“No pictures of my shoes!” I yelled.

“Shhhh,” Felix said, putting a finger to his lips. “Your boyfriend might hear us.” He gestured to “Bruno,” now lounging against the side of the Lincoln.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I argued. Which was, sadly, only too true. We couldn’t even have a conversation together, let alone a relationship.

“No? Because I could have sworn I saw you two making a little time in the back of that Lincoln there.”

Damn. This guy didn’t miss a thing.

“We weren’t making time. We were…” Arguing about reporters? Discussing an ongoing investigation? “I mean, he was…” Undercover? Ordering me back home? “Well, I was kind of…” Hiding from a mobster with my head in his lap?

Felix raised one eyebrow. “Indeed.”

“Look, it’s not important.”

“It’s not?”

“No. He’s nobody.”

“Nobody?”

“Nobody.”

“You routinely hop into the backseat with nobodies?” he asked.

“No! Look, maybe I kind of know him, but not like that. Not like you’re thinking. He’s not…and we’re not…and there’s nothing going on. I mean, we haven’t done anything. I haven’t done anything in months. So long that I’m three weeks overdue with Joanie Loves Chachi and at this rate Blockbuster’s going to make me pay for a new one.”

Felix raised the other eyebrow. “Indeed.” Then he snapped another picture of me.

“I swear to god if you take one more picture of me, I’m going to kill you.”

He grinned, showing off his slightly crooked teeth. “Can I quote you on that, love?”

I felt my left eye starting to twitch. I took a deep breath and counted to ten. Then counted to ten again. I was pretty sure that strangling him with his own camera strap would be bad funeral etiquette.

“What are you doing here anyway?” I asked instead.

Felix shrugged. “Paying my respects.”

“You didn’t even know Hank!”

“Did you?” he asked, leaning in.

I narrowed my eyes. “Oh no. No. You’re not getting a story out of me, pal.”

“Too late.” He grinned. Then shot another picture.

“Stop that!” I yelled, waving away the little flying specks of light. “I’m going to go blind.”

He cocked his head to the side, narrowing his eyes as he stared at me. “You’ve got a little something…” He trailed off, pointing to his upper lip.

“Yes, I know! I’m growing a mustache. Okay? So freaking what? You want to make a story out of that? Oh I know, how about calling me the hairy yeti woman of Los Angeles, that oughta sell copies for you. Hey, maybe you’ll even be up for a Pulitzer. Go ahead, take a picture of me with my big fat hairy lip. I dare you.”

Felix’s lips quivered, threatening to explode into full-blown laughter any second.

“Uh, actually, I think it’s grass.”

“Huh?” I put my hand to my lip. Sure enough, I came away with three little blades of green grass. Mental forehead smack.

“Oh.”

The laughter broke free, and Felix shook with it, his entire body spasming as he clicked away, taking a series of pictures he’d have to caption, “Woman dies of embarrassment-police investigating the role of lip hair in her untimely demise.”

Before I could make any more of a fool of myself in front of the press, I turned and hobbled over to where Marco was chatting up his Material Girl.

“I have to go,” I whispered. “Now!”

I waited while Marco and Madonna exchanged phone numbers, hugs, jelly bracelets, and a series of air kisses, then dragged him and Dana back to the Mustang where we all piled in. (Me behind the wheel this time as I still had an indentation of cardboard Elvis’s microphone on my tush.) I pulled the car back onto the main road and out to the 15. True to my word, we were leaving Vegas. But…I had one quick little stop to make first. The Regis Salon. I had a four-thirty lip waxing and after the embarrassing monologue I’d given Tabloid Boy about my yeti lip, there was no way I was going to miss it this time. I glanced down at my watch. 4:22. I eased the gas pedal just a little farther down, zipping by a sports car in the left lane.

“Slow down,” Marco whined. “Dahling, this car is a classic. She’s not a dragster.”

I ignored him, passing a pickup on the right. It may be a classic, but I was on a mission.

“Seriously, Maddie, slow down. Elvis keeps falling in my lap,” Dana whined from the backseat.

Nothing doing. We were two exits from the Strip with a minute and a half to spare. I could make it this time. The next time Ramirez pulled one of his surprise lip-locks, I was going to be smooth as a baby’s behind.

Then the unthinkable happened. Blue lights flashed in my rearview mirror.

Marco turned around. “Uh oh.”

“Uh oh” was right. I spun my head around. “Shit!” A police car was glued to my bumper. He turned on his siren and motioned for me to pull over.

“I told you to slow down,” Macro said.

I gave him the death look as I eased the car over to the right shoulder.

The police car parked behind me. I looked at my watch. 4:29. Shit, shit, shit!

The highway patrolman motioned for Marco to roll down the passenger-side window. He was in his late thirties with a pronounced midsection and wore mirrored aviator glasses and a little brown Magnum P.I. mustache. He placed his hands on his hips and popped a piece of gum between his teeth. “License and registration, ma’am.”

Marco opened the glove box and fished around for the registration while I searched my purse for my driver’s license.

“I’m sorry, was I going too fast?” I asked, batting my eyelashes at him.

“License and registration,” he repeated. Clearly he was not into the flirtatious blonde routine. Damn. In L.A. that shtick killed.

Marco finally found the registration and handed it over to the officer. I was still searching.

“Look, maybe I was going just a teeny tiny bit too fast, but I had a really, really good reason. See, I’m late for an appointment and I can’t miss it this time.”

I looked up. No sympathy at all.

“I mean, it’s very important,” I said, still rummaging through my purse as I pleaded my case. “I have a waxing I’m late for. I’m not sure if you’ve ever had one, but they’re essential to preventing a mustache.”

Officer Magnum twitched his upper lip and did a little grunt.

“Oh! I mean, not that some people might not want a mustache. Mustaches can be wonderful. You for instance look stunning in one. Very hip. Right, Marco?”

Marco nodded. “Right.”

“See, on you it looks fantastic. But on a woman, well, not the same effect. Women have to wax. Take your mother, for instance. I’m sure she waxes all the time.”

He clenched his jaw and gave me a hard stare.

“Not, of course, that your mother needs to wax. I mean, I’m sure she’s not at all hairy. She’s probably a very hairless woman in fact. I mean, not totally hairless because then she’d be bald which wouldn’t be very attractive either. Which I’m sure your mother is. Attractive that is, not bald.”

Officer Magnum took off his mirrored glasses and narrowed his eyes at me. “Li-cense and reg-is-tra-tion,” he said, sharply enunciating each syllable.

“Right.” I dumped the contents of my purse onto my lap. Bingo. My license fell out and I handed it to him.

“Hairless mother?” Dana asked, poking me from behind as the officer walked back to his car with my ID.

“What?” I shrugged. “I was nervous.”

Marco just shook his head at me.

I looked down at my watch, watching the digital numbers tick by. 4:32. 4:33. “Come on, come on, come on,” I chanted. If he would just write me the dang ticket already, there was still a chance I could make it to the salon before the next appointment.

Finally Officer Magnum got out of his squad car again. He put his shades back on and made purposeful strides to the driver’s side window, one hand on his utility belt.

“Ma’am, I need you to get out of the car.”

Marco and I looked at each other. Huh?

“Why? Is something wrong?”

“Ma’am, please step out of the vehicle.” His hand hovered over his revolver.

“Look, I’m sorry for the crack about your mother. I’m sure she’s a very lovely person. Really. Just the appropriate amount of hair.”

“Ma’am, please don’t make me ask you again.”

“Maddie,” Marco whispered. “I think he’s serious. You better do it.”

I bit my lip, feeling my heart sink down to the tip of my toes as I realized I might never see the end of this upper lip dust. I slowly opened the driver’s side door and stepped out.

“Look, officer, I’m sure that whatever this is about-”

But before I could finish, Officer Magnum had my arms twisted behind my back and was clicking a pair of handcuffs on my wrists.

“Hey!”

“Hey!” Marco and Dana echoed in unison from the car.

“What’s going on here?” Dana demanded.

“Madison Springer,” the officer recited as he clicked the second cuff on my wrist. “You’re under arrest.”

“Under arrest! For speeding?” I asked, my voice going into mezzo-soprano range.

Officer Magnum spun me around to face him, his mirrored glasses reflecting the look of fear and confusion on my face.

“No. You’re under arrest,” he repeated, “for the murder of Bob Hostetler.”

Chapter Fourteen

In a place where both laying down your life savings on twenty-two black and selling your body at the rate of thirty bucks an hour are legal, you have to do something pretty bad to end up in the Clark County lockup. Which didn’t make me feel terribly comfortable around my cellmates. (My cellmates! Ugh! A phrase I could have happily gone my whole life without using.)

A homeless lady wearing a head full of dreads (and not the sexy Lenny Kravitz kind but the matted-with-gobs-of-who-knows-what kind) sat on a sparse wooden bench in the corner talking to herself. Next to her was a 200-pound black woman who looked like she’d gone three rounds with Oscar de la Hoya, and lost. If she were the one in prison, I shuddered to think what the other guy looked like. She was wearing a red pleather miniskirt and stained white bra. Nothing else. I tried not to stare as I sat down on the opposite side of the holding cell, next to a thin woman in a Motorhead T-shirt who was scratching at the imaginary bugs on her arms.