Ник Сайнт - Purrfectly Hidden. Purrfect Kill. Purrfect Boy Toy

“But why, Brutus?” asked Dooley. “Why are you on edge?”

“Don’t you see? Soon we’ll get to meet our original selves, and discover that we are just a bunch of carbon copies. Doesn’t that make you feel anxious?”

“No, why?”

“I think I see what you mean, Brutus,” I said. “If we are merely carbon copies of our original selves, it kinda makes you wonder if we’re as screwed up as Prunella.”

“Exactly! Maybe we’re all as nuts as she is, and we simply don’t know it.”

It gave us food for thought, and when Prunella came traipsing up to us, and suddenly halted in her tracks and asked, “Who are you, and why are you trespassing on my territory?” the four of us shared a look of horror, and promptly burst into loud laments.

“I don’t want to be a clone, Max!” Dooley howled.

“Me neither, Dooley!” I cried.

“I’m nuts. I’m a nutcase!” Brutus bawled.

“I knew it,” Harriet sniffed. “I knew there was something wrong with me!”

“Oh, don’t cry, strangers,” said Prunella. “Eat a banana. You’ll feel much better.”

She was probably surprised that her words merely made those four strangers cry even harder. It’s tough having to look in the mirror and realize you’re a little screwy.

Chapter 23

Immediately after breakfast, the entire company departed for Hollywood Boulevard, where the beauty salon and spa that counted Opal and Marilyn amongst its patrons was located.

In the limo, only women were present: Opal, Marilyn, Odelia, Gran and Marge. Tex had been left to his own devices, though Odelia was pretty sure he wouldn’t be bored. Five cats were also present and accounted for. Prunella usually got a special treatment while her human got a special treatment, and she loved it, Opal assured them, and so would Odelia’s cats. She didn’t specify what this special treatment entailed, only that it was, well, special.

Opal was in excellent spirits, and had decided to forget about the harrowing events of the previous day and to enjoy this day out with the girls, as she called it, and have fun!

“So how long have you two known each other?” asked Marge, curious about the special bond between the two friends.

“Oh, how long, Marilyn?”

“Feels like a hundred years,” said Marilyn, checking out a spot on her left hand.

“Thirty, thirty-one years? We were colleagues at our first-ever job. A local news network in Tennessee. That’s where we met.”

“I was the weather girl,” said Marilyn, “and Opal had just been hired as a reporter to cover such fascinating and world-shaking events as the local bridal show.”

“Or the pumpkin patch run,” said Opal with a deep chuckle.

“We bonded over our mutual lack of a decent paycheck.”

“And the way we were treated by the men in that place.”

“It was a real boy’s club,” Marilyn confirmed. “The women were window dressing.”

“The manager used to call us out for not showing enough cleavage.”

“Can you imagine? Doing the weather forecast in a low-cut top? I felt like an idiot. And all of my family watching every day, and telling me I looked like a painted tart!”

“Not nearly tartly enough, according to the manager,” said Opal.

“Oh, those were the days.”

“And look how far you’ve come!” said Marge.

“Yeah, we did good,” said Opal.

“You did a little better than me,” said Marilyn.

“Oh, shush. You can’t complain, Marilyn. You’ve got a top job at a top network. The kind of job only a guy would have landed thirty years ago.”

“Thirty? How about fifteen years ago—ten, even.”

“We broke through that ol’ glass ceiling all right.”

“And no low-cut tops required!”

Both friends laughed, and Odelia smiled. It was great to be in the presence of these two icons, legends in their chosen field. Gran, though, didn’t look happy. At all.

“Have you been able to get in touch with Hank?” asked Odelia.

“No! He seems to have vanished from the face of the earth. I’m thinking about going to the cops.”

“Oh, that boy is probably just having fun,” said Opal.

“Or maybe he’s been in an accident,” said Gran. “Or been mugged.”

“Or maybe he’s having so much fun he lost track of time,” said Marilyn. “Trust me, Vesta. I’ve seen it before. People arrive in town, cool as cucumbers, and before you know it they go completely loco. This town has that effect on people. It’s a little like Vegas.”

“Hank isn’t the kind of guy to go loco,” said Gran stubbornly. “He comes from a respectable home, and I promised his mom and dad I’d take care of him.”

“His mom and dad? You told me you didn’t know his mom and dad,” said Marge.

Odelia was also surprised. “Yeah, you told me he’s a gigolo.”

Gran grinned. “I did, didn’t I? And you should have seen the look on your face.” Her grin quickly faded. “Of course Hank is not a gigolo, and he’s not my boyfriend, either. I just said that because you can’t keep your nose out of my business. Hank is Frank and Rita Peterson’s son, and when I told them I was coming to LA they asked me to bring him along. Hank is working on his master’s thesis about the movie industry and was dying to visit LA but couldn’t afford it, so I told his parents he could tag along if he liked.”

“I really thought he was your boyfriend,” said Marge.

“Well, he’s not. And let this be a lesson to you. Hank is a nice boy whose parents asked me to do them a favor, all right? And now leave me alone. I need to find him before they tear me limb from limb.” And with these words she put her phone to her ear and was soon bellowing, “Hank! Pick up the phone! I’ll tell your mom if you don’t pick up!”

Alec woke up feeling stiff and store. He opened his eyes and wondered why the mattress had suddenly become as hard as a board. But when he looked around, he realized he was on the floor.

How had he gotten there? And what was that loud snoring sound?

He pushed himself up on his elbows and peered over the edge of the bed. Tangled up in the sheets, Chase was lying, snoring away, and occupying the bed’s entire acreage.

“Oh, no, you didn’t,” said Alec, getting up. Before he could manage, though, pain shot through his chest and he plunked back down. “Owowowow,” he yammered.

The snoring abruptly stopped and a face peered down at him. “Alec? You all right down there, bud?”

“No, I’m not all right!” he said, grasping his chest. First his left man boob, then his right man boob. “I have terrible chest pain! I think I might be having a heart attack.”

Chase had the audacity to laugh!

“Hey, it’s not funny! Better call a doctor. Or, better yet, call an ambulance!”

“It’s not your heart, buddy. It’s your chest muscles. How’s your back?”

He moved a little, and excruciating pains shot through his back.

“It’s radiating out to my back! It’s cardiac arrest—I know it! Call an ambulance!”

“It’s your workout, not your heart. You worked those muscles pretty hard yesterday, and now they’re complaining about what you put them through.”

“What I put them through! What you put me through!”

“Hey, you have to start somewhere. Here, let me help you up.”

With a groan, and pain shooting through both his chest and back muscles, he got to his feet. “Owowowow,” he cried. “That hurts.”

“What you need is a hot shower and a relaxing massage,” said Chase. “And you’re in luck: they got both here at the Grand Continental.”

“I hate you, Chase Kingsley,” he said as he took a seat on the edge of the bed. “And why did you push me out of the bed?”