Free Nobody Dies in a Casino by Marlys Millhiser Page A

ever expect to get hardened to it, mind you, but she’d managed to make a place for herself and her daughter in this world. Talking to her mother, however, always diminished any pride she might have built up in her triumphs.
    Stop whining and call your mother.
    Charlie’s mom lived in Boulder, where she worked as a professor of biology—rats and bats—at the University of Colorado. Where Charlie was born and her daughter conceived on the wrong side of a tombstone. Charlie’s greatest nightmare was that Edwina would move to Long Beach and the world would ask three generations of totally incompatible women to live in the same state.
    Charlie loved her mother—she just couldn’t stand her.
    â€œWell, it took you long enough.” It was as if Edwina had been sitting on top of the phone.
    I’ve been busy, like, you know, dead people, crazy clients, midlist authors on a toot. “So what’s the problem now?”
    â€œâ€˜So what’s the problem now?’” her mother mimicked, and Charlie took a pillow off the bed to kick. “I’m the problem in this family, right?”
    â€œEdwina? I’m listening. But only through the next three words.”
    Whoa, is that power talk?
    Charlie couldn’t believe she’d said it either.
    â€œThree words. Never…” and Charlie’s mother hung up.
    I’m going to kill that woman.
    You are not, she merely followed your orders. You do not order your mother.
    Charlie punched her mother’s number, determined not to begin the conversation with an apology. “I’m sorry. What’s wrong?”
    â€œI don’t know. How many words do I get?”

CHAPTER 9
    â€œL ARRY SAYS P ITMAN’S has given Reynelda another deadline extension, but this is it, and the book clubs are pissed because their schedules are shot to hell too,” Charlie told Richard Morse, who was splayed contentedly on the lounge chair next to that of the lovely Bradone. Bradone, a tad thick in the thigh, could be hiding some corrective-surgery scars under her one-piece, but the woman was firm and shapely for any age. Her houseboy probably doubled as a personal trainer.
    Richard sagged some about a middle that had been lipoed at least once that Charlie knew, thanks to documented office gossip. But he looked pretty good compared to gray chest hair nearby. Didn’t even bother to hide his hickey.
    Richard roused himself enough to ask Charlie, “What’s your mother say? She knows this Goff woman better than anybody.”
    Charlie’s mother had claimed on the phone to be on the verge of suicide because of hot flashes now that she couldn’t have hormone-replacement therapy. Charlie had told her to sit in front of a fan in her office and to air-condition the house.
    Edwina had hung up again. Charlie dialed again. Apologized again. Jeesh—you’d think hot flashes were fatal.
    â€œMy mother says Reynelda Goff is suffering from menopausal symptoms and has these panic attacks that—”
    â€œJesus Christ in a chorus line, is nothing safe from old women in menopause?” Richard sat up and whipped off his sunglasses. “Well, I mean, most broads don’t make such a big deal of all that shit,” he added weakly when he noticed Bradone had whipped off her sunglasses too.
    â€œâ€˜Broads’? I haven’t heard that anachronism in years. You do mean shit like breast cancer,” Bradone McKinley said, far too politely. “If she can’t take hormones—”
    â€œNo, it’s my mom who had the breast cancer and can’t take hormones,” Charlie said, coming to her boss’s defense. She must love her job. “Reynelda’s a neighbor of Edwina’s who—”
    â€œWho wrote a book and got menopause,” Richard chimed in, but then he added disastrously, “Why can’t beautiful, young, sane women write books?”
    â€œI expect they do.”