Death by Devil's Breath (2 page)

“But don’t you go far,” he said, his pseudo-cowboy twang in keeping with the boots, the jeans, and the ten-gallon hat that fit in with the Wild West theme of Cal’s hotel in Vegas, where the next day we’d be opening another Chili Showdown. “Y’all are gonna get your booth assignments in a few minutes, and then, we’ve got a real treat in store for you. Hang on to your funny bones, pardners, because Dickie Dunkin is up next.”

I popped out of my chair, but dang, I couldn’t get away from Sylvia fast enough. Not when Jorge and the other folks to my right were being slowpokes about getting out to the aisle.

She knew I was stuck, and Sylvia pounced on the moment. “The Great Osborn said I was a natural,” she purred.

I’m not a big believer in batting my eyelashes, but this seemed as good a moment as any to give it a try. “A natural what?” I asked her.

I guess the way she puckered her lips made them need freshening up, because she got her lipstick out of the purse that only moments before had been in my hot little hands.

From the other side of the aisle, I saw Nick raise his eyebrows.

I ignored him.

I was getting pretty good at it. The ignoring part, that is. In spite of his deliciousness and all. Nick and I had actually been thrown together a time or two only a short while before when a Showdown roadie was murdered and I (yes, that’s right, little ol’ me) solved the crime. Nick wasn’t happy. About me investigating, and especially about me taking credit where credit was certainly due. But then, if there was one thing I’d learned about Nick in the weeks since I’d joined the Showdown to take over my missing father’s chili and spice truck, it was that Nick was never happy.

Far be it from me to try and be the one to bring some sunshine into his life.

“There’s my two favorite girls!”

Tumbleweed Ballew was one of only two people in the world I’d let get away with that kind of happy-family horse hockey when it came to talking about me and Sylvia. The other was his missus, Ruth Ann, and when they closed in on us, they were both grinning like prom queens.

Tumbleweed and Ruth Ann were the administrative heart and soul of the Showdown, and they’d been family friends for years, ever since back before I was even thought of when my mom showed up looking for work at Texas Jack Pierce’s Hot-Cha Chili Seasoning Palace and stole the job—and Jack’s heart—from Sylvia’s mother.

“We’ve got booth assignments!” Ruth Ann and Tumbleweed wore matching outfits: jeans, denim shirts, vests with long leather fringe on them. Ruth Ann had an envelope in her hand, and she waved it in front of me. “Bet you can’t wait. You checked out Deadeye when you got here, didn’t you? Isn’t it a hoot?”

The simpering smile that I’d thought was a permanent fixture on Sylvia’s face melted around the edges. Her lower lip protruded. “I think
tacky
is a much better word. Honestly, Tumbleweed”—she turned to the seventy-year-old—“how did you get talked into this whole fake Western thing? It’s going to make us look—”

“Like we can actually get into the spirit of things and have a little fun?” I refused to wilt beneath the acid stare that came from my half sister. That didn’t mean I ignored her. It was plenty fun to goad Sylvia. In fact, it was one of the joys of my life. “Get with the program! This is Vegas! Everything’s supposed to be over the top. And it’s all for fun!”

“Fun.” She rolled her baby blues. “A wing of the building that’s meant to look like a Western town.”

“Yeah, the town of Deadeye,” I reminded her.

A shiver snaked over Sylvia’s slim shoulders. “Sweet. And what’s the point of Deadeye anyway, except to make more work for us? If we’ve got to move all our merchandise and supplies out of our trucks and into one of those hokey little booths—”

“There’s a sheriff’s office, a blacksmith shop, a general store. Even an undertaker.” When Tumbleweed chuckled, his belly shook. “These next few days are going to be more fun than a pillow fight! Visitors will get to walk down the main street and stop into each of the little shops to do business with our vendors.”

“And this . . .” Once again, Ruth Ann waved the envelope in her hands. “Here’s your assignment.”

In Sylvia’s world, time was money, and she didn’t like to waste either. She plucked the envelope out of Ruth Ann’s hands and opened it. When she read the single piece of paper inside, her jaw dropped. “The bordello? You’ve actually assigned Texas Jack’s stand to the bor . . . the bor . . .”

“Now, now, honey.” Tumbleweed put a hand on her shoulder. “It ain’t like we’re casting you two girls in a bad light or anything. It’s just that we looked the place over. You know, earlier in the week when we got here.” He leaned closer. “It’s the biggest space in Deadeye,” he confided. “And the nicest. We convinced Creosote Cal to assign it to you gals because we wanted to make sure you got the best spot.”

“Well, I think it’s hilarious and who knows . . .” Because I knew it would annoy her, I poked Sylvia in the ribs with one elbow. “Maybe we’ll end up getting a little action. Hey, what happens in Vegas—”

I didn’t get the chance to finish; Sylvia had already walked away.

“Seriously.” I shook off the bad vibes of Sylvia’s annoying Sylvia-ness. “We appreciate the plum spot. I can’t wait to see it.”

“There’s a bar along one wall where you can set up your spices,” Tumbleweed said.

“And even a red velvet fainting couch!” Ruth Ann grinned. “You’re going to love it, Maxie, honey. And Sylvia . . .” She looked toward where Sylvia made her way toward the ladies’ room. “She’ll come around.”

“Yeah, like in about a million years.” This didn’t bother me especially. After all, it wasn’t news. Sylvia was and always had been a stick-in-the-mud. You’d think a woman who had been arrested for murder back in Taos and owed her freedom to me finding the real killer would relax a little and get over herself. But then, we were talking about Sylvia.

I decided right then and there that it didn’t matter. The night before the opening of every Showdown was always a party, and I wasn’t going to let thoughts of Miss Tighter Than a Tick spoil my evening. Especially not in Vegas. “You ready for tomorrow morning?” I asked Tumbleweed.

His grin traveled ear to ear. “Devil’s Breath chili judging first thing in the morning! I’ve got to admit, having it be event numero uno was a stroke of genius.”

“And your idea!” Ruth Ann wound an arm through her husband’s and smiled up at him. She was a dozen years younger than Tumbleweed and as stick-thin as he was beefy. When I was a kid and fantasized about the perfect family that I did not have, I always thought of Ruth Ann and Tumbleweed. Unlike my own parents—divorced going on twenty years—they’d stayed together through thick and thin. I always thought they were the perfect couple, and over the years nothing had made me change my mind.

“Karl Sinclair is here, you know,” Ruth Ann purred. “That ought to attract plenty of attention to the Showdown.”

Sinclair was a showman extraordinaire. He billed himself as the champion of hot chili and had a legion of followers from all over the world. Well, tomorrow’s event ought to prove if he had the chops to go along with his reputation. Four regional winners coming together to earn a national title that was as hot as . . .

Well, as hot as Devil’s Breath.

See, in the chili community, Devil’s Breath is an all-encompassing name for the hottest of the hot. I, for one, was thrilled that this special category had been added to the cook-off for the weekend show along with the usual divisions: traditional red chili (made with any meat and red chili peppers but absolutely no beans or pasta), chili verde (made with any meat and green chili peppers but absolutely no beans or pasta), salsa, and homestyle (made with any combination of ingredients including beans and pasta). The Devil’s Breath contest was garnering us plenty of publicity and putting us on the map here in Vegas, where, let’s face it, you have to be over the top to get noticed. And since I love chili—the hotter the better—and after the contest, attendees could donate money for charity and get a taste of each of the finalists’ recipes, I couldn’t wait.

“What a weekend it’s going to be!” Tumbleweed beamed. “Why, we’re even going to have a wedding.”

“You mean
weddings
,” his wife corrected him. “And speaking of that . . . oh, Reverend!” Ruth Ann waved toward a woman who made her way through the crowd toward us. “Reverend Linda Love,” she told me as an aside while we waited for the minister to come over. “She owns the largest wedding chapel in Vegas, and on Sunday, she’s going to officiate at a ceremony that will get her in the record books. The largest mass wedding ceremony—”

“Ever performed in Nevada at a Western-themed hotel on a Sunday afternoon.”

I had to give Reverend Love credit. When she finished the sentence for Ruth Ann, she smiled in a way that told me that even she knew how crazy it sounded. But like I said, this was Vegas, and you didn’t get to be the proprietor of the most mega of the wedding chapels in the town that wild and crazy built without having a little bit of attitude, and a lot of circus ringmaster going for you.

I could tell Reverend Love had plenty of both.

She was a tall woman of sixty, slim, and she wore her chin-length blond hair stylishly mussy. The hairdo added a casual little bit of pizzazz to what might otherwise have been a forbidding persona: black power suit, sparkling diamonds at neck and wrists, a watch that no doubt cost more than the worth of Texas Jack’s entire enterprise.

She shook hands all around. “I hope you’ll all be here for the ceremony,” she said, taking each of us in with a glance. “Tumbleweed and Ruth, like I told you when we made the arrangements, you could always renew your vows.”

“That’s a great idea!” I said.

That made Reverend Love turn her attention to me. “And how about you?” she asked. “If you’ve got a special someone in your life, Sunday would be the perfect day to make it official.”

“Oh no!” My hands out flat, I backed away, both from the woman and the thought of such a thing. “Been there, done that,” I told her, which wasn’t technically true because Edik and I were never married. “Not going to make the mistake again.”

The reverend’s smile never wavered. “Love is never a mistake,” she said. “No matter the outcome. It’s that moment of commitment that matters. The way it shines through the universe and touches the world with love.”

Maybe.

Or maybe Linda Love had never had her credit cards scammed and her bank account emptied by a rock band lead guitarist she thought she loved.

The old memories came crashing down, and a shiver snaked over my shoulders. I twitched it away and changed the subject as much as I was able, scrambling to remember any little bit of info I’d heard about the weekend ceremony. “One of the performers from here at the casino is going to assist you, right?”

“Absolutely!” Reverend Love glanced around at the crowd, obviously looking for the performers. Like The Great Osborn, each of them—except for Dickie Dunkin, who was slated to be up onstage next—had already done an abbreviated show for the gathered vendors. “Each of the regulars here is going to perform one more show this weekend, and whoever sells the most tickets, well, that’s the performer who will help me out with the ceremony and be immortalized along with me in the record books.”

“I hope it’s that magician fellow we just saw perform,” Tumbleweed said, rocking back on his heels. “He was mighty good. Did you see the way right there at the end, he made that card magically move from the table back into the box?”

I didn’t have the heart to point out that even I could have gotten away with that trick. That six of clubs had never left the box to begin with.

“Or that wonderful singer, Hermosa,” Ruth Ann piped up.

Again, I kept my mouth firmly shut. Hermosa (just Hermosa, one name, like Cher but without the looks or the talent) had treated us (and oh, how I use those words in the broadest sense) to a medley of songs right before the magician came onstage.

“Or Yancy. Don’t forget Yancy. He’s a perennial favorite here at Creosote Cal’s.” With a nod, the reverend indicated the elderly African-American man who chatted with a group of people on the other side of the room. I’d come in late and had missed Yancy Harris’s performance, but I remembered seeing the poster that advertised his act when Sylvia and I checked in. Yancy was blind, had been all his life, and according to what I’d heard about him, he could wail on the piano keyboard like no other man around.

“And then there’s Dickie, of course,” Tumbleweed reminded us.

Was it possible? Did I actually see the reverend’s eternally pleasant expression droop at the mention of the comedian’s name? It sure didn’t last long. But then, a middle-aged balding guy in an orange-and-brown-plaid sport coat came up behind the reverend and wound an arm around her waist, and whatever expression had been on her face, it was lost in a tiny screech of surprise.

“Talking about me, aren’t you, sweetie?” Dickie Dunkin himself, I recognized him from the posters out in the lobby. His publicity photos had obviously been taken by a skilled professional—or thirty years before. They didn’t show the bags under Dickie’s eyes, or the blubbery jowls. They definitely weren’t scratch and sniff, either, because if they were, I would have caught wind of the musky aftershave Dickie must have applied with a soup ladle.

“You are going to stay around for my act, aren’t you, Reverend?” Dickie asked, then gave me a broad wink. “She’ll stay. I know she’ll stay. Reverend Love here, she’s a real doll!”

One more squeeze and Dickie hurried onto the stage.

It was our cue to get back to our seats.

I slipped into mine just as Sylvia came to hers from the other aisle.

She smoothed her skirt. “Busy mingling, I see.”

“Maybe.” We’d just gotten off the road a couple hours before and parked our RV and the food truck we hauled behind it, and I hadn’t bothered to get dolled up like Sylvia had. I was wearing skinny jeans and a skin-hugging top that was nearly as dark as my short, spiky hair. Vegas, remember, and I wasn’t about to be intimidated by the likes of Sylvia because I went for casual (and pretty sexy, if I did say so myself) rather than for her sober good taste.