Killer Calories

treat. But one could always hope it was a new client. Lord knows, they needed work if she were to keep Diamante and Cleopatra in Gourmet Kit-Kat niblets .
    “Yes, this is Tammy.” She looked slightly confused. “Oh, hi, Mr. Hanks.”
    Hanks? Lou Hanks? Savannah recalled meeting the guy a time or two. He was Kat Valentina’s ex-husband and business partner, co-owner of the Royal Palms.
    “Yes, I was coming in later this afternoon to lead the step-dance class,” Tammy was saying. “Oh, why not? Closed? But what’s...?”
    Savannah set her muffin and coffee aside as she watched the color drain from Tammy’s well-tanned face.
    “Oh, no! She did? Oh, Mr. Hanks... I... I’m so sorry. I... of course, I understand. If there’s anything I can do, just—”
    Tammy hung up the phone and turned to Savannah , her eyes huge with hurt and shock, her hand clapped over her mouth.
    “What is it?” Savannah asked. But she knew. She knew the look. It only meant one thing.
    “That was Mr. Hanks.” Tammy began to tremble all over. Savannah rose, walked to her, and put her hand on her shoulder.
    “What did he say, honey?” she asked.
    “It’s Ms. Valentina. Kat’s dead.”
    Kat Valentina was only in her early forties, and Savannah had seen her at a downtown boutique two weeks ago. She had looked a bit overindulged, maybe some substance abuse, perhaps a tad too much booze, but basically healthy. Certainly not like someone who was going to check out in a matter of days.
    “Did he say how she died?” Savannah asked, rubbing Tammy’s shoulder, trying to impart a little comfort.
    “Not exactly. But he said I shouldn’t come to work today because the club is closed.”
    “That isn’t too surprising... considering.”
    “Yeah, but he said the police closed it.”

CHAPTER TWO

    B y the time Savannah changed into suitable street clothes, and she and Tammy arrived at the Royal Palms Spa* the appropriate authorities had been alerted, as well as the media. Los Angeles television crews milled around the front gates, seeking entrance and being rejected, as well as the San Carmelita cable station entourage of two. Apparently, Kat Valentina could still create a stir, especially if she died unexpectedly.
    Hashing her private investigator’s license as though it were a badge, Savannah managed to bulldoze her way through the crowd and even past the gates. “Attitude,” she whispered Tammy, who followed in her wake. “It’s all in the flick of the wrist.”
    Once inside, her past friendships with the local cops tabled her to maneuver through the gauche gold-painted doors and into the reception area. Modeled after Kat Valentina’s idea of an ancient Roman villa, the lobby was a nightmare collage of pseudo “ artifacts .”
    Two enormous, white plaster statues dominated the semicircular room. Nudes, a man and a woman, supposedly the ideal male and female of the species. Muscles rippling, lean machines, they looked as though they were straight off the pages of a superhero comic book. Anatomically correct in every detail, their grossly exaggerated attributes could only have been achieved by plastic surgery.
    “Talk about a boob job,” Savannah muttered, as she and Tammy hurried past the statues. “And to get a dick that big, you’d have to do a penile implant... with a ten-pound Polish kielbasa. The club should be sued for false advertising.”
    When Tammy responded with wounded silence, Savannah cautioned herself to keep her mouth shut. Heaven forbid that she should speak ill of the dead.
    She wondered, who made up that stupid rule about saying only good things about the deceased? Probably someone who was more afraid of being haunted by pissed ghosts than concerned about giving dead people a break.
    They passed between Grecian columns, whose paint was peeling, on royal blue carpeting that had seen better days... “ — I a decade ago. The plastic greenery in the atrium to their left was sun-bleached and yellowed. No one had turned on the fountain this morning, so the “waterfall” was dry. The goldfish in the pool had disappeared long ago.
    “How have they been doing financially?” she asked Tammy in low tones as they hurried down the hallway, toward what appeared to be the center of activity... the bathhouses.
    “I don’t know, but Mr. Hanks has been pushing us to bring in customers and offering lots of special, low prices. So, probably not too good.”
    A young man and woman met them in the hallway, both wearing