Double Whammy (A Davis Way Crime Caper) by Gretchen Archer Page B
Authors: Gretchen Archer
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yet.
* * *
I had to have somewhere to sleep. And now I knew I looked just like the boss’s wife, I needed something furnished, because I had no intention of sticking around long enough to find out why. There were exactly three classified ads for furnished rentals: one had to be the EconoLodge, the word kitchenette was in there, another must have been a penthouse with twelve bedrooms and four butlers, and there was one in the middle, a one-bedroom terrace condo, Gulf view, available for a six-month sublease at a reasonable price. Perfect.
Pushing my laptop aside, waving the waitress and her carafe of blistered coffee away, I flipped open my cell phone and dialed the number.
After three rings, a female answered. “Grand Palace Casino. Mr. Cole’s office.”
Of course, it would be a casino. This city was Little Vegas. “I’m calling about the condo,” I said.
Turns out, Bradley Cole was the lead of three in-house attorneys at Grand Palace.
“Wow,” I was duly impressed. “Very cool.”
“It’s really pretty dry stuff, Miss Way,” the secretary explained. “About once a week, someone walks in, pulls a banana peel out of their pocket, then hits us with a slip and fall lawsuit. Otherwise, it’s just contracts.”
“Who would ever put a banana peel in their pocket ?” I asked.
“We’re in the middle of one right now,” she said, “in which a patron claims he was poisoned by the landscaping.”
“How so?”
“He ate a bunch of trumpet lilies out front and they made him sick.”
“Well, duh.”
Like the Bellissimo, the Grand Palace’s parent company was in Las Vegas, and Mr. Cole, according to Chatty Cathy, was there, negotiating something or another, and the lease on the condo was a one-shot deal for six months only. Exactly what I was looking for.
The casino was easy enough to find (curses on you, George), because it was on the same strip as the Bellissimo, only several miles east and tucked back off the road. A nice place, the Palace: low-key, very little neon, no more than seven or eight stories high, but on almost as much property as the Bellissimo. Three hundred and eighty guest rooms to the Bellissimo’s sixteen hundred. I’d call it a boutique gambling resort. It had an itty-bitty casino floor that catered to high-rolling table players, lots of dimly lit private gaming venues off that, and according to their website, not to mention the lobby that looked like a Pro Shop, had some major golf going on.
I followed Bradley Cole’s secretary’s assistant to the condo, so I didn’t get lost. Her job must have been to safety-sample every morsel of food the kitchens prepared and log it for future food-poisoning claims—“It couldn’t have made you sick. I ate three pounds of it and I was fine” —because she was one extra-large girl, about the size and shape of Teeth. If she hadn’t had relatively small teeth, I’d swear they were siblings.
She eyed me. “You don’t take up much space, do you?”
I showed her my teeth.
“I got a leg bigger than you.”
One step into the quiet condo and I said, “I’ll take it.”
After writing a check for the first and last month’s rent, I tore it off and passed it over, and with it, I added six months to my ninety days.
“Your name is Davis Way ?” she looked up. “Like a place ?”
I flashed my teeth again.
“And there’s actually a city called Pine Apple ?”
I should get married again, and quickly. Or at least change my address.
TEN
I married Eddie the first time because I was pregnant.
My mother, who was driving my life anyway, had the whole thing done in less than two weeks. The times I opened my mouth to protest, I either lost my nerve or my breakfast. I sloshed to the police station one day in monsoon rains to confess all to my daddy (who couldn’t even look at me), but the note on the door—even his handwriting looked heartbroken—said he was
* * *
I had to have somewhere to sleep. And now I knew I looked just like the boss’s wife, I needed something furnished, because I had no intention of sticking around long enough to find out why. There were exactly three classified ads for furnished rentals: one had to be the EconoLodge, the word kitchenette was in there, another must have been a penthouse with twelve bedrooms and four butlers, and there was one in the middle, a one-bedroom terrace condo, Gulf view, available for a six-month sublease at a reasonable price. Perfect.
Pushing my laptop aside, waving the waitress and her carafe of blistered coffee away, I flipped open my cell phone and dialed the number.
After three rings, a female answered. “Grand Palace Casino. Mr. Cole’s office.”
Of course, it would be a casino. This city was Little Vegas. “I’m calling about the condo,” I said.
Turns out, Bradley Cole was the lead of three in-house attorneys at Grand Palace.
“Wow,” I was duly impressed. “Very cool.”
“It’s really pretty dry stuff, Miss Way,” the secretary explained. “About once a week, someone walks in, pulls a banana peel out of their pocket, then hits us with a slip and fall lawsuit. Otherwise, it’s just contracts.”
“Who would ever put a banana peel in their pocket ?” I asked.
“We’re in the middle of one right now,” she said, “in which a patron claims he was poisoned by the landscaping.”
“How so?”
“He ate a bunch of trumpet lilies out front and they made him sick.”
“Well, duh.”
Like the Bellissimo, the Grand Palace’s parent company was in Las Vegas, and Mr. Cole, according to Chatty Cathy, was there, negotiating something or another, and the lease on the condo was a one-shot deal for six months only. Exactly what I was looking for.
The casino was easy enough to find (curses on you, George), because it was on the same strip as the Bellissimo, only several miles east and tucked back off the road. A nice place, the Palace: low-key, very little neon, no more than seven or eight stories high, but on almost as much property as the Bellissimo. Three hundred and eighty guest rooms to the Bellissimo’s sixteen hundred. I’d call it a boutique gambling resort. It had an itty-bitty casino floor that catered to high-rolling table players, lots of dimly lit private gaming venues off that, and according to their website, not to mention the lobby that looked like a Pro Shop, had some major golf going on.
I followed Bradley Cole’s secretary’s assistant to the condo, so I didn’t get lost. Her job must have been to safety-sample every morsel of food the kitchens prepared and log it for future food-poisoning claims—“It couldn’t have made you sick. I ate three pounds of it and I was fine” —because she was one extra-large girl, about the size and shape of Teeth. If she hadn’t had relatively small teeth, I’d swear they were siblings.
She eyed me. “You don’t take up much space, do you?”
I showed her my teeth.
“I got a leg bigger than you.”
One step into the quiet condo and I said, “I’ll take it.”
After writing a check for the first and last month’s rent, I tore it off and passed it over, and with it, I added six months to my ninety days.
“Your name is Davis Way ?” she looked up. “Like a place ?”
I flashed my teeth again.
“And there’s actually a city called Pine Apple ?”
I should get married again, and quickly. Or at least change my address.
TEN
I married Eddie the first time because I was pregnant.
My mother, who was driving my life anyway, had the whole thing done in less than two weeks. The times I opened my mouth to protest, I either lost my nerve or my breakfast. I sloshed to the police station one day in monsoon rains to confess all to my daddy (who couldn’t even look at me), but the note on the door—even his handwriting looked heartbroken—said he was
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