Last Writes

by Laura Levine

  I guess she must have decided she was hungry, because she started trotting after me. The minute I reached for the can opener, she knew food was in the offing, and she began doing what she always does when food is in the offing: yowling and clinging to my ankles, in the mistaken belief that tripping me will somehow get the food on her plate faster.

  I was just starting to open the crabmeat when tragedy struck. The can opener broke.

  Now Prozac was yowling louder than ever, demanding to be fed. The poor thing was ravenous. After all, it had probably been a whole twenty minutes since she’d last snacked on her bowl of dry cat food.

  “Just a minute,” I said, “Mommy’s can opener broke. Mommy’ll have to find you something else to eat.”

  I hurried to see what I had in the refrigerator. I would have given her leftovers, but there were no leftovers. There are never any leftovers in my refrigerator, because in order to get leftovers, you actually have to cook. There was nothing in my refrigerator except for a half a bottle of chardonnay and that jar of garlic-stuffed olives.

  By now, Prozac was in high hysteria mode. Think Janet Leigh in the shower scene in Psycho.

  “Don’t panic,” I said, grabbing my keys. “Mommy will just run over to the hardware store and buy another can opener. I’ll be right back, I promise.”

  I ran down to Olympic Boulevard and then two blocks east to Beverly Hardware, the world’s most expensive hardware store, where you need a co-signer to buy a hammer.

  I dashed in, prepared to fork over whatever they were overcharging for a simple can opener. I was rummaging around the kitchen gadget section, searching for a can opener that cost less than a Porsche, when I heard the clerk say: “Will that be all, Mr. Miller?”

  Now I’m sure there are scads of Millers in the city of Los Angeles. Any one of whom could have been in Beverly Hardware that night. I don’t know why I thought that this one might be Stan. But I did. I vaguely remembered Kandi telling me that he and Audrey lived somewhere in Beverly Hills.

  I tiptoed over to the end of the aisle and—hiding behind a display of Roach Motels—peered out at the checkout counter.

  Sure enough, it was Stan.

  “So, Mr. Miller,” the clerk was saying, “how did that poison work out for you?”

  Stan paled. “Poison?” he said, practically choking on the word.

  “The rat poison you bought last week. Did it get rid of your rats?”

  Stan stood there, blinking, struggling to make his mouth work.

  “Uh…yes,” he finally managed to mumble. “It worked fine.”

  And with that, he grabbed his package and hurried out the door.

  “Can I help you miss?”

  I looked over and saw the clerk staring at me. It wasn’t every day he found a customer hiding out at the Roach Motels.

  I held up one of the “motels.”

  “Does the room come with cable TV?” I asked, going for a joke.

  “Huh?” he replied, going for the security alarm. The guy clearly had me pegged for a loony. And then I glanced up at the overhead security mirror and saw that I still had that damn pore strip on my nose! No wonder he was so spooked.

  I quickly grabbed a twenty-dollar can opener and paid for it before he could put in a call to the Cedars Sinai psychiatric ward.

  I made my way back home in a daze, still shocked at what I had overheard. So Stan had bought rat poison. Of course, it was possible he actually bought it to kill rats. Rats are a common problem in Los Angeles. So maybe it was a perfectly innocent purchase.

  And if you believe that, I’ve got a comedy about a bunch of shoe salesmen I’d like to sell you.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The first thing I did when I got home was call Detective Incorvia. The desk sergeant said he wasn’t in, that he was at a UCLA screenwriting course. I left a message telling him to call me as soon as possible and hung up, secure in the knowledge that the city was safe from poor story structure.

  Then I fed Prozac and wrenched that ridiculous pore strip off my nose. Which wasn’t easy. The damn thing had hardened to the consistency of cement. I practically needed a hacksaw to get it off. Not only did it remove all my blackheads; as an added bonus, it also yanked off a healthy layer of skin. Which left my nose a lovely shade of Rudolph Reindeer Red.

  I headed out to the party, my nose glowing and my brain on overdrive. I couldn’t stop thinking about the bombshell in the hardware store. So Stan had bought rat poison the week before the murder. It sure made him the leading contender in the Murder Suspect Sweepstakes. And yet, it was hard to picture Stan as a cold-blooded killer. The only thing he seemed capable of killing were my jokes.

  I would’ve thought for sure that Audrey was the murderer in that family. And maybe she was. It was very possible that Stan was just following her orders when he bought the rat poison, never dreaming that the rat she intended to use it on was Quinn Kirkland.

  Or maybe they were in it together, a husband and wife crime. The family that slays together, stays together—that sort of thing.

  I made my way over the Sepulveda Pass to the San Fernando Valley and found Dale’s house nestled in a leafy cul de sac on the wrong side of Ventura Boulevard. Ventura is one of those L.A. streets that separate the rich from the middle class. The big bucks settle south of the boulevard; the regular Joes go north. And Dale’s place was two blocks north of Ventura, just up the street from one of my favorite culinary establishments, The House of Wieners.

  It was a sprawling ranch house, with lots of flag-stones and wind chimes, very Casa Suburbia. I knew I was in trouble when I rang the doorbell and it played the theme from The Godfather.

  A sullen teenager in hip-hugger jeans and a midriff as tight as a trampoline answered the door. I assumed she was Dale’s daughter.

  “You with the show?” she asked.

  “Yes, I’m Jaine—”

  “C’mon in,” she interrupted, not giving a damn who I was. She ushered me into a large woodsy living room, where a fire sputtered in an oversized stone fireplace. Hardly anyone was there. Just a handful of people. Most of them were below-the-line crew members, burly guys with big guts—the Beer Belly Brigade. Dale was nowhere in sight.

  “Where’s your dad?” I asked Miss Hip-hugger.

  “How should I know?” She shrugged. “Haven’t seen him in twenty years.”

  “So Dale’s not your father?”

  She laughed, a bitter laugh. “Hell, no. He’s my husband.”

  “Gee, I’m so sorry—”

  “Me, too, honey.”

  In the shadowy foyer, she’d looked like a teenager. Now, upon closer inspection, I could see she was older. Not much older. Mid-twenties, tops. Like Vanessa, she had a prematurely hardened look. By the time she hit thirty, she’d be tougher than leather.

  Now I knew why Dale was so desperate to keep his job. The minute he was out of work, I felt certain, his young bride would be gone with the wind chimes.

  “Help yourself to some chow,” she said, pointing to a buffet table laden with food. Uniformed waiters stood in a bored cluster behind the table. “I told Dale not to spring for a caterer. We could’ve ordered a platter from Jerry’s Deli. But no, he had to impress Stan and Audrey. Who, incidentally, didn’t even bother to show up.”

  “That’s too bad,” I said.

  “Nobody important showed,” she sighed, clearly pegging me as one of the unimportant. “Except for the old fart—he stopped by.”

  “The old fart?”

  “The Brit with the snooty accent.”

  “You mean Wells Dumont?”

  “Yeah. He put in a token appearance. Left about five minutes ago. Bored everybody senseless with a story about the time he gave a command performance of Norman Lear for Queen Elizabeth.”

  “Norman Lear? Don’t you mean King Lear?”

  “Whatever. Say, what happened to your nose? It’s all red. You get a peel?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, if you nee
d to use the can, it’s down that way. There’s some concealer in the medicine cabinet.”

  She pointed vaguely down the hall, and yawned.

  “I’ve had it with this fiasco. I’m going to bed.”

  “Nice talking to you,” I called after her as she clomped away on impossibly high heels.

  She was right, of course. The party was a major fiasco. Except for Dale, none of my prime suspects had shown up. And even Dale’s whereabouts were a mystery. Oh, well, I thought, glancing at the buffet. At least there was food.

  It was then that I noticed Bianca, huddled with Danny on a love seat near the window. They were deep in discussion, Bianca talking in an angry whisper.

  “Okay,” Danny finally said, loud enough for me to hear. “I won’t say anything to anybody. I promise.”

  Then Bianca looked over and saw me. Her face went white.

  “C’mon,” she said, “let’s get out of here.”

  She pulled Danny up from the sofa.

  “But I haven’t finished my drink.”

  “Yes, you have.” She grabbed his drink out of his hand and slammed it down on a nearby coffee table.

  The next thing I knew they were out the door.

  No doubt about it: I’d scared the stuffing out of Bianca. And it felt great.

  I headed over to the buffet table, where several stunning actor/waiters were standing around grousing.

  “This was supposed to be an A-list party,” I heard one of them say as I helped myself to some gorgeous shrimp.

  “Yeah, I was told Antonio Banderas was coming.”

  “And Cameron Diaz.”

  “There’s nobody here but drones.”

  They didn’t even bother to lower their voices.

  “Hi, there,” I said to the beautiful young man behind the omelette cooker. “You think you could make an omelette for one of us drones?”

  He sighed petulantly.

  “Whaddaya want in it?”

  “Just tomatoes. And maybe some onions. And a smidgeon of ham.”

  Reluctantly, he tossed together a burnt-on-the-bottom omelette and hurled it on a plate. I added some fresh fruit and just the weensiest mound of scalloped potatoes.

  Then I wandered over to the Beer Belly Brigade, who were in the middle of a scintillating discussion about Athlete’s Foot.

  “I knew a guy who had it so bad,” one of them said, “he had to have his big toe amputated.”

  “No shit.”

  “Hi,” I said.

  They looked up at me blankly.

  “I’m Jaine Austen.”

  “Oh, yeah. From accounting, right?”

  “No, I’m one of the writers.”

  “You the one that almost got killed?”

  “That’s me.”

  “Wow. You okay?”

  “Sure. I’m fine.”

  “Your nose looks sorta funny.”

  “It’s nothing. Just a little cosmetic mishap.”

  I smiled weakly and walked away. I suppose I should’ve pumped them for information about the murder, but something about them (their double digit IQs, perhaps) told me I wasn’t going to learn anything useful.

  Instead, I strolled over to the fireplace and glanced up at the framed photos on the mantel. At first I thought they were family pictures. But then I saw they were 8x10 glossies of famous actors: Antonio, Melanie, Cameron, Brad, Gwyneth. All autographed. Just like at a dry cleaner’s. But dry cleaners usually know their customers. I had a sneaky suspicion Dale had bought these pictures at one of those movie memorabilia shops on Hollywood Boulevard.

  By now I’d snarfed down my omelette and my fruit and my potatoes and my shrimp. If only those damn actor/waiters weren’t hovering by the buffet table, I could nab some more shrimp to bring home for Prozac.

  I checked out the desserts and in an impressive burst of willpower, I walked right by them.

  Okay, so I made a pitstop at the cookie tray and had a tiny chocolate brownie.

  Okay, so it wasn’t so tiny and I had two.

  Wiping the brownie crumbs from my lips, I started down the hallway in search of the bathroom. I wanted to check on my nose, and maybe try some of that concealer Dale’s wife had told me about.

  There were a several doors along the hallway. I had no idea which one was the bathroom. I certainly didn’t want to barge in on Mrs. Dale polishing her toenails or phoning her lover or doing whatever it was she normally did before she went to bed.

  I stopped at a door and knocked. No answer. I opened it, and gasped in horror.

  It turns out it wasn’t the bathroom, but a closet—filled with row after row of disembodied heads! Good heavens. This was straight out of Nightmare on Elm Street. Dale was obviously a mass murderer who decapitated his victims and saved their heads as grisly souvenirs!

  And then, to my profound relief, I realized they weren’t human heads, but wig holders. Each Styrofoam head sported a different wig. And every one of them looked just like Dale’s boyish mop. It was the exact same style, only in different lengths. Hadn’t I read about something like this before? Where a Hollywood producer kept thirty different wigs, one for each day of the month, each one slightly longer than the next? So people would think his hair was growing, and no one would ever guess that he was as bald as an eagle?

  Poor Dale. Everything about him was just so damn pathetic.

  At this point, I didn’t care about my nose; all I wanted was something to calm me down. That closetful of disembodied heads had given me quite a scare. I hurried back to the living room where I snagged a glass of champagne. (And, if you must know, another brownie.)

  The Beer Belly Brigade were still discussing amputations (“I knew a guy once who had his earlobe bit off!”), so I decided to go outside and get a breath of fresh air.

  I walked out a sliding glass door onto a stark concrete patio. Dale was out there, alone in the moonlight. He sat on a deck chair, drinking what looked like a tumbler of scotch and tossing cheese puffs into his thimble-sized swimming pool.

  He looked up at the sound of my footsteps. His normally clean-cut features were haggard; his sharp jaw-line was blurry with booze.

  “Oh,” he said, clearly disappointed that it was only me. “Hi, Judy.”

  “Actually, it’s Jaine.”

  “Whatever.”

  He threw another cheese puff into the pool. Was it my imagination, or was his boyish head of hair slightly askew on his scalp?

  “Look,” he said, pointing to the cheese puffs. “They float.”

  “Is that so?” I smiled weakly.

  “C’mere, June. Sit down.” He patted the chair next to him. “At least somebody from the writing staff showed up.”

  Gingerly, I took a seat, wishing I’d asked for a double on the champagne.

  “I hate them all,” he said, grabbing another handful of cheese puffs and tossing them into the water. “The writers. The actors. Everybody.”

  The cheese puffs shimmered on the surface of the brightly lit pool like tiny white turds.

  “Vanessa,” he sneered, gulping some scotch. “The little slut couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag. And Zach. You know what I call him? The oak.”

  “The oak?”

  “The most wooden actor I’ve ever seen. Just stands on stage looking pretty. And Wells. What a bore. If I hear one more story about Larry Olivier, I’m going to puke.”

  And indeed he looked as if he might puke any minute. I tucked my legs under my chair, just in case.

  “But at least Wells had the decency to put in an appearance tonight. Which is more than I can say for Audrey and Stan.”

  Dale tossed some more cheese puffs into the pool. By now it was a regular cheese puff regatta in there.

  “What a pair,” he sighed. “I knew them back when they were nobodies. When Audrey was just a production assistant, sleeping her way to the middle. And Stan was a below-the-line slob, working as a gaffer.”

  “A gaffer?” I’d seen the title a million times on movie credits and
never knew what the heck it was. “What’s that?”

  “A lighting electrician.”

  It’s a good thing I’d already finished my brownie. Otherwise it would’ve gone flying right out of my mouth. If Stan had been a lighting electrician, then he could have easily rigged the overhead light that almost killed me.

  “Stan used to work with lights?”

  “Yeah. He was gaffer on a bunch of shows. In fact, I think he once worked on a show with Wells, back when Wells was starring in some cockamamie Shakespearean sitcom. What was the name of that thing?”

  He scratched his head, trying to remember.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Now I remember. That Darn Hamlet.”

  This time, there was no doubt about it. His boyish head of hair was definitely listing to the left.

  “What an idiotic idea.” By now he was slurring his words pretty badly. “Who the hell wants to see a comedy about Hamlet? It got cancelled after three episodes.”

  “Isn’t that awfully soon for a show to be cancelled?”

  “The ratings stunk. Besides, I think there was some kind of accident on the set.”

  “An accident? What kind of accident?”

  “I’m not sure. All I remember is somebody got hurt real bad. So the network pulled the plug.”

  “Was it a lighting accident?”

  But I wasn’t about to find out. Because just then Dale took a final slug of his scotch and passed out.

  I grabbed the rest of the cheese puffs and got the hell out of there.

  Back in my Corolla, I called Kandi on my cell phone. Luckily, she was home from her gala night at the Salvation Army and was able to give me Wells’s phone number. I wanted to see him right away, so I could find out more about that accident on the set of That Darn Hamlet.

  “How was the soup kitchen?” I asked.

  “Fab,” she sighed. “Some toothless guy with lint in his beard asked me out for Saturday night. I would’ve said yes, if it hadn’t been for the swastika tattooed on his forehead.”

  “And they say there are no good men left in L.A.”

  “So what about you?” Kandi asked. “How was the party?”

  “A ghost town. Dale’s practically suicidal.”