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I followed him to the third floor and the only suite in the hotel. Tank was in front of the suite door, arms crossed, feet at parade rest. He was dressed in the usual Rangeman black T-shirt and cargo pants, with a gun at his hip.
“Any problems?” Ranger asked.
“No,” Tank replied. “She's been inside since I came on duty.”
“We'll take it from here,” Ranger said.
I watched Tank walk to the elevator and thought about Lula out shopping for an engagement ring. I could sort of see Tank and Lula engaged, but the mental image of them settling into married life went right to the top of the bizarrometer.
Ranger rapped on Brenda's door and waited. He rapped a second time.
“Maybe she's in the bathroom,” I said.
Ranger took a pass card from his pocket, inserted it in the lock, and opened the door. “See if you can find her.”
I tiptoed into the entrance foyer and looked into the living room area.
“Hello,” I called.
A young woman popped out of the bedroom. She was slim, and her face was pinched and had the hungry, haunted look of someone who'd recently quit smoking. Her short dark hair was pushed behind her ears in a non-style. She was wearing a skirt and a cardigan and flat shoes. She didn't look happy.
“Yes?” she asked.
“Security,” I told her. “We're here to escort Brenda.”
“She's getting dressed.”
“Honestly,” Brenda yelled from the bedroom. “I don't know why I have to do these things.”
Brenda was Kentucky born and raised. Her voice was country, and her style was ballsy. From what I read in the tabloids, at sixty-one she was on a slippery slope as an aging star. And she wasn't going down gracefully.
“It's a charity event,” the young woman said. “It's a goodwill gesture. We're trying to erase the image of you running over that cameraman last month.”
“It was an accident.”
“You ran over his foot, and then you put your car in reverse and knocked him down!”
“I got confused. For crissake, get off my case. Who do you work for anyway? I want a glass of wine. Where's my wine? I specifically requested that the cooler be stocked with New Zealand sauvignon blanc. I must have my blanc!”
I looked at my watch. “Are you responsible for getting her there on time?” I asked Ranger.
“I'm responsible for getting her there alive.”
“I'm responsible for getting her there on time,” the dark-haired woman said.
“I'm Nancy Kolen. I'm the press secretary assigned to this trip. I work for Brenda's record company.”
“I have nothing to wear,” Brenda said. “What am I supposed to wear? Honestly, why am I always surrounded by amateurs? Is it too much to ask to have a stylist here? Where's my stylist? First no blanc, and now no stylist. How am I supposed to work under these conditions?”
Nancy Kolen disappeared into the bedroom, and ten minutes later, Brenda swished out, followed by Nancy.
Brenda was slim and toned and spray-tanned to something resembling orange mud.
She had big boobs, lots of curly auburn hair tipped with blond, and her lips looked like they'd been inflated with an air hose.
She was wearing a red knit strapless tube dress that could double for skin, four-inch spike-heeled shoes, and a white sheared mink jacket. She looked like Santa's senior off-season "ho.
Ranger was standing pressed against my back, and I could feel him smile when Brenda entered the room. I gave him an elbow to the ribs, and he exhaled on a barely audible bark of laughter.
