5. “The Man”
FIVE
“THE MAN”
(TAYLOR SWIFT)
O kay, so it was chicken.
But even though Shanti gave me knowing looks, I ducked out of work twenty minutes early that night in order to go out and buy our usual bribe paraphernalia for Mr. Stupidhead (the girls had other names for him, and they were better, more apt and included bad words).
He was in our network of informants.
All right, in truth, one should call him an uncooperative informant because he didn’t like us, and we didn’t like him, but he saw and heard things we might need to know.
Thus, to make him cooperate, we bought him porn.
This wasn’t my favorite thing to do, but needs must in my campaign to escape Javi picking me up to take me to dinner, and this was a good excuse that Jessie bought (though Shanti didn’t).
I also nabbed two of Willow’s birthday cake cupcakes. I did this in an effort to maybe wean Mr. Stupidhead off pornographic bribes and onto baked goods ones.
After I procured his stuff, I met the girls at the storage units, and since there were now more of us, we rolled out in two of our undercover vehicles, the Honda Accord and the Kia Sportage.
Our destination was the motel where Jinx did her business.
She’d texted Luna that her client time was going over a bit, but she’d chat with us after she was done.
So we pulled into the Sun Valley Motor Lodge, a place I wanted to say had seen better days, but even at its inception, I wasn’t sure it did.
Mr. Stupidhead worked nighttime reception.
When we angled out of our vehicles, he looked at us through the windows and did one of his usual welcomes.
This time, he pretended to fashion a noose around his neck and tug upward, whereupon his head lolled to the side, and he closed his eyes and stuck his out tongue.
So, again.
He wasn’t our biggest fan.
We entered and he straightened to say, “How are there more of you? Why are there more of you?”
Luna leaned into a forearm on the counter close to him and replied, “A good thing grows when you nourish it, my man.”
He looked to me because I was carrying the bags.
Since he gave me the willies because he usually stared at my breasts (he wasn’t now because he knew I carried porn, so he was looking at the bags), I tried not to get close as I put them on the counter and scooted them toward him.
The bag with the porn magazines was swept away and disappeared faster than I could blink.
He then nabbed the white bakery bag, opened it, and we all, including Mr. Stupidhead, let out a collective “ Ahhhhhh ,” when the birthday cake goodness smell wafted out of it.
It was at this juncture a miracle happened.
Mr. Stupidhead lifted his head from staring in the bag, and there was a look of sheer wonder on his face.
I could feel us all come alert, because this was so far from the way Mr. Stupidhead behaved normally, it took us off guard.
“You brought me cupcakes?” he asked.
And was I seeing things?
Did he have tears in his eyes?
Everyone looked my way because I hadn’t shared I was going to do that.
“Uh, yeah,” I confirmed what didn’t need confirmation since we could all smell them and he’d just looked at them.
“I haven’t—” He stopped abruptly and swallowed, before he carefully rolled the top of the paper bag back up, reverently set it under the counter, and asked, “What do you women need to know?”
We were so stunned by his open cooperation, no one moved or spoke.
“Well?” he pushed.
“We’re actually here to talk to Jinx. We’re just hanging with you to kill time while we wait for her to be done,” Raye told him.
“You got some time to wait,” Mr. Stupidhead replied. “She’s with her special regular.”
After that, he wagged his scraggly brows.
But we were confused.
“Her special regular?” Jessie asked.
“The accountant,” Mr. Stupidhead said.
“BMW Accountant?” Luna queried.
Mr. Stupidhead nodded. “One and the same. For months, they’re here two, three nights a week. They take their time. He brings her shit. Tonight, it was flowers.”
Holy shmoly!
Flowers?
I looked to Jess, Luna and Raye.
They were looking toward me and each other.
Because this was huge!
If it was who we were thinking, a man we’d seen leave in a BMW after a session with Jinx, he was good looking (and Jinx said he had a rather large member).
Wow!
Yay!
“What’s going on?” Willow asked.
“I don’t know, but I’m sensing love is in the air,” Raye answered.
I was beginning my first Pretty Woman fantasy for Jinx in my head when Luna turned to Mr. Stupidhead. “You hear anything about some dude who got his throat cut last night?”
Mr. Stupidhead paled. “Are you shittin’ me?”
“Not even a little bit,” Luna told him.
Now he started to look sick.
“How did you bitches go from searching for missing people to being involved with dead people?” he demanded.
“We’re not involved ,” Raye said, but ended with, “as such.”
“No, I don’t know dick about anything like that,” Mr. Stupidhead said. “And normally, I wouldn’t give a shit what happens to any of you, but you brought me cupcakes, so now I’m tellin’ you, whatever this is, get your asses out of it.”
Yet another man telling us what to do.
Obviously, this meant I had to start quoting some lyrics.
When I did, Raye got into it with me, and before you knew it, all of us were singing Taylor’s “The Man,” and perhaps there was a little dancing (me and Luna), and Mr. Shithead was again banging his head against the counter.
Suddenly, he lifted up, looked out the window and said into our serenade, “BMW Accountant is leaving.”
We all jerked our heads to the window then dashed out to stand in a line outside reception, watching the tall, handsome man in attractive glasses, dark suit trousers, a well-tailored shirt, and an askew tie striding to his high-end car.
“Jeez, he looks like Clark Kent, the Christopher Reeve years,” Willow muttered.
She was right.
Oh my, I loved this .
He turned our way, and I caught his blush (so adorable!) as Jessie lifted a hand and gave him a finger wave while the rest of us either smirked at him or smiled widely at him (that last was me).
Yeah, we were way cool.
Not.
We were totally those girlies who embarrassed you in front of the guy you liked, as in, say, what we were doing right now.
He opened his car door and looked up at the second floor of the motel.
Jinx was standing out on the landing in her work apparel, without her platform heels, arms crossed on her chest.
We looked back to BMW Accountant.
He waved at her.
Oh-Em-GEEEEE!
How cute!
We returned our attention to Jinx.
Then we stared as she waved back.
“Oh my God , she’s so into him ,” Luna breathed.
“Oh my gosh , you are so right ,” I panted in reply.
We waited until he’d pulled out of the parking lot before we raced up the steps to get to Jinx.
We came skidding to a halt as one, even Shanti and Willow doing it, and they didn’t really know how huge this was.
“I don’t want to hear it,” Jinx said.
“You are oh so totally gonna hear it,” Jessie told her.
Jinx’s gaze moved to Shanti and Willow. “Who are these gringas ?”
“We’ve expanded,” Raye said.
Jinx rolled her eyes and strutted into the motel room.
We strutted in after her.
Okay, all the rest of them did. I wasn’t able to strut. It was more like a bounce, something I was very good at.
The room smelled like spicy cologne, powdery perfume and sex.
The first two were okay, the last…?
I wrinkled my nose.
Luna flipped the comforter back on the sheets and sprawled on the bed like two people didn’t just finish copulating on it. Raye and Jessie joined her. Willow and I primly chose the chairs by the table at the window. Shanti pulled her bottom up on the wall-mounted dresser.
“Nice flowers,” Jessie drawled.
And they were nice. Deep-red roses with pink tulips shoved in. And there were a ton of roses.
That bouquet cost some cake, and I was loving this even more .
Jinx sent her a killing look, but when she turned to the flowers, her face got soft.
Oh my God!
“You like him!” I squealed.
Jinx shut down her expression. “Yeah, I like him. He’s got a big dick, and he isn’t afraid to tip.”
“You like more than his big dick,” Raye stated, and now it was her wagging her brows.
“Don’t get excited,” Jinx warned, horning her way into the reclining bodies and stretching out on the bed with her back to the headboard and her ankles crossed. “Men like him do things like that”—she jerked her head to the flowers—“to make them feel less dirty when they’re with a woman like me.”
Yuck.
I hated that Jinx looked at it that way.
“Uh, just to say,” Luna began, “that dude is hot. His body is nearly as jacked as the Hottie Squad. He might have had a hankering to walk on the wild side, but he found what he liked and he’s coming back for more, doing that when he knows he could pull a ride just about anywhere and not have to pay for it or bring flowers. ”
“You need to lay off the romance novels,” Jinx snapped.
“I love me a romance novel,” Luna told her. “But I’m about as romantically inclined as you.”
“This is true,” Raye affirmed.
“We’re not talking about this,” Jinx decreed. “I got a car payment due, and it’s summer, so my electrical bill is out the roof. I gotta get back out there. What’s up?”
“First, let me introduce you to Sabina,” Raye began, and Shanti raised her hand.
Yeah, we used Charlie’s Angels names as our street names, but don’t think this was uncool when it came to Jinx. I was relatively certain Jinx wasn’t Jinx’s real name either, and we didn’t know what that name was.
“And Elena,” Raye went on.
Willow gave Jinx a shy little wave.
“Is that the latest movie?” Jinx asked Raye.
And yeah again, we weren’t fooling anyone with our street names.
“Yep,” Raye answered.
“I haven’t seen it,” Jinx said.
“Us either. We had to look it up on IMDB,” Jess told her.
“We really should get on that,” Luna noted.
“Yeah, you might learn something,” Jinx remarked.
My phone in my back pocket vibrated.
I pulled it out and looked at the screen.