Midnight Oil Read online

  He ended the call with Jerry, cutting off his banter about the Miami Heat and the unbearable mosquitoes this time of year. At a cool three hundred an hour, Jerry loved to have long conversations with his clients and then bill them for the pleasure. Once, Troy would have played along, but not now. Jerry could discuss free throws and insect larvae at somebody else’s expense.

  Troy glared again at After Hours and the hundreds of foo-foo bottles and jars in the window. Snooty, tooty-fruity place.

  He pictured canoes, camping equipment, mountain bikes in that window. Hiking boots and parkas, wet suits and surfboards. Rugged, outdoorsy stuff.

  He pictured a gathering place for sports-minded, manly men. Hell, maybe he’d install a wide-screen TV and some seating and serve beer himself! If the Pretty Palace could, then he sure as hell could. The vision grew in his head until he saw himself presiding over a retail version of Cheers. He’d have company all day and everyone would know his name…he’d be, if not a big cheese, a medium one.

  Troy gave a mighty yawn and thanked the Guy Upstairs that he didn’t have to play Peeping Tom again tonight. Being sleep deprived made him cranky.

  But no matter what it took, he’d get this silly salon and spa off his property. He just had to get inside the damn place and figure out how.

  Chapter 2

  “PEG,” THE RECEPTIONIST reasoned at After Hours Salon and Spa, “how are you going to meet Mr. Right when you won’t go out?”

  Peggy Underwood, the spa’s manager and massage therapist, rolled her eyes. “I’m going to buy him from a pet store, already housebroken.” She no longer believed in Mr. Right. She was pretty sure that he’d been dreamed up by Disney, like Donald and Goofy and Mickey.

  “Peggy! You’re so cynical.”

  “Yeah. And I refuse to apologize for it. I told you about the weirdo staring at us from the parking lot last night.”

  Shirlie looked uncomfortable. “He was probably harmless, but I’m glad you got rid of him.”

  Peg twisted off the cap of a body mist and sprayed some into the air. She sniffed. “Nice. Breezy. Gardenias.” She squirted some under each arm of her white lab coat, recapped the bottle and stuck it onto one of the spa’s shelves.

  Shirlie laughed and tossed her short blond curls. Peg looked at them with envy. Why hadn’t she been born tall, thin and blond, instead of short, curvy and carrottopped?

  “Come on,” Shirlie urged. “This new club is fab. Hot men, cold drinks, great music!” She kept on blandishing. Shirlie was twenty-two, fresh-faced and eternally optimistic.

  Peggy herself was twenty-nine, cynical and currently cranky, even though she kept reminding herself that she didn’t like cranky people. “I think what you mean, Shirl, is gay or gruesome men, cheap, watered-down vodka and lip-synching to the latest prepackaged boy band. I love you, hon, but I think I’ll pass.”

  Men were of no interest to Peggy for the next fifty-two weeks; she was committed to finding her center. Before the year was out, she’d be floating in a state of total balance between mind, body and spirit. She’d taken up meditation, she was reading about Buddhism and she not only gave massages and treatments but underwent them regularly herself.

  Peg popped the lids off some new erotic lipsticks from Sugar Lips and inspected them. Nice. High quality. Very kissable. The company was new, and she’d only recently discovered it.

  Since the image for After Hours was oriented to sexy, evening fun she’d tested one and ordered some immediately. They glided on beautifully and tasted delicious.

  She chose three different flavors and drew stripes of them on the inside of her wrist: one cinnamon raspberry, one pink and one deep slut red. “Hmm. Try this on, okay?” She tossed the red one to Shirlie.

  She tested the pinky cinnamon one on herself, applying the Ride Him Raspberry generously.

  Then she lip-synched—puckered up against an invisible microphone—to the Brazilian pop song on the sound system. She moonwalked to the reception desk while Shirlie laughed again. Peg scooped up a box behind the desk and cushioned it against her stomach as she gyrated back to the shelves.

  Producing a utility knife from her pocket, she slit open the box with a dramatic, pseudosexual gesture and tore it open as if it were a man’s shirt.

  Shirlie shook her head at her and tossed the lipstick back, her mouth now fire-engine red. Peg evaluated the color, nodded and then continued to stock new products on the spa’s curvy modern shelves, blinking under the bright halogen lighting.

  Her heart-shaped, freckled face and red hair competed with bottles, jars and tubes for reflection space in the mirrors behind the shelves. Her skin was almost as pale as the white tips of her chipped French manicure. What had possessed her to move to sunny Miami?

  Oh, right: the ability to spend more time outdoors, under an inch of SPF 30 sunscreen instead of two inches of wool.

  “You have to get back into the swing of things sometime,” Shirlie urged. “Not all men are like Eddie.”

  Ugh. Her ex-fiancé. Steroid-popping jock. Compulsive gambler. Borderline alcoholic. Cheap, lying bastard! She’d moved down here from Connecticut to make a new start.

  Peg’s hand tightened around a tube of hair gel so hard that it spit off the loose top and plopped some product onto the floor. She looked down at the mess, reached for a tissue and mopped it up.

  “You deserve so much better than that,” Shirlie said. “And trust me, you have a better chance of finding it—him—while wearing a cute little miniskirt on a dance floor than wearing your baggy, ice-cream-stained pajamas on your couch.”

  “Hey!” Peggy said. “There are no ice-cream stains on my pj’s. I wash them regularly. And besides,” she added, “since they can now clone sheep, it’s got to be a snap to clone a single-cell organism like a man. I’m thinking we’ll be able to order men from a catalogue within about five years. I could be really into that.”

  Shirlie wrinkled her nose. “That would take all the fun out of life. What about the thrill of the chase?”

  Poor thing. She was still young enough that she got excited about the whole silly mating dance. “What thrill? Shirlie, I’d get a huge charge out of just ordering up a man without the burping or farting gene. Or the beer-gut gene! Can you imagine the possibilities? You might even be able to special-order one with an on-off switch. Or even better, an erect-limp switch!”

  “Eeuuwww.” Shirlie’s expression was priceless.

  Peg stuffed an unruly curl behind her ear and said, “Oh, right. You’re still too young to have had more than a five-minute-long relationship, so maybe none of these issues has come up. Or, uh, refused to come up, as the case may be.” She produced some fiendish laughter. “Mwah-ha-ha-ha, my pretty! Nothin’ but good times ahead.” She winked.

  “Peggy, I wouldn’t date a…nonstarter.”

  Peg scooped more bottles and tubes out of a box, her tongue in her cheek. “Well, here’s the thing, honey. You don’t always know at first. For example, take my advice and stay far, far away from any guy who’s on steroids.”

  “Oh, my God! You don’t mean that Eddie…”

  Peg nodded. “I could write a book called Limp Lovin’. The man popped so many pills that his dong had turned to linguine.”

  Shirlie’s expression was priceless. “Hey, at least you know he wasn’t cheating on you, right?”

  Peg choked. “True. Not without a Popsicle stick and some electrical tape, anyway.” She didn’t feel in the least bad about revealing her ex’s dark secret, since the creep had actually swapped the stone in her engagement ring for a cubic zirconia. Which brought her to another piece of advice for Shirlie. “And, hon, take it from me—don’t date any guy who shows an affinity for gambling.”

  “O-kaaaay.”

  “Then there are the ones who hate women, even though they like to have sex. And the ones who have inferiority complexes and have to bring you down so they can feel superior. And worse, there are—”

  Shirlie clapped her hands over her ears and
moaned. “Stop! Look, maybe it is a good idea for you to stay home tonight. I just want to go dancing and have a good time, Miss Wet Blanket.”

  Peg grinned at her. “Yeah, well, it’s better than being Mrs. Wet Blanket, married to a guy who’s so cheap that his wallet creaks when he has to open it. Or—”

  Shirlie was beginning to look a little wild-eyed when the door to After Hours opened and in walked The Man. Her eyes went from wild to glazed over within a nanosecond.

  Peg observed this while running her own eyes over The Man. He was six feet, two inches of gym-terrorized perfection, she had to give him that. His wide, solid torso formed a perfect V as it tapered into his slim waist, which was the only thing slim about him. He had the biceps of a young Arnold Schwartzenegger, shoulders that made even Peg want to cram a fist into her mouth and long, lean-looking legs. She couldn’t see his backside, but she’d be willing to bet that it was Grade A prime beef.

  The Man smiled at her, displaying even white teeth.

  Just as a spark of sexual awareness shot through her belly and zoomed lower, she recovered her mental capacity. Steroids, she sang to herself. The guy is so bulked up he looks like he’s made of rubber. He’d bounce if you threw him on the pavement. And he’s probably a knucklehead, to boot.

  Peg pulled her white lab coat closed against his gaze. There was something vaguely familiar about him, which disconcerted her. She didn’t like his air of cool appraisal either—he stepped in as if he owned the place.

  Shirlie beamed at The Man and got an instant case of the nervous babbles. “Hi, welcome to After Hours! I mean, I know it’s not after hours right now, it’s regular daytime business hours, but After Hours is the name of the salon and spa since we’re open 9:00 a.m. to midnight. Isn’t that fabulous? New marketing concept. Most people don’t have time to leave work and come during the day, so we get them to come at night.”

  “Oh,” said The Man, “I’m not particular about when I come.” He grinned at Peg.

  She narrowed her eyes, but she couldn’t find a trace of innuendo or sarcasm in his voice.

  Shirlie’s blue eyes widened and she squirmed. “Uh, arrive at night. Make evening appointments. I didn’t mean, well, you know…” Shirlie blushed fire. “I didn’t mean anything by—I just meant—Oh, God, just shoot me. But by the way, I’m Shirlie!”

  Peg cringed for her.

  The Man blinked, bit back laughter and finally said politely, “Nice to meet you, Shirlie.”

  “You have an appointment for a massage?” She scanned the book, looking very much as if she’d like to close her face in it and die.

  He shook his head and opened his mouth to speak, but the babbles took hold of her again. “You’re here to have your back waxed, then! Of course. Don’t be embarrassed—lots of men have your problem. We wax backs all the time. My brother has come here for that. No shame in it at all—”

  “Actually,” The Man said, “I’m here to—”

  “Your bikini area, then?” Shirlie blurted.

  “God, no!” He looked alarmed.

  Peggy decided that it was time she stepped in, to rescue both Shirlie and The Man from any more awkwardness. “What can we help you with?” she asked.

  “I was, uh…” He looked up at the ceiling tiles, of all places. And along the baseboards. He squinted into the back of the salon, gazing…under the sinks?

  Peggy didn’t know what to make of him. Then he stuck his foot in his mouth.

  “Listen,” he said. “Do any straight guys come here?”

  Unbelievable. Peg couldn’t help it. She snorted.

  He looked at her sharply.

  She cleared her throat. “Sorry. Just getting over a cold. Yes, plenty of straight guys come here. Your masculinity is safe on our premises.”

  “Are you making fun of me?” he asked.

  Oh, hell. Yes, I was, and it was wrong, and it’s certainly not good business to do that. “No, no. Not at all.” She gave him her best smile. “We’re running a special right now on spa packages, and as the manager, I can offer you twenty-five percent off. Would you be interested in booking our Qu—uh, King package? It’s a combination of a sea salt body scrub and wrap, a hot stone massage and a warm mud bath. Very relaxing and rejuvenating—and men, straight men, get this package all the time.”

  “Sounds great,” The Man said, looking uninterested and still inspecting everything but the decor, which usually riveted first-time visitors since it was so splashy and contemporary. Orchid, sea-foam green, yellow and pink walls surrounded übermod furniture and funky floor cloths.

  After dark, the spa’s lighting, music and atmosphere created almost a nightclub feel, where clients could have a cocktail or two while getting their nails or hair done. Part of Shirlie’s job was to mix drinks after 5:00 p.m.

  The idea was that the spa functioned as a relaxing, fun preparty spot where clients could start their evenings while being pampered and polished.

  “Would you like to book your package all at once,” Peg asked, “or in three separate treatments?”

  The Man hesitated for a moment. “Three separate treatments, please,” he said.

  “All right.” Since Shirlie wasn’t responding to the verbal cues, Peg took the appointment book from her apparently nerveless hands and flipped through the pages. “When would you like to come in?”

  “Uh, tomorrow? Say, around six or seven?”

  She scanned the book. Their part-time massage therapist was off tomorrow. She’d have to take the appointment herself. “Seven o’clock all right?”

  “That’ll be fine, thanks.” He continued to scan the premises. What was he, an engineer? Again, he didn’t seem interested in the design, the multicolored walls or the distressed, hand-painted cement floor.

  He did seem interested in her—she could feel it in his gaze—but it was as if he didn’t want to be.

  There was something about him that she didn’t trust, though she couldn’t put her finger on why. And why did he seem familiar? It wasn’t just that his casual, cocky, muscular stance reminded her of Eddie.

  Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself. There’s nothing sinister in a guy signing up for a sea salt scrub.

  She tried not to think about the fact that tomorrow she’d be running her bare hands all over those broad shoulders of his, that smooth, tanned muscle. Her body went on full, red-hot alert, which wasn’t in the least professional.

  Shirlie was still pinned in the receptionist’s chair by the visual force of the man, riveted by that butt of his as he strode to the door. Was that a trickle of drool at the corner of her mouth?

  The butt was indeed Grade A prime. And his chinos fit him just right. The Man’s back muscles rippled as he opened the door, and both Peg and Shirlie sighed as he walked through it and let it close behind him. God, what was wrong with the pair of them? This was Miami—they saw male models all the time.

  It wasn’t until he’d disappeared from sight that Peg realized she’d forgotten to get his name and phone number. Had she really been lecturing Shirlie in that smug, worldly way just a few minutes ago? She herself was just as bad!

  “What do you think he looks like with his clothes off?” Shirlie asked reverently. “Did you catch his name?”

  Peg shook her head sheepishly. “No, but I’ll be the one doing his sea salt scrub tomorrow, so—”

  “Shut-up-no-you-are-not!”

  “Yep.”

  “Some people have all the luck. I’m going to get my license, I swear.”

  “Believe me, not all your customers will look like that. There are some people you do not want to see naked. Case in point, Pugsy Malloy. I close my eyes when I have to do Pugsy.”

  Shirlie sighed. “Yeah, but I think I’d sign up for five Pugsys if I could have just one what’s-his-name.”

  Peggy laughed. “Okay, Miss Babble. Wipe the slobber off the reception desk.”

  Shirlie wrinkled her nose. “I did babble, didn’t I? I’m so embarrassed. But you were drooling, too! Don�
��t deny it.”

  “I did not drool,” said Peg with dignity. “I just salivated a little.”

  Judging from her face, a horrifying possibility had just occurred to Shirlie. “You don’t think…you don’t think that guy does steroids, do you? I mean, it would be a crying shame if—”

  Peggy pursed her lips. “Judging by his body, I can’t say I’d be surprised.” She began to flatten the cardboard box that had held the new products.

  “Tomorrow at eight, you have to give me a full report! Plus his name and number.”

  “Shirlie, I’m not likely to see that part of him. I do work with a sheet, hon.”

  “Oh, c’mon! Can’t you take a little sneak peek? Just for me?”

  “No,” said Peg, laughing. “That’s not ethical and you know it.” She tossed the flattened box into the trash.

  “Who said anything about ethics? I just don’t want to waste my time if he’s hung like a garden slug.”

  Peg shook her head. “Shirl, you’re impossible. Go dancing tonight. Get it out of your system. Do everything I wouldn’t do, and have fun. You know I adore you, but I cannot check out a customer’s equipment on the sly.”

  “Can you step on the sheet accidentally? And, hey, do you have a camera phone? Or you could text message me from the back room—”

  “No. I’m going to lunch now. Can I get you anything while I’m out? A foot-long hot dog, perhaps?” She laughed as Shirlie threw a wad of paper at her, and ducked out the door.

  Peggy walked down the block to a local sandwich shop, grimacing at the heat and humidity of Miami in May. Unfortunately, her seven-o’clock appointment the next day had now started to assume a significance of epic proportions. The question was, would her client’s significant proportions also be epic?

  Chapter 3

  AT FIVE MINUTES TO SEVEN, Peggy put a William Ackerman new age CD into the treatment room’s stereo system and hit the play button. She lit an imported French candle—Japanese-quince scented—and spread plastic, clean white towels and a fresh sheet on her massage table.