by R. J. Kaiser
“The movie star?”
“Yes.”
“The one who died in a boating accident.”
“He drowned while swimming in the ocean,” Mac said. “And they never found the body. Do you remember the case? It was a long time ago. Back in 1978.”
“I was eleven years old, Mac. I don’t remember anything at the time, but I recall hearing about it later, reading about it. I’ve seen some of his old films.”
“Then you have a pretty good idea who we’re talking about. Aubrey was Stella’s first husband.”
“Interesting.” She jotted something on her pad. “Can you tell me about the note, the circumstance in which you received it, and so forth?”
“It was left on my doorstep.”
“You found it?”
“Yes. When I came home from work. I was meeting a friend here. She was in her car out front when I arrived. We came to the door together, the note was in an envelope under the welcome mat.”
“Who’s your friend?”
“Sabrina Lovejoy. She goes by Bri.”
“When was this?”
“Wednesday afternoon.”
“Did she see the note?”
“No, I didn’t open it then. I put it on the table and didn’t open it until later that evening.”
“You don’t think she could be involved?”
“No, I don’t see how. And she certainly didn’t act as though it was a factor. Actually, Bri and I had been dating, and the reason she came over was to end the relationship. She was preoccupied with that.”
“I see.”
“There’s no connection between Bri and the note. I’m sure of it.”
“Okay.” She stared at her notebook, tapping her lower teeth with the end of the pen.
“There’s another thing,” Mac said. “I don’t know if there’s a connection between this and the note, but it’s a definite cause for worry.”
“Yes?”
“Friday night Stella and I went out to dinner, actually to discuss the business with the note. I thought maybe she could explain it. She claimed to have no idea, but there was an incident in the street after we left the restaurant. Basically, some guy came by and took a couple of shots at us. Neither of us was hurt, but it scared the hell out of us, needless to say.”
“A drive-by?”
“Yes. We left without calling the police or anything.”
“Why?”
“Frankly, I didn’t want to get into the business with the note, open up that can of worms.”
“You may have been wise. They wouldn’t have been quite so understanding of your holding back information.”
“That’s why I wanted a private investigator.”
“I don’t suppose you could identify the assailant or the vehicle.”
Mac told her what little he’d seen. “The violence concerns me,” he said. “And frankly, I don’t understand it, unless the intent was to unnerve us.”
“Blackmail and drive-bys are an unusual combination,” Jade said. “Is it possible they’re unrelated or that the shooting was a random thing?”
“I thought about that. I don’t know the answer. But, I figured you should be aware.”
“There seems to be an epidemic of this sort of thing going on. Art and I had a little near hit-and-run type incident ourselves last night.”
“Oh?”
“But that’s another story.”
He watched her pondering the situation. They were discussing something fairly momentous from his perspective, yet Mac found himself as interested in Jade as in the discussion itself. He liked watching her. He liked her manner, her directness, her looks, her innocence.
She tapped her teeth with the pen again. “The question is if I think I can help you.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t claim to be Sam Spade,” she said. “I think I can do as well as anybody, but I’ve got to be honest. You’re asking me to do an investigation with one hand tied behind my back. I don’t know if anybody could do a credible job under the circumstances. I could certainly poke around, though, and, who knows, I could be lucky. It’s a question of whether you think it’s worth the expense.”
He was relieved she didn’t say no. “In that case, I’d like you to do it, Jade.”
“My fee’s three-fifty a day, plus expenses.”
“Let’s make it five. How much of a retainer do you need? Is five thousand enough?”
He could tell she was pleasantly surprised and didn’t try to hide it. “Sure.”
“Let me get my checkbook.”
“Mac, let’s be clear about one thing. I can’t promise you results, only my best effort.”
“I understand. I just need to feel something is being done.”
He went and got his checkbook. He also brought the envelope the note had come in, handing it to her. She examined it.
“Keep it if you want,” he said.
“At what point are you going to bring in the police? If there’s a demand for money?”
“I don’t plan on bringing them in at all if I can help it.”
“Regardless?”
“Yes.”
Jade studied him. Mac wrote out the check and handed it to her. She took a simple one-page agreement from her purse and gave it to him. He signed it. She gave him a copy and wrote out a receipt for the retainer.
“Let me ask you something,” he said. “Do you know Jaime Caldron?”
“I know of him. I’ve heard stories, but I don’t know him personally. He’s supposed to be a pretty hot detective. Why?”
“I have a hunch he’s on the case and after me again.”
“What case?”
“Aubrey St. George’s death. For years Caldron’s thought I was somehow involved or that I have information I haven’t shared with the police. He’s about to retire, and I’ll bet dollars to donuts he’s decided to nab another offender before he rides off into the sunset. It could be you’ll cross paths with him while you’re poking around. I thought you ought to know.”
“I thought St. George’s death was ruled accidental.”
“That was the coroner’s finding. Caldron doesn’t buy it.”
She nodded. “Anything else I should know?”
Mac told her about his visit to the vacant house and the cop finding him in the backyard.
“Why’d you go there, anyway?”
Mac took a moment to ponder his response. She seemed to realize it was a sensitive issue.
“Never mind,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I know I’m not being very helpful, but it’s not because I don’t want to.”
“You’re in a tough spot. I understand. Will I be able to talk to your wife?”
“I’d prefer not, but if you think it’s essential, then okay. I’d like to be there, though.”
Jade thought about that one for a moment. “Why? Because you don’t trust her?”
“That’s not a very charitable way to put it, but I suppose that’s what it amounts to. Stella has always regarded me as her protector. I consider it my duty to look out for her interests, even if it means saving her from herself. I know that sounds paternalistic and maybe it sticks in your craw, but that’s been our relationship, Jade, and there’s no point in pretending otherwise.”
“I hear you.”
“As far as your investigation is concerned… What happened twenty years ago is not the point. Finding out who’s trying to take advantage of it is.”
“They aren’t unrelated.”
“I know I’m not making it easy for you.”
“But you’re paying me either way. I will do my best.”
“I’m sure you will.”
She looked at her watch, gulped down the last of her juice and started to get up to take the glass to the kitchen.
“Leave it,” Mac said.
She put the glass back down on the table. “Well, I should be going. Let me give you one of my cards.” She started into her purse again.
> “I’ve got one. Art gave it to me.”
“Okay. If you hear from your mystery friend again, let me know right away.”
She stood, slinging her purse over her shoulder. Mac got to his feet, as well. Jade reached across the table and gave him another firm handshake. And a smile.
“I’ll be in touch,” she said.
He nodded.
They went to the door. Jade stepped out onto the porch, then skipped down the steps and around her car. Lithe, quick, strong, yet somehow terribly feminine. She opened the door, then, stopping, stepped back. She looked at her tires. Mac did as well, only then seeing what she was looking at. All her tires were flat.
“Shit,” she said, bending to examine the front tire on the driver’s side. She looked over the fender at Mac, who’d come down off the porch. “Somebody cut off the valve stem.” She stood up. “I’m going to have to get somebody up here. I don’t have four spares.”
“I can’t imagine who’d do this in broad daylight. We almost never have a problem up here.”
“I’ve been having a few problems with a former boyfriend,” she said. “The near hit-and-run last night and now maybe this. If it was him, he could have followed me.”
“Or it could be my mysterious friend,” Mac said.
Jade shook her head. “How did we get to be so popular, Mac?”
He chuckled. “Yeah, two such nice people.”
Van Nuys
Troy Hampton struggled with his tie as his roommate, Hernan Payro, stood watching at the bathroom door.
“The big end’s got to be longer,” Hernan said.
“Shit. The bastard who decided men should wear ties ought to be shot.”
“If you’re going to fuck older women you’ve got to learn how to do a Windsor knot, my friend.”
Troy groaned, pulling the knot apart. He looked over at Hernan with helpless desperation. Hernan moved over behind him.
“Here, let me show you.” Reaching around him, Hernan did the knot, step-by-step. Then he turned Troy around and slid the knot snugly up into the collar. “There,” he said. “Now you look like a man of the world.”
Troy’s tabby cat, Oscar, came slinking into the bathroom, meowed, then rubbed against Troy’s legs. Troy picked him up and gave him an affectionate hug. “What are you saying, old buddy? That I forgot to feed you?” Oscar meowed plaintively. “Well, you’re right. I did.”
Troy, with Oscar under his arm, examined himself in the mirror a final time. “I don’t give a damn about looking like a man of the world,” he said to Hernan. “I’ve just got to be irresistible to one particular woman.”
“Well, remember what I told you, amigo. Focus on her. Make her feel like she’s the center of the universe. Do that and you’re halfway home.”
“The first rule of being a gigolo?” Troy chided as he moved past Hernan on his way to the kitchen.
“Works for me,” Hernan said, following him.
Troy put Oscar on the stool next to the counter so the cat could watch his meal being prepared. It was a ritual the two of them had. Hernan had found Troy’s devotion to Oscar amusing. “You know what?” his friend had once said. “I think that cat is your one true love.”
“He is. But it’s not just Oscar. I love all cats.”
“Why? Because you had one as a kid?”
“No, because I didn’t have one as a kid. Mac wouldn’t allow them in the house.”
“Because he’s allergic?”
“No, because he’s an asshole. The prick tried to get me a dog.”
“Tried?”
“When I was five my mother got me a cat without checking first with Mac. When we brought it home, he got all bent out of shape and made her take it back to the pet shop. Mom and I spent hours picking out that cat. I held him in my arms all the way home in the car. I called him Buttons. It was one of the few times in my childhood I was truly happy. Mom was so upset with Mac for breaking my heart that she refused to come to my room to take Buttons away from me, so Mac did. Later, he felt badly and tried to take me down to get a dog, but I refused to go. I hated the bastard.”
“And that’s why you never got along? I thought it was because of his thing about Hollywood.”
“It was a lot of things. We clashed over everything, you name it. But that incident with Buttons stuck in my mind. Maybe he didn’t like cats, and maybe my mother should have talked to him about it first, but he was still a prick. The sonovabitch never approved of me. That was the real problem. I felt it my whole life.”
After Troy had opened the can of cat food, he ran it past Oscar’s nose. “That meet with your approval?”
Oscar meowed. Troy ran his hand over the cat’s silky fur, then leaned down and kissed his nose. Hernan, who was sitting at the table, chuckled. “You show that kind of love to Venita and you’ll have her eating out of your hand.”
“Hey, I hope so,” Troy said, scraping the last of the cat food out of the can and into Oscar’s bowl. “She’s pretty great.”
“So much the better.”
Troy gave him a sly smile as he put Oscar’s bowl on the floor. “But I like what she can do for me even better.”
“Therein lies the danger, my friend.”
“Well, it’s a dangerous world, Hernan.” Troy gave him a playful punch on the arm as he headed back to the bedroom to get his jacket. “I’ve got to get rolling. I still have to squeeze some money out of my old lady before I see Venita.”
Hernan followed him. “Does she know about you two?”
“Are you kidding? She’d have a shit-fit. Besides, basically, she’d rather not know. I never went out of my way to hide Ginger from her because I didn’t have to. She didn’t want to find out.”
Ginger Lane was Troy’s friend and occasional sex partner, though only when under the influence of drugs. She, Troy and Hernan had met in acting class. Ginger was only twenty-three, but a veteran of thirty-four porno movies. She’d retired from skin flicks at the age of twenty-one and was making a concerted effort to become a legitimate actor. Troy would be the first to say she had more talent than any of them, but thus far, mainstream Hollywood had turned a cold shoulder. The three of them hung together, but Ginger had made herself scarce the past several weeks—disappearing for stretches being normal behavior for her.
“A mother wouldn’t find Ginger so threatening as Venita,” Hernan told him. “My advice is to be discreet.”
“Believe me, I will.”
If there was one thing Troy had down pat, it was self-preservation. And the way he saw it, if there was any hope of getting to Mac, he’d need his mother’s help. But the good news was, this film deal was just as important to her as it was to him.
Yet there were no givens. Troy was smart enough to know that he was essentially his mother’s tool. But then, it worked both ways. He used her, too.
“So, where do things stand on the movie deal?” Hernan asked as he watched Troy slip on his suit coat.
“Sort of in limbo. And we don’t have forever to get our act together. Sooner or later Amal and Venita will pick up their bags and move on.”
“But you have a plan.”
“In a word, yes.”
There was a knock on their front door. They looked at one another.
“You expecting somebody?” Troy asked.
“No.”
“Me neither.”
They went to the front room and Hernan opened the door. Ginger Lane stood on their doorstep, her lovely face a halo of red curls. She had a shapely body and dressed to show it off, tank tops and short tight skirts being the staples of her wardrobe. She’d maintained the sex-kitten image not so much by design as because of the fact that it was, as she put it, “the real me.”
“Well, long time no see,” Hernan said.
“Yeah, been cruisin’.” She stepped in, catching sight of Troy. “Look at the boy toy,” she said. “Aren’t you all dolled up? Got a hot date?”
“As a matter of fact.”
“Our you
ng star is moving up the ladder,” Hernan said. “Dining and fucking his way to the top.”
“Yeah?”
Ginger wanted to know the details and Troy filled her in. Which was, he decided, a good thing. Ginger might be very useful to his plan, and he’d been hoping she’d show up so he could get her on board—assuming plan A with his mother didn’t work out.
After he brought Ginger up-to-date, she said, “Christ almighty, you are on your way, Troy.”
“I’m not there yet. But you two could figure prominently into my plans.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“I need a beer,” Ginger said.
The three of them went into the kitchen, where Oscar was finishing his meal. Troy picked him up and sat on the stool, petting him as Hernan got Ginger a Corona. She took a swig and sat on the table, letting her skirt ride up one thigh. She swung one leg, the big platform sandal on her foot moving like the pendulum of a clock.
“So, whatcha got?” she said.
“Okay, here’s the deal,” Troy said as he stroked Oscar. “If Mac finances On Distant Shores, I’m in the film for sure. There might be parts for my friends, but more importantly, I have juice in the production company, especially if I get myself in an influential position with Venita.”
“Influential position, like between her legs?” Ginger said, drawing on her beer.
“To be crude about it, yes.”
“When am I not crude? Besides, I know you, Troy.”
He ignored that and went on. “Let’s say I had a plan where enough money is raised to get the film going, plus the three of us each put, say, a hundred grand in our pockets.”
“No way,” Ginger said.
“Yeah way,” Troy replied. “At least maybe. I still have some work to do on it.”
Ginger frowned. “You serious, Troy, or are you bullshitting?”
“I’m dead serious.”
“What’s the plan?” Hernan asked.
Oscar had had enough affection and jumped down. Troy watched him slink away. “I’m not ready to lay it all out,” he said, “but I’ve got to know you two would be willing to take a risk and then keep your mouths shut.”
Ginger and Hernan looked at each other and grinned.
“He wants us to knock off his old man.”
“I’m not bullshitting you,” Troy said. “I’m talking serious business. No holds barred. Balls to the wall.”