And just wait until the ladies at the Wildoh got a load of him. Six foot four and hot as hell. And those jeans….
Whoops. Guess those early morning fantasies hadn’t departed so very far after all.
But nor had the early-morning … regret.
Dylan beamed a smile when he looked at me, with a little bit of something extra behind it. Those sexy brown eyes were sparkling. And when he shook my hand he squeezed it with suggestion. I pulled away.
Nothing that anyone but the two of us would catch. And of course Mrs. P who had leaned over to look through the driver’s side window (she was laughing in there, I know damn well she was).
“The name’s Dylan,” he introduced himself.
“Got a last name, Dylan?” I asked. I had to play the part. Did not want Big Eddie thinking we knew each other.
“Sure do,” said Dylan. He waited. I waited. Big Eddie … kind of waited too.
“Why don’t you tell her what it is,” suggested Big Eddie.
“What what is?”
Eddie threw his hands up. “Your last name!”
“Oh, that! It’s Hardy. Dylan Hardy. Heavy on the “har”. Get it? Har, as in laughing.” He put his hands on his flat belly and mimed a head-tossed back, har har har of a laugh.
Oh God, that was awful.
I smiled. He’d not used that cover name before. Chances were that by now he even had a fake Florida ID with it. “Well, nice to meet you, Dylan Hardy.”
He flashed me one last grin before he looked to Big Eddie again. “Want me to patrol that C place again, Big Eddie?”
“Sure, sure kid,” he said. “You go right to it. Oh, and you know, why don’t you vacuum around while you’re there? Polish the mirrors and shine up all the buttons on the elevator.”
“Do security guards do that, Big Eddie?” Dylan asked.
“Oh, yeah, all the time.”
With a salute to Eddie and a golly-gee kind of wave to me, Dylan jogged off.
“Heavy on the ‘Har’,” Eddie echoed watching Dylan head off to the C complex. “Thick as a brick.”
But I had to smile as I watched him go. He truly was a genius.
Chapter 7
I am not stuffy and boring, contrary to what Mrs. P might claim to my all-too-agreeable mother. I’m a PI, for God’s sake. Posing as an erotica writer, no less. How is that boring?
Okay, maybe it didn’t help my image that the only two things I bought at the mega-mega mall were a turtleneck sweater and some granny panties. But I look great in turtleneck sweaters. And honestly, what woman doesn’t really love her granny panties?
Speaking of the mall, I’m here to tell you that no one on the planet can outshop Mrs. Jane Presley. Not outshop as in who can spend the most money the fastest, but as in bargain hunting. Mrs. P could find steals like nobody’s business. And she was quick about it, which was good. Both of us wanted to get back to Mother as soon as we could. But not too soon. I really think Katt Dodd needed some time alone for a damn good cry. Get it out of her system, and step up to the plate again.
No, Mrs. P was not the dallying type. More like a general with a battle plan. She got in, she got out, and she invariably got what she came for at bargain-basement prices. Which was great with me. My traipsing through the granny panty aisle notwithstanding, I’m not the shopping type. Though Mrs. Presley did dither once. She spent more than a few minutes pondering a completely tacky Florida Gators bobblehead collection. She kept tapping their little plastic helmeted gator skulls and setting them … well, bobbling.
She didn’t buy them (thank God!). But she did get great buys on the perfect jerseys for the boys, which had her smiling from ear to ear. And for a moment, Mrs. Jane Presley really did look like a sweet little old lady to me, standing in line to pay for the shirts for her boys. Family. Strange, the warm feeling that gave me.
Which lasted all of two minutes. Right up until Mrs. P led me to the men’s underwear section.
The underwear she held up to her waist went around her twice. She nodded her head knowingly. “These’ll fit Craig all right. He’s lost a little weight. Probably lost more since I’ve been gone.” Apparently Craig was a boxers man (which raised every man a notch in my humble opinion). Mrs. Presley stretched out the waist of the underwear; she pulled at the crotch. She examined the stitching at the hem and she rolled the fabric between her fingers. Okay, this was just a tad much. Truthfully, I was growing a little impatient as she started humming and hawing through the multi-colored packages.
“Well, this is the style and size. But which do you think Craig would like, Dix?” she finally asked. “Think he’d like the white, green or red?”
Well, everyone knows white underwear is the dumbest invention known to humankind. And green always seems well … just too damn grassy. Craig wasn’t the Tarzan type. “I think red would be best, Mrs. P,” I answered, hoping like hell we’d be moving along now.
“Red it is, then!” She tossed six pair of red men’s boxers into her shopping cart. “I’ll tell Craig you thought the red underwear would suit him best.”
Lovely. Gee, thanks. And thanks, too, for saying it so loudly.
I couldn’t see the smart-assed smile on her face as she walked ahead of me pushing that cart (past all the inquisitive underwear-buying gentlemen who were staring at me now), but damn, I knew it was there.
It wasn’t too far to the sock aisle. Mrs. Presley pulled onto her hands a few pairs of the display socks (they went up to her armpits). Three pairs later she found the ones she wanted for Cal.
“Cotton, Mrs. P?”
“Cotton, Dix.”
With a satisfied nod to the cashier, she pulled the money out of her fanny pack and paid. Then she shoved the parcels at me to carry.
“All set?” I asked.
“Just a quick stop at the magazine store for my crossword books. Were you hoping I’d forget?”
“Of course I wasn’t.”
Of course I was. Crossword books … yeah right! My three letter word for derrière.
I had every confidence Mrs. P was buying more circle-a-word books under the ruse of crosswords to have some more fun with Dylan and me on the way home (yeah, like I’d be talking dirty on a fully packed jumbo jet).
All in all, it was a good morning out. And then we were set for the good morning in. We were back in plenty of time for the mid-morning gathering in the Wildoh Recreation Room.
So was everybody else.
~*~
There was still a worried look on my mother’s face, but I was glad to see that at least it was behind the Pinch-Me Pink lipstick.
Mother was dressed in a soft brown, long-sleeved caftan blouse, crisp white Capri pants (at least one Dodd woman can iron) and open-toed sandals. She’d painted her toenails to match her fingernails — a pretty pink that perfectly matched her lipstick. Mother wore antiqued gold half-moon earrings, and a matching necklace. Actually it was the set I’d sent to her last Christmas, the one Dylan had helped me pick out. But Mother’s wrists were still watchless. And I knew she was conscious of the fact as she kept her arms straight down at the sides, thus the sleeves falling down over her wrists at all times.