Colleen Collins - Sleepless in Las Vegas

Jasmyn gave a casual shrug. “It’s my thing, the forties and fifties.”

“Your noir thing.”

“More like my neonoir thing. Digging the old styles, but updating them, too.” She waggled a magenta fingernail at the screen. “Like that anklet she’s wearing. I’d wear one with peep-toe pumps, capri pants, a slim cardigan and Dita Von Teese’s bad-red lipstick, Devil.”

“You love that Dita Von Teese with her skintight dresses and corsets and elbow-length gloves.”

“She’s an artist, a burlesque queen.”

“I see you haven’t thought about this much.”

“I celebrate my life through my style, what can I say? I know you understand ’cause you go a little retro yourself, cuz.”

Val had a thing for simple, vintage black dresses. When she was a kid, she’d loathed reach-me-down—secondhand—clothes, and had sworn that when she grew up she’d always buy off-the-rack. But when that day came, she hated how stiff and scratchy new clothes felt against her skin. Missed the softness of reach-me-downs, so she’d started shopping at secondhand and vintage stores.

“Y’know,” Jasmyn said, “with your black-purple hair, pale skin and those hot-cute little black dresses you wear, you’d make a great noir chick.”

“I’m still not even sure what noir means.”

“It refers to the type of movies being made back in the forties and fifties. Dark and bleak with people who had no morality or sense of purpose.”

“Sounds like a badly lit casino in Vegas.”

“F’sure!” Jasmyn peeled off a throaty laugh. “That anklet is famous, by the way,” she continued, looking at the screen. “Right about here, Fred says ‘That’s a honey of an anklet you’re wearing’ and that term—honey of an anklet—is now one of the classic lines in film noir.” She paused, frowning. “Val, what’s wrong?”

“That word. Honey.” She picked up some wadded napkins and put them into the bag. “Tonight I did what in the P.I. trade is called a honey trap. Which is where a P.I. entices some guy to see if he’s unfaithful, which is a bunch of crock because enticing isn’t investigating.” Wouldn’t Jayne be proud to know Val finally understood? And sorely disappointed if she knew how Val reached that understanding.

“From the looks of you, cuz, you overshot enticing by a city block.”

“Thanks.”

“Just sayin’.”

“Got it.”

Jasmyn was thoughtful for a moment. “I thought your boss wasn’t going to let you do any investigations for four more months.”

“Jayne doesn’t know I did it.” Val felt ashamed to have repaid her boss’s trust with such insubordination.

“Dawlin’,” Jasmyn said gently, “what happened?”

“After she left work early, this new case walked in, and...you know my bullheaded streak.” She gave a halfhearted shrug. “Although that’s hardly an excuse for my misbehavin’. I’m feeling mighty bad that I took a case that I had no right to take because I wanted fast cash.”

“How much fast cash?”

“Two grand.”

Jasmyn emitted a low whistle. “That’s fast, all right. Now you can get your car fixed.”

“Already in the shop. I’m driving a rental until it’s ready.”

“You bad, bullheaded girl, you. Mama will be glad to know you got wheels.” She gave Val a knowing look. “Speaking of mamas, now that you’re a private eye in training, have you looked for yours?”

Val felt a stab of guilt. “No.”

During Katrina, when she and Nanny had been stuck on the roof of their building, her grandmother confessed she had lied about Val’s parents dying in a car crash when Val was two years old. Nanny’s daughter, Val’s mother, had survived, but left soon after that. “She was born Agnes Monte Hickory LeRoy, after your great-grandmother Agnes Lowell and great-grandfather Elias Monte Hickory, but if she’s remarried, her last name’s prob’ly different. Promise me, dear girl, you’ll try to find her, make my wrong right.”

Val made that promise.

But since then, she had not tried to find the mother who had abandoned her. Not once.

“Truth be told, Jaz, I can’t work up the desire to meet a stranger who gave birth to me, then abandoned me.”

Jasmyn nodded. “Everythin’ in its own time.”

Left up to Val, that time would never come. But she felt wretched breaking her word to Nanny.

“Wow, two thousand!” Jasmyn exclaimed, bringing the conversation back around. “Except for the sneaky part, of course, but who am I to talk? I’m the one sneaking around taking burlesque classes.”

For the past five months, Jasmyn had been taking private burlesque dancing lessons from Dottie “the Body” Osborne, a former headliner at the Pink Pussycats in Hollywood, a famous burlesque club where the dancers plied their G-string gimmicks in the 1970s. Val, sworn to secrecy about Jasmyn’s clandestine studies, knew if Del and Char ever learned about this, their daughter would be grounded until she was forty.

“The problem with secrets is that they can blow up in your face,” Val murmured. “I need to tell Jayne.”

“No, cuz, bad idea! Don’t blow this internship by gettin’ all confessional. Look at the money you made in one night! Plus you tackled your first case and probably learned a lot in the process.”

“No,” Val said solemnly, gathering the rest of the trash, “I learned investigations are about using the mind to solve puzzles, not playing body games.”

“Hey,” Jasmyn said, “enough with our heavy noir talk. Let’s dish about something fun. I think I got my burlesque name. Ready? Ruby Stevens!”

“Definitely sounds like a burlesque name.”

“It was Barbara Stanwyck’s real name. But they wouldn’t let her use it because—guess what?—it sounded like a burlesque dancer! Y’know how burlesque dancers gotta have a gimmick? I’ll be Ruby Stevens, and I’ll always wear a shiny gold anklet to go with my brassy and phony blond hair. Like your wig, only curlier.”

After a beat, Val said, “You know I love ya, right Jaz? Word to the wise. One of these days, you’re gonna need to have a sit-down with your mama and be up front about those burlesque lessons. Doing that gives both of you dignity.”

She wasn’t just talking to her cousin. She was talking to herself, too.

Because at that moment, Val knew she was going to be up front with Jayne tomorrow morning and tell her what she had done. Nanny used to say that secrets destroyed relationships, and she was right. If Jayne threatened to end her internship, well, Val would give her one hell of a side note on why she should stay.

After she and Jaz said their good-nights, Val dumped the trash in the kitchen and headed to her room, reflecting on all kinds of things, from blond wigs to honey traps to young women who needed to keep their word.

Just because a hurricane had wiped out Val’s world didn’t mean it had also taken her self-worth.

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