Jaine Austen 4 - Shoes to Die For by Laura Levine Page B

flush in the adjacent bathroom.
    “By the way,” Mr. Goldman said, “I told him we have nicknames for each other. You’re my Honey Bunny, and I’m your Teddy Bear.”
    Quick. Somebody get me a barf bag.
    The bathroom door opened and an old man the size of a Keebler elf came shuffling out. This was the hospital Romeo?
    “Hey, Perez,” Mr. Goldman said, holding my hand. “Here’s my girlfriend I told you about.”
    “How do you do?” Mr. Perez said, with a wink. “You weren’t kidding, Goldman, when you said she was a hot mama.”
    “She sure is,” Mr. Goldman grinned. “Isn’t that right, Honey Bunny?”
    Where the hell was that barf bag?
    “I like my women with a little meat on their hips,” Mr. Perez said, looking me up and down appraisingly.
    “Personally, I prefer my men ambulatory and not yet on Medicare,” was what I felt like saying. But you’ll be happy to know that I reined myself in and plastered a phony smile on my face.
    We spent the next fifteen minutes in strained chitchat, Mr. Perez filling me in on the details of his hernia surgery. (He had a hernia the size of a grapefruit, in case you’re interested.) All the while, Mr. Goldman held my hand in a death grip, refusing to let go, and peppering his conversation with a rash of Honey Bunnies.
    Just when I thought my face was going to crack from smiling so much, a tiny woman came hobbling into the room on a cane. She wore her bleached blond hair in a towering beehive and had on enough makeup to cover Tammy Faye Bakker and still have some left over for Ivana Trump. But no amount of makeup could hide the fact that she was somewhere in her eighties.
    “Hi, Ramón!” she said, planting a kiss on his cheek. “How’s my fella?”
    It turns out that this was Mr. Perez’s hot “young” girlfriend. At last, Mr. Goldman had met his match in the Vivid Imagination Department.
    She may not have been young, but this old dame sure was hot. I watched in amazement as she plunked herself down on Mr. Perez’s bed, and they started exchanging kisses. Yikes. Any minute now, they were going to be necking. I had to get out of there before Mr. Goldman got any ideas.
    “So nice to meet both of you,” I said, “but I’ve got to be running along.”
    “So soon?” Mr. Goldman asked.
    “Yes, Teddy Bear. I’ve got a dentist’s appointment. Root canal. Can’t possibly cancel.”
    I started for the door.
    “Wait a minute,” Mr. Goldman said. “Aren’t you going to give your Teddy Bear a kiss?”
    Gritting my teeth, I walked back to his side. I bent down and pecked him chastely on the cheek.
    “That’s it?” he asked.
    “That’s it,” I said firmly. “Wouldn’t want to get you all excited and give you another heart attack, would we?”
    And then I got the hell out of there. As fast as my meaty hips could carry me.

Chapter 11

    T he minute I came home, I headed straight for the bathtub, tearing off my clothes en route. After all I’d been through, I desperately needed a good long soak. There’s nothing like a soothing bath to make a person forget dead bodies and dirty old men.
    I’d just filled the tub with my favorite strawberry-scented bath oil and was watching the water begin to bubble when the phone rang.
    Like a fool, I answered it. It was Kandi.
    “I’ll pick you up at seven,” she announced.
    “For what?”
    “Don’t tell me you forgot. Tonight we’re going speed dating.”
    “I’m sorry, Kandi, but I can’t possibly go.”
    “Why not?”
    “I’ve had sort of a bad day.”
    “You’re not the only one, kiddo. It’s been hell on the set. The actor who plays Fred the Flea got busted on an indecent exposure charge, and we’ve been casting new fleas all day.”
    “I think my bad day can top your bad day.”
    I told her about discovering Frenchie’s body.
    “Wow,” she said. “Death by designer shoe.”
    “Actually, Lance says they were knockoffs. But the thing is, Kandi, I’m pretty shaken up.”
    “You poor thing,”