The Bad Always Die Twice (17 page)

Nikki groaned and dropped the menu on the table. Several patrons were looking their way. A teenager in an Ohio high school band t-shirt held up her cell phone to take a picture and Elvis posed for her.

He slid into Nikki’s booth, across the table from her. He looked good. The way he had in his early days before the booze, women and drugs caught up with him. He was sporting a perfect pompadour that was his own inky hair, not a wig.

“E.” She smiled for old times’ sake.

“Nikki.” He met her gaze, the right side of his upper lip slightly upturned, then he looked away. “Hey, little lady,” he called to the waitress who was two tables over. “Can you get us some coffees?”

“Water for me,” Nikki corrected. She didn’t need the caffeine; she was hyper enough as it was. She looked back at her half-brother seated across the table. “You look good.” She nodded, indicating the gold suit. “
King Creole,
right?”

He snapped his fingers, giving her that familiar Elvis smile that was so spot-on, it was eerie. “Oh, you’re good. It takes most people a few tries to get this one right. They all like the white jumpsuits. I hate the jumpsuits.”

She shrugged. “We know our movies, don’t we?” She pushed the menu toward him. “Hungry? How have you been? I see you on Sunset sometimes. Business seems to be good.” He lived mostly on the street, though once in a while he would hit a shelter for a shower and a cot. He made his
living
posing on street corners with tourists for tips.

“Better than you, apparently.” He picked up the menu and glanced at it, then put it down. “You made the tabloids. She must be horrified.”

He always referred to their mother as
she
. Elvis, a.k.a. James Mattroni, Jr., had had a falling out with Victoria years ago and they didn’t speak. Their mother maintained it was because her son refused to seek help for his mental illness, help she was willing to pay for. Jimmy, who refused to answer to any name but Elvis, insisted it was because she was jealous of his talent. Nikki tried to remain neutral; it was hard for her to see him ill. She just wished he would take his meds regularly.

His father, James, had also been schizophrenic and had committed suicide when Jimmy was a freshman in college. Jimmy had never forgiven Victoria for not fighting harder to get custody of him when she and his father had split up, when he was a toddler. If it was any consolation, even though Victoria rarely spoke of the matter, she’d never forgiven herself, either.

“So, you’ve taken to befriending murderesses, have you?” He smirked.

“I’m not having this conversation with you.” Nikki sat back as the waitress set down a glass of ice water and a mug of coffee on the table.

“What would you like?” she asked Nikki, pen poised over a notepad.

“The Caesar salad.”

She scribbled. “Chicken with that?”

“No.” Nikki glanced at her name tag. She was Mary, with an i.
Mari!
her name tag read. Or was it pronounced
Maury
? Either way, she wasn’t Tiffany. “Dressing on the side, please.”

“Mr. Presley?”

The getup didn’t faze her. It probably didn’t faze anyone who lived in Hollywood. Elvises were a dime a dozen, although she had to give him credit where credit was due—he did an excellent impression. At least until he tried to sing. Jimmy couldn’t carry a tune. Never could, which was why his stint in Las Vegas years ago had been so short.

“You buying?” he asked, looking at Nikki.

“Anything you want.” She opened her arms. She’d learned the hard way to never give him money outright, but she was always happy to buy him a meal. Take him to the doctor if he got sick. She’d have put a roof over his head if he’d let her, but he said he liked living the way he did. It made him feel closer to his dead mother, Gladys.

“Well, little lady . . .” he said in his best Presley voice, “I’ll have the big beef burger with bacon, a double order of fries, and a chocolate malt. And maybe a slice of that pie on the counter.” He winked at her. “You make that pie, Sugar?”

“Yup,” she said. “Came in early just to make you that pie.” She grabbed the menus.

“I thought you were a vegetarian,” Nikki said as the waitress walked away.

“You’re avoiding the subject.” He drew his hand down the lapel of his gold suit jacket.

Some of his costumes were pretty cheap, but this one was nice. She wondered where he’d gotten it.

“So where was Rex March all this time when his fans thought he was dead?” He folded his hands and leaned over the table.

He smelled better from a distance. Nikki leaned back. “I have no idea. That’s up to the police to find out.”

He laughed. “It’s all a conspiracy, you know. Rex’s disappearance, D.B. Cooper’s. Obama’s trying to hide the truth from the taxpayers.”

She nodded. It was always this way with Jimmy. At first glance, he seemed perfectly sane, but it never took long for the fruit to spill out of the bowl. “Seriously. How are you doing? You need anything? You keeping your appointments at the clinic?”

“You want to hear my theory?” he asked in complete earnestness.

So, apparently, they were not going to talk about him. “Sure.”

“I think Ginger did it. The redhead. She killed Rex March.”

Nikki had no idea who he was talking about. “Ginger?” she asked.

“The movie star,” he sang. “She’ll try to make it look like the Professor or Mary Ann did it, but the truth will come out.”

“Ah,” Nikki said, her synapses finally firing. “From
Gilligan’s Island
.” She sipped her water and then reached for the straw, taking her time ripping the paper off. “Rex was on
Shipwrecked Vacation
. Different show.”

Elvis frowned. “This is why we can’t talk, Nikki. You blatantly disregard my opinions just because you don’t like my lifestyle choices.”

“I disagree with your choice to be homeless when you don’t have to.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you. If your friend Jessica didn’t kill Rex March, who did? Clearly, the logical answer is Ginger.”

“Clearly.” She nodded. “I didn’t know you were a Rex March fan.”

“I wasn’t, but he didn’t deserve to die in a fiery plane crash.”

“Which, apparently, he
didn’t,
” she pointed out.

The waitress brought the burger and fries and salad to the table. “Be right back with your pie and shake.” She looked at Jimmy. “You want ketchup, Mr. Presley?”

“If it’s not too much trouble, darlin’,” he crooned. He popped a fry into his mouth. “So if Rex didn’t die in the crash, where was he all this time?”

Nikki was afraid she might jump onto the same merry-go-round again, so she tried a different tack. “I don’t know. Where do
you
think he could have been?”

“Somewhere nice. Nicer than here. When I filmed
Blue Hawaii,
I seriously considered moving to Hawaii. Not the Big Island, but maybe Molokai or Kauai. But I could never leave Graceland permanently. Thank you, darlin’,” he said to the waitress as she walked by their booth, dropping off a bottle of Heinz, the milkshake and pie.

“So you think Rex was on Kauai all these months, while his widow was settling his affairs, selling the house, and getting cozy with her boyfriend?” Nikki said, just throwing out random conversation at this point.

“It’s very possible. The important question is,” he waved a French fry, his eyes narrowing with concentration, “who knew Rex wasn’t dead? You can’t kill a man you don’t know is alive.” He bit the fry in half. “Was it his wife? His girlfriend? His mother?” He gasped. “Maybe
she
killed him. No one ever looks at the mother. We always assume it’s the jaded wife or girlfriend, the cheated business partner. But
she
could have done it.
She
had motive and opportunity.”

The way he said it made Nikki think he meant
she,
as in Victoria, which was an interesting turn. Of all the people popping up on the radar as suspects, she doubted the police had considered Victoria Bordeaux.

The crazy thing was, part of what Jimmy was saying wasn’t entirely crazy. He was absolutely right. Whoever killed Rex had to know he was alive. Or found out and decided to remedy the problem.

While Nikki ate her salad with a sparing amount of Caesar dressing and Jimmy consumed a couple of hundred grams of fat, they chatted about several subjects: the new baby orca born at Sea World, the pothole on Hollywood near Vine, and the president’s plan to send illegal immigrants into space to cultivate rice fields.

By the time Nikki hugged Jimmy good-bye and asked for the check, she was feeling oddly humbled. He always did that to her. He made her feel so thankful for the life she had—her mother, Jeremy, Stanley and Oliver, her friends, a good job. And that gratitude made her all the more determined to make sure that nothing bad happened to Jessica over this whole Rex thing. Maybe the investigation wasn’t her business, but she wasn’t going to sit by and allow mistakes to be made that could ruin her friend’s life.

Nikki waited for Jimmy to go before waving the waitress over. “Do I pay for this at the counter?” she asked. “Or do I give you my card?”

“Either way.”

“Is it Mary or Maury?” Nikki indicated her name tag and then dug into her wallet.

“Actually, it’s Marie. They left the ‘e’ off when they printed the name tag.” She was cute, with a brunette bob and green eyes. “Whatever.”

Nikki smiled. “Listen, Marie, I was looking for an old friend who works here. Tiffany?” she said hopefully.

The waitress screwed up her little bow mouth. “No Tiffany here.”

“No?” Nikki couldn’t help but feel disappointed. How had Carly gotten
all
the details of her gossip wrong? Wrong diner, no waitress named Tiffany. That made the whole “Thompson cheating on Edith” thing doubtful. “You’re sure?”

“Pretty positive. I work all the shifts. My roommate, Deliah, moved out, leaving me with the whole rent until I can find someone else. She went home to Poughkeepsie. Her stepdad sent her the plane fare. She’s going to community college now. Thinks she wants to be a kindergarten teacher.”

Nikki nodded as if she were interested in the turn of events for Deliah. “So you don’t know Tiffany? Maybe she used to work here?”

She thought for a second. “No, but Thompson Christopher used to work here,” she said, her face lighting up.

“I heard that. In fact, I think they were friends, Thompson and Tiffany.”

Marie shrugged. “Kelly might know. She’s the cashier. Or Joe.” She pointed with her Bic. “He’s the cook. But he might not remember her. He’s high a lot,” she whispered, then sniffed with one nostril and then another.

“But
Kelly
might know if Tiffany used to work here?” Nikki slid out of the booth, grabbing a ten from her wallet along with her credit card. She handed the waitress the money. “Thanks, you’ve been helpful.”

Marie looked at the money. “This is way too much,” she said, looking thrilled.

“Keep it. You did a nice job waiting our table.” Nikki headed for the cashier behind the counter.

“Well, thanks.” Marie tucked the ten into the pocket of her apron. “I better get back to work.”

At the counter, Nikki handed the girl behind the cash register the ticket Marie had written up, but not her credit card.

“How was everything?” She punched in the price of each item, not leaving Marie’s addition skills up to chance.

“Everything was good. Marie was great. Listen . . . Kelly . . .”

The cashier looked up.

“I was wondering. Did a Tiffany work here?”

“Tiffany Mathews? Used to.” She went back to her adding machine. “She just got a new job. That’ll be thirty-one sixty-eight.”

“But she
did
work here?” Nikki tried not to get too excited. “Recently?”

“Oh, yeah, for years. She started a new job a couple of months ago, though.” Kelly peered over the cash register. She was wearing the same pink dress as Marie, only she’d added a big pink button with the cancer research slogan, S
AVE THE
T
A-TAS
. “Hey, do I know you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Yes, I do.” She thought for a moment and then pointed. “I knew it! Victoria Bordeaux’s daughter. You’re a lot prettier in person. Wait!” She jumped off her stool. “I’ve got the paper here.” She slid a tabloid newspaper across the counter, flipping through the pages. “You’re in the paper! Nikki Harper. You sell real estate, too. I’ve seen your picture in the ads. Me and my boyfriend, we like to see what’s for sale in the Hills, you know, for when we make it big someday.”

Nikki leaned over the counter and glanced at the grainy photograph Kelly was pointing to. Page three. It was a pretty innocuous photo of her getting out of her car on a palm tree–lined street. She couldn’t tell where it had been taken or even if it had been taken recently. Sometimes the paparazzi dug deep to make a few bucks. Fortunately, she’d had makeup and Spanx on when the shot had been taken. She didn’t look half bad, and there were no banditos in sight from what she could see.

“The article is stupid, I know.” Kelly pointed out. “But it’s a good picture.”

The picture of Jessica was better. She was leaving her apartment building, looking hot even in shorts and a sports tank, carrying her gym bag. Nikki wondered how old
that
photo was.

The cashier bit down on her lower lip. “You think you could autograph it for me?”

Nikki sighed and offered a quick smile. “Sure.” She started to dig for a pen. “So Tiffany . . . she worked here for a long time? When Thompson Christopher worked here?”

“Uh huh.”

“So they were friends?” Nikki came up with a pen from her Prada pit and plucked a piece of tissue off the clip. “Good friends?”

“People ask me about him all the time. Everyone’s disappointed to hear that he was a nice guy. Did his work, kept his hands to himself. That was back when he was in the middle of changing his name. He’s really Albert Klineberger, you know. He was never checking out my ass like some of the other pigs that have worked in the kitchen. Even after he started getting parts and stopped working here, he was always nice to us. He used to stop by sometimes late at night just to have a Coke and a burger. You know, like normal people.”