Lethally Blonde

by Nancy Bartholomew

  Andrea rings the doorbell and chews her lower lip, a worried expression on her face. “I don’t see her car. Usually she leaves it in the drive, and there are no lights on, either.”

  Andrea walks back to her Jaguar and returns dangling a ring full of keys.

  “So, Jeremy’s not the only demanding actor Mark babysits?”

  Andrea shakes her head as she searches for the right key, inserts it in the thick wooden door and we’re inside within seconds. Andrea walks right past a flashing alarm pad on her way into Zoe’s living room.

  “Don’t you need to disarm that?” I ask.

  “She never arms it!” Andrea is disappearing down a hallway and I follow, trying not to lose her, but wanting to stop and study Zoe’s home.

  Andrea switches on lights as she goes, illuminating a home that could’ve come straight out of Architectural Digest. Zoe has a thing, it seems, for opulence. The oversize, overstuffed furniture is covered in rich gold and red brocades and velvets. Pictures hang on the walls in gold gilt frames. European antique pieces are placed in vantage points that showcase the patina of their well-polished finishes. Zoe’s rooms could appear in any designer layout, but they are completely devoid of personality or warmth.

  “Where are you going?” I call after Andrea.

  Her voice floats back to me. “I’m just double-checking to make sure they’re not here.” She appears then, heading in my direction and stops to meet me midhallway.

  “They’re not here.” She leans past me to open the door just behind me. “Come on, we’ll check her office and then call Mark.”

  Zoe’s office is the only room in her house that appears to have an owner. Her desk is a battered old monstrosity, dinged and scarred with use. Her laptop sits in the middle in front of a worn but comfortable cordovan leather desk chair. Papers sprawl across the desktop, along with watercolor paintings of costumes and sets. Photographs line the walls in simple black frames and I wander over to look at them.

  One picture stops me and I lean in to examine it. Zoe is sitting at a table in a club along with three other people, two of them women, but it is the man sitting next to Zoe who catches my attention.

  “Andrea, come here a second and look at this picture. I know I’ve seen this guy before, but I just can’t place him. Do you know who it is?”

  She walks up beside me and squints at the picture. “Oh, yeah, that’s Raymond Estanza. He’s the president of Octagon Enterprises.”

  Octagon Enterprises. The face and the name suddenly zip into focus. Emma and I met him at the Canal Room. I lifted his wallet right before his wife materialized and tried to kill Emma.

  My heart is doing the cha-cha inside my rib cage. “How does he know Zoe?”

  “I don’t know how they met. They’ve known each other for a few years at least because I’ve seen him at a few of her parties and I believe they may even have dated for a short time. Anyway, they must be pretty close because he’s got a lot of money invested in Zoe’s picture.”

  “The one she’s working on now?” The hairs on the back of my neck stand up and goose bumps are breaking out along my forearms.

  Andrea nods and starts to walk back to Zoe’s desk.

  “Is Ray married?”

  Andrea is rifling through Zoe’s papers.

  “I don’t think so, why?”

  “When I met him in New York, it seemed he had a woman he was serious about.”

  She almost killed Emma in the ladies’ room, I want to add, but don’t.

  Andrea shrugs. “I’ve seen him around at social functions, but not with any one woman in particular. He’s a venture capitalist. Some of his investments are in the entertainment field, but I don’t know what else he does. To tell you the truth, I didn’t like him. He seemed, well, sleazy to me.”

  Alarm bells are sounding in my head and yet, there is nothing concrete to back up my instincts. I fish my cell phone out of my pocket. When Renee answers, I take a deep breath and launch right in, hoping she’ll at least trust me enough to tell me what I need to know.

  “Okay,” I say without preamble. “I need to give you an update. Zoe Harper came to Jeremy’s penthouse about an hour ago. She said she wanted to apologize for saying the things she did when Diane died. But then they disappeared and it just didn’t feel right, so Andrea Lowenstein brought me out to Zoe’s house and there’s a picture here of Raymond…” I close my eyes and will my memory to read the name on the driver’s license in his wallet. “Estanza. The night I met you, Emma almost got killed by a woman whose picture was in his wallet. At the time I thought it was his wife. But you know all this. Now Jeremy’s gone, there’s a picture of that man here and he’s backing Zoe’s picture. I have no idea if the two are connected. What I do know is that my internal alarm bells are ringing and I need to find Zoe and Jeremy. What’s the real deal with Ray Estanza? Emma didn’t like him and I need to know why.”

  Renee is silent for a long moment and I assume she’s considering whether or not to answer me.

  “Raymond Estanza is the kingpin behind one of the biggest cocaine operations in North America. The feds have never been able to make a case on him, in part because of his money and influential contacts. He has spent a lot of time and money establishing those connections and ensuring their loyalty. It has long been thought that he launders his drug money through Octagon Enterprises. That’s why the Gotham Roses were called in and Emma was assigned to the case. Estanza has a weakness for very wealthy young women with good social standing. He takes perverse pleasure in addicting them to cocaine and then orchestrating their descent into forced prostitution.”

  I think of the beautiful woman in the ladies’ room at the club and wonder what became of her.

  “Lately, Estanza has broadened his circle of interest to young American women. Emma had no trouble infiltrating his organization and was getting very close to breaking it wide open when her cover got blown by another operative. If he’s in L.A., or if you think he’s made a connection between you and Emma, or Emma and Jeremy, then I would think one or all of you is in grave danger. Porsche, you must believe me, this is a very serious situation.”

  Renee pauses and I realize that Andrea has stopped searching Zoe’s desk and has stopped to read a sheaf of papers she holds in her hands.

  “I didn’t want to tell you this,” Renee continues, “but last night there was another attempt on Emma’s life at the hospital. That’s why I was so concerned that you not see her today. I was afraid not only for Emma, but for your sake as well. If Estanza thinks Emma or anyone else has incriminating evidence that could result in his arrest or the downfall of his drug smuggling operation, he will stop at nothing to eradicate that threat, even if it means taking innocent lives in the process. I want you to leave L.A. Now. Tonight. This is not a situation you can handle. I’ll alert the Governess and we’ll take…”

  The cell phone loses the connection to New York and when I try it again, the line rings busy.

  “Porsche,” Andrea says, “I think I’ve found something.”

  I walk over to her, still hitting the redial button on my cell.

  “Zoe changed the end of the script.” Andrea’s eyes are troubled when she looks up from the manuscript pages. “She’s killed off Jeremy.”

  “What?”

  “In the other version, the women of the cult take over, but they keep Jeremy’s character, Reymundo, because he is the provider of the nectar these women need to stay alive. When I first read it, I thought they kept Jeremy’s character as a sperm donor, you know, as the giver of life. But now they decide he’s a false god when one of the characters dies. They decide to sacrifice him and anoint a new god, a newcomer to the tribe.”

  Reymundo. Nectar that gives life. Cocaine? My mind is scrambling to come up with interpretations.

  “I think I know where she’s taken him,” Andrea says. “I think they’ve gone to her cabin in the mountains.”

  “Do you know where that is?” I ask. “We need to call the police
and send them out there.” I am moving out of the office at a run, hoping when I get outside my cell will work and I can reach Renee to notify the proper people.

  “I won’t be able to tell them.” Andrea sounds panicked and defeated. “I only went there one time with Mark. Zoe loaned it to us for a weekend, but it was dark when we arrived so I’m not sure, but it’s about an hour away in the hills near Carlito.”

  “Do you think you might recognize the road if we rode out there?”

  “Maybe. I’ll try.”

  Marlena is asleep in her carrier when Andrea and I return to the car, but she wakes up and crawls out to resume her nap in my lap. Andrea slips behind the wheel and drives like a madwoman, probably wondering, as I am, if we will arrive too late to save Jeremy.

  She calls Mark from the car, hoping maybe he will remember, but he is as uncertain as she is.

  “They’re heading up there,” she says, snapping her cell shut. “I guess they’ll try, too. Mark says there’s no way the cops would know because the cabin isn’t even registered in her name, but he’s going to call them anyway.”

  I stare out the window into the night sky and try as hard as I can to think of a way to find Jeremy faster. I think of all the tiny mountain roads that crisscross the hills above the small town and wonder if we will ever find him. I remember my father as we take the highway exit into Carlito. His number is still tucked safely inside my wallet and I dial with trembling fingers.

  The phone seems to ring forever before he finally picks up.

  “Porsche?”

  “Hey, Daddy.” I try and keep my voice bright and steady. “Listen, I’m kind of in your neighborhood on my way to a party and I was wondering if you could help me with the directions and maybe…babysit Marlena?”

  Andrea follows my directions and we turn onto his street five minutes later. He is waiting at the foot of his long driveway, dressed in camouflage, his face blackened with grease paint so that only his eyes are clearly visible in the darkness.

  “Jesus!” Andrea murmurs and stops abruptly in the middle of the cul-de-sac.

  My father hops into the back seat of Andrea’s car, smiles at the two of us and tips his black skullcap at Andrea.

  “Evening, ladies,” he says. “Heading off to a little party, are you?” He leans forward, pulls a quarter from behind Andrea’s ear, and laughs at her startled reaction. Marlena, apparently feeling left out, hops off of my shoulders and into my father’s lap, an unheard of acceptance by my usually wary ferret. “Now, let’s all relax a bit,” he says, stroking Marlena’s soft fur. “I’ve taken the liberty of making a few calls and I believe I know exactly where you’re headed.”

  He points out a few landmarks on a hand-drawn map for Andrea then hops back out of the car with Marlena curled up around his neck.

  “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he says with a grin, but then I see a dark flash as his eyes meet mine. “But if you do, call me and I’ll be right there.”

  He knows. I don’t know how, but my father knows I’m headed into something dangerous. I shake off this feeling and fake a big smile back at him.

  “Thanks, Dad! I should be back in an hour or two to get her.”

  My father nods without breaking eye contact and says in a low voice, “And if you’re not?”

  I stop smiling. “Then I might need a ride home,” I answer softly.

  He nods and without another word vanishes into the woods beside his driveway.

  “Damn, Porsche,” Andrea says. “That was interesting!”

  Something hard and cold bumps up against my leg as Andrea puts the car into gear. I look down and lying on the seat beside me is an ugly black gun. A little yellow scrap of paper is taped to the butt of the weapon.

  Just in case. It’s like a camera, all you do is point and shoot, no safety. Love, Dad.

  “Damn, Andrea, look at this!” I pick the weapon up gingerly, avoiding the trigger and careful not to point it in her direction.

  Andrea’s eyes widen but she grins. “I’m liking that father of yours,” she says. She pulls the car back out onto the road and starts driving in the direction my father pointed to while I study the little map. Two minutes later, I am rewarded by Andrea’s triumphant cry, “There! That’s the mailbox! We did it!”

  “Pull the car over there,” I direct and point to a spot farther down the road from Zoe’s drive. “See if you can pull the car off the road and into the woods, facing back out so we can leave in a hurry if we have to.”

  Andrea does as I direct without another word and when she switches off the car’s engine, the two of us sit for a long moment before I say anything.

  “I vote we skirt the edge of her property and come in the back way. We’ll get as close to the house as possible and if it looks like Jeremy’s in trouble, we can call the cops.”

  Andrea nods but neither of us talks about the possibility that Jeremy may already be dead, and we certainly don’t even entertain the possibility that Jeremy and Zoe have just run off for a little midnight rendezvous. After seeing the shrine Zoe has erected to Jeremy—or Reymundo, as she seems to prefer calling him—and reading the new ending to her movie, there is no doubt in my mind about Zoe’s intentions.

  We set off into the woods, following a narrow trail lit only by the available moonlight and walking single-file across what appears to be a narrow ridge that follows the hilltop. The sound of chanting and an accompanying drumbeat signals our approach to Zoe’s mountain cabin. From this point on we drop to our knees and crawl the rest of the way to a vantage point just outside the clearing where Zoe is standing.

  I press my lips together hard to avoid gasping out loud when I see Jeremy. He is naked and tied to a wooden pole that had been inserted in the bare ground of the clearing. Logs and sticks have been piled around the base of the pole, covering Jeremy’s feet, and as we watch, Zoe slowly paces around Jeremy pouring liquid on the logs and chanting.

  “Tell me this is all a movie scene and she isn’t going to do what I think,” Andrea whispers.

  Zoe raises her arms high above her head and addresses the group of robed women in front of her.

  “He has betrayed us, taken my lover to his cold grave and now he must follow,” she says. “He is not our true leader. We must follow the will of Reymundo!”

  Just as they did in the nightclub, the robed women chant, “Reymundo, Reymundo!” They begin to dance faster and faster around Jeremy and Zoe. Jeremy seems only half-conscious. His eyes flutter spasmodically and he attempts to speak, but the words come out in an unintelligible babble. My heart is pounding almost louder than the drums beating below us as I pull my body up into a low crouch and look at Andrea.

  “I want you to walk into the side of the circle farthest away from Jeremy and create a distraction,” I tell her. “Think you can do that?”

  Andrea nods nervously and looks back at the women below us while I start the count.

  “What’re you gonna do?” she asks.

  “Well, while you’re doing that, I’m gonna untie Jeremy and get him away from these lunatics.”

  Andrea licks her lips nervously and glances back at me. “You think about calling 9-1-1?”

  Sarcasm, gotta love it.

  “Yeah,” I tell her, “but if you’ll look closely, you’ll see Zoe is about to torch our boy hero and I don’t think the local sheriff’s gonna be able to make it in time to stop her. I’ll call, but I think we’d better plan on doing some of the rescue work ourselves. Okay?”

  Andrea sighs. “All right. I was just hoping. I mean, it’s basically gonna be just me against oh, I’d say, twenty women. I was just thinking we might even up the odds somehow.”

  I tug my father’s gun out of my jacket pocket. “Don’t worry,” I tell her. “If things get too crazy, I’ll just shoot her!”

  Zoe is moving dangerously close to Jeremy, a lit wand in her hand.

  I give Andrea a shove and say, “Now!” and watch as she crawls off heading for the farthest point away fro
m Jeremy. A minute later there is a rustling across the clearing from my hiding place and, as I watch, Andrea emerges from the woods to stand at the edge of the clearing.

  “Stop!” she yells. “I bring news from Reymundo!”

  “Oh, now that is so lame,” I mutter. “You think they’re gonna believe you?”

  Andrea grins at a stunned Zoe and her friends. “Isn’t it wonderful that Zoe here is such pals with the Nectar Maker himself?” she says. “Why I think that’s just grand!”

  She takes a few more steps out of the woods to stand just at the edge of the circle. She flashes a look in my direction that seems to say, “All right, I’ve got their attention, now what?”

  I start forward, moving very slowly up behind the stake where Jeremy is dangling. As I approach the edge of the clearing, I am aware that everyone else has stopped moving, including Zoe, and that they are all listening.

  “I saw Ray earlier,” Andrea says. “He says to send his regards, but he’s moving on. It seems he’s found a new plaything.”

  “This has nothing to do with you!” I hear Zoe say. “Leave us now or die with him.”

  “Zoe, honey,” Andrea says as she steps closer into the circle. “I know you think Jeremy had something to do with…”

  “Shut up!” Zoe cries.

  I take advantage of this moment and dart forward, running the short distance to Jeremy and hastily beginning to untie the ropes that bind him to the pole.

  I raise up, sheltered by the thick log and bring my lips close to his ear. “Can you hear me, Jeremy?” I whisper.

  “Lovey?” he murmurs softly. “Is that you?”

  “Yes. Listen to me. I’m going to untie you. Do you think you can walk?”

  Jeremy nods slightly. “I think so. She gave me something. I feel weird, like this is all happening to someone else and I’m watching the movie.” He giggles softly. “It’s delightful, really, but not so much when you know it’s you.”

  I want to slap him, but know how pointless that would be. I fumble with the ropes, frantic to get the last knot undone, frantic to move him before we’re discovered.