Unplugged (20 page)

O
NCE I QUIT
slavering and my blood pressure simmered back down to the triple digits, I put Rivera firmly out of my mind and called Directory Assistance.

It was simple enough to get a phone number for Electronic Universe. Having no better options, I dialed the number immediately.

The man on the other end had a slight Asian accent. The kind that immediately makes me feel stupid.

“Yes, hello,” I said, using my nose voice in self-defense. “I’d like to speak to J. D. Solberg.”

There was a pause. “I am sorry. Is he an employee here at E.U.?”

“No. He just comes in from time to time to try out your fabulous equipment.”

“Can you describe him?”

I did. “It’s an emergency. Please put him on the line.”

“I am sorry,” he said. “But your Mr. Solberg does not seem to be here at this time.”

My heart rate sped up. “But he has been in the past?”

“I can’t say for certain.”

“Was he there today?”

“I do not know.”

“Yesterday? Was he there yesterday? You’d know him if you saw him. He has a nose like a—”

He hung up. I promptly drove to Santa Ana, where E.U. is located just off Mesa Freeway. It’s an imposing building the approximate size of Montana. Once inside its black glass doors, I searched every face and listened to every voice. Solberg was nowhere to be found. But there was enough electronic gadgetry to send a man to the moon. Which meant, I believed, there was also enough gadgetry to entice Solberg from his hiding place. If he was hiding. And if he was hiding, he must have some kind of plan to extract himself from his current troubles. He might be a cross-eyed little drip, but he wasn’t stupid.

Still, even smart cross-eyed little drips need accomplices to save their drippy hides.

I glanced around the store. The staff was dressed all in black. They weren’t your usual techno-geek employees. For one thing, they were all over the age of seventeen. They were sharp, predominantly male, and somber.

But I have yet to meet a man who can remain coherent in the smiling face of cleavage, so I popped open the top button of my sweater, gave my arms a squeeze, and approached the nearest employee.

“Hello.”

I gave him a smile. “This is amazing.” I looked around the store, wide-eyed. “I’ve heard nothing but good about E.U.”

“Thank you.” He gave me a little bow and dipped his gaze momentarily toward my chest. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“I’m not sure. I was just wondering . . . if I brought in a disk that has . . . well . . . some pretty high-tech schematics, would I be able to open it on your computers?”

He gave me a sagacious glance. Or maybe he was looking down my sweater again. “Well, that depends. How familiar are you with E.U. technology?”

“Not very, I’m afraid.”

“Then you might be a little lost. We’re pretty innovative.”

“But your equipment would be able to handle it?”

He looked affronted on behalf of his machines, E.U., and technology in general. “Absolutely.”

“No matter what it is?”

“If it can be done, we can do it here.”

I thanked him and sauntered away. After that, I spoke to every employee I could find, asking about Solberg, but none of them admitted to seeing the little geek, although I thought a youngish fellow named Rex seemed somewhat nervous when I gave him J.D.’s description.

“Call me,” I said, giving him my phone numbers and a glimpse of cleavage. “As soon as you see him. Please. I’d be eternally grateful.”

He nodded numbly and flushed, proving that even gadgets can’t compete with boobs when they’re up close and personnel.

I returned home in unsurprised defeat and spent the rest of the day on the Internet, searching for the magician Ross had mentioned.

But there was no one on the Net called the Magical Martini. Go figure. After exhausting all my possible avenues, however, I did find a show called The Mystical Magic of Menkaura, which played at a hotel called La Pyramide.

It sounded foreign to me, and sure enough, when I popped onto his site, the man was wearing a turban and a long black cape, which flowed out behind him—like magic.

I learned a buttload of stuff. For instance, the Magical Menkaura descended from an ancient Bedouin tribe known for its mystical ways. He looked damned good with his tasseled cape flying in the air-conditioned breeze. And all of his assistants were gorgeous, curvaceous . . . and topless.

I blinked at my monitor. Perhaps it should have occurred to me that Las Vegas magicians would have topless assistants, but the thought had never crossed my mind. And even though I was staring at a photo of several of his nubile bimbos, I found the idea somewhat unbelievable. Obviously, they couldn’t shove things up their sleeves.

Which made me rather concerned about where they would stow them.

But when I saw the picture of the horse, I realized their props were a little large for concealing in clothing . . . or other places.

A kohl black stallion, as the photo advertised, was one of the act’s main attractions, and much “admired” by Menkaura’s lovely ladies.

I made a face at the bevy of barely clad assistants draped suggestively around the poor animal, then searched the screen for the names of said assistants. None were listed, but maybe they didn’t need names. Maybe Menke just called them by color, because it sure as hell seemed that bimbos came in every shade. One bronze, one ebony, one brown, one redhead, one blonde. Maybe he was trying to make a statement, or maybe he just liked variety.

I stared at the blonde. I would have liked to believe that no man could have found her more attractive than Elaine, but men are unpredictable . . . and stupid.

Stymied, I ate a carrot and tried to think. But carrots aren’t very conducive to deep ponderings, so I wandered back into the kitchen and tried a Snickers bar. Sure enough, a thought struck me within seconds.

I went back to the website and gazed disgustedly at the photos. Five scantily clad bimbos gazed back. Five. Ross said there had been only four. Of course, he’d also said he was drunk, but I had a feeling a guy would notice how many 36D topless girls were on the stage, unless there were a thousand or something. Then he might be one or two off.

Which meant . . . the Magical Menkaura was short one bimbo.

I ate another Snickers bar and ruminated, but in the end, despite my deep thinking, I resorted to picking up the phone.

“La Pyramide Hotel and Casino. How may I assist you?” The woman on the other end of the line sounded genuinely thrilled that I had called, not at all like she was promoting virtual bestiality and plain dumb-ass porn on a stage probably not a hundred yards from where she sat in air-conditioned comfort.

“I sure hope so,” I said. “I’m trying to get ahold of Menke.”

There was a pause. “Menke?”

“Yeah, the Mystical Menke.”

“Oh.” Her voice had gotten a little frosty around the edges. It’s probably near impossible to act high-class in Las Vegas, but she was giving it the old college try. “Menkaura Qufti, the magician here at La Pyramide?”

“Yeah. That’s ’im.”

“I’m sorry, he’s not here at the moment, but you could leave a message if you like.”

“Not there?” I said, as though baffled that the man might be mystical
and
mobile.

“No. I’m afraid not.”

“Oh, crapski. Well, tell ’im to call Pinky, will ya?”

Another pause. “Certainly Ms. . . . Pinky. Can I get a phone number?”

“Sure.” I gave her my number. “And tell ’im I’m looking for a job, will ya?”

“Of course.”

“And tell ’im, too, that I’m built like a cello, but I can fit into a medicine cabinet if I gotta.”

She didn’t have much to say to that. I hung up.

By then it was time for supper. I looked in my fridge. Even the cheese was gone. Damn Rivera.

It was a ten-minute drive to Vons, where I buy my groceries. Elaine won’t shop anywhere but Whole Foods, where there’s a circus atmosphere on sample day and lines queue up a week in advance.

As for me, I used to make sure my milk came from cows not treated with rbST. I’d later learned that one of the suspected side effects of hormones was increased breast size. I’m not quite so fussy anymore.

It didn’t take me long to unpack my groceries. It wasn’t as if I intended to cook—or was able to. But if the SWAT team muscled its way into my kitchen, they’d have enough staples to make us all a nice omelet or something.

Sometime around nine o’clock, still not certain which direction would actually lead to Solberg, I checked into Hilary Pershing’s professional life again on the Internet. I didn’t learn much. I hopped around from site to site, and although there were a few mentions of her work at NeoTech, her life in the cat show circuit seemed to be her obsession. She had five adult felines listed. None of them had names like Oscar or Scruffy. Hilary tended to lean toward the dramatic—Fyrelight’s Silver Onyx, that sort of thing.

She should probably get together with the Mystical Menkaura, I thought, and wondered groggily if she had Solberg locked up in a cat cage in her basement.

Despite my world-class abilities, I didn’t sleep well that night. I had dark dreams involving men with severe halitosis and nasty-looking weaponry.

On Sunday, I considered going for a run, but the nightmares—and the waking reality—convinced me it was too risky. Always nice to find the silver lining.

In the afternoon I took my place on the ridge above Solberg’s neighborhood. It would probably have been smarter to try to track down information on the men who had abducted me, as Rivera hadn’t been very forthcoming about information regarding them. But I returned to the one place I was certain Solberg would eventually return.

Unfortunately, he didn’t show up. But at two-thirteen, the Georges’ garage door opened and a BMW backed out. I snapped up my binoculars, focused quickly, and discovered that Tiffany was alone in the car. The garage was empty. Which meant that either the Georges only had one vehicle, which seemed unlikely in a neighborhood where gasoline consumption outshone the national debt, or Mr. Georges was gone . . . again.

I drove down the hill, parked in their driveway, and hardly felt at all nervous about knocking on their door. No one answered. I tried their doorbell. Nothing. I leaned on their doorbell. Still nothing. Either Mr. Georges was deaf or the house was empty.

Glancing around, I skirted their garage and headed into their backyard. My heart was pounding. Despite my actions of the past week, I still found it intimidating to be trespassing.

But the sight of the pit halted all other thoughts. It was six feet long, a good four feet deep, and lay directly beside a filled-in area that looked like it had boasted the same dimensions.

A noise sounded from Amsonia Lane, jump-starting me back into motion.

I was breathing hard by the time I reached the Saturn. My imagination was running rampant.

She’d dug graves in her backyard. Tiffany Georges had dug graves. For her husband? For Solberg? For both?

Fueled with the certainty that I was on to something, I climbed back up to my perch above her house.

By five o’clock I was bored out of my mind. By midnight I was certifiable.

Mr. Georges still hadn’t arrived and Tiffany hadn’t returned.

I had sat there long enough to think about the crazy things that happen. I knew from a million years of school, and a millennium of waitressing, that people sometimes just flip out and kill people. Hell, I’d considered killing Rivera just yesterday, and I wasn’t even married to the guy.

Wasn’t it possible that little Tiffany had wigged out and murdered her husband? Wasn’t it also possible that Solberg had found out about the crime and met the same fate? Although, that didn’t really account for the strange phone call and the guy with the gun who had chased me across the turf.

Life, I reflected when I was safe at home once again, was just as messy as hell.

I
saw three clients before noon on Monday. The first two seemed considerably more lucid than myself. I did a lot of ummm-humming and sent them on their way.

My third client was Howard Lepinski.

I’d been seeing him for obsessive-compulsive disorder and a shitload of other problems for almost six months. He mostly talked about nothing more consequential than his luncheon options. My own sanity looked pretty solid in comparison.

“Do you think I should use whole grain bread?” he asked. “I mean, studies show that fiber can be advantageous for your colon, but white bread is lower in calories. And—”

“Mr. Lepinski . . .” I interrupted ever so gently, though my nerves were tapping like castanets. “You do realize you’re discussing your lunch menu again, don’t you?”

He stared at me from behind thick, round glasses. He was a small, thin man with an excellent ability to look offended.

I gave him my professional smile. “I had hoped we were beyond that at this point.”

His mustache twitched. There had been a time when I had compared him rather unfavorably to the client whose session followed his. That client’s name was Andrew Bomstad. Andy was a certified hotty . . . and rich. Mr. Lepinski hadn’t stacked up very well, until Andrew had revealed his true nature and his engorged penis all in one fell swoop. A few weeks and a murder investigation later, I had learned to reserve judgment.

I’m trying to be more tolerant these days.

“Diet is important,” he said. His tone was disapproving. “You are what you eat. Haven’t you ever heard that?”

I nodded. I had. But so far I didn’t much resemble a caramel-coated peanut. Call me a doubter.

“I’ve been considering the Atkins diet,” he said.

I have to say I was surprised. I mean, I knew Atkins was the latest nutritional craze, but Mr. Lepinski was only marginally wider than my spleen.

“Not to lose weight,” he explained. “To bulk up.” He lifted a scrawny arm and made a muscle. Maybe. “High protein. You know.” He flicked his eyes toward my door and back. “You think I’d be more attractive if I were buff?”