Filled with doubts, I rang the bell and waited. More than a minute passed, during which I rang the bell again and knocked lightly on the plain gray door.
Just when I had convinced myself that I’d either gotten the street number completely wrong somehow or that Leonora had given me a fake address, I heard the lock click. The door opened to reveal Leonora standing on the other side of it. She looked, as always, perfectly put together with her hair up and her make-up flawlessly applied, an extravagant-looking leopard print dress covering her modestly.
“Mr. Strait,” she said, sounding surprised to find me on her doorstep.
“Miss Rigsby,” I answered. “We did say three o’clock, didn’t we? If I got the time wrong, I can come back when it’s more convenient.”
She looked confused for a second, but then it was like a cloud passed over her face, leaving her with renewed clarity. “Of course, of course,” she said. “I’m sorry. I just forgot we talked earlier. I did say three o’clock, didn’t I?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Come in, then. Come in.”
She said it in a completely friendly way, stepping out of the doorway to let me in. As she closed the door behind me, I saw that the house’s exterior had offered no hint as to the interior. Where the outside was drab and dull, the inside was opulent. I was standing at the top of a stairway and saw that the entryway was on the top level of the house, a hallway extending along the part of the house that paralleled the road where I had parked. The rest of the house hugged the hillside, dropping down with the stairs that were before me now, and I saw that below was the house’s great room, a wide expanse that was bordered on the other side of the building by a wall of windows that afforded a view of the canyon below—which was dotted with similar mansions clinging to the hillsides—and Hollywood proper below that. In the distance, I was able to make out a strip of blue that I knew must be Santa Monica and the Pacific Ocean. The room below me was luxuriously furnished, and it was easy to imagine the place being filled with Hollywood’s elite during the parties I supposed Leonora held here.
In the back of my mind, I heard Jackson Kinkaid’s comment about wild parties in these hills and people’s proclivities for having their orgies filmed, something I might not have thought about if it hadn’t been for Carmelita’s earlier scrutiny of my timeline. Had such a party happened here, I wondered. And, if so, how often? An orgy was the kind of thing Leonora and Jeanie would definitely lie about, and Jackson, too. Had he been here for a job like that? He might be too discreet to break the code of silence that got him gigs, but what about the other party-goers? Could one of them have slipped away during the debauch? If such a person had stumbled onto an unmarked film cannister, then having just left the scene of another private filming might be enough to get this person thinking that he or she had just come across a similar film—a discovery that could be exploited in the form of blackmail.
Further considering what Carmelita had said about Leonora most likely having commissioned Jackson for more than one film, I started wondering where those others were. More securely kept than the one of her and Jeanie? And why had only that one been stolen? Surely, if Carmelita was right—and I was starting to think she must have been—a blackmailer would see in Leonora’s predilections a real treasure trove for future blackmail. But there hadn’t been such a theft. I was sure of this. If there had been, Leonora would have told me—unless there was even more she was hiding.
“Let’s go downstairs where we can talk,” Leonora said, extending an arm in the direction of the stairs as an invitation for me to go first. I accepted and was soon sitting on a surprisingly uncomfortable sofa that faced the massive windows with Leonora in a much simpler chair across from me.
“What did you want to discuss, Mr. Strait?” she asked.
“Your case, of course,” I said as I tried leaning back only to find the cushions behind me so soft that I couldn’t stay in that position without straining all the muscles in my back.
I leaned forward awkwardly, my elbows on my knees as Leonora said, “What have you found out?”
Opening my hands in a gesture of futility, I said, “To be honest, nothing. Your friend Mr. Kinkaid was cooperative but not that interesting in terms of trying to find the blackmailer. And, without anything more concrete from him or anyone else, I’ve really got nothing else to go on.”
“That’s unfortunate, Mr. Strait.”
“You wouldn’t reconsider your request that I not interview your housekeeper, I take it?”
A flash of anger crossed her face. “I will not.”
I backed off, but only a little. Thinking again of the orgy angle, I said, “And you’re sure no one else has been in the house unsupervised? No parties where maybe someone slipped away from the main group without being observed?”
She raised an eyebrow at this, and I could tell I’d touched a nerve without having to be so explicit as to use the word “orgy.”
“No, Mr. Strait. There haven’t been any of the wild parties you might have read about in those pathetic movie magazines.”
“I don’t read the movie magazines,” I said. “That stuff rots your brain, I’m told. It’s strictly comic books for me.”
She didn’t appreciate my attempt at humor, and I didn’t take another stab at it.
Instead, I raised my empty hands to show what she’d left me with and said, “So, does that put an end to things? Or do you want to retain my services until after tonight in case anything more develops?”
She thought about it for a moment. I thought for sure she was going to end our arrangement, but she surprised me by saying, “Why don’t we wait to finalize things? You’re right that there might be a wrinkle still. The blackmailer takes the money but doesn’t leave the film, or doesn’t follow up with the last portion as promised. That type of thing.”
“As you like,” I said. “I’m happy to remain on board. But, uh, that does leave me with a few more questions if you don’t mind.”
“Go ahead,” she said coolly, probably waiting for a few more jabs at her lifestyle as I probed for possible suspects.
“Could you show me where the film was stored before it went missing?”
She raised an eyebrow at this and asked, “Why would you want to see that? It’s just a drawer in a cabinet upstairs.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It might reveal something to me that we haven’t thought of yet.”
“Like what?”
“I won’t know until I see it.”
“Fine,” she said, her tone a bit haughty. “I’ll show you on your way out. Is there anything else?”
“Well…if you’re going to keep me on—in case the blackmailer reneges on the deal—are you still sure you don’t want me to stake out the street tonight after you’ve put out the money? If I see it get taken, I won’t follow unless you’ve changed your mind about that, but if I could get a license plate number or even the make of a vehicle, it would give us more than we have now, which is nothing.”
Again, she thought it over for a moment and then said, “I don’t think so. As I said in your office the other day, I don’t want to do anything to spook this person or give anyone a reason to call the whole thing off and run to the tabloids with that awful film.”
“It’s awful now, is it?” I asked.
“In hindsight. Such a foolish thing to have done.”
“All right, then,” I said. “If that’s your decision, then I’ll leave you.” I stood and reminded her that she was going to show me where the film had been kept.
“Of course,” Leonora said. “Just up the stairs and down that hallway. I’ll show you.”
We climbed the stairs, and she led me past the front door and into a room that was much less opulent than the one we’d just been in. It was a small office space with a roll top desk and a matching file cabinet. The desk’s top was rolled up, exposing a fountain pen and a pad of paper beside a telephone.
“No fancy pen here?” I asked, recalling the
gizmo she’d pulled out in my office the first day I’d met her with its mechanized ink delivery system.
She looked a bit confused at my comment but then must have made the connection. “Ah. Yes, I keep that pen with me. You never know when you’ll need a thing like that.”
“Of course,” I said aloud while thinking How the other half lives.
Leonora stooped before the desk and opened one of its lower drawers. I leaned forward to see that it was empty. “In there?” I asked.
“Yes. Would you like to examine it?”
I obliged, squatting down and running my fingers along the drawer’s top edge. “It wasn’t locked?” I asked.
“No. Foolish, I know, but I assumed if no one knew about the film, there would be no reason to lock it up. No one ever comes in here, except for me.”
And maybe the occasional errant partygoer, I thought.
“Not the housekeeper?” I said instead. “Irene, wasn’t it?”
“We’ve been over this, Mr. Strait. You’re getting tedious.”
“That happens in the best of relationships, I’m afraid.”
I stared at the oak grain of the drawer for a moment longer and then glanced up at the window above the desk. Unless I had become disoriented during my time downstairs, I figured this was one of the drab-looking windows I had seen from the street, one of the house’s features that made it look decidedly lacking in opulence.
“Is that window locked?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said.
I stood and considered the shade that had been pulled down over the window. “May I?” I asked.
“Certainly.”
Pulling the shade up, I tried the window and saw that it was, in fact, locked. I pulled the shade down, let a long exhale, and bent to close the drawer.
“Well?” she asked, her tone a bit snooty. “Anything?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m afraid not. No clues here.”
Unless the absence of clues, I thought, is a clue itself.
“I appreciate the effort,” she said in a tone that told me she didn’t mean it and that she really didn’t enjoy having her time wasted this way.
“All right,” I said. “Will you call me tomorrow? Let me know what happens tonight with the money drop and the film?”
“Of course.”
Then she showed me out of the mansion without offering to shake hands, closing the door on me as quickly as possible. I made my way back to my car, scanning the street and the view of Hollywood in the distance, wondering how difficult it would be to find a place to park around eleven at night.
Chapter Ten
I ended up cruising the street ten times in the minutes leading up to eleven that night, looking for a place to park. There were none. Corsairs, Terra Novas, Echoes and others crowded the street, parked bumper to bumper with barely room to squeeze a Wilson dime in between them. At last, I gave up and parked behind a fancy Italian job I couldn’t put a name to; I was four houses down from Leonora’s and was blocking a driveway. If things went well, the residents would be in for the night and would never notice some interloper rudely placed in front of the narrow entrance to their garage. If someone came home or wanted to leave, I’d feign ignorance and pull away before anything happened. The worst-case scenario would have been for the residents inside to have noticed me parked here and call the police. That would be a little tougher to charm my way out of, but I was counting on this house being designed similar to Leonora’s; if it had windows as glorious as hers, they would draw the attention of anyone inside the house to the spectacular lightshow in the distance and not to the narrow little street above where nobodies in shabby Winslows simply needed a place to park for half an hour.
Of minor consolation was my relative certainty that Carmelita was having an easier time finding parking near Jeanie Palmer’s house. We had left Guillermo’s together, me in the Winslow and Carmelita driving the old man’s Patterson pick-up. I had insisted on this arrangement rather than dropping Carmelita off and trusting her to follow my instructions that she drive to Jeanie’s street alone. More than likely, she would have done as I asked, but there was still a nagging doubt that if I left her on her own she’d have thought “What’s the harm?” and invited Osvaldo along on the stakeout.
As it was, I’d had to honk the Winslow’s horn three times while Carmelita and Osvaldo said their goodbyes on Guillermo’s porch. Finally, she’d made her way to the Patterson, turning several times to wave goodbye to the young man who waved back from the doorway.
From my less than ideal parking spot, I could see the lights of Hollywood through a space between two houses and imagined the old pick-up truck resting somewhere down there. Turning to the passenger seat, I uncoiled the wire I had brought with me, clipping one end to a door panel and the other end to the terminal on the portable telephone Guillermo had lent me.
Flipping open the phone’s cover, I recalled the last time I had needed to use one of these devices and hoped that Guillermo had gotten all the problems worked out. I turned on the car’s dome light and then dialed the phone’s mate, hoping Carmelita had already gotten herself parked and that she’d remembered to unfurl the wire antenna, without which the phones went from mostly useless to entirely futile.
The static I heard on the line was to be expected, but I was pleased to hear that it wasn’t the roaring storm I’d heard during previous attempts to communicate on these phones. After a few seconds, I heard a ringing—again, clearer than I’d anticipated. Then there was a click and I heard Carmelita saying, “Hello?”
“Carmelita, can you hear me?”
“Yes. Just fine.”
“Excellent,” I said, relieved that she hadn’t answered me with a non sequitur based on the garbled version of my voice she would have been hearing on an older, unimproved model of the phone. “Where are you?”
“I’m parked a few houses down from the address you gave me.”
“You’re sure you got the right street?”
There was silence on the line, and I thought I’d lost her. Frustration rose within me, but then I heard Carmelita’s voice and realized I was selling these phones short based on the fact that they had worked horribly when I’d most needed them in the past.
“Do you really I think I’d make such a foolish mistake, Jed?” Carmelita asked. Her acerbic tone came through the wireless beautifully, and I told myself I would need to congratulate Guillermo on a job well done the next time I saw him.
“No, Carmelita,” I said, hoping to placate her. “I was joking. Everyone makes mistakes, though.”
More silence. This time, I knew it was her and not the phone.
“Carmelita?” I asked after a few more seconds.
“Quiet,” she said. “I’m tallying all the mistakes of yours that I can remember.”
I smiled. “If I wait for you to finish that, it’ll be morning and the power supply will be dead on both these phones. Just keep your eyes open and let me know if anything happens.”
“Anything at all?” she asked, and I was glad to hear that her normal good-natured tone had returned.
“Well, I don’t need to hear about alley cats fighting or anything. But when you see Jeanie put the money out, let me know. And if you see anyone hanging around, the same thing. Is the street brightly lit?”
“Not too. I’m parked where it’s nice and dark. I can see Jeanie’s front yard and the sidewalk in front of her place just fine.”
“No one else sitting in any cars around there?”
“No,” Carmelita said.
“All right.”
“Jed?”
“Yes?”
“If this goes well tonight, does it get me a step closer to being your partner?”
I sighed. “I haven’t heard you mention that little scheme in a while now. Not since you met Osvaldo.”
“And?”
“And I thought maybe your romantic life had nudged your professional life into neutral.”
“I can be many
things, Jed. You should know that.”
“I do,” I said. In fact, I knew it better than she did.
“Well?” she prodded.
“We’ll have to see. Keep your eyes open. Let me know what happens.”
“What if nothing happens?”
“Then you’ve at least earned your pay, haven’t you?”
“One of these days, you’ll see you’ve been wrong about me, Jed. I’ll show you how much you really need me.”
I smiled. “You’ve shown me that already, Carmelita. Dozens of times. Let’s not let one night’s outcome carry so much weight, shall we?”
There was silence for several seconds, and then I heard her say, “All right. For now.”
“Just keep an eye out. And trust me when I say I’m keeping track of all your hard work.”
“Okay. Thanks, Jed.”
We hung up then, and I settled in to wait, telling myself I needed to let the conversation go. Like figuring out who was driving the green Meteor or knowing where things were going with Sherise both romantically and musically, the question of Carmelita’s future with me would reveal itself when the time was right. For now, I had another puzzle whose pieces were about to fall into place, and I needed to be ready to make sense of it.
The street was quiet, as I’d expected it would be. One car drove by slowly about five minutes after I got off the phone; its presence put me on alert, but it kept going, not slowing at all in front of Leonora’s house, so I relaxed again—but only a little.
The passing car reminded me to check the gun I kept in my shoulder holster, which prompted a moment’s paranoia that I took care of by pulling my wallet to make sure I had my weapons permit with me in case the pesky residents did end up calling the police on me.
Then it was quiet again.
I kept my eyes on Leonora’s house and the trashcans that had been set out sometime earlier, expecting at any moment to see a shadowy figure emerge from the house I’d visited earlier, drop a package near the trashcans, and then disappear into the house again.
The minute hand on my watch crept farther and farther away from 11:00, and still there was no movement from inside the house. Leonora’s lack of action was starting to make me nervous, and I wondered if she might have put the money out earlier than my arrival. This wouldn’t have made much sense, but I supposed it was still possible. A lot of things about this case didn’t make sense, after all.
The Shakedown Shuffle: A Dieselpunk Adventure (The Crossover Case Files Book 3) Page 12