“We came all this way. Someone has to be home!” She took a few steps back to get a view of the upper levels of the house. In an old episode of Murder, She Wrote, a curtain on the second floor would part just about now and then drop down again. But CBS hadn’t approved this script and nothing happened. The house was quiet.
“You watch too many detective shows,” I said with a wry smile. In real life, people didn’t come to the door just because you showed up.
I started back down the driveway, but Nora kept her eyes on the house.
“Helloooo,” Nora called out. “Hellloooo. I’m looking for Johnny. I have to talk to Johnny. I know he’s there!”
Silence, silence, silence. Not even a leaf moved.
But now Nora began acting like a complete fool. “Helloooo, Johnny!” Yodeling, she leaned back to give her words more volume. “It’s me, Nora! I have to talk to you! Tasha loved you! I have something important to discuss!”
I crossed my arms, waiting for her to give up. But instead I saw the front door open a crack. I caught only the vaguest glimpse of the person who answered. He stood six inches shorter and fifty pounds heavier than the man in Grant’s picture. Even if Johnny DeVito had done some jail time, he couldn’t have emerged that changed.
And then suddenly the door was closed again and Nora wasn’t on the landing anymore.
Shocked, I started moving back toward the house, feeling as if someone had pushed a button for slo-mo replay. But in fact someone inside had pushed a different button — because as I approached the driveway, the decorative fencing groaned to life and a heavy metal gate started to close. With the two sides of the brass gate sliding together faster and faster, the passageway narrowed by the second. Once it sealed, there would be no exit.
Where did I want to be standing when the gate slammed shut?
I waited just a moment too long to make my decision — or maybe my subconscious had an opinion, because I stayed bolted to the ground. Bad choice! A second before the gate locked into place, I changed my mind and tried to dash through. But the space was so narrow even Kate Moss wouldn’t fit.
“Nora?” I called out as the gate slammed shut. “Nora? Everything okay?” But my trembling voice wouldn’t scare the squirrel scampering on the front yard, never mind scare up Nora.
Futiley, I pounded against the hard metal bars, then paced behind them as if planning a prison break. Only I wanted to break into the jail, not out of it. What to do? I didn’t have Nora’s cell phone number, so calling her was out. No way to contact the occupants of the house, either. I didn’t know who lived there, and unless it was a police emergency, Pacific Bell wouldn’t give a listing by address. Police emergency. Now there was an interesting option. And what exactly would I say to the police? We came to this house and rang the bell — and now that my friend’s inside, I think something must be wrong. That would make a lot of sense.
I began walking around the perimeter of the property, my Miu Miu mules snagging on the muddy grass. The tall fence, sturdy and impenetrable, was definitely too high to climb. Not that I could anyway. High-jump over? No, I’d never quite perfected the Fosbury Flop. I glanced from the fence top to the property next door, wondering if I should venture over and attempt to talk to a neighbor. I tried to peer across the yard — but, not paying attention to where I was walking, I tripped over a tree root. My left sandal flew off my foot, I stumbled hard — and then fell, sprawling headfirst across the wet ground.
“Ouch!”
I lay still for a minute, hearing my own cry echoing, then slowly pulled myself up, trying to assess the damage. A bloody knee, mud everywhere, throbbing ankle. I rubbed it anxiously and decided it was twisted, not broken. Tentatively, I stood. Sore, but I’d live. I hobbled back to the Lexus and slid into the front seat.
And sat there. I didn’t really want to abandon Nora, but how long should I stay, hoping she’d come out? In college, as I remembered, you waited fifteen minutes for the professor to show up for class, then picked up your backpack and left. In a bar on Sunset, you hung out twenty minutes expecting the blind date before bolting. Chewing through breadsticks at a fancy restaurant, you’d bide your time for half an hour before a business associate was toast. But what would the new etiquette books say about this one? Wait forty minutes for the roommate of a murder victim to emerge from a mysterious house. If she doesn’t, you’re free to go home to the husband and kids!
My swollen ankle throbbed and I wanted to get out of there. I stared out my slightly streaked driver’s side window, memorizing every detail I could about the house where Nora had disappeared. Maybe I should write a note and limp over to slip it through the gate, so Nora could call me when she got out. If she got out. I shuddered. Something didn’t feel right.
The passenger door opened and someone slipped into the seat next to me. I spun around, relieved to have Nora back.
“Where were you…” I started to ask, but the words died on my lips.
The person sitting in my car wasn’t heavy, wasn’t a woman, wasn’t Nora. A thin, tallish man in worn blue jeans and a white shirt faced forward, not looking at me. He had an L.A. Dodgers baseball cap pulled down low over his forehead and his shirt collar was tugged up high. As I stared at him, he turned slightly toward me, but I couldn’t really see his face — just my own, reflected back in his hugely oversized mirrored sunglasses.
“Drive,” he said quietly.
“Who are you?” I wasn’t sure whether to be confused or scared.
For an answer, he flipped something in his left hand, and immediately a silver knife blade flashed in the sunshine. I gasped, but I had my answer. Scared.
But not too scared to know I had to get out of the car. One swift yank of the door, a roll to my left, and I’d be on the ground. Kick off my shoes, jump up, and run away. Fast thinking. Ready to go. One, two — kick, yank, roll…
“OUCH!” I screamed for the second time.
A searing pain snapped through my arm, and I lurched back against my seat. I instinctively rubbed my stinging right shoulder.
What the hell had happened?
My hand burned, and when I looked down, I gasped again. However fast I’d moved, my visitor had been faster — clamping a metal handcuff around my right wrist, chaining me to the steering wheel. I stared in disbelief. First the dog collar, now this. Was I the only one in Los Angeles County without a mania for manacles?
“Who are you?” I cried. “What do you want?”
“I want you to drive,” he repeated quietly.
The sunglasses had jerked to the side and I could see gruesomely raised scars around his eyes and thick, irregular lumps along the side of his face. And then I got it. Ugly Johnny DeVito was sitting next to me.
“Start the car and let’s go,” he said in a low, intimidating voice that was oddly familiar.
I didn’t turn the key. “Where’s Nora?” I croaked. Of the fifty thousand questions in my head, that’s the one that popped out.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. And then in the same calm, terrifying voice he said, “Just do what I tell you.”
My head was spinning, trying to formulate an escape plan. Something better than I’d managed with Roy. Driving off, maybe I could holler out the window or honk my horn to attract attention. On the other hand, safety articles always warned to kick and fight and resist right where you were. Once you’d moved to a new location a killer would be more likely to attack.
And I was pretty sure that Johnny DeVito was a killer.
He also had a knife in his hand — and now he held it flat against my bare arm. I struggled, trying to shimmy away from him, but he pushed the blade down harder until I felt the sharp edge starting to slice into my skin. Small drops of blood popped out in an even line on my upper arm.
“Stop!” I screamed. “I’ll drive!”
Amazingly, he took the knife away, holding it calmly in his hand, inches away from my oozing arm. I awkwardly started the car and put my foot carefully on the gas, crawling away from the curb at five
miles an hour.
“Drive normally,” he said.
I didn’t normally drive with a swollen ankle, a knife wound in my flesh, and my hand chained to the steering wheel. But I just nodded and increased my speed. Then it occurred to me that I was in control of the car. I could keep upping the speed — maybe smash into a telephone pole or roll the car down a hill.
No, I wouldn’t do that. Not when I was chained to the steering wheel and couldn’t escape. Johnny DeVito had outsmarted me. I sniffled and looked at my arm. He’d stopped before creating any real damage. Only one streak of blood had dribbled down and was pooling at my elbow.
He directed me to turn left, and I did. Then two rights and another left. Otherwise he stayed silent, still holding the knife. But at least it was in his lap, not at my face.
Human contact. Maybe that’s what we needed. Make a personal connection with the killer. A while ago, it had been all over the news when a woman calmed a kidnapper by reading him The Purpose-Driven Life. I didn’t have a book handy, but I did have a purpose — to save my life.
“I don’t know this neighborhood at all,” I said, trying to sound calm. My voice broke just a little, but I could do this. “Very nice. Interesting houses.”
He didn’t say anything, but from the corner of my eye, I saw his thumb playing with the knife blade. Not a good sign. What else could we talk about? A neutral subject.
“I see you’re a Dodgers fan. Great team, don’t you think? You know, my dad was originally from New York and he loved the Dodgers when they were the Brooklyn Dodgers and he refused to watch them play in L.A. Couldn’t forgive them for moving. Isn’t that something?”
Johnny DeVito stayed expressionless, unmoved by my dad’s charms. He probably also wouldn’t care that my dad had died when I was twelve — even though I cared a lot. But I didn’t plan to discuss death with a man holding a knife.
New topic. Something so he wouldn’t think I posed any danger to him. Which at the moment — let’s face it — I didn’t.
I took a deep breath. “You might be wondering how I ended up outside your house. I mean, I don’t really know it’s your house. It could be anyone’s house. I only came because Nora wanted to. And we got here by the GPS, so I really couldn’t find the place again if my life depended on it.”
I gulped. Maybe my life did depend on it.
But I had no reason to stop now. I wanted to keep going. I did keep going. Without trying to look at him, I just babbled on.
“Now that you’re telling me where to go, you’re the GPS, if you know what I mean. Ha ha,” I said. Very funny. But he didn’t laugh. “Anyway, if you want me to drop you off someplace, I can do that, and then I’ll just flick on the direction program and get home. We can forget all about this. Of course you’ll have to take off this little handcuff.” I wriggled my wrist. “Not that it’s bothering me or anything, but if you get out, it would help if you take it with you.”
He stared straight ahead. “Shut up,” he said softly.
“Pardon me?”
“Shut up.”
I clamped my mouth tight. Maybe I should have talked about the weather.
A few more minutes passed as I drove down a fairly bleak street that seemed just this side of deserted.
“Turn right at the next corner and pull over to the side. Right next to the Dumpster.”
I brought the Lexus to a stop right where he told me. If he planned to murder me and throw my body into the garbage, I’d just made it very convenient for him. My mind whirled as I tried to come up with options, but I didn’t see any. Johnny held the knife at the ready again.
With the motor off, the silence was startling.
“I saw what your husband did to my Tasha,” Johnny DeVito said, in his low, growling voice. “I should do the same thing to you.” He suddenly swatted his right hand across my face — not a strike so much as a full-on push, as if he were throwing a banana cream pie at me. He crushed his fingers — surprisingly smooth — against my nose and ground his palm into my lips. I tried to bare my teeth and bite him, but he gave a final angry shove and pulled back his hand. My pink twelve-hour-formula lipstick was now smeared on his palm, and that seemed to infuriate him. He slapped me twice hard across my chin and cheeks. I felt tears spring to my eyes.
With a deep, vile sneer, Johnny sat back and brandished the knife.
“He humiliated her. Exposed her. Same for you. Take off your pants,” he said.
I stared at him in shock but didn’t move.
“You never listen the first time,” Johnny said, and he slashed at the edge of my Donna Karan capris with his blade, slicing through the thin fabric — and grazing my skin.
I screamed — and once again, he stopped.
“Take them off or I cut them off,” he said. “The top, too.”
Shaking and crying, I wriggled out of the bottoms and fumbling with my free left hand, started to unbutton my blouse.
Johnny stared at me, open-mouthed. The black silk embroidered La Perla bra with its sheer netting underneath was meant to cause exactly that expression on men, but right now I would have been happier wearing a Hanes T-shirt. He hadn’t noticed the panties yet, which were sheer in the back and had a matching lace ruffle across the front.
I tried to look businesslike, as if I weren’t stripping for a man with a knife.
“I can’t get the shirt off over the handcuffs,” I said.
“Do the best you can.”
I took off one sleeve, then let the other drop down until it was caught at the steering wheel. Johnny nodded, then leaned over and with a small key snapped open the lock. He threw the shirt and pants in the backseat and held the knife at my leg.
“Get out of the car,” he said. “Now.”
This time I decided to listen the first time. I flung open the door and jumped out. Without looking back, I started running away from the car, moving as fast as I could on my aching ankle, ready to set another personal best despite my kitten-heeled mules. I would have kicked them off, but I could feel hard bits of gravel digging into the thin soles, and bare feet wouldn’t make it better. So I ran. If Johnny DeVito had a gun, let him shoot me from behind. I had to get away.
But he didn’t come after me. When I finally dared to look over my shoulder, the car was gone. He’d left.
I stopped running and tried to catch my breath. At first, all I felt was relief. I was out of the handcuffs and out of his clutches. He hadn’t killed me. But as I kept walking, the weirdness of the new situation finally struck me. I was walking through an industrial street in five-hundred-dollar lace underwear, without a cell phone or a penny to my name. I was still half terrified that Johnny DeVito would reappear and wreak whatever vengeance he thought I deserved for Tasha’s death.
I walked in the middle of the street, waving my arms wildly at the few cars passing by. Two of them just swerved around me, one beeping loudly. Then a swarthy Hispanic man in a beaten-up white van slowed down and called out, “You okay, lady?”
“No!” I screamed to him. “I need help!”
He leaned out the window, staring at me. Maybe he’d never seen French lingerie up close before, but he didn’t need to leer quite so insistently. Then the leer turned to a big grin and, sounding pleased with himself, he asked, “You competing in one of them reality shows? If so, I’m your man. Ready for the next challenge.”
I shook my head. “This is real life!”
He looked up and down the street, checking for cameras, and seemed disappointed when he didn’t spot any. I started walking over to the van, but he put out an arm to stop me. If he wasn’t going to be on TV, he wasn’t wasting his time. He drove off.
Exhausted and shaking now, I kept walking, teetering from side to side like a drunk. The slash mark on my arm had started bleeding again, but I didn’t have any way to stop it. No way was I taking my bra off to use as a tourniquet.
I turned a corner and ahead of me saw a long Silver Star trailer, the kind actors use as dressing rooms on a mov
ie shoot. Usually four or five are lined up amid miles of curling cable and glaring lights, the center of a buzz of activity. But here it was quiet. No union workers scarfing coffee and glazed doughnuts while ogling clipboard-carrying assistants in tight Seven jeans. No actors’ stand-ins waiting patiently on their marks, pretending to be stars. No studio executives loitering by their limos, trying to look like they were paid to do more than show up. No sounds at all. Just a double row of orange cones that might be marking the site for future frenzy.
I walked slowly over to the trailer, carefully climbed the rickety metal steps, and knocked on the door.
A heavyset, jowly security guard in a blue-and-gold uniform opened it, and when he saw me, he laughed.
“They’re not starting to shoot for another week,” he said. “Mr. Clooney hasn’t even arrived yet. If you want to write him a fan letter, I’ll put it in his pile.”
“I don’t want to meet George Clooney,” I said. “Actually, I’ve met him. Twice. But that’s not why I’m here. A couple of hours ago, I was abducted and driven over here and forced to take off all my clothes. I need someone to help me.”
The security guard looked mildly amused. “Abducted by aliens?” he asked.
“No. By a scarred man with a knife. A former convict.”
“Aliens would be a better story,” the guard said thoughtfully. “Might interest Mr. Clooney, but probably not. He seems to prefer serious topics these days. But I give you credit for trying. Once the movie starts, we get three women a day in underwear showing up trying to meet him.”
“I was attacked,” I said, pointing to my bloodied arm.
“Laser gun or light saber?”
“Neither. Knife.”
The guard sighed. “You’re not trying.” He started to shut the door, but I stuck an elbow in just in time.
“Listen, my name is Lacy Fields. My husband is Dan Fields, the plastic surgeon. The alien stole my Lexus, too, and I need a car service to get home. Can you call for me? We use Royal Wheels when we’re going to the airport, so I have an account with them. But any one will do. Really.”
The guard looked at me in disbelief, then firmly shut the door.
Looks to Die For Page 17