by Andrews
"You silly fool!" Karla laughed.
"I absolve you of all your sins, dear Giovanni." Father Ramon made the sign of the cross over Giovanni and then he put his hand to his priestly face and pulled the skin away, stretching it from his head like the loose skin of a chicken. The edges began to tear at his cheekbones and separate from his skull, and the rubbery material fell to the floor. "Tah-dah!" he shrieked with theatrical flourish.
I drew back, shaken by the totality of the illusion. I had knelt before Father Ramon and looked up into his dark brown eyes and had no idea I was staring at Elliot Traugh. It was a chilling transformation. The Boy Review quick-change master had played his greatest role. Giovanni looked like he might pass out, and he doubled over racked in sobs.
"There, there, poor Gio. The lover you spurned has had the last laugh. But you mustn't blame yourself for being duped." Elliot spoke with mock sympathy. "I studied to be a priest for several years. I just found the role too limiting. But my knowledge of the character made it easy to convince the old priest before he died that I'd been sent to train under him."
Karla put her arm around Elliot, apparently proud of her dear friend.
"The day you dashed out of Karla's house to get to your performance, you weren't going to the theater, you were going to Mass where you perform as a priest," I said. "So you, Karla, force your stepdaughter, Loomis, to contact you when a client hits the casino floor, and Gio procures the young boys for them. But Sophia found out about the boy porn ring from her mother and some of her theater pals, and she encouraged Joanie Burr to go with her to the police because younger and younger boys were being hurt. To keep Sophia in line, and Joanie quiet, Rose was placed on the ghoul pool list and Joanie Burr was killed," I said.
"You're such a busy little bee." Karla smacked me with the butt of her gun, splitting the side of my head right above the temple. I screamed and Callie winced, sending me a look that said "stop talking," but I refused to shut up.
"Elliot had a lot to protect: the theater that made millions each year and was a nice source of young boys that the hotel needed for the boy porn ring, which in turn was the source of the cash that flowed to the church and its pseudopriest. If the theater, the hotel, or the church was threatened, one of you would step in. Bruce was using Karla to get control of the theater so you, Elliot, had to arrange that fatal dip in the desert, since I doubt even Karla would have had the heart to off yet another lover."
"Karla has always put business before pleasure. The two of us like money. We call our spending a result of the 'fuck fund,' which is far more reliable in its returns than the stock market, since the dick goes up more often than the Dow." Elliot Traugh smiled at his clever remark and then quickly changed his expression to one of regret. "But, Karla, my dear, I'm afraid our fun has come to an end."
Marlena stepped out from the darkness and into view, dragging Sophia at gunpoint. Rose gasped and begged Marlena to let her go. Marlena replied in her rich, deep voice, "I don't think so, sweetie. Drop the gun, Karla."
"Do something, Elliot!" Karla pleaded as she let the weapon slip from her hand. Elliot did. He gave Marlena a long kiss on her even longer neck.
I was trying to stay focused on getting us out of this mess, but I couldn't help but be amazed.
"Surprised?" Marlena asked the room at large. "Certainly you don't think I wanted that corpulent old queen over there as my lover?"
This was apparently sad news for Giovanni, who, having been betrayed by his priest and now by his lover, begged Marlena not to say those things.
"You son of a bitch!" Karla screamed and charged Elliot, but Marlena knocked her backward with one blow of her long, gloved hand. That movement sent Marlena's distinctive cologne wafting across the room, and I knew it was she who had been in the theater with Elliot, plotting and planning.
"Everyone seems so out of sorts!" Marlena said. "We have paid the ultimate price for ownership of this theater and control of the church coffers: me having to go down on an old Italian goat, and Elliot having to kiss up to a viper. The theater is going to be signed over to us in a document dated a year ago. Gio will continue to help us operate the hotel, and I will run the theater, and Elliot will run the church, so the only purely expendable member of our disparate band is...you, Karla."
"No, please!" Giovanni begged. "Marlena, you mustn't do this!"
"I think we're going to have a carbon monoxide accident, much like Mo's. These crazy backup generators just weren't vented properly, and sometimes when you try to create a fog effect the vent hose just"— with a gloved hand, Marlena yanked the hose loose from the side of the wall—"comes loose!" And I now understood how Mo could have been killed in a theater by carbon monoxide gas. He was killed in this very small and private theater.
"I think the police will discover that all of you were in the private theater asking Gio to demonstrate how the special effects work, and because poor, dear Gio was self-medicating and couldn't operate the controls, he asked Karla to do it! And instead of hitting the fog controls, Karla accidentally hit the generator start button." Elliot yanked Karla viciously by the hair toward the control box, grabbed her hand, and used it to punch the button on the wall, breaking the button's plastic seal and Karla's hand simultaneously. The generator and Karla roared in unison; I suspected Karla's pain was not in her hand but in her heart. She had been betrayed yet again, and one had only to look at her hardened expression to know this was a woman who despised betrayal.
Elliot tossed Marlena a knife and ordered her to cut the rope binding Rose. He instructed Rose and Sophia to lie beside the large silver disk that formed the stage as it began to rotate slowly and fog seeped out from under the disk. Generator exhaust fumes containing carbon monoxide began to fill the room. I knew we had only a few minutes, and I looked over at Callie to determine who to attack first when Sophia flung her body onto Rose, crying that she loved her and distracting everyone for an instant. That was our break. Elliot pushed Karla down to the floor alongside the girls, but Karla, fueled by anger and regret, got a grip on Elliot's leg with her good hand and toppled him to the floor. Sophia and Rose attacked him as Marlena took aim at them. Giovanni shouted a warning that Marlena was going to kill them, and Callie and I tackled her. Callie got the knife out of Marlena's hand while I wrestled Marlena for the gun, attempting to keep the barrel pointed away from everyone and up at the ceiling.
So many bodies slammed up against one another and wrestled for control of weapons that it looked like a World Wrestling Federation SmackDown. I caught a glimpse of Sophia giving Elliot a decidedly vicious whack to the head just as Marlena overpowered me and got control of the gun. She pointed it at Callie. "Everyone, attention! Stop!" On her face was a wild, triumphant smile.
She turned to Elliot. "Are you all right, my darling?"
He jumped to his feet and grabbed me by the throat. It appeared that in seconds, all of us would die, if not from a gun or knife, then surely from the carbon monoxide that was already making the air toxic.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Callie focus on the disk, squinting, her hands out to her sides as if she were saying one final prayer.
And then, as if by magic, the disk began to turn even faster and spin hypnotically. A thicker fog seeped out from under it, and the center of the disk separated from its outer edge and pushed up from the underworld to reveal a figure beneath it. A smoky, amorphous image.
"Look!" Callie said loudly.
"What the hell?" Elliot breathed and loosened his grip on my throat.
The substance began to take form, as if the smoke were being coalesced and poured into the shape of a person: a silver-haired man wearing expensive black pants and a black suit jacket and a black fedora. He stood there staring at us.
"Holy Mary Mother of God, it's Mo!" Giovanni gasped.
"Mo!" Karla said quietly.
Marlena stared at him and shook from her shoulders to her shoes, and her gun clattered to the floor. Mo stared at all of us, and then he vanished in the s
ame way he'd appeared.. .into thin air. Karla retrieved Marlena's gun, took aim with her one good hand, and fired at Elliot Traugh, killing him on the spot.
It was a showstopper. Elliot Traugh, master of disguise, performer extraordinaire, a star of the Boy Review, appeared to be dead at the hands of his friend and confidante. The enormity of the event even took its toll on Karla, as she let the gun dangle from her hand. She looked defeated and lonely and betrayed. Giovanni put his arm around her as Callie turned off the generator and opened the theater doors.
Sophia was up and dialing the police, and her mom, and the few employees whom she knew to be on the right side of the hotel's business. Before I knew it, the stage was covered in crime tape and cops, hotel staffers, and hospital paramedics.
"Who's who?" the cop shouted.
"Arrest her," Sophia ordered, pointing to Marlena, who was sobbing over Elliot Traugh's body. "And I have an entire list of hotel staff you'll need to arrest: look for Brownlee, the security team—"
"And who are you?" the officer interrupted.
"I'm Mo Black's granddaughter. This is my hotel." Sophia sent Karla a look that clearly said this was the new deal if she and Giovanni didn't want to end up in jail.
"That true?" The cop looked at Karla.
"Family arrangement," Karla said, and the cop focused on what Sophia wanted done.
"Sophia was afraid that if she told you what was going on.. .well, exactly what just happened would happen," Rose said.
"Drew it to her," I said to Callie.
Barbara Loomis burst into the theater and flung herself on Sophia and hugged Rose, showing emotion for the first time since I'd met her, telling the two girls how frightened she'd been and how they would no longer have to look over their shoulder in fear every minute. Loomis caught sight of us and came over with the girls to thank us for stepping in and saving their lives. It was a veritable love-fest as each of them kissed us and thanked us. We watched them retreat, arms around each other in a grateful group hug, joyful their travails were over.
"So you think Rose will live with Sophia?" I asked.
"Maybe. There seems to be a cosmic connection," she said.
"Did you actually summon Mo?"
"Did it blow your mind?" Callie grinned.
"Hell, yes."
"Well, sorry to disappoint you, but despite all my beliefs, I still haven't mastered the summoning of spirits on cue."
"So he just showed up?" I asked and Callie smiled.
Across the room, Sophia was looking up at the dark technical booth. "The theater has always had the ability to present holographic imagery. The walls were painted black at one time," she explained to the police officer. "Mo, my grandfather, bought the laser equipment years ago. Let's see, the light source must have come from in here, because there's nothing down on the stage." She led the police officer up the steps to the booth. "Frankly, I didn't know there was any holographic film of my grandfather."
"So who do you think ran the equipment?" the cop asked.
Sophia stood perfectly still, staring at the empty room. "There is no equipment," she said.
"Then how does this hologram thing happen?" he asked.
"It doesn't," she said softly.
I turned back to Callie. "Is this one of those 'body-in-the-bathtub, there but not there, the bakery with your grandmother writing in the flour, the dead are creating illusions' kind of thing?"
"Maybe death is an illusion," Callie said quietly and I shook my head like Elmo when he doesn't want to think about something too hard.
I could see the Las Vegas police putting crime tape across the stage and beginning their interviews. I was certain they'd be in a quandary as to how to book Mo Black's widow and Giovanni, one of the richest mafia types in town. They’ll be searching the books, and their collective shorts, for misdemeanors and extenuating circumstances, I thought to myself and grinned. Off to one side of the theater, Rose had joined Sophia and was kissing her with a passion born of relief and wanting. Callie and I stood back and watched the entire scene as everyone busied themselves unraveling the story.
"Stellium in Scorpio...it unearthed everything and brought it into the open. On the negative side, the hidden secrets and lies, on the positive side, hidden love, and in this case, it was all for the good. Energy retrieved," Callie said, quite pleased with the way things had turned out, and she took my hand and kissed me.
Chapter Twenty-six
That night in our room, Callie and I breathed a sigh of relief. For the first time, I felt like we were alone, not being watched by anyone but each other—and Elmo, who had watched us nonstop until he was certain we were safe. He was now lying on his back about to go to sleep.
"So you don't think I listen," I said to the exhausted basset. "Well, I'm sorry. Go ahead and tell me something. I'm all ears, just like you." I smirked and paused, dutifully waiting for an answer.
Elmo sniffed loudly and Callie giggled. "What?" I asked.
"He said you're still talking—not listening." I must have looked hurt because Callie added, "It's okay. I told him that you just aren't able to hear him yet, but that you will."
"How do you know I will?"
"Because you don't know it, but you're getting more in tune with things around you."
"Speaking of things around me," I said, "I want you around me. I want to live with you."
"Remind me again why we need to settle this right now?" She cuddled up to me.
"For a very practical reason. You've made me afraid of the dark. I don't want weird guys materializing on me in the middle of the night, and you not there to tell them to hit the road. Elmo absolutely chatters if I don't let him sleep with a pillow over his head now. He hates spooks."
I rolled her over playfully and jumped on her, rumpling her and wrestling her and ultimately diving into lovemaking with her. I was relaxed now. I felt the auditioning was over. I had admitted I was wild about her and she had, in an unguarded moment, told me she was in love with me. There was nothing left to be said, only things left to be done. She needed to be with me. Why she couldn't get to that point was beyond me.
"I'll make you a deal." I spoke calmly to her as if we were having coffee rather than having sex, and I slipped my hand between her legs.
"What kind of deal?" she said, barely able to focus on my conversation.
"Well..." I kissed her and then pulled back in favor of massaging her shoulders and down her back. "I will make love to you..."
"Really?" she said as if my tone meant I was doing her a favor.
"Yes, I will..." I kissed her again, slightly longer this time, massaging her thighs and letting my hand drift across her belly and then sliding my fingers down between her legs once more. Finally lifting my lips from hers, I said, "If I satisfy you..." Her hips were moving slightly against me, her mouth was searching urgently for mine. "Then..." I drew the words out. "If I satisfy you..." Her moves were more intense and deliberate as her body begged me to stop delaying the pleasure. "...then you have to live with me," I whispered with the final thrust of her hips as she climaxed into me.
"Well, looks like that's settled," I said as she wrapped her arms around me.
"Very funny. Very cocky," she said, breathing hard. "And very good."
The phone rang. I reached across her and answered it. It was Barrett Silvers. I listened to Barrett's quick patter on the other end of the line, barely able to focus my thoughts.
"That's great. Perfect. No, I'm very excited," I said into the phone while looking at Callie. "Callie's excited too," I said, giving Callie a sly grin.
"Your voice sounds like you're having a better time than I am." Barrett lingered a moment on the phone.
I ignored the remark and said, "I'll call you later." I hung up and smiled at Callie. "They're going to let me write the script. I can either work from L.A., or Barrett has a cabin in Sedona that she'll loan me. It's very pretty there, more peaceful. I think the cabin would be great."
"Where will Barrett be?"
"When will you be going to Sedona?"
"I thought Elmo and I would go home and take care of a few things. Transfer mail and calls and then plan on being in Sedona in two weeks. I'll have Jeremy's notes on the treatment by then, and I'll have eight weeks to do the first draft."
"Sedona is an extremely mystical place for psychics," she said.
"No kidding?" I feigned ignorance.
"I was thinking that maybe I should join you. I could get your place ready, do the shopping and run errands, take care of Elmo while you write. After all, this is a pretty big deal."
"That would be absolutely fabulous. Do you mean it?" I kissed her warmly.
"Uh-huh, I do," she sighed. "I know a great place there, down by the creek, a beautiful place. I'll make the arrangements. We won't need Barrett's cabin." She smiled, letting me know how she felt about anyone encroaching upon what just might be her territory.
"Okay then. I'll let Barrett know." I smiled.
"I'll let her know." She smiled back and then pulled me back onto her and kissed me into next week.
Things are definitely looking up, I thought, marveling, yet again, that timing is everything.