“What? You think Jennifer Weatherby’s case is the only one I have?” Well, it was but he didn’t have to know that. “Why, at any given time, I probably have a dozen cases on the go.” I waved an arm to the door, indicating he was to leave. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get a couple things done before we take our lovely little trip to the precinct.”
“I need to keep an eye on you.”
Damn.
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“Not a chance.”
“Look, I have some personal things to take care of. The glass is beveled. You might not be able to make googly eyes at me, but you’ll be able to see that I’m sitting right at my desk.”
“No way in hell, Dixieshit. Whatever you have to do you can do in front of me.”
“Fine, at least let me go to the bathroom.”
“You can go when we get downtown.”
“I can’t wait.”
“You can!”
I nodded. “Okay, then, you got it.” I walked over to my desk, sat, and opened the bottom drawer. And I pulled out a handy-dandy king-sized value pack of my favorite tampons. Yep, a pack of sixty Playtex Supers. (Is there anything higher for a woman in brand loyalty than feminine hygiene products?) I dug around a bit more, and pulled out the box of maxi pads and smacked them down in the middle of the desk beside the tampons. If this didn’t get Detective Head out of the office nothing would. I turned to look at a wide-eyed Detective.
“What the hell are you doing?”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, you see, Detective, boys and girls are built differently. While boys have a penis, or rather some of you do, we girls have—”
“Smartass,” he growled.
“And since you won’t give me a few minutes alone in the bathroom, well, you’re about to get a very detailed lesson of those things.” I nodded to my closet as I unzipped my jeans and started to shimmy out of them (all the while thankful for the granny panties I wore underneath). “Hand me my the feminine spray from the top shelf will you, the scented one. And while you’re at it, there’s a spare portable douche Bidet on the top shelf. It takes a minute longer, but so very worth it.”
“You don’t need all that! I was married you know!”
I stopped mid shimmy. “Well I got this itch you see. And my gynecologist prescribed the douche Bidet to relieve the swelling. Just wait, I’ll show you.”
“Christ! Dodd,” he yelled. But he yelled while he headed for the door. I knew it would work. Detailed descriptions of feminine hygiene products scare the shit out of most any man. “You’ve got ten minutes — no, eight minutes — to do whatever the hell you have to do.”
At that precise moment — damn the lad could read my mind — the phone on my desk rang. Dylan answered from the outer office, then yelled to me. “Dix, I’ve got Ms. Bee on the phone.”
“Good,” I said. “Give me a minute, Dylan, then send the call in.”
With a grumble, Dickhead closed the door behind him. I had to work fast.
The cabinet I had directed him to for the douche Bidet (to my knowledge there was no such thing, but I guessed Dickhead wasn’t up on these things) — was a cabinet I knew he’d never open in a million years if I asked him to. And of course it was the one that contained good old Blow up Betty. I kicked a box on the floor to make it sound like I was rummaging around. And while I did so, I pulled her out, whispered hello, and removed the jacket I’d been wearing. I stuck her plastic arms into it.
She looked better behind my desk than I did. Quietly, I pushed my chair out and sat on the floor. “Okay, Dylan,” I yelled. “Give me Ms. Bee.”
I picked up on the first ring, glancing only a minute at the call display before I erased it — Dylan’s cell phone of course. With my number on speed dial, it had been easy for him to call the office, pretend it was the non-existent lawyer, and buy me some time.
With duct tape I kept in the drawer for such emergencies (and there were a surprisingly number of them), I taped the phone to the blow-up doll’s hand, then taped that up to her head as if she were listening. If, and when, Detective Head looked through the beveled glass, he would see the outline of the doll and the black phone positioned against the blond head. And, where he thought I was talking to my lawyer, he maybe would give me a few extra minutes. Maybe.
God, I hoped this worked.
I turned to head toward the window leading to the fire exit. Not a venture I would enjoy. The rusty contraption hadn’t been used in years, and it emptied into a narrow alley between my building and the next one. I knew for a fact the alley was full of broken bottles and smelled of urine, but it was a way out.
I had one leg out the window when a thought occurred to me. I went back, grabbed the duct tape and positioned Betty’s free hand palm up on the desk in the classic middle finger salute, ready to properly greet Dickhead when he stormed in. Hell, maybe he’d think it was me for a moment, after all.
Task completed, I made my way down the fire escape and tiptoed through the broken bottles and other things I didn’t want to examine too closely. And just like that, I was officially on the lam.
Chapter 12
In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have foreseen what would happen to me that day.
Possibly because my wildest dreams do not involve my life going into the dumpster. And there could be no question that’s where I was headed. Literally.
The alley, if you could call it an alley when it was bisected by a freaking nine-foot fence, proved a tricky escape route. The fence, a solid wood proposition, was too tall and too foothold-free for me to scale. Fortunately, a dumpster squatted right up against the fence. A dumpster that was no longer covered, its lid having been wrenched off by vandals not long after I’d moved into the building. I’d given up harping to the landlord about it months ago. So, there I am with an open dumpster and a nine-foot fence between me and freedom. No problem, I think. I’d just climb up on the dumpster, edge my way around to the fence and boost myself over.
Great plan, until I lost my footing and fell into the damned thing. And oh, Jesus, what a smell! Cursing, I pushed myself up out of the pizza boxes, rotting vegetables and rolled up disposable diapers. Ugh.
Goddamned leather soled flats. Next time I went on the lam, I wanted better footwear.
And then — oh, shit! — something small and fast moved under my foot. I came up out of that dumpster like a rocket and over the fence, slippery footwear notwithstanding.
As I pulled the cold, green pasta from my hair brushing the … whatever-the-hell-that-was from my jeans, I realized how very much this whole situation … well, stank.
But I’d seen a lot over the years as a PI, and if there’s one thing I know, it’s that women are resilient. When we have to face our dark hours, we do. And we usually find a silver lining there.
Don’t we?
My silver lining, as I loped off down the street, was picturing Dickhead, patience exhausted, finally barging through my office door and finding me gone. Finding Blow-Up Betty holding the phone in one hand and flipping him off with the other. He’d be frothing at the mouth!
I felt a tinge of guilt for leaving Dylan behind to handle the wrath of Detective Dickhead. He might not be spitting bullets, but certainly he’d be spitting toothpicks around the office as he raged and made ever more colorful expletives from my name. I knew he’d take it out on Dylan, blame him for my escape. Of course, there was nothing to link my escape to Dylan. Nothing anyone could prove, anyway. But Dickhead was the kind of man who needed to blame others for his fuck ups — you know, the kind of guy to shoot the messenger (thus back again to his blaming me when his wife found out he was cheating and left him). But Dylan could handle Dickhead. That law degree did come in handy sometimes. Hell, if I knew Dylan, he’d be hard pressed trying to hold back the laughs when he saw Blow-Up Betty so artfully posed. In any case, I’d know soon enough what had gone down between Dylan and the detective.