There's only one remedy that's certain to take the blues away. If Put on your favorite CD, turn up the volume, and dance like nobody's watching, because, lucky for you, nobody is!
" I've heard of cop strippers before, but you must be a new £ kind," Myrtle said, pondering it. "You must be a robber 5 stripper!"
Lance tried to remember the cab ride. He'd heard a good offer from a beautiful woman, but somehow that cab had brought him to a cluttered kitchen where he was being propositioned by a geriatric klepto. Next time, Lance told himself, keep walking.
"So, whatcha waiting on? Neither one of us is getting any younger."
Caroline had been right about the whiskey, Lance realized.
Myrtle was sloshed. She wasn't stumbling or slurring her words like a cheap, once-in-a-blue-moon drunk. Instead, she had the body control of a full-fledged alcoholic. Lance knew both kinds of drunks better than he would have liked; that's something that comes with the territory when working behind a bar. Who can drive? Who can't? Who's faking sobriety? Myrtle was an accomplished fake, but her glazed expression and ruddy skin betrayed her. The fact that she had two different color socks peeking out from beneath her hot-pink muumuu didn't help her case, either.
Lance was formulating a plan when he heard the faint hum of walkie-talkie static and knew immediately that the situation was even worse than he'd thought—Julia and Nina were still in the house.
"My Johnny didn't pay you to stand," Myrtle bellowed, shaking her curler-covered head. Then she began chanting, "Strip. Strip. Strip. Strip."
"I think maybe we should go in here," Lance said loudly, and began to steer her out of the kitchen, away from the sounds of static and spilling cereal. "I think it would be best if you sat here, with your back to the patio doors," he practically yelled. "There. That's perfect. You just sit there and keep your eyes on me."
"That's our cue!" Julia said to Nina.
She eased the pantry door open just in time to hear Lance yell, "Wait! Why are you going to the kitchen "
Okay, already, Julia thought. We're not deaf. She eased the door closed.
"I can't believe that old bat gets to see him nak*d," Nina complained as she and Julia stood, cramped and motionless. "If anyone should get to see him nak*d, it's us. We're the ones who—"
"Got him into this mess," Julia said, shutting Nina up.
They heard heavy footsteps outside, then the clank of ice in a glass and a bottle opening. Julia smelled liquor and hoped tint Myrtle would continue in her alcoholic stupor and wake tomorrow morning thinking the whole thing had been a dream. She also hoped the old bat wouldn't look in the pantry. She didn't want to think about what else Myrtle might be looking at by the end of the night.
"Don't you boys usually bring music?" Myrtle yelled.
"Oh, but I'm a robber stripper," Lance said. "I'm supposed to steal music from you."
Myrtle seemed pleased by the sound of that. "Sure," she said. "Just let me put on an album."
Julia heard the shuffling of feet going to the far end of the kitchen, and then nothing. A long moment passed before the door flew open.
"Ah!" she and Nina gasped. Julia held up a hand to shield herself against the glare of Lance's flashlight.
"Get out!" Lance hissed, dragging Julia by the arm toward the door. "Now! Go! Get!" And with one solid push, they were locked on the other side of Crazy Myrtle's patio doors. Julia turned and bolted away from the glass, but Nina stayed behind. "Do you think she'd notice if we stood here and watched?" she asked.
"Why isn't he back yet?" Julia asked while pacing a hole in the playroom carpet.
"Maybe he takes it off real slow," Nina said from her post by the telescope.
"Nina!" Julia cried, then realized her best friend had a point. Let's see . . . if it takes a minute per shoe, two minutes for a shirt? Pants? How long for the pants? She gave herself a mental slap.
"I can't see any of the good stuff through this thing," Nina said, but she still didn't offer to let anyone else take a turn at the telescope. Caroline had nearly passed out when Myrtle's lights came on, and when Julia and Nina came back to the house, she was more than happy to hand over central control duties to Nina while she rested on the couch and let her heart slow down to a normal pace.
Julia, however, was getting more nervous by the second. 'I've got this terrible feeling in my gut."
Nina cut her eyes toward Julia and said, "You've got a weird feeling all right, but I'm betting it's not in your gut. I'm betting you're nice and tingly all over."
"This is serious, Nina! Like jail time serious. What if Myrtle figures out what's really going on? What if the dog is allergic to hot dogs?"
"What dog?" a bewildered Caroline wanted to know.
Julia plowed by her sister's question. "What if she thinks he's supposed to do more than dance?"