late, are we?"
I padded into Ana's living room, flopped onto her sofa, and drew a chenille throw over my bare legs. I'd borrowed one of Ana's T-shirts and a pair of boxer shorts—I didn't want to know their origin—to sleep in.
"Good morning to you too. You never were a morning person," I said.
Kevin grunted. "It's practically afternoon. Loverboy tire you out?"
I ground my teeth, rubbed the sleep from my eyes. "No, Ana tires me out. She hogs the covers."
Banging my head with my fist, I wondered why I'd said anything at all. Why did I care if he thought I'd slept with Bobby?
Why? We. Were. Over.
Done.
Finito.
Right?
Ugh.
"But your mother . . . Never mind," he said.
Ah. My mother probably assumed I'd changed my mind last night and gone home with Bobby after all. Probably I should have told her I was going out with Ana and that I'd decided to stay the night at her place. I'm sure my father had filled her in by now.
"Earth to Nina" I heard in my ear.
"What?"