“Your husband played mah-jongg with Catherine Hill?” I was astonished.
“She was one of Dickey’s regular mah-jongg buddies.”
You never think of screen stars and what they do in their private lives, do you? Why shouldn’t they shop at Ralph’s or devour Sue Grafton novels or sit around passing the cashews while playing mah-jongg with the girls? They just want to have fun, like the rest of us. They have to do something. And an aging film star probably has more time on her hands than most, come to reconsider.
“I was planning to bring the MJ set over to her house later. I’m sure that’s what Dickey would have wanted me to do.”
“You don’t want to keep it?” I asked.
We were in luck. She was planning to give the old mah-jongg set away to Dickey’s old mah-jongg buddy, Catherine Freaking Hill. So how bad could it be that we lost track of it for a little while this morning, eh? How hard would she take it that the set was currently being fingerprinted, but would be returned shortly? I started feeling a little better about our chances of avoiding an unpleasant scene. Wesley, the dog, looked equally relieved.
“So, really,” I said, acting calm. “You plan to give the set away?”
“It was a nice set,” Quita said, but her voice sounded as if it was not nice enough. “But then, the mah-jongg set Dickey bought for me was even nicer. Rarer. And I don’t even think his old set was complete anymore. The value goes way down if you’re missing pieces, you know?”
I didn’t really. I did notice that some of the younger players like to own these wonderful vintage mah-jongg tiles and the prices had climbed in the past several years, they said. But just as likely the members of the Sweet and Sour Club would use new sets and have their names engraved on the White Dragons.
She shifted in the doorway. “You didn’t happen to find my book, by any chance? I know Dickey used to keep it locked away in that old case.”
One of the drawers of the antique Chinese mah-jongg case had held a small book of game instructions or something. I tried to remember clearly. “I think there was a book.”
Quita stared at me in surprise. “You don’t mean to say that you found Dickey’s lost novel! Covered in red leather?”
“I think it was a red book.” I looked at Wes again.
“Dickey McBride wrote a novel?” Wes asked Quita. “I don’t remember hearing about that.”
“No, of course you wouldn’t have. It was never published. That’s the great tragedy. I urged him to write it. We talked about it, you see. Dickey McBride had many talents. He could have been a very great voice in literary fiction. I guess you might say I was his muse. Dickey and I worked on it together—well, I gave him a lot of encouragement. It was a love story. So it had certain meaning to me, you understand? But I never got to read the finished work.”
“I see,” Wesley said, looking suddenly glummer.
She took a deep breath and went on. “He worked on it for months, scribbling in longhand. He kept the project in a red leather-bound book I gave him as a gift that Christmas. When he finished, he didn’t want me to look at it. I begged him to send it to his friend, Daniel Carter, who was the biggest literary agent in the country. It would have been enormous. Dickey McBride’s first novel. But, unfortunately, Dickey had a true artist’s temperament. Even though his prose was perfect, he himself wasn’t pleased with it at all. Not the least little bit. He ended up telling me it was a big mistake. But I know that isn’t true.
“He told me he was going to lock the book in his favorite old mah-jongg chest and put it away. I was terribly disappointed. But Dickey did what he wanted to do. I looked and looked for that old mah-jongg set and couldn’t imagine where it had gotten to. Now, I realize my darling Dickey had it sealed up in the wall when we were remodeling. That was two years ago. And now, thank God, you have found it at last. May I have it?”
“Well, there is just one small problem.”
“What problem?”
“We don’t actually have the set Wes called you about. Not right here.”
“What is this? Are you two shaking me down or something?” Quita’s vague gray eyes glistened with a certain sharpness.
“Of course not!” Wes was shocked.
“I don’t understand,” she said, her voice shrill. “You called me this morning, Wesley. You woke me up! You told me I could come pick my things up if I wanted to. Tonight!”
“Well, actually, I offered to bring the mah-jongg set to the Sweet and Sour club party tonight,” Wes corrected. “You said you would rather pick it up early.”
“Of course I did!” She was getting more upset. “Actually, I made a few phone calls about that old set. Now where the hell is it?”
“Look, Quita,” I said, “someone attacked me this morning. I was supposed to be taking the mah-jongg set back to our office. It’s a long story, but the book was in the mah-jongg case, and we were mugged.”
“What are you talking about? What happened?” She looked frantic. “All this time you were just talking and talking and…Why didn’t you tell me all of this before? When I first got here? What are you two doing to me?”
“I was going to tell you, but…” Wes said. It sounded lame.
“Where?” Quita screamed. Really, she should be mad. Sure. But this was getting strange now. “Where was this?”
“In Santa Monica,” Wes answered. “Madeline chased the guy but…”
“But WHAT?” Quita screamed at us again.
It hadn’t been a random theft at all. It wasn’t a street mugging. Quita was much too upset for that. Someone was after that case because they wanted that book. And it sure as hell
Chapter 6
Quita stood outside her old mansion on Wetherbee and began breathing irregularly, hyperventilating.
“This man…” she said, between trying to slow down her breaths, “…who stole the case and the book…he…” She tried again. “Who was he?”
The chard guy. I knew there was a problem with the chard guy.
“That’s the trouble,” I said. “He ran off. The police have the mah-jongg case, now, and they’re going to do a fingerprint test.”
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Quita had gone extremely white beneath her deep tan. “Tell me this isn’t happening. What did he look like?”
“A smallish man, dark complexion. Late forties, early fifties maybe.”
And then, right on the front step, Quita sat down hard, buckling into a heap, her purple dress hiking up, revealing long shapely legs.
“What’s wrong? What’s the matter?” I sat down next to the woman, trying to see if this was one of those situations that required an ambulance.
“Please…” Quita gulped. “Please, help me…”
Wesley had run down the lawn to his car and fetched back a bottle of Deja Blue water. He untwisted the cap and held it out to the stricken woman seated on the pavement.
“Do you happen…to have…any Xanax?” She looked up at us, still hyperventilating.
“Sorry,” I said.
Wesley and I were probably the only two people in the L.A. basin who didn’t, but that’s us.
“Valium?”
“Sorry, no.”
“Zoloft? Wellbutrin?”
We looked apologetic.
She gasped for breath. “Maybe…a shot of Scotch?”
Wes gestured to the water bottle in her hand. “That’s the strongest stuff I’ve got.”
“Wes!” I felt a little stressed that we could do nothing to help. Now if I’d had a chance to bake, at least I could be offering her a cookie. But, no.
“I’m sorry,” Wes said again. “Would you like us to call you an ambulance?”
“No…no, thanks. I’m all right.” Quita stood up, shakily, and steadied herself against the exterior wall to the right of the open entrance door.
“Quita,” I said, “exactly what happened to us this morning?”
Wes and I stood there, waiting.
“Dickey’s book. There’s a fortune
that could be made as soon as someone publishes Dickey’s book,” Quita whispered.
Uh-huh.
“Who knew he was writing a novel?” Wes asked. Good one.
“Well…” Quita was not the fastest thinker. “Maybe…Catherine Hill.”
“Catherine Hill?” Did she expect us to believe that the legendary movie queen, Catherine Hill, sent some damn chard guy to attack me this morning, just to steal an unpublished novel?
“Okay. Don’t believe me. Nobody ever does. Buster never listens to one word I say. But things are going wrong. Things are going to get worse. And I’m scared.” Quita looked down at the bottle of water in her hand and took a tentative swig. “They’re going to come after me,” she mumbled.
“Who is?” I asked, stumped. “Catherine Hill?” That legendary old queen bee was seventy at least.
Quita’s unfocused gray eyes swept the street, as if there could be some long-retired leading lady out there gunning for her or something. She was sticking with this story. But it didn’t make any sense.
“Hey, I’m in trouble here, okay? You don’t realize what kind of trouble. I need help. Get that? Either Catherine Hill or one of the other crazy ladies that Dickey used to play mah-jongg with. They hate me. They’d like to see me dead. They think I purposely lured Dickey to have, you know, relations with me that night, even though I knew about his heart condition.”
Ah. This was interesting.
“But it’s all a load of crap. Look, I have to get away. I won’t be safe at Buster’s house now.” She looked at Wes, her eyes pleading. “Hey, how about this? Let me stay right here at the house. Please. It’s perfect. You aren’t living here. Everyone knows the house was sold, and I moved out months ago. No one will think to look for me here.” She sounded frantic.
I looked at her. Who exactly was Quita McBride really? I had not a clue. It’s just a reminder that you never know. You never know who any casual acquaintance really is, do you? Those people who appear on the outskirts of your life, they’re a mystery. They seem like anyone else—like your basic regular human. Well, in Quita’s case, like your basic regular bored Hollywood wife mah-jongg fanatic type of human. But that’s on the outside. On the inside they could very well be a neurotic mixed-up mess, bordering on delusional, and involved in any sort of bad business. It’s shocking, though, when you see that other side.
Wesley had a wary look in his eyes. But he used that special, soft voice of his that was so soothing, where he speaks slowly in those low tones. It comes in handy on our party circuit when he must talk some poor overwrought hostess down off of some figurative ledge. I like to think of him as the crazed-female whisperer. He said, “Look around here now. This isn’t a house. It’s a construction site. Of course you can’t stay here. It’s not even safe.”
“Listen,” she said, calming her own voice down. She took a breath and spoke more slowly. “I know you think I’m crazy, but I promise you I’m not. It’s very complicated. But that doesn’t matter now. Now, I just need a place to stay. I’ll go to Buster’s for the party, but then later, I need someplace safe. Please help me. Please,” she said, turning to me, “let me stay with you for a few nights. That’s all.”
“Stay with me?”
What was in that water bottle, anyway? Do I look like the kind of idiot who goes down to see what the noise was in the basement in some horror movie? Do I? I leave the basement door locked and bolted, and I leave any casually met psychos alone. That’s just me.
“No one will ever find me at your house, Madeline. It’s perfect. We hardly know each other. Our only connection is that you cook for parties and I go to parties. That’s nothing. It will work. I’ll be safe.”
“Look, Quita…”
Her eyes pleaded with me. Why is it so hard to just say no?
“I’d like to help you. I would…”
I turned to Wesley, who was giving me a very stern look.
“But,” I continued, “I just don’t know what is going on here. And with a thief still on the loose, I think this has gone way beyond anything I can help with. Please talk to someone.”
“Talk to someone? Who? What do you mean?” She pulled her hands through her long blond hair, a gesture of confusion as much as anything else, leaving it more tangled than before.
“Go talk to Buster, or your sister, or your therapist, or the cops.”
“The police?” Quita looked baffled, her eyes opening wide. “You want me to go to the cops? They won’t listen to me. They won’t believe me.”
A guarded look came over her.
We stood there for a few moments, in the dark. It was getting chilly.
“So,” Quita said, looking down at the ground. “You won’t let me stay at your house? Even though I told you I really need your help? Even though I explained how I can’t stay at Buster’s house tonight.”
Honestly. How do I get into these things?
“Can’t you check in to a hotel?” Wes asked, the voice of reason.
“They’ll trace me from my credit cards. I can’t do that! I know how they trace people.” She looked pretty scared.
“Well, here.” I slipped my wallet from the back pocket of my jeans and pulled out several twenties. “Take this.”
“What?”
“Go ahead. Check into a hotel somewhere. Don’t stay at Buster’s after the party tonight if you’re worried about it. Tomorrow morning, you’ll feel much better.”
Quita looked at the money. “Okay. That’s it. I’ll slip out after the party.”
“Right. Tomorrow morning, things won’t look so bad. And you can always think it over. Maybe, later, if you are still worried, you can go talk to Buster.”
“No!”
“Or the police.”
Wesley looked at me. He thinks I’m soft, always helping everyone I meet. But even the nutty ones need help. Maybe especially.
And I started thinking about fate, as I so often do lately. I’ve always rejected that notion. I’ve made fun of my friends, like Holly, who think we are fated to do this or that. I believe in self-determination. But maybe we’re meant to be here doing what we’re doing. And, so, maybe, if Quita McBride was meant to be here, having some kind of break-down, maybe I was meant to be here, too, helping out a woman who’s had a whole lot of bad news lately. But, you know, at a distance.
“Thanks, Madeline. Thank you.”
“And we’ll see you at the party tonight. So if you want to talk some more…”
Quita gave us a smile that was almost convincing, then turned and retreated down the walkway to the curb. She climbed into a two-year-old yellow Cadillac and pulled away into the night.
I looked at Wesley, who was giving me an affectionate once-over.
“Stray dogs…”
“Don’t tell me this, Wesley. I do not—”
“Stray cats—”
“Wes.” I started to laugh.
“Little birdies with broken wings—”
“Stop. Hey. I didn’t let her move in with me, okay? I think that showed some kind of enormous restraint on my part.”
“You are such a softhearted person.” Wes gave me a hug. “I think that’s why you hang with Arlo. You’re the one with the chocolate chip cookie and a Band-Aid. You think you’re so tough. But you aren’t, you know.”
“Hey, I’m tough,” I said.
Wesley had no right to bring up my man issues at a time like this. True, my boyfriend and I had been having our difficult moments lately. In the garden of love, as it were, I was definitely the gardener and Arlo the temperamental hothouse orchid. Problem was, lately Arlo had begun to develop a form of relationship blight, and I was getting just the slightest bit tired of the constant lovelife pruning, spraying, and upkeep.
But Wes quickly changed the subject back to our encounter with strangeness. “Quita,” he said, “what a trip. She was obviously overdue for her medication.”
“What was all of that? Do you believe her? Why was she so freaked out about Catherine Hill? O
r was she making all that stuff up? And what is going on with that red book?” I asked.
“Who knows? I don’t even want any of it to make sense. What I did see, though,” Wes said, talking to me in his low, soothing voice, “was a pretty disturbed woman, for whatever reason. And what’s starting to worry your old pal Wesley is—I think you want to fix Quita McBride.”
I watched Wes lock up the house on Wetherbee. “This has got to be my favorite part of any evening, Wes—the part where you tell me how uncool I really am. Okay, tell. Why am I so nice to all these assorted nuts?”
Wes, my oldest and kindest friend, put his arm around me. “I’m not trying to criticize, Mad. I just would love to see you be happy. You spend so much of yourself taking care of others.”
“I like others,” I said. I do.
“Yes. But you could be a little more particular about exactly which ‘others’ you allow to get close, eh?”
“I did pretty well when I found you, partner.”
“Ah, that you did. And one lucky stroke of genius does not mean you shouldn’t be a little more careful now.”
Careful? Of course. But I’d heard too many curious things, my brain was itching, and I knew I’d never get to sleep again until I figured out what was spooking Quita
Chapter 7
Despite the tens of traumas and dozens of crises that make up our little lives, for a caterer to stay in business, the party must go on.
Think, for a moment, about mah-jongg. It’s not something you probably ponder on a regular basis. But still. Maybe you picture a card table set up in a suburban living room. Four Jewish ladies, their hands busy, the sound of heavy jewelry clacking against the ivory of the tiles. There’s noshing. There’s laughter. Emily asks Minkie if her daughter, Marcia, is still seeing that cute anesthesiologist. For the past fifty years or so, that’s been mah-jongg in America.
But the world of mah-jongg is changing. With the Internet, on-line versions of the old Chinese game have popped up. Suddenly, a new breed of players has discovered the exotic flavor of this “game of one hundred intelligences.” Such was the case with our clients in the Sweet and Sour Club.
Dim Sum Dead Page 5