Full Service Blonde. Megan Edwards
“Iced tea,” I said. Later, when I took a sip, I realized he’d ordered the “Long Island” kind.
“You don’t have to drink it,” David said, “but I thought you could use it.”
He was right, even though it was only 11:30.
:: :: ::
At home, I was immediately tempted to zone out on beer and DVDs. I wished I didn’t have to go to the gala, but I had promised Michael and Sierra I’d play handmaiden to the celebrity guest. It was going to be Wayne Newton, but he had cancelled a week earlier. His replacement was a Cuban singer-comedian-dancer named Mirandela, and I was supposed to hold her pink guitar while she struck a photogenic pose with a decorated shovel.
God! I couldn’t help wondering why I wasn’t teaching kindergarten in Connecticut.
That always works. Whenever I picture myself wearing a denim smock and asking a roomful of five-year-olds whether they have to go “Number One or Number Two,” I come to my senses. Victoria’s demise had been a shock, but I had to get used to things like sudden death if I was going to make it as a journalist.
Limiting myself to one pale ale, I started organizing all the stuff in the box Victoria had given me. It didn’t take long to think she really might have been a victim of foul play. American Beauty’s executives and attorneys had been trying very hard to shut Victoria up. There were several cease and desist orders in one of the folders, and a restraining order requiring her to stay away from American Beauty headquarters. Newspaper articles quoting American Beauty representatives accused Victoria of pandering and illegal solicitation—an obvious smear campaign. All that effort had to be expensive. Killing her and making it look like an accident would be an effective and permanent way to silence her.
I also discovered that Victoria was in an ongoing feud with the owner of the Beavertail Ranch, a guy named Kent Freeman. He had made it clear in a couple of terse memos that he didn’t like the kind of publicity Victoria was generating for the brothel, and he had even threatened to bar her from working there. What if his next step had been to dispatch someone to take care of things?
The more I read, the more I realized that I should still write Victoria’s story. It was the least I could do for her, I thought, but I knew that was only partly true. Victoria deserved an advocate, but I was also thinking about my journalism career. Truth be told, Victoria’s story might well be more compelling now that she was dead.
Except I needed to know more, and that meant I had to find out how to reach Heather, the woman I had met at the Sekhmet Temple. She’d not only be able to answer my questions, but she’d have good reason to want to know what really happened to her business partner.
Chapter 6
Around five, I had to start worrying about how I looked. I wouldn’t have cared very much, but the San Marino, a new casino out at Lake Las Vegas, was sending a limo to pick us up. Sierra said there might be photographers because the San Marino was hoping to get some publicity for helping out the Alliance. Fortunately, I had recently acquired the most awesome little black dress in the universe, and I also had a new little plastic clip that was guaranteed to trap my hair in a perfect French twist.
I was ready at six, but the limo still hadn’t arrived twenty minutes later. Leaving me to wait for it, Michael and Sierra took off in Michael’s Jetta. I wasn’t happy about being left behind until I met the limo driver. He was about my age, and his name was Adrian. He was very apologetic about the delay.
“I was taking care of a spoiled Japanese whale,” he said, and I was grateful I’d been in Las Vegas long enough to know he wasn’t talking about a decomposing marine mammal.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “High rollers are bigger tippers than I’m going to be.”
I kind of wanted to ride in the front seat with him so we could chat, but I was afraid it might look wrong when we arrived at the gala. It turned out we could chat anyway through the window behind his head.
“Help yourself to a drink,” Adrian said as he got onto the freeway and headed north. “Because of the whale, the bar’s better stocked than usual.” What the heck, I figured, and I poured a slug from a Johnnie Walker bottle with a blue label.
“So how long you been living in Vegas?” Adrian asked.
“How do you know I’m not a native?” I said.
“You aren’t, are you?”
“No.”
“This job teaches you things,” Adrian said.
I’d finished my Scotch by the time Adrian pulled the limo up to the Astroturf in front of the white tent. I had imagined that there would be strobes flashing when I got out, but I was wrong. Nobody seemed to notice my arrival, and that was actually a good thing because when I stood up, I was suddenly aware that I hadn’t put much besides alcohol into my stomach all day.
“I’ll be over there,” Adrian said as he shut the door. He pointed to a dusty lot where other cars were parked. “We can leave any time you want to,” he added, taking my elbow. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said, but I think I was wobbling a little as I went to look for Michael.
When I found him, he was talking to David Nussbaum.
“What are you doing here?” I said. “I thought things like this were Alexandra Leonard’s beat.”
“They are, but she got food poisoning at the St. Jude’s Christmas party. So here I am.”
Just then the red-haired woman who’d been on stage at the press conference grabbed Michael’s arm. She was wearing a black cocktail dress remarkably like my own, and I could swear she’d used the same kind of clip on her hair.
“Ozzie’s here,” she said, and no further words were necessary to spirit my brother away to greet the mayor.
“Do you know who she is?” David asked as we watched them shake hands with Oswald Brightman and his wife.
“An Alliance board member, I assume.”
“Her name’s Julia Saxon,” David said, and I turned to him with my mouth open.
“Julia Saxon? Really?” The name was all over the files in Victoria’s cardboard box.
“Yeah, but lots of people have other names for her.”
“She was Victoria McKimber’s lawyer.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” David said. “Las Vegas is a very small town.” He draped his arm around my shoulders and added, “That’s why you see so many people with teeth marks on their asses.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, and my head was beginning to ache.
“I’m supposed to find Mirandela,” I said. “I’m her keeper tonight.”
“I’m not sure you have that assignment anymore,” David said, pointing to Julia again. She was greeting Mirandela and a paunchy guy in a baby blue tux as they stepped out of a lime green limo.
“I didn’t want the damn job, anyway,” I said, surprised at the flash of anger I felt. “I’ve got to go find my sister-in-law. I’m supposed to be helping her.”
My new job was to inform guests of their table assignments, and as I sat matching names with numbers, I was amazed at how many names I recognized. David was right. Las Vegas is a small town, but its global reputation makes everyone think it’s on a par with New York.
I kind of wished I could sit with David for dinner, but my assigned seat was at the head table with the board members, and David had to sit with the “press corps,” a small cadre that included the society columnist from the Herald-Dispatch and a freelance writer who hands out black business cards embossed in gold with her one and only name: Xenobia. Xenobia has got to be at least eighty-five years old. I’ve seen her at practically every opening