by Laura Levine
“Hey, sweetheart!” Arnold called out. “What’s a doll like you doing with Orca?”
The goon stopped in his tracks and stomped over to us.
“Who said that?” he asked, his hands thrust in his pockets, where I’m sure a pair of brass knuckles were waiting to spring into action.
And Jim, with the straightest of straight faces, replied, “I think it was one of the busboys, sir.”
It was a mighty tense couple of seconds before the goon decided to buy Jim’s story and stalked off to his table.
By now, I’d drained my chardonnay, and was once again considering making a run for it, but I couldn’t bear the thought of missing out on that molten chocolate lava cake.
Eventually our food came, and dinner passed by in a surreal blur as Jim fed Arnold pieces of steak, gave him sips of whiskey sour, and took pictures of me and Arnold for Arnold’s Facebook page.
Yes, apparently, the bear had a Facebook page. With, according to Arnold, seventy-two friends.
Probably Jim’s buddies from the psycho ward.
I even had to pretend to give Arnold a bite of my prime rib.
“Arnold loves prime rib,” Jim said.
“Yeah, baby,” Arnold crooned. “Lay it on me!”
Reluctantly, I cut a piece and mimed feeding it to him.
“More! More!” Arnold cried.
“Not until you finish your chateaubriand,” I said sternly, refusing to play this ridiculous game one more minute.
Somehow I managed to tune out Jim and Arnold and concentrate on my chow.
Which was fantab, I might add. The prime rib. The baked potato. The creamed spinach. And the second glass of chardonnay.
I was sitting there, digesting it all, dreaming of the molten chocolate lava cake to come, when suddenly I realized that Jim and Arnold seemed to be in the middle of a heated argument.
“No, Arnold,” Jim was saying. “You can’t drive the car home.”
“Why not?” Arnold’s falsetto rang out in reply.
“Because you’ve had too much to drink, that’s why.”
“I am so sick of hanging out with you. You never let me have any fun. Never let me drive. Making me hide in a Bloomingdale’s shopping bag when we go to the movies. You’re always keeping me under wraps. And you know why? Because you’re jealous, that’s why! You know I’m so much cuter than you!”
“No way,” Jim scoffed.
“I’m twice as cute as you,” Arnold’s falsetto insisted. “Just ask Jaine. I’m a regular chick magnet, aren’t I, hon?”
If truth be told, he did seem a tad more fun than Jim.
“And stop putting the moves on my date!” Jim cried. “She’s mine.”
“That’s what you think, buster. She’s had her hand on my thigh all night!”
“What?” I shouted.
Jim’s face flushed with anger. Good heavens, he actually believed his own little melodrama.
“Why, you ungrateful little twerp,” he said, yanking Arnold from his baby chair and shaking him so hard, I thought Arnold’s glass eyes might fall out.
But Arnold wasn’t down for the count. Not by a long shot.
“So you want to play rough, huh?” came the falsetto voice.
And with that, Jim began hitting himself with Arnold, alternately crying out, “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” and then, as Arnold, yelling, “Take that. And that. And that!”
By now everyone in the restaurant was staring at us.
“Jim, please,” I said, grabbing Arnold from him. “Everyone’s looking.”
“Arnold started it,” he said, pouting as I put Arnold back in his baby seat.
“Look!” came Arnold’s falsetto. “Here comes dessert.”
And indeed, a waiter was approaching with two pieces of apple pie (for Jim and Arnold) and my long-awaited molten chocolate lava cake.
Right behind him was our genial maître d’.
“Hey, carpet top!” Arnold cried.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” the maître d’ said just as the waiter set down my chocolate extravaganza.
“Now?” I asked, eyeing the lava cake, swimming in ice cream and fudge sauce.
“Yes, now.”
With that, the maître d’ yanked Jim out of the booth.
“Hey!” Jim shouted, toting Arnold in the crook of his arm. “You can’t do this to me. I’m a paying customer!”
With reckless abandon, I dug in and managed to nab one mouthful of molten chocolate lava cake before the waiter gently hauled me to my feet.
We were escorted through the restaurant and out the door, “Arnold” shouting, “You’ll be hearing from our attorney about this!”
The minute we got outside, however, Jim burst into a fit of giggles.
“It worked again, buddy,” he whispered to Arnold.
“You betcha!” he answered himself in Arnold’s falsetto. “They kicked us out without making us pay the bill! We racked up another freebie!”
Omigod. That crazy fight was just a ploy to get out of paying the bill.
Jim chuckled all the way back to my duplex and had the nerve to ask if he and Arnold could come in for a nightcap.
“Over my dead body,” were the words I muttered to myself as I stomped away from the Porsche, having told Jim I had a splitting headache.
(The truth, by the way.)
The last thing I heard as the dynamic duo disappeared into the night was Arnold whining, “I wanna drive!”
YOU’VE GOT MAIL!
To: Jausten
From: Shoptillyoudrop
Subject: Never Been So Mortified!
You’ll never guess who came knocking at my door at 1:20 a.m. last night. Two Tampa Vistas security guards. With Daddy in custody, naked below the waist except for a pair of Scrabble boxer briefs!
I’ve never been so mortified in all my life!
In spite of promising me he wouldn’t go near Lydia’s place, Daddy snuck out of the house to go rooting around in her garbage can, looking for that ridiculous Lucky Thinking Cap of his. Of course it wasn’t there. I told him all along Lydia didn’t steal his silly cap.
Anyhow, while he was rummaging around in her garbage, he came across a pair of hideous plaid Bermuda shorts. Apparently Lydia’s brother (a delightful man but with questionable taste in Bermuda shorts) had left them there on his last trip, and when Lydia discovered some moth holes in the tush, she threw them out.
Now any normal human being would see a pair of hideous plaid Bermuda shorts with moth holes in the tush and say, “Yuck!” But not Daddy! One look, and it was love at first sight. He thought they’d be perfect for our trip to Hawaii.
And then he did something that, for the life of me, I’ll never understand. Instead of taking them home to try them on, he decided to take off his pants and try them on then and there, right in the middle of the street. He claims he was just being “practical,” that he didn’t want to carry the shorts home if they didn’t fit. And besides, he said, he was certain no one would see him at one in the morning.
That’s where he was wrong, of course. Because Mrs. Thorndahl, who lives right across the street from Lydia, had just finished watching a Golden Girls rerun and was going to the kitchen to fix herself some warm milk when she heard someone rattling around outside. She peeked out her living room window to see what was going on. And that’s when she saw Daddy in the moonlight, rooting in Lydia’s garbage in his Scrabble boxer briefs.
She wasted no time calling security to report a “perverted prowler,” and ten minutes later I was being roused from a perfectly wonderful dream (featuring George Clooney and a vat of fudge) to find Daddy on our doorstep, sandwiched between two security guards.
After giving him a stern warning about raiding other people’s garbage cans in his underwear, they hurried off into the night. Frankly, I think they were thrilled to be rid of him.
I was so mad, I made Daddy sleep on the sofa. Which, by the way, is where he found his dratted Lucky Thinking Cap.
It was there all along, wedged behind the sofa cushions from one of his Power Naps.
XOXO from
Your unbelievably frustrated
Mom
To: Jausten
From: DaddyO
Subject: Little Run-In
Dearest Lambchop—
I suppose Mom told you about my little run-in with the Tampa Vistas security department.
In my defense, I can only say that I did what any red-blooded American Scrabble player would have done when dealing with an underhanded opponent like Lydia Pinkus. Even though she didn’t steal my Lucky Thinking Cap, I bet she thought about stealing it. And I simply can’t believe that old bat Mrs. Thorndahl had nothing better to do in the middle of the night than loiter at her living room window spying on perfectly innocent citizens.
But on the plus side, I found an exceedingly stylish pair of plaid Bermuda shorts in the trash—perfect for our Hawaiian vacation. True, they have a few tiny holes in the tush area, but if I wear colored briefs, I’m sure no one will notice.
And, saving the best news for last, I found my Lucky Thinking Cap! It was wedged under one of the sofa cushions. Your mom thinks it got stuck there during one of my power naps, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Lydia hid it there when she was at the house the other day. Oh, no. I wouldn’t put it past her. Not one bit.
But no matter. I’ve got it back, and that’s all that counts. Victory will be mine!
Time to get back to Scrabble Central.
Love ’n’ snuggles from
Your overjoyed
DaddyO
Chapter 15
I woke up the next morning still reeling from my date with Jim, haunted by the memory of Arnold slinging insults, slurping his whiskey sour, and slugging it out with Jim. Talk about your schizophrenic nightmares.
Prozac, never a fount of empathy, was particularly cool when I told her my tale of woe.
Boo hoo. At least you got prime rib, while all I have are the ashes of my shattered career.
Then, just when I thought my nerves couldn’t get any more frazzled, I opened my e-mails from my parents and read about Daddy’s raid on Lydia Pinkus’s garbage.
Can you believe he actually tried on a pair of Bermuda shorts from the trash?
And how could he have been so foolish to strip down to his undies right across the street from Mrs. Mary “Eagle Eyes” Thorndahl, a woman who, for as long as anyone has known her, has been on round-the-clock lookout for burglars, UFOs, and dogs pooping on her lawn?
Oh, well. There was nothing I could do about it, so I settled down with a cinnamon raisin bagel slathered with butter and extra raspberry jam. I was in the middle of calming my nerves with The New York Times crossword puzzle when the phone rang.
“How’s my favorite writer?” Phil Angelides’s voice came sailing over the line. “Jim told me what a great time you two had last night.”
What?? The only wonderful part about that evening was when it was over.
“I can’t tell you how happy that makes me, Jaine. Confidentially, Jim has had some troubles connecting with women.”
That tends to happen when you’re a raving lunatic.
“And I’m so glad you’re going to the Fiesta Bowl with him.”
“Say what?”
“Jim told me you two were coming to the party together.”
Absolutely negatory. No way was I going to the Toiletmasters annual bash with Jim and his fuzzy wuzzy alter ego. I’d just have to tell Phil that Jim was a perfectly lovely schizophrenic, but that we weren’t a match, and I’d be coming to the party on my own.
“You are going with Jim, right?” Phil was saying. “You’re not going to break his heart like his last girlfriend, are you?”
I’d just be strong and tell him No, and it would all be over. Simple as that.
“Um . . . sure, I’m going with Jim.”
Okay, so I’m a world-class coward, a sniveling weakling of the highest order. But all was not lost. I had a plan. I’d just call Phil in a day or two, tell him I’d reconciled with my mythical boyfriend Collier-Curtis, and make some excuse to get out of going to the party.
In the meanwhile, however, I had a murder to solve.
I hadn’t forgotten what Nikki told me about Ian Kendrick and the actor who died under mysterious circumstances on the set of his movie.
After filling in the last clue on my crossword puzzle, I hustled over to my computer and Googled Ian. Sure enough, there were several articles about an explosion gone awry on the set of an epic called Thunderbolt, resulting in the death of a rising young action star named Gavin Hudson. A few stories mentioned that Ian had been brought in for questioning by the police, but the star’s death had ultimately been ruled an accident.
So Dean wasn’t the only one who’d clashed with Ian and wound up dead.
I most definitely needed to pay a little visit to the pony-tailed Brit.
* * *
A half hour later I was tootling over to Ian’s house in the Hollywood Hills, wending my way up the steep streets, my ancient Corolla huffing and puffing every inch of the way.
When I finally got to Ian’s place, I saw it was a gated estate, obscured from view by a wall of shrubbery.
What rotten luck. I was hoping to catch him unawares. Now I’d have to use the intercom at the gate and announce my presence. I pressed the buzzer, and after some static, Ian’s voice, slurred with booze, came on the line.
“You from the maid service?” he asked.
“No, it’s Jaine Austen. We met on the Skinny Kitty shoot. I was hoping to talk to you about Dean’s murder.”
“Forget it. I’ve said all I’m going to say to the cops.”
With that, he cut me off, leaving me nothing but dead air. My interview was over before it began.
I was sitting there, cursing myself for not coming up with an inventive cover story, when another car pulled up behind me and honked. Turning, I saw a bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle with the words MIGHTY MAIDS painted on the hood.
And suddenly I knew how to get to Ian.
I grabbed my purse and hustled over to the Beetle.
Two young women—one blond, one Hispanic, and both in maid’s uniforms—were sitting up front. The blonde sat behind the wheel, chewing a wad of bubble gum.
“You ladies here to clean Mr. Kendrick’s house?” I asked.
“No, we’re here for high tea,” the blonde said, blowing a bubble. “Of course we’re here to clean.”
Looked like the Mighty Maids came fully equipped with mighty mouths.
“Who’re you?” her partner asked.
“Actually,” I said, “I’m from the board of health.” I reached into my purse and flashed them my badge. Of course, it wasn’t a board of health badge, but a USDA meat inspector badge I’d picked up ages ago at a flea market for moments just like this. “I’m afraid Mr. Kendrick’s home is quarantined.”
“Quarantined?” the blonde asked, eyes wide.
“Chicken pox,” I nodded. “No visitors allowed.”
“Okay,” she said, “but he’s still going to get billed for our time.”
“It’s part of the contract,” her partner added. “If he doesn’t cancel with twenty-four hours’ notice, he pays in full.”
“Mr. Kendrick’s okay with that.”
“Great.” The blonde finally graced me with a smile. “C’mon, Sylvia,” she said to her partner. “It’s margarita time!”
They took off, happy to spend the next few hours at the nearest cantina, and I sprinted back to my Corolla to press the intercom buzzer.
Ian’s voice came squawking through the box again.
“Who is it?”
“It’s Mighty Maids, sir,” I said, disguising my voice, hoping he wouldn’t realize it was still me.
“Come on in,” he snapped. “You’re late.”
The gate creaked open, and I drove into what looked like a small jungle, overgrown with trees and long-neglected shrubbery. I headed up a winding pathwa
y, wayward branches brushing against my windshield.
At last I arrived at a magnificent but crumbling old Spanish-style home with cracked red tile roof, stained stucco walls, and aggressive weeds snaking up the sides of the house.
Ian might have been using a maid service, but it clearly had been decades since this place had seen a landscaper.
I walked up to an ornate wooden door composed of intricately carved panels and, I suspected, an army of well-fed termites.
The rusted doorbell produced a loud chime, and soon I heard the shuffle of feet approaching. Seconds later, the door swung open, and there was Ian in a terry bathrobe, reeking of gin, his feet bare, his face a road map of wrinkles, and his ponytail sporting an extra layer of grease.
In his hand, he held a highball glass.
“It’s about time,” he sniffed. “Hey, wait a minute. Aren’t there usually two of you?”
Then, squinting at me through gin-blurred eyes, he said, “I know you. You’re the woman with the impossible cat.”
“Look, I just need to talk to you about—”
But before I could get out the rest of my sentence, he was reaching for the door.
Oh, hell. He was about to slam it right in my face.
“Wait!” I cried out. “If you answer some questions about Dean’s murder, I’ll clean your house.”
He hesitated a beat, then continued to shut the door.
“For free!” I added. “I’ll clean your house for free.”
The door swung back open to reveal a smiling Ian.
“Come in, my dear,” he said, his voice plummy with good cheer.