Hali grins at me. “You attract trouble?”
“No!”
Marissa snickers. “She put the ‘bur’ in burdock.”
Now, the last thing I felt like being was the new definition for one of Miss Pilson's vocabulary words. And I certainly didn't see myself as “nature's very own Velcro hooks,” so I turn to Marissa and snap, “Stop that! You know why I didn't tell the police!”
Hali's eyebrows creep up. “Yeah? And why would that be?”
Before I can stop her, Marissa says, “Sammy thought her mother killed LeBrandi.”
“Marissa!”
“Oh, please, Sammy. It's the most ridiculous thought you've ever had, and you've had some really wild ones!” She turns back to Hali. “Her mom got up to take some aspirin at the same time Sammy heard something banging around next door. So of course Sammy thinks her mother—who's got the muscles of a mouse—went next door to kill LeBrandi.”
Hali shakes her head at me. “Why?”
My little backseat mouthpiece answers for me. “Cause Sammy's mom is desperate to get the part of Jewel because it'll get her out of marrying Max.”
Hali bit the inside of one cheek, then the other. “It's got a certain desperate logic to it.”
I was glaring at Marissa, but it was no use. She just shakes her head at me and says, “Sammy, it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. She may have changed, but not that much! Now can we please go in there and show that guy the pictures? I'm getting claustrophobic back here!”
Hali opens her door to let Marissa out, saying, “You want me to come in the shop with you?”
I shake my head. “Nah. That's okay.”
Marissa squeezes out, and Hali says, “I don't really think you should go in there solo.”
I grab the pictures and get out, too. “Don't you think that would look kinda, you know, suspicious, having you escort us?”
Hali checks around and decides that for an illegal parking spot, this one'll work just fine. She says, “Well, I'm at least gonna walk you up there,” and when we round the corner onto Hollywood Boulevard, she adds, “How about I give you five and then come in?”
I shrug and say, “Ignore us, though, okay?”
She grins at me. “You're pretty pro for a kid, Burdock.”
The dirty look I gave her was completely wasted. She was way too busy laughing it up with Marissa to notice.
Near Cosmo's Curios I rearranged the photos so the head shots were upside down on Claire's picture, then put them in the crook of one arm like a schoolbook.
Hali hangs back and whispers, “See you in five. Don't get yourself killed in the meantime.”
We nod, then head past the last set of barred windows and whoosh right through Cosmo's steel door.
It felt like we'd walked through a portal into a different world. Outside we were looking at a jail cell, but inside, Cosmo's was like a high-end jewelry store that had been dropped inside a gallery of exotic pieces of art.
I nudge Marissa and nod across the store at the row of spotless glass showcases. “Maybe the necklace and ring are up there!”
Marissa glances at the jewelry cases and the white velvet vanity stools in front of them, then clasps her hands behind her back and pretends to inspect a shiny brass Aladdin lamp. She fakes a smile and says between her teeth, “We're not exactly dressed for success, Sammy. Don't start snooping, okay? Just ask!”
“Sorry, girls. That one's genie got away.” The voice was deep and gruff but friendly. Like a big brown bear chuckling over his own joke. The man came from behind the counter and approached us, saying, “Is it three wishes you're after? Or can I help you with something real?”
He was big, but dressed just right for velvet cushions. Black slacks, high-gloss shoes, starched white shirt with cuff links, and a blousy purple tie. The only thing that gave away that he was playing a part was his hair. It was black, really thick, and greased back. Which would have gone with the rest of him just fine, except there were little flecks of dust or lint or something all through it, and the wide grooves that ran from front to back looked very rough. Like he'd combed his hair with a pinecone.
I smiled and said, “Actually, I only need one wish.”
“Oh?” One eyebrow went up, but the other stayed put. Like maybe he'd be better off not knowing.
“Yeah. And I was told you might be able to help.”
The second eyebrow didn't budge. “How's that?”
“It's my mother.”
“Your mother?”
I let out a heavy sigh and whispered, “She's got amnesia, and she's disappeared.”
He looks me in the eye, and I guess in my mind there was enough truth to what I was saying to convince him. He nods and says, “And why do you think ol' Cos can help?”
“Because a guy in a store up the street said he was sure he'd seen her in this neighborhood. Would you mind looking at a few pictures?”
He shrugs and says, “Sure, why not?”
So I walk over to the jewelry cases and spread out the three head shots. “Do any of these people look familiar?”
Just then the door whooshes open and Hali comes in. Cosmo sizes up her flip-flops and toe rings and keeps half an eye on her as she starts browsing. “Why you got three different women here?” he asks me.
“Just to make sure.”
He considers this, then plops a thick index finger right on Opal's nose. “This your mom?”
I let out a big sigh, then try to sound desperate. “So she was here? Did she say anything? Anything at all about me or maybe my grandmother?”
He shakes his head. “Sorry, kid.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“Not about anything like that.”
“My poor grandmother. She's so upset! On top of the amnesia and her disappearing, Grams is afraid my mom stole some of her jewelry.” I could see him stiffen up, but there was no stopping now. I held out Claire's picture and said, “See this? This is my grandmother back when she got married, and the jewels she's wearing are family heirlooms. They're, like, centuries old. My grandmother's worried sick that my mother's pawned them for cash.”
Hali had sashayed around to the jewelry counter and was about fifteen feet away from us, leaning over a case, looking very interested.
Ol' Cos puts up a stiff little smile and shakes his head. “I'm sorry. I can't help you there.”
He's edging away, but I tag right along. “You probably can't tell from the picture, but the stones are red. Are you sure she didn't try to get you to buy the necklace or maybe the ring?”
He shakes his head and says, “You might try the Jewelry Connection. It's three blocks down the street. She might've gone there.” He eyes Hali and whispers, “Now if you'll excuse me, I have to attend to my paying customers.”
I can tell from the way he's acting that he's lying. He's seen that necklace, or my name's Helen Keller. So I follow him, saying, “But if she didn't try to sell them to you, then why did she come in here? Look, we're not going to call the police or anything, I just want to find her and get my grandmother's jewels back.” I touch his arm and say, “Look, I know you've got them. So why don't you tell me where they are?”
Hali grins at me from across the room. “Hey, school-girls! They're right over here.”
Pinecone-head looks from her to me a couple of times, then says, “What is this?”
Hali smiles, sits right down on one of his velvety stools, and crosses her legs. “It could be a bust if you want to keep on creepin' on. But if you decide to adopt a conscience and hand these baubles over, then we'll be out of here with a quick case of amnesia ourselves.”
I felt like saying, Wait! No! There's a murder involved here, don't promise him that! but before I could figure out what to say, he snaps, “I paid her good money for those. How was I supposed to know they were hot?”
Hali's got no sympathy. “It's your business to know, bucko.”
He whips around to face me. “Your mother's got amnesia … what a con artis
t!” He moves behind the counter and says to Hali, “If you think I'm just going to hand these over to you…”
Hali smiles at him and says, “Oh, you will. 'Cause you know that the wad you blew buyin' them is a lot smaller than the one you'd pay a lawyer to defend you in a court of law.” She digs through her purse and pulls up a cell phone. “Your destiny's just a nine-one-one away.”
He doesn't budge, so she pushes a button on her phone. Beep. “Nine …”
“Now, listen to me!”
She pushes again. “One …”
He lets out a chain of cusswords long enough to circle the block, but he opens the case and throws the jewels at us. “Get out of here, you hear me? Get out of here!”
We scamper up the street, around the corner, and back to the Bug, and the minute we're safe inside, Hali whoops and puts out her hands for us to slap. “You two were smooth! Amnesia … what a trip! I can't believe it—he just handed them over!” She holds the necklace out and whispers, “This thing must be worth a pretty penny.”
I snatch it from her and say, “Don't even think about it. It belongs to Max.”
She scowls and says, “Like he doesn't owe me some-thing? What are you going to do? Just hand it back to him on a silver platter?”
“I don't know how or when I'm going to give it back, but I am going to give it back.” I wiggle my hand at her. “Now hand over the ring.”
She says, “Aw, man!” but she digs it out of her purse and gives it to me. “Like I'd want to have anything that was Claire's anyway.” She cranks on the motor, muttering, “Poor Mama.”
I hand the jewels over the seat to Marissa and ask, “Because he never married her?”
“Because,” she said, flipping a U-turn, “Mama's lived in Claire's shadow all these years. He told her he could never marry again. Ha!”
“Why did she keep working for him?”
Hali squealed onto the street. “Get this—because she loves him. Can you believe that? Says she always has. She thought one day he'd do the right thing.”
After Hali had merged into traffic I said, “You know, I wasn't really expecting to get the jewels back. I just wanted to find out if Opal really stole them, before I went and talked to her.”
“To Opal? How you gonna do that?”
I gave her an apologetic smile. “We were hoping that maybe the Tinsel Town Taxi would be running that way?”
She scowled at me so long I thought she was going to rear-end the car in front of us. “And where might ‘that way’ be?”
I tried to make it sound light and fun. “Ever heard of the Peppermint Peacock?”
One look at her face and I knew that she had.
THIRTEEN
The Peppermint Peacock made the Heavenly Hotel look like a charming little bed-and-breakfast.
Hali tucked the Bug into a loading zone across the street while Marissa and I gawked at the dirty brick building with GIRLS-GIRLS-GIRLS slashed in lavender and pink across it.
The building is solid brick, so there are no windows to go snooping in, and you can't even see the front door because it's set way back from the sidewalk. The brick walls curve into a kind of tunnel that leads under a turquoise PEPPERMINT PEACOCK awning straight into darkness.
Hali lets the car idle and says, “No action there this time of day.”
It did look dead, but I didn't want to give up yet. “Tammy made it sound like Opal lives here.”
“Really? Maybe in one of those rooms upstairs?” Hali shakes her head and mutters, “She could've done better than that.”
I lean clear across Hali to see what she's talking about. Sure enough, planted on the building like a top hat on a red rhinoceros are two floors finished in stucco. Dirty white stucco with streaks of rust running from the corners of the windows. And the windows are all cloudy. Like the glass has been washed with acid.
Marissa whispers, “I think we're in a little deep here, Sammy.”
No kidding.
But I felt a little braver for having Hali around, so I said, “You want to cruise around back? There's got to be some other way in and out.”
Hali grinds into gear, then cuts through traffic. “I'm game if you are.”
There was another way in. Actually, two. We putted along an alley lined with garbage cans on one side and a graffitied cinder-block wall on the other, and when we got to the red brick of the Peppermint Peacock we saw a set of oily cement steps going down into a basement and a zigzag of rickety fire-escape stairs leading up to the floors above.
There's no place to park without blocking the alley, so Hali winds up going onto the side street, saying, “We could come back after they open if you want to.”
Marissa says, “Why don't we just call?”
I didn't want to do either of those things. I wanted to see Opal. Now. “You guys can wait here. I'll just go knock on that basement door and see if anyone answers. Then maybe I'll try around front.”
Hali rolls her eyes. “Right, Burdock. Like I'm gonna let you do that.”
“Look, I just want to find out if she's here or not.”
Marissa mutters, “And you can't do that by calling?”
We sat there in limbo for a minute, then finally Hali pops up a low curb, drives along the sidewalk for a few yards, and squeezes the Bug onto a patch of dirt next to a dilapidated fence. She sighs and says, “Okay. Let's go knock.”
I smile at her and say, “Thanks!” and even though Marissa does grumble something about the glitz and glamour of Garbage Boulevard, she gets out of the car and follows us down the alley.
When we're about thirty feet from the building, we see a man's head, then his shoulders, then the rest of him bob up the basement steps. His skin's dark like Hali's, and he's wearing a white apron loosely tied over a T-shirt and black jeans, and in each hand is a Hefty sack, heavy with garbage.
He swings the sacks into a garbage can, and as we get closer I can see that his hair is woven with gray and that his eyes look cloudy. Like the windows overhead.
He completely ignores us. And for a minute I thought maybe his eyes were so bad that he couldn't really see us. But as he heads back down the steps, Hali says, “Excuse me?” and he stops, turns, and stares at us. And that's when it hits me—these aren't eyes that can't see. They're eyes that don't want to see.
He doesn't say a word. He just stands there, two steps down, his gaze fixed on Hali.
Hali hesitates, then says, “We're here to see our friend Opal. She up?”
His head jerks enough to mean Follow me, then down he goes, through the basement door.
We hurry after him, and the minute we're inside, he clangs the door closed and rotates a metal latch, locking the door. The ceiling is low, with ductwork and plumbing running on the brick walls and overhead, and there's only one bare bulb for lighting. Straight ahead are wooden stairs leading up to a doorway. He goes up, and so do we.
Now, when Tammy had mentioned the Peppermint Peacock, I'd thought that it was a funny name. A colorful name. Bright. Snappy. Kind of, I don't know, tangy. But stepping through the doorway at the top of the stairs and into the main room of the Peppermint Peacock, I saw there was nothing bright or snappy about it. It was a cave with black booths and grimy maroon carpet, and the air was damp and sour with stagnant smoke and body odor and beer. It felt suffocating. Like being caught in the grip of a giant sweaty armpit.
Hali says, “There she is,” and nods across the room at Opal, sitting alone at the bar, cupping a mug of coffee in her hands. Her hair's clipped back in a tangle of ratty curls, and she's staring off into space. “I suppose you want me to hang back?”
“No, you can come. That's probably better. But can you let me tell her about LeBrandi?”
She shrugs. “Sure.”
The three of us approach the bar, and I can see Opal snap out of her thoughts and start watching us in the reflection of a giant mirror on the other side of the bar. And you can tell that when she recognizes Hali, she can't quite believe it's her. First she blin
ks into the mirror, then she turns on her stool and almost smiles. “Hali?”
“In the flesh, girl.”
“But …” She eyes us and says, “You taken up babysitting?”
“Don't be frosty, now. We just got here.”
Opal looks around and says, “This ain't exactly a place to take kids.”
“You got it backward, snowflake. They're the ones escorting me.”
Opal blinks at her a minute, then looks at us. “Is that so?”
I nod at her, and she smiles at me. Like I'm some dumb little kitten who's come to the counter for milk. She slaps the stool next to her and says, “Well, tell me what's brought you to this fine establishment. Auntie Opal's all ears.”
I sit down and watch her face very carefully as I say, “Actually, we're here on account of LeBrandi.”
Her eyebrows go way up. “LeBrandi? She told you to look me up? For what?”
She didn't fidget. Or look away. She just stared at me, waiting for an answer.
Very quietly I said, “We're here because LeBrandi's dead.”
Her face fell. Just bottomed out. Then her eyes got wider and wider, and she looked from Hali to Marissa and then back to me. “Dead? How can that be?”
“She was murdered.”
“Murdered? When? By who?”
I kept my eyes right on her. “We figured by you.”
That popped her to her feet. She pointed to herself and cried, “By me?” Then she shakes her head and says, “What are you talking about?”
Now, either she's a much better actress than my mother gave her credit for, or she doesn't know a thing about LeBrandi. So I decide to find out what she looks like when she is lying. “Why don't you tell us about the jewels?”
“The …” Her face clams up. Presto! It's calm and flat. Colorless. Like a pancake that's been cooked on a cooling griddle. “What jewels?”