Death by Pantyhose (17 page)

What a nightmare. But not quite as bad as the
nightmare that awaited me the next morning
when I looked in the mirror and saw my hair in
the cruel light of day. I didn't think it was possible, but it looked even worse than it had yesterday. Somehow, overnight, it had gone from
merely disgustingly bright to a pulsating, eyeballpeeling neon. I practically needed sunglasses to
brush my teeth.

No doubt about it. First thing after breakfast,
I was going to color my hair.

"I shouldn't be feeding you," I said to Prozac
as she yowled at my ankles for her breakfast.
"Not after that vile panty gag you pulled last
night."

Oh, come on. It was hysterical.

It was with a distinctly cold shoulder that I
tossed her some Luscious Lamb Guts.

Oblivious to my snub, she buried her nose in
the stuff, sucking it up with orgiastic abandon. I
left her going at it and nuked a couple of frozen
waffles for myself. Too bad I was all out of syrup.
Oh, well. I'd just have to use peanut butter.

I settled down at the computer with my
gourmet breakfast and checked my e-mails. I
knew I shouldn't open the letters from my parents, not if I wanted to enjoy my breakfast. But
curiosity got the better of me, and I read all
about Daddy's new career as a shirt thief. I only
hoped Mom-in a desperate attempt to clean
out Daddy's closets for good-wouldn't rat on
Daddy to the cops.

I polished off my waffles, trying not to think of
Daddy behind bars in his "lucky" Hawaiian shirt,
and was just about to head off to the bathroom
to dye my hair when the doorbell rang.

It was Lance, dressed for work in one of his
impeccably tailored suits.

"Oh, my God!" he gasped when I opened the
door. "Who colored your hair? Sherwin
Williams?"

"Thanks, and good morning to you, too."

"What monster did this to you?" he asked,
running his fingers through my frizz.

"Gustavo. "

"Gustavo Mendes? The A-list Gustavo? The
one everybody's raving about? That Gustavo?"

"None other."

"I don't believe it."

"I didn't either."

"Well, you can't possibly live with it this way."

"I know. I was just about to color it."

I showed him my bottle of Tawny Breeze.

"No way," he said, snatching the bottle from
my hands. "You're not doing it yourself. You're
going back to Gustavo and make him fix it."

"Oh, no I'm not," I said, still burning at the
memory of how I'd melted under Gustavo's
withering glare. "He happens to be a very intimidating guy."

"He can't intimidate me," Lance said, his
blond curls shaking with indignation. "I'll go
back with you. I'm not afraid of any `A-list' hairdresser."

Standing there, his jaw clenched in anger, he
looked every inch a designer-clad avenging
angel.

"Well, okay," I said. "If you really think it'll
work. "

"Of course it'll work. The guy won't know
what hit him."

We made a date to meet the next day at Gustavo's salon, and Lance hurried off to do battle
with the shoe divas at Neiman's.

Having abandoned my plans to color my hair, I
settled down on the sofa with the Sunday newspaper. Splashed on the front page of the Calendar section was a story about Vic, one of those
death-of-a-rising-star tributes, filled with insincere
quotes from Hollywood types eager to get their
names in print.

Seeing that story jolted me back to reality.
Dorcas may not have been front-page news anymore, but that didn't change the fact that she
was still festering away in jail. And I still had no
idea who the killer was. I had to stop obsessing
about my hair and get back on the case.

So far, none of the suspects I'd visited seemed like encouraging prospects. But what about
Pebbles, the jilted lover? I remembered the look
of rage on her face when Vic announced his engagement to Regan. I could easily picture her
wringing Vic's neck.

Yes, it was time to pay Pebbles a little visit.

I tried getting her number from information
but she wasn't listed. I'd have to wait until the
Laff Palace opened and talk to her then.

I spent the rest of the day hanging around my
apartment waiting in vain for Andrew to call,
then shoved my Day-Glo mop in a baseball cap
and headed over to the Laff Palace for a little
tete-a-tete with Cute, but Psycho.

Pebbles was nowhere in sight when I showed
up at the club. But Pete the bartender was on
duty behind the bar, wiping glasses with his
filthy dishrag.

His eyes lit up at the sight of me.

"Hey, doll. How's it going?"

"Er. .. fine, thanks."

"Grab a seat and chat a while. Sundays are always slow. I'll bring you a complimentary tap
water."

"I'd better not. I'm driving."

"Haha," he grinned, exposing the gap in his
front teeth. "I like a woman with a sense of
humor. That was a joke, right?"

"Sort of, yes."

"Say, you look cute in that baseball cap," he
said, staring a good two feet below my baseball
cap at my boobs.

"I like my women athletic, too," he added,
with a wink. "Especially in bed."

Oh, good heavens. Any minute now, I was
going to need a barf bag.

"Is Holly here?" I asked.

"Nope. She's off tonight."

"Too bad. I wanted to talk to her."

"About Vic's murder?"

"Yes. How did you know?"

"Spiro told me you were investigating. He
says you think Dorcas is innocent."

"I do."

He plucked a maraschino cherry from a
none too clean garnish tray and held it out to
me. "Want one?"

Not without a tetanus shot.

I shook my head, and he popped it in his
mouth.

"So if Dorcas didn't do it," he asked, "who
did?"

"For all I know, you did. There certainly wasn't
any love lost between you and Vic."

"You're barking up the wrong bartender,
doll. Sure, I thought the guy was a jerk, but I
didn't wring his neck with a pair of pantyhose."

Then he popped the stem of the cherry in his
mouth and ate that, too.

"Speaking of those pantyhose," I said, "did
you happen to see anybody go near Dorcas's
prop bag that night? Somebody who could've
stolen the hose?"

"No," he said, furrowing his caveman brow in
concentration, "I don't think so. Frankly, I was
distracted."

"By what?"

"By you, sweetcakes. You're hot."

Ugh. Why are the ghastly ones always attracted to me?

"You know, I've always wanted to date a private eye. I have a thing for women in law enforcement."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah. I once dated my parole officer."

Time for a quick change of subject.

"So do you happen to know where Holly
lives?"

"Yeah, I happen to know."

"Would you mind telling me?"

"That depends."

"On what?"

"On whether or not you'll go out with me."

"I can't go out with you, Pete. I'm engaged."

"I don't mind. I like a challenge."

"To a woman," I said, using the usually foolproof lesbian rebuff.

"Even better. I also like a threesome."

What did I have to do to get rid of this guy?
Tell him I had leprosy?

"Sorry, Pete. I'm just not available."

"Well, if you change your mind. . .

He took out a greasy business card from his
back pocket and handed it to me. It read:

PETE DEL AMo

BARTENDER, BOUNCER AND X-RATED VIDEO SALES

Talk about your renaissance men.

"Call me any time," he leered, "day or night."

File that one under When Hell Freezes Over.

"So can you tell me where Holly lives?" I
asked.

"Sure, why not?"

He wrote down Holly's address in a childish scrawl on a cocktail napkin and shot me another one of his gap-toothed grins.

"Now you owe me one, hotcakes."

Oh, yuck. Where the heck was that barf bag?

Holly answered the door to her West Hollywood apartment in shorts and a cropped T-shirt,
exposing a washboard tummy and a waist the
size of Pete's neck.

"Well, well," she said, tossing her ponytail. "If
it isn't the lady writer-detective."

Obviously word traveled fast on the Laff
Palace grapevine.

She ushered me in to her living room, a funky
affair decorated in what I can only describe as
Early Chuck E. Cheese. Her color scheme was an
eye-popping hot pink and lime green, with big
fuzzy beanbags scattered on the floor. Any
minute now, I expected a bunch of five-year-olds
to come bursting in for a birthday party.

"Have a seat." She gestured to one of the
beanbags.

I scrunched down onto it, wrenching at least
five different muscles en route.

"Hope you don't mind if I do my nails while
we talk," she said, plopping down on a beanbag
across from me. She reached for ajar of nail polish and began polishing her nails a hideous
chartreuse.

"By the way," she said, "what happened to
your hair? What a disgusting color."

Look who's talking, I wanted to say. Have you
looked at your apartment lately ?

"You ought to sue whoever did that to you for malpractice. You want the name of a good attorney? I know a great guy. Hector Ramirez. He got
me five hundred dollars after I developed ingrown hair follicles from a botched bikini wax. I
don't remember his number, but he advertises a
lot on the back of buses."

"Thanks for the tip." I smiled as if I were
grateful, then got down to business. "Do you
mind if I ask a few questions about the murder?"

"Like what?"

"Like where you were when Vic was killed."

She looked up from her pinky and frowned.

"I don't have to answer that, you know. But I
will because I've got nothing to hide. I was
home, sleeping."

"Alone? "

"Not that it's any of your business, but yes."

"Not exactly an ironclad alibi."

"What are you saying? That I killed Vic?"

"I don't know. I do know that you had a
strong motive."

"Motive? What motive?"

She tried to look like she had no idea what I
was talking about.

"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

"Huh?"

"It's a quote from Shakespeare."

"Yeah, well, here's another quote: Screw-eth
you.

She went back to painting her nails, applying
polish with short angry strokes.

"Look, Peb-I mean, Holly. I heard you talking to Vic outside the supply room. I know you
were having an affair with him. I know you expected him to leave Allison for you. And I know
you were furious when he dumped both of you for his new agent. If looks could kill, you'd be
behind bars now."

She gave me a filthy look (much like the one
she'd given Vic) and then started blowing at her
nails.

"Okay," she said finally, after she tired of the
huffing and puffing bit, "so I was sleeping with
the guy. Big deal. So was half of Los Angeles.
That doesn't mean I killed him." She stuck her
chin out defiantly. "And you can't prove that I
did."

She screwed her nail polish shut with a tight
twist.

"Now if you don't mind, I've got to get
dressed. I've got a date tonight."

So much for mourning Vic.

`Just one more question," I asked, as she hustled me to the door. "Did you happen to see anybody near Dorcas's tote bag the night Vic was
killed?"

"As a matter of fact, I did."

"Really?"

My ears perked up. At last, a lead.

"While Dorcas was strangling Vic, I saw
Manny bending over her bag."

"Manny? Manny Vernon?"

I remembered Vic's former agent, the rumpled guy with the bad comb-over.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. I know what I saw, and I saw
Manny bent over that bag."

ost people think of Hollywood as a glitzy
-place with a movie star on every corner.
Wrong. The real Hollywood is about as glitzy as a
cold pizza. And the only people hanging out on
street corners charge by the hour.

The Manny Vernon Agency was in the heart
of this Hollywood, light-years away from the
showbiz power brokers of Beverly Hills.

I tracked down the address on the business
card he'd given me, but at first all I saw was a
storefront for the Taboo Tattoo Parlor. Then I
noticed a small hand-lettered sign in the corner
of Taboo's window reading: THE MANNY VERNON
AGENCY, 2 ND FLOOR.

Hurrying past the yelps of pain coming from
the tattoo parlor, I trudged up a termite-eaten
flight of stairs. Another hand-lettered sign
tacked to one of the doors announced that I was
at Manny's office. I knocked on the door, but
there was no answer. I poked my head inside
and saw a deserted reception area. Its only occu pants were an ancient Mr. Coffee machine and
a secretary's desk. I surmised from the layers of
dust on the desk that there was no actual secretary on duty.