“You gonna join these guys, mister? Want some coffee?” The plastic name tag above the Sportsmen’s Lodge logo on her shirt said “Arlene.”
I declined the coffee and showed Arlene my badge. She’d finished work at five the day before and hadn’t seen anyone or anything out of the ordinary. I described the victim as best I could, without having a face to go on.
“About five feet six, dark skin, long black hair, maybe Hispanic. Large-breasted woman and not afraid to show them off. High heels, skintight pants. She might have been a pro, but you don’t get many at this hotel, I’m told. And she might have been Catholic—she had a Saint Andrew medal around her neck.”
“I don’t know, Detective,” Arlene said. “Unless she came in and ordered something, I wouldn’t remember. I got enough on my hands dealing with these jokers.”
“Hey, hey, I gotta go.” Ritchie Wollensky was up and out of the booth, throwing a ten-dollar bill on the table. “Gotta go, gotta go. Sorry, guys, gotta get out to Santa Anita. Gotta meet some people there. Hey, Officer, great meetin’ ya. Great. Hope ya figure out who the gal is. I hope ya do.”
With his fingers he swiped both sides of his hair back up to meet in the middle. They stayed. He bounced toward the exit. He was moving fast, but I caught him midstride with my voice. “Mr. Wollensky,” I said, “I’d appreciate it if you’d take my card. Anything comes up you can think of that might help us, give me a call. And good luck at the track.” I stuffed my card in his T-shirt pocket.
“He always that hyper?” I asked Tom. He was coked up, that’s for sure, but it seemed like my description of the dead girl had spooked him.
“Aw, yeah, that’s Ritchie. What a jamoke. Always bouncin’ on his toes, especially when the horses are running.”
Tom and Jimmy Schmidt didn’t have anything else to add. I wasn’t so sure about Ritchie Wollensky. Maybe I’d track him down and ask a few more questions. I took down Tom’s contact information. He was staying at the hotel for another week while he guest-starred as G. W. Bailey’s twin brother on The Closer. I gave them both my card, repeated the routine with Arlene, and walked out to see how the divers were doing searching the pond.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
By the time I got home from the Sportsmen’s, I was going on thirty-six hours without sleep, which is par for the course when I’m working a case. You’d have to be living in a cave to not know the forty-eight-hour adage. Hell, A&E even used it for the title of a series. The chance of solving a murder is cut in half if we don’t come up with a lead in the first forty-eight hours.
I’d interviewed everyone I could interview, and for the first time in my career I had information no other cop could possibly possess. Unless Ovsanna had some of her clan on the force, and that didn’t seem likely. I was the only cop in town who knew our L.A. perps could be creepy-crawlies . . . shape-shifters, creatures from the black lagoon, The Thing in its 1980s version. I’d seen them with my own eyes, and I was a believer. So when I saw the way that girl’s body had been torn up, I didn’t think forty-eight hours of intensive police work was going to break the case. That’s why I’d asked Ovsanna to touch the body. I’m a fast learner. I knew supernatural killers need supernatural help tracking them down. In the meantime, all I could do was talk to everybody I could talk to, wait for the autopsy report, and see if the print the crime techs had pulled off the St. Andrew medal was in the system.
Besides, asking Ovsanna down to the Coroner’s had given me more time to spend with her without breaking any rules about fraternizing with someone who’s involved in one of my cases. But I didn’t know how much longer I could push that envelope. I’d had an acceptable excuse when the Captain asked what we were doing together at the Coroner’s. There was no way I could explain the Armenian restaurant.
I needed to get some rest and think about what the next step was with Ovsanna. There really couldn’t be one. Not as long as the Cinema Slayer case was still open. I was going to have to pull the plug; I just wasn’t sure how. I flashed on the monster she’d become when she was enraged—no, I mean literally the monster she’d become—and wondered how she’d react to being told I couldn’t see her anymore. Maybe I’d better stock up on Solarcaine.
My problem was I wanted her. Badly. I wanted inside her. Not just inside her body—I didn’t know what to expect from that—but inside her core. Her being. Whatever she was. I wanted to know her, all five centuries of her.
This could be nothing but trouble. Not just her connection to the case, but what about her connection to Maral McKenzie? It’s not enough I’m attracted to a bloodsucking female, she’s got to have another female in her life she’s sucking?
Damn.
I was so tired that I almost missed the mess under my front gate. Remains of a coyote, maybe, or a bobcat. Just the hair, but a lot of it. How the hell did it end up under the gate? It wasn’t just one animal, either. Some of it looked like cat hair, and some was thick and coarse, a coyote or a dog. I unlocked the side door to the garage and pulled a broom off the wall. When I swept the hair into the dustpan, a handful of needles and pins and rusty nails went with it. Where they’d come from I didn’t have a clue, but I was too tired to give it much thought.
I went right to the living room and sat on the floor, my back against the couch and my legs crossed. I do a form of self-hypnosis I learned from a writer on L.A. Undercover, the cop show that used me as a technical adviser. They weren’t too interested in making anything technically correct, especially if it interfered with the plot, so I ended up with a lot of time on my hands, and I used to watch this guy sitting at his laptop, mumbling to himself before he’d zone out for ten minutes. Then he’d be up and bouncing around. We were on the set sometimes for sixteen hours straight, and he was always energetic. At first I thought it was speed, but I finally asked him, and it wasn’t; he was hypnotizing himself into relaxing and coming out of it as though he’d had a full night’s sleep. So I had him teach me.
I took three deep breaths, then visualized a flight of stairs leading down to a cool basement room. Started counting backward from ten as I saw myself walking down the stairs. Never even made it to number four.
Fifteen minutes later, I woke up, feeling like I’d slept for hours. SuzieQ was sitting at my kitchen counter, staring at me. I hadn’t even heard her come in.
“I just think that’s the greatest trick in the world, sugar. I tried TM once; I have a friend who went to that Maharishi University—MUM, they call it—in Iowa, and she swears it lowers her blood pressure. But I just can’t sit still long enough to ever do it right.”
“I think that’s the point, SuzieQ. Sitting still is doing it right.”
“Well, whatever floats your boat, hon. Speakin’ a which, how did the rest of the evening go with Ovsanna? Did you spend the night at her house? Ooo, fuckin’ a movie star. That is so hot!”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
I hadn’t had breakfast or lunch, and watching Tom Atkins down a burger at the Sportsmen’s had my stomach growling. I put a couple of apple chicken sausages in a fry pan and beat half a dozen eggs for omelets for Suzie and me. Suzie likes sun-dried tomatoes and Gruyère; I add avocado to mine. It’s a custom we got into after my divorce from Jen. On Sundays, if I’m not working and SuzieQ hasn’t had some guy spend the night, I cook breakfast for us. We sit outside and read the paper and eat.
This afternoon, I just needed food and energy. I washed down a couple of ginseng tablets with a can of Guru while Suzie made coffee. We ate at the kitchen counter.
“So, tell me,” Suzie said. “Is she as hot as she looks? And what about her friend, that McKenzie gal? What’s the story there?” Suzie had worked with both women on a film several years earlier and had warned me about Maral after I’d first interviewed her and Ovsanna. Suzie thought Maral was overly possessive of her boss. Seemed like it was months ago we’d had that conversation, but it had been only three weeks. A lot had happened in the interim.
I couldn’t tell
her the real story—“Oh hey, Ovsanna’s a vampyre and Maral is her food supply”—so I kept it simple. “It’s a business relationship. Ovsanna bailed McKenzie out of a legal mess years ago—you know, the one where she killed the guy and claimed self-defense—and Maral’s been working for her ever since.”
“Well, I told you, when I was doin’ Snake God I sure got the feelin’ they was more than employer/employee. I didn’t know she was a killer. I didn’t like her very much. She was real protective of Ovsanna; wouldn’t let anybody get near her. And look, now you’re datin’ her. Maybe you better be careful.” She got up to pour us both coffee.
“I can take care of myself, SuzieQ, I’m a big boy. What I’ve got to be careful about is my professional responsibility. I shouldn’t be seeing the woman at all.” I drink mine black. I watched while Suzie stirred three teaspoons of sugar into hers. “In fact, I think I’ve got to stop.”
“Why?” She looked at me like I was crazy.
“Because she’s involved in the Cinema Slayer case. I could lose my job if the Captain finds out.” And besides, she’s a fucking vampyre. Who I’d like to be fucking. I think. Jesus, I don’t know. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I wished I could tell SuzieQ the whole story. I could have used her advice.
On the other hand, she’s a six-foot-tall bisexual Texan who likes kissing snakes—not exactly Dear Abby.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I love my house in Malibu. I’d love it even more if it were in Massachusetts or Maine, but I’d never get there, so Malibu it is. North of Malibu, actually. On a cliff at the end of a finger of land jutting out into the Pacific. It has stairs cut into the rocks, leading down to a beautiful stretch of beach. It’s only ten acres of land, but it’s fairly inaccessible and completely private, and that’s why I love it.
I bought the land in 1979, two years after I’d seen Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave in Julia. I saw the movie once, but the location they used—that house on the east coast of Maine—resonated so deeply with me that I couldn’t forget it. At the time, it was completely impractical for me to leave L.A. or I would have attempted to buy that very house. Instead, I found this piece of land on the West Coast that was as isolated as the one in the film, and I held on to it until I could afford to build the house I wanted.
Which I did, six years later. It’s a Cape Cod colonial with gray clapboard shutters and white shingles and a red front door. Not very large. I don’t entertain there, I withdraw; it’s my hideaway. Lots of windows facing the ocean. Lots of comfortable sofas covered in yellow and white Ralph Lauren florals and stripes. Lots of books to read in front of the four fireplaces. Mostly mysteries: John Sandford, Julie Smith, Henning Mankell, Robert Crais, Robert Parker. And my collection of Van Goghs, gifts from Vincent when we left Paris for Arles together.
Once again I was getting ready to see Peter, and this time I was even more nervous than Christmas Eve or last night. It seemed pretty likely he was coming to spend the night. I hadn’t made love to anyone besides Maral since I shoved my dead business partner’s welt-marked ass out of my bed six years ago. I’d been going through my “wouldn’t it be nice to have someone to take care of me” stage, and Thomas seemed to fit the bill. For all of about four minutes. I kicked him out when I realized I wasn’t the source of the welts. He made a better business partner than lover, anyway.
I stepped into my closet and stared at the clothes I had there. On the far wall was a window separating the shelves where my sweaters were folded and the hanging rods that held my skirts and pants. I could see through it to the edge of the cliff and the beach far below.
Someone was down there. Someone who didn’t belong. Someone with a camera and a telephoto lens.
Shit.
It was probably a fan. Maybe a paparazzo. He was alone, so I didn’t think it was anyone I knew from the usual crowd of photographers who cover all the industry events and celebrity sightings. They always travel in packs. Probably a lone wolf who hoped he could get a candid shot of me in a string bikini, with cellulite-dimpled thighs and a stretch-marked belly, locking lips with some young stud on my private beach. That’ll be a cold day in hell. Literally. I could live long enough for the fires of hell to burn out and I’d never have cellulite or stretch marks. I barely have a belly.
The young stud part could happen, though. Maybe tonight. Peter might not qualify as young, but compared to me . . .
Anyway, I wasn’t going to do anything about the shutterbug right then. I had Peter coming over; I didn’t want my security company arriving while he was here. There was no way the guy could get closer to the house without climbing the stairs up the cliff, and the stairs were secured with gates at the bottom and the top, requiring my face scan to unlock them. He’d probably get bored and leave on his own once he realized he couldn’t get any shots through my treated windows.
I pulled an Elie Saab sleeveless sheath off a hanger and went back in the bedroom to slip it on. No bra. The neckline was low and the dress had one built in. I don’t need a bra, anyway. No cellulite, no stretch marks, no belly fat, no drooping nipples. The advantages of being vampyre.
The phone rang as I was brushing my hair. Very few people have the number at the beach house. I picked it up, expecting Maral.
“Ovsanna, darling, it is I, Pola.” Pola Negri, one of my clan. One of the Vampyres of Hollywood.
“Hello, Pola. How did you get this number?” Maral knows better than to give it to anyone without asking my permission. Even members of my clan. This is my private place.
“I called Ernst Solgar. I hope you don’t mind, darling. I told him it vas an emergency.”
“And is it? Are you all right, Pola? You disappeared so quickly after that night in Palm Springs, I assumed you’d gone back to San Antonio to hide.”
“I did. Oh, darling, I so vish I had turned my friend Margaret before she died. These last forty-five years have been so lonely. And then Ronnie Reagan passed and there vas no one to campaign for. And my beloved Rudy—the great Rudolph Valentino—turns out to be the shit heel of all time. I am still reeling from the vay he treated us all in Palm Springs. Your detective friend killed him not a moment too soon. Not a moment too soon, darling. How dare Rudy speak to me like that, that Italian Guinea Vop.”
“My detective friend is half Italian, Pola. If he hears you talk like that, he just might kill you, too. Now what’s the emergency? I don’t have much time to talk.” Peter would be arriving any minute and I didn’t have my makeup on.
“Ovsanna, darling. I’m so bored. I’m going crazy sitting around after all that excitement in Palm Springs. I need someting to do. I need a job. I vas tinking, now that Thomas is dead—”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You couldn’t do what Thomas was doing. He was practically running the studio, for Christ’s sake.”
“No, no, darling. Not Thomas’s job. I vant to act again. I couldn’t ask vhile Thomas vas around, but now, you could put me in one of your movies. I can change my name. Let my eyebrows grow in. I don’t tink anyone vould recognize me. The ones who might—Tallulah and Gloria and that pig Milton Berle—are all dead. Except for our clan, and they von’t say anyting. Oh please, Ovsanna. I’m so bored. I need a job.”
“Pola, have you been to the movies lately? Have you seen any good roles for women your age? Unless you’re Dame Judy or Helen Mirren, the only place you might find something interesting is cable television.”
“Vat do you mean, my age? I am ageless, darling. And you do interesting tings all the time. Surely you can find someting for me. Maybe a remake of The Graduate with Adam Lambert.”
Oh, my God. Anne Bancroft must be turning in her grave. I told Pola I’d see what I could do and got her off the phone. I didn’t tell her her accent hadn’t improved at all in the last eighty years and that was the reason her film career came to an end to begin with. Or that the reason I do interesting things is that I write them myself. She’d be begging me to write a film for her.
A half hour lat
er, Peter arrived. I had fires burning in two fireplaces, candles lit all over the house. I didn’t know what kind of music he liked besides the Doobies, so I went with Nina Simone to start. She seemed right for the fog that had settled outside. God, it had been so long since I’d shared music with someone. Maral had been working for me for a year before we became lovers, and ours was never a romance to begin with. We liked some of the same music—Peter Gabriel, 3 Doors Down, Phil Collins, and of course the Nevilles, the Radiators, and BeauSoleil—but I’d never gotten excited about introducing her to any of the artists I loved or the operas and symphonies whose premieres I had attended. I’d never told her I was sitting with Diaghilev for the first performance of Le Sacre du Printemps, when the riot broke out. She didn’t even know who he was. I wondered if Peter knew Tyrone Wells or Eva Cassidy. Valerie Carter. Judy Henske. Marshall Chapman. I couldn’t wait to find out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
It took me more than an hour to drive up the coast and find the dirt road that led off PCH to Ovsanna’s driveway. I pressed the button on the intercom and waved at the camera. The fog was pretty thick, but there were high-intensity lights cutting through the blackness; with the top down on the Jag, I must have been easily recognizable. The gate opened. I drove another quarter of a mile to a second gate. Repeated the procedure. Finally parked in front of a magnificent Cape Cod house that looked like something out of a movie. Like the Kennedys’ compound in Hyannis Port.
Ovsanna was waiting outside the front door. She’s done that every time I’ve gone to her house. I like it. She was barefoot, with her arms exposed. I don’t think vampyres notice the weather very much; she never seems to be bothered by the cold. Except for her hair. The moisture in the air had frizzed it into a mass of black ringlets.
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