by Alex Ames
“Maybe. He had a motive,” I tried. Pretty looked interested, and her twist-finger stopped moving. “He had to endure you,” I said to provoke her into attacking me. My legs were just prepared for a nice karate kick into any part of Pretty’s anatomy.
No reaction from Pretty.
“Do you know a guy called Rip Delaware?” I asked.
She twisted hair again and chewed her siliconized lower lip. Are those padded monstrosities made for that purpose?
“Rip. What a cool name. Sounds like an animal in bed.” I waited her out. “Who is he?” she asked.
“Maybe you remember the guy I was with when I was arrested?”
“That well-dressed guy with dark, curly hair and the killer body? Yummy! He’s your steady?”
“You….” I saw something else in her mischievous eyes and changed what I’d been about to say in mid-sentence. “You can say that. We are an item. Do you know him?”
“Well, how well do you know someone when you shared only a line of coke and a quickie?” She put her little finger in her mouth and gave a girlish smile.
I remembered to make a shocked face and, after a second of grace, anger. “You didn’t!” I shouted and took a step back.
“Ooh! Did I take your boy toy without permission?”
“I think you are a miserable, spoiled, cheap bitch!” I said through clenched teeth. Somehow I didn’t need to play that part because I was a little jealous, actually. “But at least that fuck was an expensive one for you!”
“I am able to pay for my pleasure. At least we have the same preference,” she mocked me again.
“Because right after he pulled out of you and pocketed your necklace as a payment, he came over to me and slipped the jewels into my purse.”
She laughed loudly and walked over to the bar, where she mixed two drinks, still laughing. I breathed in and out and sat down on the couch. Pretty came back and handed me a stiff Scotch on the rocks. She still had a little mean line around the corners of her mouth but was more serious than before.
“Drink this. The line of coke was true. Your boyfriend has a problem with that, just like I do. But the quickie was not true. At least not with him—and not at the same time as the cocaine.”
I drowned my drink and had to shake myself. “Bruha! Jesus, I never drink this stuff.” Drying my tears, I said, “So, he gave you drugs?”
“No, some of the gangster rappers had brought some coke, and we had a little kitchen party in one of the guest bathrooms. There were about six or seven people, and we all had a line and a good time. Rip was one of them.”
“And when did you find out that the necklace was missing?”
“About ten minutes later. Well, I am not sure about the ten minutes. The coke was pretty good, and everything was so sharp and highly defined, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t. I’ve never taken drugs.”
She shrugged. “Boring.” Did she mean me or the fact that I didn’t consume drugs? “Anyway, after I came down a bit, I jumped into the party again. The police arrived at that time, and I went down into the garden with the others. I noticed my necklace missing and started screaming.” She gave a small smile. “I thought it was the adequate thing to do.”
“So, it could have been Rip who stole the necklace right from you?” I asked.
“Could have, but it also could have been any other guy or girl I met in between. I could name you at least thirty people I had a quick chat with or gave some hugs and kisses in between.” She put her hand on mine. “Look, sorry about your boyfriend if he turned out to be a user and a thief. People are sometimes not what they appear to be.”
I pulled my hand away. “Do tell! Don’t worry. Rip isn’t my boyfriend. I just met him at the party. By accident—or so I thought!”
She was back into hair-twisting mode again. “Really? Oh, you had me for a minute. So, he just used both of us to steal Swan’s diamonds and my necklace?”
“That’s one of my current theories to keep me out of jail … if I am able to prove it in time.”
She laughed again. “Good luck with that.”
Jeannie Anthony entered the room from behind and said, “You two seem to be best friends already. I was hoping more for a nice catfight, hair, nails, and all.” She offered her hand to me, and I shook it.
“We were getting to that in a second,” I assured her.
Pretty chimed in, “We are still at foreplay, honey.” This was becoming a scene from a sitcom.
Where Pretty radiated casual sex, Jeannie radiated tenderness. Jeannie Anthony was a typical all-American girl from the west plains—Kansas, Oklahoma, or something like that. She had straight brown hair, brown eyes, and the obligatory high cheekbones. She had been an instant success in Bringing up Baby, the coming-of-age sitcom that was now going into its seventh season. She played a divorced single mom with a Down syndrome kid fighting the obstacles of everyday American life with a smile and a sigh. Top ratings, shelves full of Emmys, and her face in every American household—and from her appearance, it seemed that she basically played herself. She looked unspectacularly normal in her jeans and t-shirt, barefoot in her own house, offering me a Coke.
“I’ll tell you right away, we have to hurry. I’m going to be on the morning show in New York and have to take the studio’s jet tonight.”
“No problem, thanks for seeing me on such short notice,” I said.
“You probably went through some questions with Pretty. What can I do for you? I have no clue what we are supposed to talk about,” Jeannie said, eying me curiously. “Sorry to ogle you like that, but I have never seen a thief before.”
“Never laid eyes on your agent?” I proposed and got the expected laugh. “I am interested in a colleague of yours who escorted you to the party that night.”
“Ron Delacroix?”
“Okay, thank you for that piece of information. He told me his name was Rip Delaware. I met him at Swan’s party, we chatted, got stuck in the raid, and he then whistled for the police, who found the necklace in my possession. Otherwise, I would have gotten away.”
“He did? Wow, what a cool customer!” Jeannie exclaimed. “He really did that?”
I nodded. “How do you know him?”
“He was working for the studio and was constantly around the set—did catering and odd jobs on the external locations we were shooting for last year’s season.”
“Catering? Not acting?”
Jeannie looked confused. “Actor? Ron? Well, as much as probably any waiter in this town.”
“How did you get involved with him?” I asked.
Jeannie and Pretty gave me a bland stare for a second, and I tried to figure out where I went wrong. Then Pretty nudged her companion and muttered, “She is not in the business. She doesn’t know!”
Jeannie nodded. “Oh, right, I forgot.”
“You make it sound as if I am not member of a club.”
“When you are a lead actor on the set, you’re under a lot of stress. The movie depends largely on you, there are last-minute script changes you have to cram into your head and, worst of all, any acne spot could develop into a major special effects effort.” Jeannie rolled her eyes at the hardships of her job.
“What does that have to do with Ron Delaware or Rip Delacroix?”
Pretty sniggered. “Don’t you think that sex is a very relaxing thing?”
Better not dive into that part of my life—the part I call the desert. “Sure, with the right … oh, I get you.” I actually blushed a little. Jeannie didn’t.
“You must admit, he looks yummy. During breaks, we sometimes chatted about this and that. He was actually witty and charming, and after five days, we screwed our brains out. And he was pretty good at that.”
“When was that?”
“About two months ago?” Jeannie had to think. “Yeah, we were filming the winter scenes on location in Toronto.”
“And you invited him to the Oscar after-show party?”
“Yeah,
he expressed interest, so I took him along. Why not?” She shrugged easily.
“Are you still … eh … relaxing together?” I asked carefully.
“No, it stopped after Canada. A fuck here and there, but not serious or regular.” I had to force myself not to roll my eyes. Was this the generation after AIDS, or what?
I asked Jeannie about any suspicions about the identity of Rip or whether he might not be what he claimed to be, but she couldn’t provide anything enlightening.
“Listen, he was a boy toy, nothing more. We both got our kicks out of it, and there are worse things in the world.”
As it turned out, the only number she had for him was the one from the pizza shop, and she had never crashed at his place, ever.
Clever boy.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Alibi Mundy
It was about four o’clock in the morning when I slid soundlessly through the backyard window into Mundy’s bedroom. I wore my black raider outfit with black jeans, a thin black turtleneck, black leather gloves, and I had just taken off a black ski mask that covered my face. It was very quiet in the apartment, and I wondered whether Mundy had fallen asleep. We had a standing arrangement that he provided my alibi when I did local jobs, just like tonight. He claimed the boyfriend role, we tried to be seen by neighbors when we arrived together at his apartment, and after some domestic noises, I silently left him alone. Mundy then had the unpleasant task of simulating certain partnership noises that next wall neighbors could identify and tell the police about later. In the morning, we made sure that I was seen leaving Mundy’s place.
Worked like a charm, just like tonight. I had just spent four hours raiding Jeannie Anthony’s place. I’d climbed up the building foundation structure from the beach, listened for noises, found none, climbed up to the roof, and made my way into the hall through a daylight window on the ceiling. I disabled the alarm—very easy if the insurance company representative personally provides you with the keycode—and then made my way through the rooms. Jeannie Anthony, judging from the contents of her home, led a boring life. The house had probably been decorated by some celebrity interior designer and lacked a certain personal touch from a girl inhabitant in her mid-twenties. All I found were some photos of family and friends, shoeboxes with memorabilia, stacks of TV scripts, and plenty of expensive shoes and clothing along with a small gun and lots of jewelry of different values and design. But nothing spectacular and nothing hot or suspicious.
Another thing that irritated me was the lack of personal writing—no diaries, no letters, and no personal notebooks. Her laptop, booted-up with my handy utility USB stick, contained only standard applications. The browser history revealed that she used Hotmail and conveniently the password was stored in the browser cache. Her email inbox contained mostly mail from management and a few actor friends but not too much personal correspondence. A look into the out-folder of the mail application showed me why: Jeannie Anthony was dyslexic. She had terrible grammar and spelling, which was the reason for the lack of motivation with the written word. She tried to overplay it with those typical cyber-abbreviations like CU and a consequent e. e. cummings’ typing style, but as soon as her prose had to provide content, her shortcomings showed. As if to compensate her poor writing skills, her cellphone bill was sky high. She had been nice enough this afternoon, and I felt a little sorry for her. Jeannie probably had to study her texts much harder than her fellow actors, and so far she had done a good job in succeeding despite her problems.
I wrapped my trip up quickly, left the way I had come, and was back on the highway within twenty minutes.
Standing in Mundy’s bedroom, I strained my ears. Still no sound. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and I couldn’t make out his shape on the bed. I gave a low whistle and heard his startled yelp from an armchair in the corner of the bedroom.
“Cal! You scared me to death!” Mundy cried, out of breath.
“Sorry, I didn’t see you; you didn’t see me,” I said as I grabbed the additional set of blankets and moved into his living room to catch two hours of sleep before the night was over for me.
“How did you do that? I watched the window to catch you climbing in. You are like an invisible cat. How did it go?” Mundy was bubbling like a glass of champagne.
“Swan Collins has no enemies who would like to steal her diamonds, and Pretty McAllister, whom I met at Jeannie Anthony’s home this afternoon, is coked up and pretty stupid—sorry, I had to made that crack—because she managed to let someone take off her necklace when she wasn’t at her sensuous best. And both of them are silly acting duckies, basically,” I summed up the legal part of the day while I was bedding myself on the couch. “That’s about it. The worst part is, under all that arrogance, aggressiveness, and stardom, I wasn’t able to tell whether they didn’t care, mistrusted me, or simply lied to me in order to hide something.”
“Sounds like a lovely bunch of ladies,” Mundy remarked, sitting on his coffee table.
“Swan Collins wasn’t too bad. She kept her distance, and she gives the impression of a lady, in the best aristocratic sense. Pretty McAllister is a spoiled star, playing her part in real life, too, and she surely doesn’t care about some rented jewels for the Oscar ceremony. Insurance will cover it. Come to think of it, Swan wasn’t too devastated either.”
“Maybe they simply have a different relationship to valuable things, being stars and earning eight figures per movie and all,” Mundy said, yawning. “Just like you with your diamonds in your workshop. I always get a heart attack when you step out to fetch a coffee from Starbucks around the corner and leave them lying on the workbench. But for you, it is simply ‘material.’”
“Swan showed me a Picasso drawing she had hanging in her hallway. It is a beautiful drawing; you may recognize it from art books. She has it on the wall of her home because she likes it there, probably likes to look at it in passing. And the same is true for the Acura and the Metro Imperial, the two stolen diamonds from her collection. She had them in her jewelry box, and every time she put on a ring or a necklace she could marvel at them while dressing up. Because they were simply there.”
“Did you find anything on your night trip?” he asked.
“Nada. After Jeannie left for the East Coast and the maid retired to her bungalow, I was able to search the house and her few personal belongings, including her PC.” I left out the dyslexia; it had nothing to do with the case.
“And what will be your next step out of jail?” Mundy asked.
I yawned loudly. “The most edgy part will be the investigation of Mr. Gordon Webber. He lives in downtown LA in an apartment. Fowler emailed me some background information. I’ll forward it to you in the morning.” I sighed, and the sigh turned into a full-fledged yawn. “Phil Krueger is another one. Nicole will arrange an interview. If both activities show no results, I will have to concentrate on my pizza-baking friend Rip Delaware. He had the opportunity to get close to Pretty while sharing a line of coke with her or a fuck or whatever, and he had every chance to slip it into my purse.”
“But did he have the skills to open the safe in Swan Collins’ bedroom?” Mundy considered, already on his way to his bedroom.
“I will ask him when I see him,” I said, pushing that unlikely event out of my memory in order not to ruin my chance to stay out of jail.
Then I arranged my blanket, turned around, and fell asleep immediately.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Rip On The Beach
“Did you have the skills to open the safe in Swan Collins’ bedroom?” I asked Rip.
He gave a light chuckle, and the facial muscles he had to use to produce the laugh made his sexy dimple on his chin even more prominent. “Are you always that direct?” Rip asked. “I mean, when it comes to other things.”
Unfortunately, I had nothing with me to slug him because I was in my jogging pants and top on Redondo Beach’s waterfront equipped with an emergency quarter, my door key on a lanyard around my neck, and a piece
of tissue stuck under the waistband.
“It was you who slipped me the necklace and got me in trouble in the first place.” I scowled at him, looking left and right for someone who might help me to make a citizen’s arrest. But of course, eight o’clock in the morning was a bad time for herds of tourists, police patrols, or white knights.
Rip held up his hands. “Whoa, my little lady—”
“I am not little, and I am not a lady—and most of all, I am not yours!” I stomped a foot.
“You should relax. You can’t just assume because I charmed you last Monday night that I was mean enough to hide the necklace in your purse. Why would I do that?” Rip cocked his head, trying to show his playfulness.
“Because it was your ticket out of the party without being searched, and you were the only one who managed that!” I pointed a finger at him. He took my hand and kissed it lightly, and I was surprised that my instincts did not parry with a kick to his groin.
“Calendar, I am honored that you have such confidence in my skills. You were a splendid companion for that last part, but you must think higher of me,” Rip said easily.
“You can’t convince me otherwise, scumbag.”
Rip smiled a very nice smile and rolled his eyes. “Oh, you of little faith. Okay, what can I offer in my defense?” He made an exaggerated face as if he were thinking hard. “Oh, I know, that could be good. Take this: how did I know that I needed Pretty McAllister’s ugly necklace to get you arrested?”
“What do you mean, how did you know?” I asked, not getting his intention.
He took my hand again. If he hadn’t had such a nice, warm touch and hadn’t been so attractive, I would not have let him, of course. “Okay, for the slow among us: let us assume that I was able to steal the diamonds from Miss Collins. Why didn’t I play it safe, just like any other cat burglar, and invent a sudden migraine attack so I could leave the party right away in order to minimize the risk of being caught? Oh no, I had to risk even more by lifting the necklace from Pretty before I could go looking for an alibi.”