Madhattan Mystery by John J. Bonk

Author:John J. Bonk
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Published: 2012-09-23T04:00:00+00:00

15

DOWN AND DIRTY

“I don’t think Mel’s gonna show!” Lexi called out to Kim Ling, who was pacing in front of the information kiosk, looking as if she was about to strangle someone. “You’re not gonna believe it. Sophie saw her running from the cops today after they raided Grand Central. That poor girl! Can you imagine?”

“Really?” Kim Ling blinked a few times and scratched an eyebrow. “Well, truth be told, I think we’re better off without her. I swear, she’s non compos mentis, that chick—not playin’ with a full deck. On to plan B.”

The word heartless sprang to Lexi’s mind but she kept it to herself. “I didn’t know there was a plan B.”

“There’s wasn’t. Until now. I just don’t know what it is yet.”

Lexi adjusted her wig, tugging and slapping at it as if it were a too-tight football helmet, and challenged herself to come up with something before Kim Ling. She wandered around the kiosk, running her hand over the train schedule leaflets with a hopeful eye out for Melrose. But who was she kidding? She checked her phone messages again. Nothing. Coming full circle, she tossed the remaining food into a trash can with a sigh of defeat, and when she turned around—“Oh, pardon me!”—she bounced off a mound of flesh.

It was a lumpy woman in a Phantom of the Opera T-shirt, holding a giant street-vendor pretzel.

“Good gravy, I apologize!” the woman said in a soupy Southern drawl. “Are y’all, by any chance, here for the free walking tour of Grand Central Station?”

Kim Ling’s head snapped in her direction. “Maybe.”

“The fellow at the hotel desk said we should all meet up by the gilded clock.”

“This is it,” Lexi told her. “It’s actually priceless—all four faces are genuine opal, but you’d never guess from looking at it.”

“Ooh. Isn’t that wonderful? Maybe you should be giving the tour!” The woman cackled unexpectedly and gestured to her unmistakable male counterpart in a matching Phantom T-shirt with a camera swinging from his neck. “Vern! Come on!”

“Ma’am,” Kim Ling said in her polite voice, “what’s the tour exactly?”

“We’re not really sure, to be honest with you. We’re just killin’ time till David Letterman. Me and my husband won tickets to see a live taping of his show.”

“Oh, fun,” Lexi said with a polite smile.

“I know! We’re real excited. We signed up for it online way back in—when was it, Vern? September! They put you in some kind of lottery and it takes—” She noticed something in the distance and her lips stopped flapping. “Oh, shh-shh-shh, this fellow looks like he might be somebody.”

Through a crisscross of commuters, a nerdy little man in a rumpled blazer and glaringly white sneakers was fighting his way toward the kiosk. “If you’re here for the eleven o’clock tour of the secrets of Grand Central Terminal,” he said through his small bullhorn, “you’ve come to the right place. I’m your guide, Neil Early.”

“Well, it’s eleven-oh-two, Mr. Early—you’re late!” Kim Ling had to say.

“No one thinks you’re funny,” Lexi whispered.

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