Bare-Naked Lola (A Lola Cruz Mystery) (2 page)

“She’ll more than do,” he said.

Sadie’s snicker turned into a disbelieving gasp.

“
Con permiso
,” I said under my breath. “What, exactly, are you talking about?” But then realization hit me and I gasped. Him, I recognized. Lance Wolfe, owner of the Courtside Dancers, Sacramento’s answer to the Laker Girls. Now I knew where I recognized Victoria from! She and Lance, along with the Courtside Dancers, cheerleaders for the Sacramento Royals basketball team, had done a reality TV show:
Living the Royal Life
. Their high-profile effort to combat the drug, sex, and steroid scandals that had plagued the basketball team for a few years. They were local celebrities, probably recognized everywhere they went. I hadn’t been a fan, but my cousin Chely had never missed an episode.

Victoria’s face had hardened when the man stepped out of the shadows. Now she gave me another once-over. “Yes, she’ll more than do. You were right,” she said to Manny. “She’s curvy but athletic. Fit.”

That’s how Manny had described me? Oh no. The heat of embarrassment crept up my neck.

“She definitely has presence,” Victoria continued. “How about energy?”

“I can answer that,” Lance said. He sounded calm, and to look at him, you’d think he was Mr. Businessman, all buttoned-up in his periwinkle blue shirt with thin white stripes, his brown hair brushed to the right and neatly gelled into place. But I knew from local sports lore that he was a hothead on the court. He walked around me like he had his detective radar out and was gauging my effectiveness. “She’s got it in spades. If anyone can get to the bottom of this stupid mess, it’s this girl.”

Manny’s eyes bored into me. “I agree. She’s got it.”

¡Híjole!
That was as close to a compliment as Manny ever came. I had
it
, whatever
it
was. But really, it didn’t matter as long as I had active cases to investigate.

I waved a hand in front of them. Despite the praise, they still had
huevos
, talking about me as if I were the lone artificial plant in Camacho’s lobby entrance. “Excuse me,” I said again. “What am I perfect for?” I asked, although knowing that Lance Wolfe was involved could only mean one thing.

“Do you dance?” Victoria was clearly used to being in charge, asking her own questions rather than answering someone else’s.

“If she doesn’t,” Lance said, “she can learn.”

“She can’t learn to dance in a day,” Victoria snapped. “No, she has to be able to dance or it won’t work.”

Her husband threw up his hands. “Fine,” he said, then turned to me. “Well?”

What he didn’t say was that I better not disappoint him.

I twined two of my fingers together. “Me and salsa dancing, we’re like this.” Throw some Juanes on the iPod and I’d dance circles around Victoria, the twig. “And I can do a mean
merengue
.”

Victoria clapped three times,
muy rapido
. “Jennifer. Selma.”

They rose in unison like perfect specimen robots.

Victoria directed, telling the women where to stand. “Do the beginning of the new routine,” she ordered. Jennifer, a tall, languid beauty, glided, while Selma, who was a bit shorter and seemed more eager to please, hurried into position. Once Jennifer was ready, Victoria clapped and counted. “And one, and two, and three, and four…”

The two women launched into a professional cheerleading routine, stepping wide with their legs, dipping their torsos, moving their arms in exact rhythm.
¡Ay, caramba!
They were like sex puppets tied together with invisible string.

After a series of risque moves, they stopped abruptly, both ending with their right feet extended, toes arched and knees bent in a hip jazz dance stance.

Victoria rolled her hand at me. “Okay, your turn.”

¿Está loca?
Where was the salsa music? Where were Ricky Martin and Menudo?
¡Ay, ay, ay!

Sadie inhaled sharply, then broke into a coughing spasm.
Pobracita
. She’d swallowed her laughter and now had thrown herself into a tizzy.

I knew exactly what she was feeling, but I glared at her for a beat before turning my stare to Victoria. “You want
me
to do
that
?”

Manny took a step forward. “Dolores,” he said, pronouncing my name with a perfect Spanish accent.
Do-LOR-es.
It echoed in my mind. I was smart. Educated. A licensed P.I. Did he understand what he was asking me to do?

From his steady gaze, it was clear that he did. I shook my insecurities away—after all, I’d solved two murder cases in the recent past; surely I could pull off a few dance moves—and mimicked the jazz pose Jennifer and Selma Stepford had ended with. So what if I had to pretend to be a dancing sexpot? It was for a good cause. I hoped.

Victoria was a client, and this was a case I was potentially going to be working.
If
—and it seemed like a pretty big if to me—I could pull this off.

I got in line with the two cheerleaders, watched carefully, and copied their every move, exaggerating my steps like they did, spinning around, and feeling utterly ridiculous and on display. Dance lessons had not been part of my childhood, and as a teenager, I’d taken up kung fu. While other girls my age had been spinning in pirouettes or planning for prom, I’d been stalking Jack Callaghan and learning the Eighteen Arms of Wushu, determined to master each and every one of the main weapons in Chinese martial arts.

I was still working through them.

The mini routine ended in the same extended-toe, bent-knee position, and I tried to recapture my breath while I held the pose. Damn. Wielding a chain whip and a battle-ax was easier.

Lance lowered his chin in approval and Victoria clapped her hands three times, good hard claps that seemed incapable of coming from her petite body. “Bravo. You did fine,” she said, but her lips pursed together. Except for her furtive glances at Manny, I got the impression she didn’t really want to be here.

“Thanks. Now, can you please tell me what this is about?” I filled a paper cup with water from the cooler, downed it, refilled it, and waited.

This time Lance spoke up. His voice boomed, taking on the tenor of a game show announcer. “How would
you
like to be a Courtside Dancer for the Sacramento Royals?”

I choked on the water I’d just sipped, coughing my way back to life as I peered at the women standing next to me, then at the camera in the corner. A thought ricocheted throughout my brain. Was it Neil watching from the lair? Was I secretly being taped for a reprise of
Living the Royal Life
? Or maybe I was being hazed. Maybe this wasn’t about a case at all.

Except Manny wasn’t fraternity material and practical jokes weren’t his style. No, this had to be real.

Despite being “perfect” and getting a “bravo” from Victoria on my routine, I suddenly felt frumpy and ten pounds overweight. The size eight—occasionally size ten—hips that were so fantastic this morning when I pulled on my pants now felt
way
too curvy.

I poked a finger in my ear, wiggling it around, glancing at Reilly. Was she as shocked by this dog and pony show as I was?

She was riveted, like she was watching a
telenova
in living color. I bet she’d loved
Living the Royal Life
. Sadie, on the other hand, studied her fingernails, although I could practically see the steam billowing from her ears. She was not so entranced by the celebrity in the room.

I sputtered. “I’m sorry, did you say a Courtside Dancer? So this
is
an undercover assignment?”

“That’s right,” Victoria said. “My husband has just hired this agency”—she paused and laid a delicate hand on Manny’s arm—“and you going undercover was your boss’s idea, actually. Which means you’ll have to train as one of our dancers. It’s every girl’s dream,” she added, as if that was supposed to mean it should be my dream, too, and I should suddenly feel like Cinderella.

I bit back telling her that my dream had always been to be a private investigator, brought home by the undercover surveillance I’d done of one Jack Callaghan and Greta Pritchard doing the mamba in his car when we’d been teenagers. I’d always wanted Jack to do that with me. It hadn’t happened yet, but when it did…
ooh-la-la
.

Cheerleading? Not even close to one of my dreams.

When I want something, I get it. When I need something, I get it. I’m a doer, not a cheerer of other doers.

“I’m sorry. What did you say your name was?” Since we hadn’t actually been introduced. The two women glided back to their chairs and I fought the vertigo that settled over me. I’d become Alice in Wonderland and this was the rabbit hole.

“Victoria Wolfe,” she purred. “Director of the Courtside Dancers.”

The man stepped forward, right hand extended. “And I’m Lance Wolfe. Victoria’s husband and”—he paused, then continued with emphasis—“co-owner of the Royals.”

The smile that had been lacing Manny’s lips vanished. Because he hadn’t known the woman he was flirting with was married—and that Lance was her husband? Certainly not. Manny was too smart not to have known that. Because Victoria had removed her hand from his arm? Or because Lance held on to mine, clasping it so that he had me in a hand lock?

Hard to say, but the fact was that Victoria and Lance
were
married and she’d been making a subtle move on Macho Camacho.
¡Ay, dios!
, She was brazen, a
puta,
as my mother would say. Judging from his grip on my hands, Lance was a player, too.

They seemed perfect for each other. Manny needed to steer clear.

“This is Jennifer, and that’s Selma. They’re two of our dancers,” Lance continued, waving toward the women grinning engagingly at Manny.

I pulled my hand free as the women acknowledged me. Did they speak? Or formulate thoughts of their own?

I sank down onto a chair. The intake form in front of Sadie had her scratchy writing all over it but I couldn’t read it upside down. Sadie’s nostrils flared and her fingers curved into claws. She was about a second away from blowing a gasket.

“So why do you need someone undercover?” I asked.

Victoria sat at the head of the conference table—in Manny’s usual spot. The whir of the surveillance camera told me Neil had noticed that intrusion. Reilly’s quiet gasp told me she’d noticed, too. Sadie started and raised her lip like a tiger on the prowl, nostrils flaring, ready to pounce to protect her territory. Which, in this case, was Manny. I waited for her typical caustic remark, but it didn’t come. Another shock.

Manny stood back, arms crossed over his muscled chest, rocking back on his alligator skin cowboy boots, the lines of his jaw hard and set. He watched Victoria and Lance with sudden intensity, like he was trying to figure them out, but he let her remain in his chair.
Híjole.
This day was going to be off the Richter scale.

“One of our dancers suddenly left us. Just quit the squad without a word. No notice, no nothing,” Victoria began. “The ladies here”—she gestured toward the dancers—“have all received mysterious, somewhat threatening letters.” She pushed a small stack of envelopes toward me. “The girls think Rochelle leaving and the letters are related. They came to me—”

Lance cleared his throat again.

“—to
us
,” Victoria added. “We’ve tried to find out who’s behind them, but—”

“No luck,” Lance interrupted. “So I said we needed to hire someone to stop whoever’s messing with our girls. Their work is starting to suffer.”

“Okay,” I said, as if I understood what he meant, but all I could come up with was that the dancers’ feet were tangling during a grapevine or they were dropping their pompoms mid-cheer.

Victoria grimaced.

I was an expert at reading facial expressions. Twenty-nine years living with Magdalena Falcón Cruz had its perks. “You’d rather handle it yourself?” I asked her.

“Of course. The girls are a tight group. These letters have rattled them, understandably, but my job is to keep them focused on
their
job. An outsider poking around is going to mean disruption—”

“But we can’t afford to lose another girl,” Lance said.

So I knew why they hadn’t called the police. I had a bit of experience with the local police department in my previous cases. An image of Detective Seavers—not my biggest fan—and his comb-over popped into my head. Him lumbering around a bunch of nubile cheerleaders at a basketball game would be
muy
disruptive.

“The letters are anonymous,” Victoria continued. She brushed a hand over her taut hair before continuing. “Jennifer and Selma have each received one. No one seems to know who’s writing them or what they’re about.”

She shifted in her chair, stretching her long neck to gaze up at Manny. He met her eyes, tilting his head slightly. I watched in utter amazement as his expression seemed to soften almost imperceptibly. Victoria was striking, in a scary dancer kind of way, and I’d bet a year’s worth of lunches at Szechwan House, my all-time favorite restaurant (sacrilege if my family ever found that out, considering they owned Abuelita’s), that Manny was wishing she wasn’t married.

But as far as I knew, right now he was dating Tomb Raider Girl, aka Isabel. Surely he wouldn’t dump his model girlfriend for a married woman? Or maybe her marriage didn’t matter. I didn’t actually know what direction Manny’s moral compass pointed to on adultery.

I’d always thought he’d keep business and pleasure separate, but then again, I knew something had gone on between him and Sadie. I just didn’t know what.

I slouched in my chair, feeling like I was slipping farther down the rabbit hole, but then the attack from Sadie finally came, setting everything right again. “I’m the undercover expert,” she said, nearly spitting her words across the table. “If Dolores isn’t up for the assignment, I can certainly take it.”

The surveillance camera
zipped
, as if in laughter, and I knew Neil had caught the double entendre. He knew something had gone on between the boss and Sadie, too. He probably knew what, for that matter.