Worst In Show: A Jamie Bravo Mystery Page 2

  I carry the cone with me into the elevator of the swanky Art Deco building. The elevator has piped in Muzak and red cushion-y lining. It creeps me out because it makes me feel like I’m inside a coffin.

  It costs more to live for one month in this building than I ever made in a whole year. The Friedmans are loaded. Mr. Friedman had a string of jewelry stores that he turned over to his son when he retired. You might have seen the commercials for Friedman’s Family Jewelry Store—“Nobody can beat our family jewels.”

  Mrs. Friedman keeps trying to hook me up with her son, Martin. I finally told her that I liked girls. She clapped her hands and said, “That’s perfect! So does he!”

  I push the button for the seventh floor and review my mental list of all the places I’ve found Mr. Friedman in the past. Once he went to Sal’s barbershop and got a haircut and a shave. He fell asleep in the chair wearing the steaming towel on his face and Sal forgot he was there until he was closing up for the night.

  Another time I found him at the Vietnamese nail place—Number One Happy Nails—where he’d gotten a pedicure. He kept offering the manicurist five dollars to walk on his back. She declined.

  The last time he went missing I found him in a yoga studio doing the downward facing dog. He was staring at all those tight yoga asses and his back seized. It’d taken four chiropractic appointments to straighten out all the kinks.

  The elevator door opens on the fourth floor and an older woman holding one of those small yip-yip dogs gets in. I always feel compelled to talk when I’m in an elevator with somebody. That’s one thing about me—I’m socially awkward. I always feel like it’s my social obligation to fill up silent spaces. “He’s really cute,” I say about the dog.

  The lady does that snooty thing where only one side of her upper lip raises and she says, “This is a girl.”

  “Sorry,” I say. “It’s hard to tell when it’s wearing pants.”

  “She’s not wearing pants,” she says.

  “I know it’s not really wearing pants. I mean, not like I’m wearing pants. I meant it figuratively.”

  “You think my dog is wearing figurative pants?”

  “Well, she does have a lot of hair. If you squint your eyes, it looks like she’s wearing those parachute pants that were all the rage in the 80s.”

  The lady sniffs and stares at the elevator numbers as we climb. See what I mean about me being socially awkward? The lady rubs her nose against the doggie’s little nose and says in a baby voice, “Don’t listen to the mean woman. You’re a wery wery special doggie. Aren’t you, Matilda? You’re going to win the Lakeland Dog Show, aren’t you, baby?”

  Matilda licks the lady’s nose. This grosses me out. After all, I’m pretty sure I know where that dog’s tongue has been.

  “What kind of dog is Matilda?” I ask. I’m not really curious, but this is my way of making amends.

  “She’s a Norwich Terrier,” the lady says like she’s actually saying, “My dog poops gold.”

  “Well, she certainly is pageant quality.” I stick out my hand out and Matilda sniffs it. She must smell my cat because she raises her upper lip on one side—just like her owner—showing her pointy little teeth and snarls.

  “She likes you,” The lady says, evidently warming up to me now that I think her doggie is special.

  I don’t know what world this lady is living in, but that dog looks like given the chance, she’d take a chunk out of my ankle. If that’s liking me, I hope she never hates me.

  The elevator dings and I get off on the seventh floor. Mrs. Friedman’s door flies open and she looks at me over the top of her bifocals. She must have been waiting on me with her ear pressed against the door. “Well, there you are,” she says in a way that makes me think I’m late.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Friedman,” the lady says as she exits the elevator behind me.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Hildegard. Good morning, Matilda,” Mrs. Friedman says. “This is my private detective, Jamie Bravo,” she adds by way of introduction.

  “Oh my,” Mrs. Hildegard says. She looks at me with more respect—as in less like dog poop on her shoe.

  I think it’s weird that Mrs. Friedman just called me her private detective, like I belong to her or something. Rich people do that, though. They’re always saying things like ‘my accountant’ or ‘my lawyer.’ It’s like the richer you are, the more people you own.

  “We already met in the elevator,” I say.

  “Has Leo gone missing again?” Mrs. Hildegard asks.

  “No,” Mrs. Friedman says way-too-quickly. She pulls me into her apartment and closes the door in Mrs. Hildegard’s face. She whispers sotto voce, “Nosy old biddy. She doesn’t even live on this floor. She just got off here to find out who you are and what you’re doing here. If she finds out Leo is missing, the entire building will know by noon.”

  “I’ll keep it down-low,” I say. I’ve been working on my P.I. lingo and down-low is one of those terms that gets used a lot. I set the traffic cone on the floor by her door.

  Mrs. Friedman continues talking as she leads the way to her living room. “That woman is just batty about that dog. I don’t get it. It goes to all these dog shows with other dogs. She dresses it up in little sweaters and hats. It even has a raincoat galoshes. It’s really quite silly.”

  “Yeah, I thought it was wearing pants at first,” I say.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me one bit,” Mrs. Friedman says. “Not one bit.” She gestures for me to sit on the couch. I mean, on the sofa. Rich people have sofas. People like me have couches.

  “Tea?” Mrs. Friedman asks.

  “Sure, that’d be swell,” I say even though I don’t really care for tea. It tastes like dirty water to me, but I know Mrs. Friedman won’t tell me anything until she serves me tea on a tray.

  “I have this new herbal blend. It’s called Blood Smoothie. It was on sale.” She trots off toward the kitchen.

  “Sounds yummy.”

  “Sounds yummy,” a voice squawks.

  I turn and look at Mrs. Friedman's pet parrot. His name is Lebowitz. He’s in a birdcage that hangs from the ceiling. He’s an array of brightly colored feathers—green, blue and yellow. The bird glares at me with his beady little bird eyes. I get the feeling he’s sizing me up.

  “Hello, birdie,” I say.

  “Hello, birdie,” Lebowitz says back.

  I look into the bird's eyes like I’m a hypnotist. I could swear that bird knows more than he’s letting on. “Where’s Leo?” I whisper. “If you know where Leo is, you have to tell me.”

  “Pretty birdie,” he replies.

  “Who are you talking to?” Mrs. Friedman asks from the kitchen.

  “Lebowitz,” I say. “So, Mr. Friedman has only been missing since this morning?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Where were you when you realized he was gone?”

  “We were at the Lakeland Mall buying tea,” she answers, raising her voice to be heard over the gurgle of the electric tea kettle. “There’s this new store Just Your Cup of Tea that sells all kinds of fancy tea mixtures. I put my order in, they have to weigh it and package it and try to up sell you stuff to go with it, so the whole thing is a bit of a process, and when I turned around Poof! He was gone.”

  “Poof! He was gone,” Lebowitz says.

  Mrs. Friedman appears holding a tea tray. It’s loaded down with a tea pot, two cups, biscuits, milk, sugar, lemon and whatever else Mrs. Friedman decides to put on it. One time it came out with a vase full of carnations. It’s a wonder she doesn’t tip over with it. Mrs. Friedman's feet are even smaller than mine.

  She pours the tea. “Now, the nice young man at the store said this is best served with just a splash of lemon or perhaps a bit of sugar to tone down some of the sharp citrus taste.” She puts lemon and sugar in my cup without asking me.

  She sips her tea and makes a yummy noise. “Now, where do you think Leo is?”

  I buy time by blowing on my tea.

/>   Mrs. Friedman perches her reading glasses on the tip of her nose and peers over them at me like she’s trying to read my mind.

  I sip my tea and try not to gag. It tastes like crushed flowers freshly sprayed with pesticide.

  “What television show did you watch last night?” I ask. I know from past experience that sometimes Mr. Friedman has a difficult time separating TV from reality. The current onslaught of reality TV programming doesn’t help things.

  “Well, we watched a comedy show called Little Britain. It really is quite funny—it’s rather spoofish. I have to use closed caption because I can’t understand a thing those English people say. It's all blimey this and bloody that.”

  I’ve seen that show. It’s more than a bit spoofish. It spoofs everything. Travis loves the show because it has this gay character in it who is the “only gay in the village.” He dresses in the most awful outfits--lycra onsies, white vinyl hot pants, bedazzled jean vests and matching pants. He looks like he’s ready to luge, pole dance or hop on a scooter at a moment’s notice.

  Mrs. Friedman continues, “After that we watched the travel channel. There was a show on about the top ten castles Britain. Then, we went to bed where I read Jane Austen until I fell asleep.”

  Jane Austen is code for the National Inquirer. The more highbrow the book she claims to be reading the lower the magazine she's actually reading is on the scale of bogus crap. Mr. Friedman had slipped me this little nugget of truth.

  “Hmmm.” I ponder the clues I’ve collected so far: Little Britain, castles, and Jane Austen. I hope he didn’t get it into his head to visit England.

  “I think I should go to the mall and visit the tea store,” I say. “Start at the end and work backwards.” I’m not certain that made sense but it sounded good.

  Three

  I drive the half hour to Lakeland Mall and park on the far edge of the lot. I always park as far away from other cars as I can get. I like to keep Silver ding-free. I find the Just Your Cup of Tea store on the lower level. They are advertising some Tea-riffic specials. I don’t go inside the store. Instead I stand in front and look around. At this time of day, the shoppers are mostly women pushing strollers and older couples wearing sparkling white cross trainers, doing their daily laps around the mall.

  I spin in a slow circle taking it all in. I try to get into the mindset of a retired, elderly, rich man. If I were Leo Friedman, where would I go?

  Aha! Next door is Global Travel Agency. Plastered to the windows are posters of warm tropical beaches and Moorish looking castles. (I don’t really know what the word Moorish means, but I think it sounds good and castle’ish.)

  Walking into the Travel agency is like entering another dimension. There are about a dozen heat lamps hanging from the ceiling and blazing down on me in my blue, down-filled puffy coat like a white hot sun. The walls are sky blue and the floor is painted to look like you’re walking on a sandy beach.

  I spot a big striped umbrella planted in a corner of the room. Under the umbrella is a young woman sitting in a lawn chair. She’s wearing sunglasses and not much else. Her feet are soaking in one of those kiddie pools shaped like a turtle and she has a stripe of white gunk on her nose.

  It’s hard to tell if she’s pretty what with the glasses and the gunk, but I will admit that she has an amazing body in her teeny tiny bikini. I don’t know if her assets are natural or man-made, and I don’t really care.

  “Hi!” she says cheerfully. She puts down her magazine and says in a stilted manner as if she is reading from a cue card, “Welcome to the tropical beach of your choice. We have specials that you can afford. Don’t you deserve a vacation?”

  She pauses in her recitation for a count of two then continues without pausing or breathing, “It’s time to treat yourself to an ice cold beverage, scuba diving lessons, surfing, windsailing, whatever your vacation destination, we have you covered.”

  She pauses to draw a deep breath and this time I jump in before she can stop me. “Actually, I need your help. I’m looking for an older man.”

  “Aren’t we all,” she says with a giggle and a toss of her long hair.

  I’ve never understood why girls giggle. I’ve personally never felt the urge. They always do that hair toss thing and giggle. There must be some kind of straight girl class that teaches you how to do flirt.

  A trickle of sweat runs down the middle of my back. I take off my coat and pull on the front of my T-shirt, unsticking it from my belly. “Hot in here. How do you stand it?”

  “It’s not so bad,” the girl says. “I get a great tan all through the winter.”

  I nod and try not to stare at her boobs. I wish I had my sunglasses on so she couldn’t see my eyes. “I’m a private investigator.” I dig out one of my new business cards and hand it to her. “That’s why I’m looking for the old man. He went missing this morning. I’ve been hired to find him. He may have come in here.”

  “You’re a real private detective?” she asks.

  “Yes, Ma’am, I sure am.” I wince. I don’t know why I called her Ma’am. It was like I was channeling Joe Friday or something. It just popped out.

  “You don’t look like a private investigator,” she says.

  Travis was right. I need a trench coat. Maybe even a fedora. “Well, you don’t look like a travel agent,” I say.

  She ignores me. “He’s only been missing since this morning?” she asks.

  “Yes. His wife was next door at the tea store. When she came out of the store, he was gone.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Leo Friedman.”

  “Oh, Leo. Sure, he was in here. He’s a sweetie. He rubbed lotion on my back for me.”

  Now we were getting somewhere. “Yeah, he’s real sweet that way. So, did he check out any of your special packages?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “He did? Okay, so he wanted to go to a beach or something?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Did he ask about the price of any flights or the timetables or did he just get travel brochures?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Which one?”

  “Which one what?”

  I sigh. She obviously wasn’t hired for her smarts. I summon my toughest Joe Friday face. “Listen, doll,” I say, crossing my arms and leaning against the wall. “Give me the facts and give ‘em to me fast. I need to know if this man bought a ticket from you.”

  “Yes.”

  “He did?” I say, straightening up.

  “He bought a ticket to Gatwick. One-way,” she says.

  “Gatwick? As in England? That Gatwick?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so earlier?”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  I shake my head in frustration. “Can you maybe tell me more? Like what airline and when the plane leaves?”

  “Oh, it already left. He should be there in eight hours.”

  “Oh.” Looks like Mrs. Friedman will be making an emergency trip to London. I look the woman up and down and give her my sweetest smile. “One more question.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you need any lotion rubbed anywhere?”

  She giggles.

  Four

  After I called Mrs. Friedman and told her that her husband was on his way to England, I sauntered on over to Nordstrom’s. I was planning on doing a cruise by. I usually shop in the men’s section. Women’s pants are always too short on me and, besides, I look better in men’s clothes.

  My window shopping pays off in spades because I find the perfect hat—a brown fedora that absolutely screams Humphrey Bogart. I put it on my head and instantly feel three feet taller.

  I tilt the fedora at a jaunty angle and wink at myself in the three-sided mirror. Three reflections of myself wink back.

  “You winking at me?” a voice cooes behind me.

  I look up and see a saleswoman standing there. She is wearing a skirt so tight I don’t know how she walks. Her sweater is two sizes t
oo small and her hair has a mussed-up look like she just rolled out of bed. If Jessica Rabbit from the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit could turn into a real live person, she would be this woman. A badge is pinned over her left breast that reads Reggie.

  “Hi,” I say. It comes out sounding more like a gulp.

  “Can I help you with anything?” she asks. She moves in close enough to me that I get a nose full of her perfume. My head spins. I can’t decide if it’s her perfume or because she’s standing so close to me.

  “Are you okay?” she asks, grabbing my arm.

  “Fine. I’m fine,” I say. “I’m looking for a trench coat. You have anything like that?”

  “I assume you want a coat to match the hat?”

  “Yeah. That’d be… good.” What’s happening to me? I can’t even string a full sentence together without sounding like an idiot.

  “I’ll be right back,” she says. I watch in the mirror as she walks away. She looks as good going as she does coming. Oh boy… what is wrong with me? First suntan girl and now Reggie. I’m not usually so… what’s the word? Horny. I guess not having a girlfriend is starting to take its toll. I take a few deep breaths. I need to get my head in the game.

  Reggie comes back holding a coat. It’s a gorgeous caramel color and I can tell just by looking at it that it’s way out of my league. “I don’t think I can afford that one.”

  “Try it on.”

  “Seriously, I just started and I don’t think –“

  She interrupts, “It’s on sale. You can’t afford not to own this coat.” She’s obviously not taking no for answer. She reaches around my waist and slips my puffy coat off my shoulders and down my arms. In one smooth, practiced move she has the trench coat on me and spins me in front of the mirror.

  I can’t help but admire myself from every possible angle. Between the fedora and the trench coat I look like the real deal.