“Just wait here,” Shawn said, and leapt out of the car. He ran into the open bay of what looked like the service station at the never-built Spanish Conquest Land at Dis neyworld, grabbed something off a shelf above a couple of partially disassembled golf carts, then threw himself back into the Echo’s passenger seat. “Now go, go, go!”
“What was that all about?” Gus said, throwing the car into reverse and backing down the narrow road to the junction.
“Something for snakes,” Shawn said, gesturing for Gus to drive into the guest parking lot.
As the Echo made the turn into the lot, the majesty of the Little Hills Country Club spread out in front of them. The golf course ambled over acres of real estate more valuable than anything outside Midtown Man hattan. And rising out of the emerald sward was the clubhouse, a Spanish castle that looked like Papa Bear to the ursine Baby that was the Higgenbotham house. Gus pulled into a space a couple of rows behind the Porsche. “Now what?”
“That.”
Jessica Higgenbotham stood by her car, waiting as a tall, handsome man in a polo shirt and khaki shorts walked up to her. She looked up as he clasped his hands on her bare shoulders and leaned down for a quick kiss.
“Is that what this is all about?” Gus said. “Are they having an affair?”
“Is who having an affair?” Shawn said.
“I don’t know.” Gus realized he had absolutely no idea whom they had been following or whom she was meeting.
“And even if who is having an affair, who is who having an affair with?”
“What?”
“Exactly,” Shawn said. “So let’s stop spreading those terrible rumors. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Shawn jumped out of the car and walked over to Jessica Higgenbotham and the tall man. Gus locked his car door, then ran to catch up to him.
“We didn’t have a chance to finish our conversation,” Shawn said. “And I wanted to give you a chance to put things right before your all-important interview.”
When Gus was in second grade, one of the other children had gotten overexcited toward the climax of a particularly intense match of tag and had peed in his pants. That was the last time he could remember seeing a look of disgust as intense as the one on Jessica Higgenbotham’s face.
“Who’s this, honey?” the tall man said, clearly making an effort to stay pleasant until all the facts were in.
“He says he’s the chef at some restaurant I’ve never heard of,” Jessica said. “And this other guy is his dishwasher. They showed up at our house and started making ridiculous charges about missing silverware or something.”
“And they followed you here?”
“Apparently,” she said.
The tall man ran his gaze over Shawn and Gus slowly. “I don’t understand why you’re harassing my wife,” he said in an amiable tone that still managed to convey an undercurrent of menace. “But if your camera crew doesn’t appear in two minutes to prove that this is some kind of reality-prank-show gag, I’m going to have to ask club security to hold you until the police arrive.”
The tall man took his wife by the elbow and steered her toward the clubhouse.
“I don’t have a camera crew,” Shawn said. “But I will admit I’m not really a chef.”
Shawn and Gus waited for an anxious second. If she kept walking, which everybody in the parking lot knew she should, they would lose their chance to question her. But Shawn’s behavior was too outrageous for her to let it go. She pulled her elbow away from her husband’s grip and wheeled around on them.
“Then who the hell are you?” she snapped.
“My name, as I told you, is Shawn Spencer,” Shawn said calmly. “I run a little private detective agency in town. But I am also the official background investigator for the Little Hills Country Club.”
“And who’s this guy?” Jessica said with a glance toward Gus. “Your henchman?”
“No, actually he really is my chief dishwasher,” Shawn said. “You’d be amazed at how much china gets dirty in this job.”
“My name is David Higgenbotham, and I don’t see you as being the official anything for the Little Hills Country Club,” the tall man said, “because then you would know that denim is not allowed anywhere on club grounds.”
“My position forces me to work undercover, Mr. Higgenbotham,” Shawn said. “As distasteful as it is to me, sometimes that even means wearing denim on the grounds. Now, I have a few questions for your wife.”
“It’s a little late,” the tall man said. “Jessica’s final interview starts in five minutes.”
“And that interview can last half an hour or half a day,” Shawn said. “It’s really up to you at this point. I suppose if it’s not important to you that you two are admitted, we have nothing left to say to each other.”
The Higgenbothams exchanged a look that told Shawn everything he needed to know. Well, almost everything. The rest he learned when he took a closer look at David and saw. Saw the shield in place of a rearing pony on the polo shirt, with a knit fish between two books across its top. Saw the tiny white scars on his hands.
“You’ve got two minutes,” David Higgenbotham said.
“Then I’ll skip the boring stuff you know about,” Shawn said. “Like the years the two of you spent touring with a vaudeville revival troupe, her as a one-woman freak show and you as the knife thrower.”
This was the moment Gus was waiting for-when they laughed in Shawn’s face. Because there was simply no way Jessica Higgenbotham was the same tattooed woman they’d seen the other night. And David? He looked as if he’d been bred in a special pen somewhere in a compound on Kennebunkport or Martha’s Vineyard. His anticipation of seeing Shawn acknowledge that he was wrong and Gus was right would almost be worth all the time they’d wasted on these two.
But David Higgenbotham didn’t laugh in Shawn’s face. He didn’t turn up his nose in disgust or wrinkle his brow in confusion.
“The admissions committee knows all about our past,” David said. “We were completely up-front about it. And they don’t have a problem with it. As they explained, they’re all past fifty, which means their late teen and early-adult years were in the 1960s. They know all about youthful indiscretion.”
Gus couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Or, more accurately, what he was seeing. Or even more accurately, what he wasn’t seeing. He was staring at Jessica’s arms and seeing nothing but smooth, tanned, beautiful skin.
“And when you gave up performing, you got your MBA at Wharton, and you’ve been a respectable member of society ever since,” Shawn said.
“If you consider CFO of the Central Coast’s largest telecommunications start-up to be respectable,” David said. “Now, what’s this all about?”
“We just need to confirm that neither of you has been performing lately,” Shawn said. “There have been rumors of a New Vaudeville revival, and if you’re thinking of being part of it, you can’t be part of us.”
“Absolutely not,” David said. “We made a pact when we moved into the straight world that this is where we would live forever. And to prove that, we both went through endless hours of incredible pain having our tattoos removed. Isn’t that right, honey?”
Jessica’s face had gone pale. Oddly, the rest of her was the same golden tan it always had been. “Yes,” she said. “Incredible.”
“So if that’s all you have for us, it’s time for my wife’s interview,” David said.
“Absolutely,” Shawn said. “Sorry to waste your time.”
Gus couldn’t believe it. First Shawn had uncovered her identity, and now he was letting her walk away without even questioning her. He couldn’t let that stand.
“But we saw you at the Fortress of Magic the other night,” Gus said. “You remember, the night P’tol P’kah disappeared.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Jessica said.
“Outrageous,” David said.
“I knew I should never have taken you off plate duty,” Shawn said. “Apologize to these good people.”
Gus glared at Shawn, but Shawn glared back even harder-and then topped it off with a full frontal tsk tsk. He turned back to the Higgenbothams.