9ddba8405c712dc705f6095a3ea49417

“I like this Serge guy for this. He had access and he’s got a criminal record, which makes him the perfect candidate in my book. Plus, I have a bad feeling about him.”

“You had a bad feeling about Kurtz,” Odelia reminded her.

“Kurtz is all right,” said Gran with a throwaway gesture of her hand. “He’s a loyal soldier and would never harm a hair on Opal’s head. No, we need to find out more about this Serge what’s-his-face and the only way to do that is by contacting the police.”

“But Opal told us not to involve the police.”

“And we won’t,” said Gran with a sly little smile. “We’ll contact Alec instead, who’ll have a little chat with his friends at the LAPD and ask them to do him a small favor.”

“Very clever of you.”

“Hey! I’m not just some Philip Marlowe. I’m Vesta Muffin. Ace detective.”

“Yes, you are,” said Odelia, but then a knock on the door announced the next interviewee, so she hollered, “Push—the door is open!”

Chapter 17

“Push! Come on, Alec. One more rep!”

Alec pushed and pushed but found himself incapable of completing one more‘rep,’ whatever a rep was.

“I can’t!” he squeaked, and let the heavy iron bar fall back onto its holder with a loud clanging sound. He was perspiring so hard he thought he might expire soon.

“Well done, buddy,” said Chase, patting him on the shoulder.

Alec couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even move. He was sucking in big gulps of breath.

They were in the hotel’s gym, and as it happened they were the only ones there, all the usual suspects probably in the conference room listening to Rambo teaching them about all of his Rambo methods for beating their fellow citizens into submission.

“Take a sip,” Chase said, handing him a bottle of water. “Staying hydrated is key.”

“Breathing is key,” said Alec between two labored breaths.

“Yeah, I think breathing is overrated,” said Chase with a grin. “And? How are you feeling? Invigorated, right? So much energy!”

“Dead,” said Alec, finally managing to drag his battered corpus from the bench where he’d done eight pushups of a very heavy iron bar with some weights attached at each end.

And as he started searching around for the sign that showed the way to the showers, Chase said,“Hey, you’re not finished yet.”

“Oh, I’m finished.”

“We did chest, Alec. Now we do back, and then half an hour cardio.”

“Cardio! No way!”

“Look, I’m not going to let you do anything too demanding, but at the very least you need to go up on that treadmill and walk for half an hour. Show your Fitbit some action.”

“Walk for half an hour?” he asked. “That’s all I have to do? Just walk?”

“Yup. But first we’re going to do twelve reps on the back pulley machine.”

“But I don’t want to pull my back!”

“Just take a seat there,” Chase instructed, like the hard taskmaster he was, “and grab those handles.”

Alec, in spite of the fact that he thought he could die any moment now, did as he was told and grabbed for the handles Chase indicated.“Now what?” he said.

“Now you’re going to pull those handles. Pull as hard as you can. Pull, Alec. Pull!”

“I am pulling!” Alec cried.

“Oh,” said Chase. “Sorry about that. I forgot to switch the pin.”

He pulled out a pin and shifted it somewhere higher on the stack of weights.

“Now try again. Pull! Pull!”

Alec pulled, and this time there was movement.“This is hard,” he lamented.

“It’s supposed to be hard.”

“You actually enjoy this?”

“I love it,” said Chase as he took a sip from his own bottle of water. “You can’t beat the high you get from a fantastic workout. Well, maybe sex comes close, but nothing else.”

“The high… from a… fantastic… workout,” he panted as he shifted that weight stack for the twelfth and final time. “That’s it,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m officially done.”

“You did great, buddy,” said Chase. “Next time will be a lot easier. You’ll see.”

“Oh, no, it won’t. I’m never setting foot in this torture chamber again. Ever!”

They walked over to the treadmill and Alec got on one as Chase punched a couple of buttons. The treadmill started moving and Alec started walking. Chase was right. It wasn’t too demanding, and soon he was actually feeling almost human again.

Next to him, his friend and second-in-command had also mounted a similar treadmill and was now running full tilt, his feet pounding the rubber as if he’d never done anything else. Amazing, Alec thought as he watched Chase punish that machine.

“So have you heard from Odelia yet?” he asked, now that he had some oxygen to spare and suddenly felt predisposed to chat.

“Yeah, there was another attempt on Opal’s life this afternoon,” said Chase, grim-faced.

“No way! What happened?”

“Someone tried to kill her by dropping one of those big studio lights on top of her. By some miracle she escaped without a scratch.”

“My God. Did she call the cops this time?”

“Nope. Still doesn’t want to get the police involved.”