“Geez, Dix, what’s wrong? You look all shook up.” Mrs. Presley winked and elbowed me hard. “Get it...‘all shook up’?”
“Yeah, I get it Mrs. P.”
For a woman who day in and day out worked below a sign that emphatically told the world she was not related to Elvis, Mrs. Presley had no qualms about stealing a line to get a good laugh. Even if it was her own good laugh.
God, I liked this woman.
We were sitting side by side on the lone bed in Room 111 of the Underhill Motel. This was her ‘special’ room, reserved for ‘special guests’. For the drop of a few quarters, the bed would start vibrating. The lampshades were red and when the lights were on, cast a red haze around the room. There were mirrors on every wall and built into the headboard of the bed. And I’d bet anything that the light fixture hanging from the ceiling would support the swinging weight of at least one nimble person. Hell, the toilet seats were even padded! (God, I hated the deflating sounds those things made when you sat on them, but far be it from me to complain.)
But that’s not what made Room 111 special. What made it special was its location, far away from the street at the other end of the motel, with a view that was unobstructed by trees or other structures. A person could keep a pretty good watch on traffic in and out of the motel—be that traffic irate husbands/boyfriends, johns, or in my case, the cops.
But even better, Room 111 had a secret back door. Not one with a doorknob, but a hidden one in the back of the never-used closet. A solid hip to the left of it, and it would open, but only when unlocked from the other side. That back door just happened to lead to a narrow, unlit hallway, low-ceilinged but straight. Those in the know (and few of us were) knew that there was a small penlight stashed up over the doorway. And that passageway led right into Mrs. Presley’s kitchen, and thence to the outside via a private exit.
Room 111 was always the last to be rented out. And the door was locked to most clientele, who were unwitting of its existence. But I knew for a fact that at least two women had escaped from abusive ex-husbands that way. And here was the best part—if anyone unwanted were foolish enough to find and burst through that hidden door, they’d receive a lovely how-do-you-do from one of Mrs. Presley’s hulking sons at the other end of it, neither of whom would have qualms about beating the crap out of an intruder. Those boys were just that protective of their mom.
“I don’t want to get you into trouble, Mrs. Presley,” I’d said, when I’d landed on her doorstep. “But holy shit, I’m in trouble!”
She’d raised an eyebrow. “Cops after you?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “ I can understand if you don’t want to—”
“Trouble? Ah hell, we all have troubles. Quit complaining! You need a room? I got a room. That’s it; case closed.”
No need to sign the register. She just slipped me the key.
I slipped her a couple hundred from the Jennifer Weatherby advance, which Mrs. Presley promptly pocketed behind her pencil-pen-pencil combination. She was a businesswoman, after all. But I know Mrs. Presley, if I’d come there flat broke and on my ass, there’d be the same room and the same hospitality for me.
And yes, the same old Elvis jokes.
With a gentle suggestion that I might want a shower (okay, more like a ‘phew, you really stink’), Mrs. Presley left me. She took the back door, the one that led directly through her apartment and out. She was short enough so that she didn’t have to stoop to pass through, and knew the route well enough she didn’t bother with a light.
“Usually, I lock this door, but sometimes I forget,” she said with an obvious wink. “I’ll send that handsome young assistant of yours through when he gets here.”
If anyone happened to see Dylan enter the Underhill Motel, they’d only know he entered the main lobby and he’d exit from the same. They’d not see him entering Room 111.
As if in afterthought Mrs. Presley added, “Oh, and when you get in that shower—and I hope that’s soon—stick those old clothes in the passage, I’ll send Cal or Craig down to get them and throw them in the wash for you. I’ll have ’em back in an hour.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Presley.”
She headed for the closet/back door and gave it a hip check that would have taken out Tai Domi. “Take care, Dix. I mean that. And you get your ass down that hallway double time if you need help. Me and my boys’ll be home all night.”
The door snapped back into place as she left—back into near invisibility. And I let out a shaky breath I hadn’t even known I was holding. And when I took a breath back in—holy shit—even I had to grimace.
Mrs. Presley was right. I did need that shower.
I stripped from my standard uniform—jeans, t-shirt, granny panties and sports bra. I hipchecked the door open and quickly (as in I’m naked here, quickly) shoved the soiled clothes into the hallway to await retrieval by one of the Presley boys. Then I ran into the bathroom, closed the door and ran the water as hot as I could.
The warmth of the water felt amazing. I shampooed my hair twice, emptying the little hotel bottle of shampoo, and scrubbed every inch of me for a good ten minutes. With the side of my hand, I wiped clear the bathroom mirror, and I combed out my long blond hair. Despite having opened the lone, small window, the bathroom was steamy when I’d finished. Hot. And when I let myself out, despite the terrycloth bathrobe Mrs. Presley had provided, the cool air hit me.
I grabbed the remote and clicked on the room’s small TV, not at all surprised to find it tuned to a program that gave new meaning to the phrase ‘love triangle’. Hell, I was never that flexible. Quickly... well within an hour... I clicked to another channel, one that displayed the time. It was just after two o’clock. Dylan wouldn’t be along for hours, possibly not until after dark. And I knew better than to be out and about in Marport City. Every cop in town would be seeking my hide. I’d leave the TV on, volume muted. When I awoke, it would be easier to open one bleary eye to check the time than to move an actual major muscle to reach for my watch on the nightstand.
With the shower, the heat, and the coziness of the bathrobe, that bed looked damn inviting, despite its garish red bedcover. Of course, a reasonably clean floor would look inviting, considering I’d been sleeping in spurts of about 40 minutes since I embarked on the surveillance of Ned Weatherby just one week ago. I removed the bedcover, revealing red sheets beneath. Figured. I folded the bedspread and dropped it on the lone chair in the room. I tossed the heavy, warm quilt Mrs. Presley had provided over me.
“I’ll just snooze for a little while,” I mumbled, crawling into the sea of red.
Of course this was the logical choice, I assured myself, closing my eyes. Just until Dylan came.
Dylan. The thought of him was comforting to me. I wanted to see him. Okay, I’ll admit it, I really wanted to see him. I couldn’t wait to see him.
Strictly professional, I assured myself. You’re just tired and anxious to get working on the case and find out what he knows and needing a coffee and horny as a sailor on shore leave...
My eyes opened wide.
It’s been a long, lonnng time since I’d been with a man. Okay, if I was honest with myself, it had been a long time since I’d wanted to be with a man. Not that I didn’t have the physical desires—hell, I wasn’t dead. But it had been a long time since I’d thought of one specific man in that way. A long time since I had allowed myself, if only for the briefest moment, to think that way...
Geez, snap out of it, Dix.
But whatever I was feeling—however I got there and however I justified it, professionally or completely unprofessionally— I couldn’t deny the end result. I wished Dylan were here. He would be soon. As I drifted off to sleep, I allowed myself the self-indulgence of thinking of him.
But only for a moment, because wrapped in the snuggliness of the soft housecoat, I wasn’t long drifting off.
I dreamed of being back in high school, wandering the hallways in my PJs while the cool kids looked on. Then I was riding an es
calator wearing just a pair of old blue fuzzy slippers. That morphed into the one where I was riding an elevator that just wouldn’t stop on the damn floor I needed. Okay, normal dreams. But then the dream elevator finally stopped on the floor I wanted. The door opened. And it didn’t surprise me that she was there again. There to taunt and torment me. The Flashing Fashion Queen.
I stared at her. She stood on one side of the elevator threshold, and I stood within it. Her back was to me. Why could I never see her face clearly?
“Hiya Dixie,” she said, her voice gritty.
“Still got that throaty thing going on, I see. Maybe you should see a doctor.” But for what? A polyp on the larynx or a sex change?
“You’re concerned about me! How sweeeet.”
Even as I slept, I could feel my blood beginning to boil. “Concerned? Not a chance. The only thing I’m concerned about is that your stint in jail is nice and long.”
“But you’ll have to catch me first, Dix Dodd. And I bet you can’t.” She waved a backward hand at me.
“I’d be careful on what bets I placed,” I goaded. “After all, I’m not in jail, and I know you wagered that I would be.”
She huffed. “That’s just a technicality. You’ll be there soon enough.”
“Still think you’re too smart for me, Blondie?”
She laughed. “Oh, I know it, honey. If I didn’t, then why would I—”
Quick as lighting, I reached and grabbed her. I jumped that quickly and that forcefully and grabbed this dream apparition. In my dream, I tossed her down onto the elevator floor beside me. No way in hell was she getting away this time. Not until I had some answers. Not until I saw her face. Not until—
“Dix! Wake up.”
And in that instant, murky turned to clear-as-glass as I awoke and discovered that I’d not pulled my nemesis down beside me after all.
It was Dylan who lay there in the red-sheeted bed beside me, eyes wide, his t-shirt pulled taut in my white-knuckled grip.
“You must have been dreaming, Dix,” he said.
“Yeah. I... I was.”
“Her again?”
I nodded, and released my grip on his shirt. I braced myself for the whiplash effect that would ensue as he jumped off the bed like it was on fire.
But he didn’t jump up off the bed in a hurry. He didn’t jump off the bed at all. He didn’t run away screaming. Dylan didn’t do any of those things. He hadn’t when I’d grabbed his shirt and hauled him down beside me. And damn—oh freakin’ freakin’ damnity damn damn damn!—not even when I leaned over and kissed him.
So much for wildest dreams.