They both got out of the car. Ellen took out her motel key and opened the door.
"From the mouths of babes," Diane said.
"What are you talking about?" Ellen asked.
"They always say you can learn so much from newcomers."
"Yeah," Ellen said, ushering Diane into her room. "I'm sure this is exactly what they meant by that. Sit down over here." Ellen turned a chair so that it faced away from the mirror over the vanity table. After Diane sat, Ellen opened her large makeup case and found her tweezers. "This is gonna sting a mite, but it's worth it."
She switched on the radio and thought back to that drunken night in the bar. The alcohol was hitting her hard, so she had gone into the bathroom to make herself throw up. That's when she'd met Giovanna. Boy did that little gal seem young, Ellen had thought through her drunken haze. Too young to be selling blowjobs for twelve dollars. She struck up a conversation and learned that Giovanna was saving her money to go to America.
"First off," Ellen told her, "you have got to raise your prices."
"Almost done?" Diane asked, wincing.
"I'm just getting started," Ellen said. "You just hold on."
She rummaged through her makeup arsenal, finding shadow and blush, liner and lipstick. She had tried to do the same for Giovanna, only she'd been drunk, with only minimal supplies. So she improvised, even taking the wig off her own head and leaving herself with just a scrawny topknot. Sometimes when she was on a roll she couldn't stop herself. Maybe that was that self-will-run-riot thing the guy with the toilet had been talking about. One improvement she had been able to make was to wipe off the pale white lip gloss Giovanna had on. "That shade went out with the sixties," Ellen told her. The girl's own natural color was ten times better.
The song "Still Crazy after All These Years" came on the radio. Ellen turned up the volume. She had always considered the tune her personal theme song. She and Diane sang along. Diane turned out to have a decent voice and knew all the words.
"Well, you're just full of surprises, aren't you?" Ellen said.
Diane tried to turn around and see herself in the mirror. "Not yet," Ellen said. She lifted the blond wig from its stand, placed it over Diane's own lank hair, and pinned it into place. Using a styling pick, she fluffed the curls over Diane's forehead. The mouse was becoming a tiger.
"We've gotta do something about those clothes," she said."Lose the vest, and unbutton your blouse—the top three buttons anyway. Show some wares, girl. You don't get to keep them forever."
Diane blushed but did as she was told.
"What size waist do you have?" Ellen asked.
"I usually wear thirty-two-inch jeans," Diane said.
Ellen dug in her drawer until she came up with a pair of thirty-inch Levi's. "Try these."
She watched Diane shyly pull down her fish-tank-shit green cords. Her shirttails covered her underpants, but Ellen didn't have to see them to know they'd be cotton and not bikini style. As Diane dressed, she balanced her head like she had a basket on it.
"Go ahead and move," Ellen said. "It won't fall off. I put enough pins in that thing to withstand a hurricane."
"Can I look now?" Diane asked.
"Just about." Ellen dug a pair of high-heeled sandals out of her suitcase and took the pair of big hoop earrings out of her own ears. "Put these on."
Diane did, and finally Ellen allowed her to turn and see the results of her labor. Diane made a funny yelping noise that was halfway between a choke and a scream. Giovanna had also been amazed at her transformation. It had been uncanny really. Giovanna had somehow taken on Ellen's looks as a teenager. It was too weird, seeing herself again with so many less miles on her. To thank her, Giovanna had pulled out a pouch of pills and offered them to Ellen. Ellen had sorted through the pharmaceuticals, picking out her favorites. Then she came to some white capsules.
"Is this what I think it is?" she'd asked.
"You put it in the drink," Giovanna had said, miming the action. "And night-night sailor boy."
"Give me a couple of those, too," Ellen had said. And hadn't that turned out to be a fortunate choice?
Diane was still standing speechless in front of the mirror. "I bet you didn't dream in a million years you had it in you," Ellen said proudly.
Diane nodded dumbly, then said, "I don't even look like me." When she talked, she barely moved her lips. Ellen wondered if this were the first time she'd ever had lipstick on. Poor thing.
"Come on," she said. "Let's take you out for a test drive."
"Oh, I don't know," Diane said, balking, as Ellen took her arm and steered her for the door. The phone rang. Ellen looked at it in surprise. Who had this number? It rang again. She picked it up and said, "Hello?" No one answered her, but it seemed like someone was there. "Hello?" she said again. Whoever it was hung up; She tried to shrug off her creeping paranoia as she put the receiver down. No one knew to look for her there.
"Where will we go?" Diane asked. She was turning in front of the mirror and apparently getting used to herself.
"Let's go listen to some music," Ellen said, feeling an increasingly urgent need to be gone already. "I know a coffee shop over in Marina Del Rey."
"A1l right." Diane opened the door and stepped out into the sunlight.
Just a minute," Ellen said. "l want to get another pair of earrings." She knelt beside the bed to retrieve her jewelry case. Outside she heard squealing tires and the wop wop of a helicopter. It sounded like it was landing on the roof. Men shouted. She heard one of them say, "Ellen Summers," and peeked out the motel room's curtain in time to see a man handcuffing Diane. Diane started to scream, and then another man put something over her face and she slumped to the ground. Ellen scrambled into the bathroom, picking up Diane's discarded clothes as she went. She locked the door behind her, threw open the window, pushed out the screen, and climbed out. It was a wonder she managed to have the presence of mind to take her makeup case with her.
* * *
Munch brought the bag of hamburgers to the house. Asia was playing some involved game with the dogs. She'd tied scarves around their necks. "Now, kids," she was saying in a falsetto voice, "you must learn to behave or no cookies."
Sam responded by leaning forward and licking the girl's face. Asia looked up and saw her mother. "She keeps licking the inside of my mouth," she complained.
Munch suppressed a smile. "Go wash your hands. I brought lunch. "
From the bathroom Munch heard Asia exclaim in the same falsetto, "Shut the door. Can't I get any privacy around here?"
Nicky's tail could be seen waving out the door. Munch called her work.
"Bel Air Texaco," Lou answered.
"Hi," she said. "How's it going?"
"You better get in here," he said.
"Why? What's up?"
"Here, I'll let her tell you herself."
Munch heard some scuffling noises as the phone was laid down, then Lou came back on. "I don't know what's going on here. She won't come to the phone."
"That's all right," Munch said. "I'm on my way."
She grabbed a hamburger out of the bag. Asia walked into the kitchen. "Let me see your hands," Munch said. Asia held out her hands, palms up. They passed inspection. Caroline had heard Munch's end of the telephone conversation and looked at her quizzically. "I need to run by my work real quick," Munch said.
"Did you call Mace?"
"He wasn't in. I'll try again as soon as I get back."
Munch drove to the Texaco station. Lou was talking to a customer when she pulled in. He saw her and pointed to the rear of the shop, circling his finger to indicate that he meant around the back. A six-foot ivy-covered berm separated the rear of the lube bay from a neighboring apartment building. The shop used the space to store broken equipment and used body parts. Munch pushed past an unreliable tranny jack and the fender off a Toyota pickup truck.
A woman stepped out from behind a fifty-gallon drum. Despite the clothes and short straight hair, Munch recognized
her immediately. "I oughta kick your ass," she said.
"What did I do?" Ellen said.
"'Why don't you tell me," Munch said, not knowing whether to punch or hug her friend. "And where did you get those clothes?"
Ellen tugged at the crocheted vest. "Can you believe people wear this kind of thing when they don't have to?"
Munch held up her hand, hoping to ward off a side trip into bullshit. "C'mon, let's get out of here. You can tell me on the way."
"Where are we going?" Ellen asked. "Back to your house?"
"No, my house isn't safe anymore. Asia and I are staying at a friend's place in Venice."
"What happened at your house?" Ellen asked.
"No," Munch said. "You go first. What happened in Mexico, and what the fuck were you thinking, taking my limo down there in the first place?" Now she felt like hitting her again.
"I was trying to help you out," Ellen said, sounding affronted. Tears formed in her eyes.
"You're dangerous when you think," Munch said, trying to remain indifferent to her friend's tears even though she suspected they were sincere for a change.
They reached Munch's car. Ellen put her head down and slunk into the front seat. "I'm sorry," she said.
Munch came around to the driver's seat. Instead of starting the engine, she said, "I thought you were dead." And then she was crying, too. They hugged. Then laughed, then cried some more. Ellen broke it off first.
"Will you look at the two of us?" she said, laughing and wiping her face with a corner of the crocheted vest. She lifted the corners of the vest with both hands. "Are we a sight or what?" This got them both laughing so hard that they stopped making noise.
Lou walked over to the car and bent down so that he was looking in at them through the driver's window. "What's so funny?" he asked.
Munch composed herself enough to say, "Lou, you remember my friend—"
"Diane," Ellen said, cutting her off. "And no, I don't think we've met."
Ellen's accent was completely absent. She also seemed to have undergone a complete physical transformation. It was just a trick of body language, Munch realized, how Ellen scrunched her nose as she spoke and showed a lot of teeth. She also rounded her shoulders and used her hands a lot.
"I've got to take Diane to—"
"a shelter," Ellen said, finishing her sentence.
"Her—"
"Son of a bitch husband," Ellen said, "has hit me for the last time."
Munch nodded. Had she thought of this before or was this story an inspiration of the moment? Either way, Ellen was good.
"I told you that guy was an asshole," Munch said. "So Lou, this guy is dangerous. If anyone comes by asking questions . . . "
"Don't worry," Lou said. "I won't say a thing. When are you coming back to work?"
"As soon as I can," Munch said. "I can't wait for things to get back to normal." She looked at Ellen as she said the last sentence.
Lou patted the window frame, and said, "You do what you need to do."
"Thanks," she said.
As they drove away, Ellen said, "He seems like a nice fellow."
"Forget him," Munch said. "What happened in Mexico?"
"How did you find out about Mexico? " Ellen asked.
"A cop friend of mine found out you crossed the border."
"Why did you think I was dead?"
"That same cop also had a tip that the police had an unidentified murder victim—a young woman wearing nothing but a red wig."
Ellen's face drained of color. "How young?"
"Maybe thirteen. I went to identify her, thinking it was going to be you."
"How was she killed?" Ellen asked.
"She was stabbed with some kind of pointed tool. When the killer was done, he taped white crosses over the wounds. The cop didn't say, but I'm sure the killer was this guy they're calling the Band-Aid Killer."
"What kind of tape?" Ellen asked.
"White medical tape, like the kind they use to hold gauze in place." Munch also told Ellen about the murders in Hollywood and Mexico and finally about the sperm trail in Asia's underwear drawer. "Mace St. John, the detective I know, thinks it must be one of the guys you took down to Mexico."
"I am not surprised. They were not very nice men." Then Ellen told Munch what she had found when she went through each of the unconscious men's pockets.
"That's why we've been so worried about you," Munch said, not missing the fact that Ellen omitted that she had relieved the men of their cash. "I have microphones in the back of the limo that come on whenever the privacy partition goes up. On the tape, they were talking about you. Wondering if you'd seen anything."
"Good," Ellen said. "I hope they are losing sleep over it."
"I wouldn't count on that. These guys are really connected. I heard Mace talking last night. He said every time he gets a lead, his boss tells him to back off. I heard him tell his wife that this guy was probably going to get away with it if they didn't get some kind of break."
"What can we do?"
"I have a plan," Munch said, feeling the delicious thrill of fear mixed with excitement. Being a passive victim had never been her style.
"Hot damn," Ellen said, letting out a hoot. "It's about time we got us a dog in this hunt."
CHAPTER 25
Raleigh couldn't take his eyes off the pictures of the dead women. He had moved his base of operations to a small condo on Barrington in Brentwood. Because of the heat generated by first the Hollywood incident, and then the fiasco in Mexico, many plans had to be changed. Victor was too much of a wild card. The Romanian needed to be brought under control, and if he couldn't do it, who was going to?
He spread the photographs of the dead women out before him on his kitchen table. It was clear he needed to take charge of the situation and do the right thing. As usual, the burden fell on his shoulders to act in the best interests of everyone, with or without official sanction.
He lifted the 0ne-pound Folger's coffee can out of his bag of groceries. At least Victor had come through with his promised sample.
Raleigh handled the can with great respect, knowing that nestled within the sawdust inside this can were two buttons of plutonium-239, each weighing a quarter of a kilogram. The reports he read assured him that this particular plutonium isotope had a halflife of more than twenty-four thousand years, meaning that it gave off very few radioactive particles. The most prominent form of radiation it did emit was alpha radiation, which was incapable of even penetrating a sheet of paper, much less a layer of human skin, or the stainless steel of a Fo1ger's coffee can. Still, he was gentle when he removed the can from his bag of groceries.
Cassandra meowed and rubbed against his leg. "All right," he said, reaching for a can of tuna fish. "Daddy's taking care of you." He opened the can, separated the chunks on a small ceramic dish, then lifted the cat onto the counter to eat.
He would return the merchandise to Victor in time for the man to complete his transaction. The Libyans had won the bidding war. They would receive the shipment in exchange for $380,000, to be delivered in bundles of hundred-dollar bills. God bless America.
* * *
Munch drove to her neighborhood, but didn't make the turn down her street. A quick glance told her that no police cars were parked in front, but who knew who else was watching? She turned down the next street and stopped at the house of the neighbor whose backyard connected to hers.
"Come on," she told Ellen. '
Munch knocked on the door. A minute later, she tried the bell.
"It looks like no one is home," Ellen said.
"Yeah, I know the couple who lives here, and they both work," Munch said. "I just wanted to make sure." Munch led the way. They walked casually around to the side of the property where an eight-foot cyclone fence extended from the exterior wall of the garage. On the other side of the fence, there was a narrow dog run that ran the depth of the house and yard. Munch climbed the fence and dropped down into the dirt on the other side. Ellen followed.
An old golden retriever with a white muzzle and rheumy eyes lifted his head. Munch reached down and petted him. "Hey, Rocky," she said. "It's okay, boy. " The dog wagged his tail feebly. The two women crossed the neighbor's yard. Munch lifted a loose plank in the fence separating the two yards and slid through. Ellen did the same.
"Let's just do what we came to do," Munch said, as they entered the house by the back door, "and then get the hell out of here."
"Fine by me," Ellen said.
They both dropped to their hands and knees and crawled across the kitchen floor until they reached the limo office. Munch reached into a filing cabinet and retrieved her logbook. The paperwork from the Saturday night limo booking was right on top. She circled the number Raleigh had called from the limousine.
"Hand me that phone," Ellen whispered.
Thirty minutes later, Munch and Ellen arrived at the house on Carroll Canal. Mace was already there and looking grim. No surprise there, Munch thought, feeling herself bristling in the presence of his perpetual anger. No wonder Caroline is boiling on the relationship.
Mace stood on the front porch and watched as the two women emerged from the car.
"Hey," Munch said.
"You must be Ellen," Mace said, regarding Munch's passenger with a cop's eye for detail.
On the ride over Ellen had ditched the vest and opened the collar of her shirt. Then she'd opened up her hat-box-size cosmetic case and applied eyeliner, three shades of shadow, copious mascara, and a fresh coat of lipstick. Now as she left the car, she raked her eyes over Mace, giving him the full benefit of her artwork, and said, "And you must be the man who's going to straighten this whole mess out. "
Mace looked up and down the street, then said, "You better come inside."
The house smelled of freshly baked cookies. Caroline emerged from the bedroom, a worried look on her face. She relaxed visibly when she spotted Munch. "Oh, good," she said. "You're back."
"Anything wrong?" Munch asked. "Where's Asia?"
"She's asleep on my bed," Caroline said.
The bathroom door opened, and Cassiletti stepped out. Ellen brightened. "And who might you be?"
Unwanted Company - Barbara Seranella Page 21