Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 1 - Combust the Sun (14 page)

Callie
said it was just like her dream. "The two black tarantulas were the two
men in black who attacked Barrett and Rita Smith. In my dream they were around
a fire, remember? And these men set Barrett on fire and then, in the dream,
they bit us. You were attacked and we were both chased, which is like being
bitten."

"And
you said you dreamed Rita Smith died of the bite."

"I
hope that part's not true," Callie said.

Paramedics
arrived within minutes. The gates were opened for them by someone inside the
compound. Barrett Silvers was loaded into an ambulance. The neighbors were
starting to gather, walking down the street to see what the commotion was
about. A second ambulance arrived and parked just below the staircase where
Rita Smith lay.

A
news van followed and went live from the crime scene:
Famous comedian Eddie
Smith s wife Rita was attacked this morning at their home in Encino by unknown
assailants who left her unconscious and bleeding on the balcony of their
estate. Marathon Studio executive Barrett Silvers, also at the estate, was
found badly burned and has been rushed by ambulance to a nearby hospital. The
motive for the attacks is unknown.

"We
need to go back inside and tell them what we saw," Callie said.

"That
two guys in black tried to kill them?" I replied. "How do we explain
our having been there when it happened?"

"Just
tell them the truth. The gate was open and we drove in," Callie said. I
looked at her for a full fifteen seconds, letting that thought sink in.

"I
know you're into truth, Callie," I finally said. "But our talking to the
police won't catch those men. I've talked to the LAPD, Curtis, 911, and the
APD. I've talked myself blue to the men in blue, and do you see any real help
coming our way? But this crime is different. Rita Smith is a high-profile case,
and the police are going to be under pressure to produce leads. I don't intend
to be one of them."

Callie
said nothing further, and we drove home in a state of shock.

A studio
secretary from Dinallen Pictures phoned. Brenda Emory would take my pitch on
the adoption story this afternoon, at three, if I were free. She was sorry for
the late phone call but, the secretary simpered, "Things have been so wild
here, you wouldn't believe it!" I refrained from saying she wouldn't know
wild if it bit her in the buttocks, and instead graciously accepted the
appointment. In Hollywood, only the deceased turn down an opportunity to pitch
a story.

Barrett
and Rita Smith were so embedded in my consciousness that I functioned in nearly
an out-of-body state. I was dressed in my pitch uniform, standing in front of
the mirror checking out my jeans and hunt jacket, almost without being aware
I'd gotten dressed. I got in the car in nearly the same state. Callie joined
me, saying she'd love to see how movies were sold.

"If
you want to see how they're sold, go with someone else. If you want to see how
they're pitched, you're with the right person. I've pitched more often than
Fernando Valenzuela."

Before
heading over to Dinallen Pictures, we stopped and got the Jeep back from the
body shop, and it looked as if it had never been driven off a cliff at high
speed.

"It's
beautiful, Marty. You can do my face lift," I said.

Marty
beamed. He took great pride in his puttying and painting. I envied his being
able to make a living at an occupation in which he did something people
actually needed.

Dinallen
Pictures was always in turmoil, consolidating office space, moving office space,
or building office space. Their corridors could easily be mistaken for a moving
and storage locker: boxes floor to ceiling, up against every wall. Brenda
Emory's secretary, who was the epitome of pert and perky with a thick mop of
tight red curls and a stick-figure body, said Brenda was on a long-distance
call. "Could you just hang?" she asked, and I felt the request
embodied the true desire of studio executives toward producers and writers.

We
sat down on a low stack of boxes for ten minutes before the secretary poked her
Orphan Annie head out into the hallway again and said, "She'll see you
now."

We
entered a spacious office decorated Sante Fe-style with a commanding view of
the ocean. Brenda Emory was a middle-aged woman in baggy jeans and a white
shirt that flapped loosely over them. She apologized for the delay, saying she
was on the phone with a vet in New England about her hamsters.

"Are
they sick?" I feigned concern.

"Oh,
no. I breed them," Brenda said. "I began with Whitey and Sam,
thinking they were both boys, and it turned out Sam was a girl, so we got
Lucifer and Chin-Chin." Brenda reached over and picked up a stack of
pictures: close-up shots of tricolored hamsters taking a whirl on the
traditional hamster wheel. She took in a deep breath and launched into the
problems surrounding the breeding of hamsters. Most of which, she lamented, had
to do with the size of their anatomy and their general nervousness.

Thirty
minutes later, it struck me this woman was not going to buy anything I had to
sell. No one who could devote thirty pre-pitch minutes to the breeding of
hamsters had a life outside of hamsters, or an interest outside of hamsters, or
frankly very many movies to produce that didn't have hamsters in starring
roles.

"Well,
I know you've got a busy schedule. We're here to pitch you a true and extremely
compelling adoption story."

Brenda
crossed her legs and her arms. Not a good sign. Twenty minutes later, as I
wrapped up the story explaining how the long-lost adoptee finally finds his
birth parents, and those same birth parents are now back together and in love
after thirty-five years, Brenda let out a long sigh of boredom.

"Does
he come back home and kill them?"

"Kill
them?" I ask, startled.

"If
he came home and murdered them, you see, we wouldn't be expecting that, and
then that would be a movie. Of course you'd want that to happen at the hour
break."

"No,
actually, the story has an uplifting, happy ending."

"Was
he molested by them before he was adopted out? Or did he commit suicide after
finding them?" she mused. "You see what I'm getting at? The
unexpected."

"Well,
you've been so kind to listen to our pitch, Brenda," Callie said.

I
put a copy of the ten-page story treatment on her desk, and Callie retrieved it
as we exchanged goodbyes, sent hugs to the hamsters, and left.

At
the elevator, Callie said, "She was just jerking off in there with her
stupid hamster stories. Cut your losses and move on. And never leave your work
behind when they've been so negative about it. Negative energy can transfer to
the story and diminish its power."

I
stared at Callie. Underneath this fluffy exterior lurked an iron maiden.

Callie
took the car keys from me, and I got in on the passenger side, sagging against
the window.

"It
took twelve years to sell
Forrest Gump.
Can you imagine what you can
hear in twelve years?" I did an imitation of Brenda. "There's no sex?
Just this dumb guy up there for two straight hours? Does he come home and
bludgeon his mother? Because you see, that would be kind of interesting. Does
he have a pet hamster?"

"I
should help you select places to pitch."

"I'm
only depressed that I got dressed for a trip to the Hall of Hamsters."

I
flipped on the radio to avoid further discussion. A newscaster's somber tone
announced,
"It has now been confirmed that the woman s body found this
morning in the home of prominent comedian Eddie Smith is that of Rita Smith,
his wife of twenty-seven years. Mr. Smith, obviously shaken and grief stricken,
has been taken downtown for questioning about an apparent burglary homicide.
They are hoping he can lead them to clues that might apprehend the killer.
Again, Rita Smith, wife of comedian Eddie Smith, dead following a burglary in
her home. She apparently died of smoke inhalation, which occurred in afire that
was the result of the burglary. "

I
flipped the radio off. "She died," Callie said solemnly.

"That
makes three by fire: Frank Anthony, Barrett Silvers, and now Rita Smith. We
need to get into Barrett Silvers's office and see what we can find out."

I
slid my fingers into the breast pocket of my hunt jacket and felt something
cold and hard.

"What's
the matter?" Callie instantly caught the look on my face.

"I
don't know. What's in my pocket?" I asked, struggling with the lining and
the constrictions of my seat belt.

Callie
reached over and freed my jacket, reaching inside the pocket and extracting a
small one-by-two-inch off-white stone.

"That's
the stone! The death stone! We've been marked. We're going to die. I mean
immediately! Check outside. Is anyone around us? Is the door locked?"

Callie
yanked on my arm with such force that it snapped my head to one side.
"Calm down!"

She
didn't seem to understand the peril we were in. "That's the thing the man
brought to the table. The man who tried to kill Barrett."

"Is
this the jacket you were wearing the day you lunched with Barrett?"

"Yes!"

"Then
maybe when Barrett collapsed into your arms at Orca's, she managed to slide the
stone into your pocket for safekeeping," she said calmly.

I
sank back into my seat, relieved that we were not going to die this instant.
"Good God. This has to be what everyone's looking for. That's why they
followed me to Tucumcari and to Tulsa, why they tried to run us off the road and
why they ransacked my house. This is a dangerous fucking thing to be carrying
around!"

"Thank
God you didn't send that jacket to the cleaners!"

"So
if Barrett stored it on me, why didn't she try to get it back after she got out
of the hospital? That would be the logical thing to do, but instead Barrett
didn't want to see me anymore."

"Which
means she planted it on you to make you a decoy," Callie said.

"No,"
I said wearily, not wanting to believe Barrett would set me up to be killed. I
let out a deep sigh, somehow more relaxed in finally knowing what they were
after. At least now I wasn't just randomly selected in some mob lottery, but
instead merely had the one thing they wanted.

Callie
cooked spaghetti and made a large salad while I scavenged croutons off the
countertop and contemplated the stone having been with me all along.

"Don't
eat off the countertop. I haven't wiped it down!"

"I've
been known to pick up food off the floor and eat it," I said. "That
was in your former life as a buzzard." She smiled sweetly and snatched the
crouton out of my hand.

"I
can't get over the fact that the stone was in my jacket in the closet the
entire time," I said.

"Remember,
I told you that you had something tangible they wanted," Callie reminded
me.

She
held up a large spoonful of spaghetti sauce for me to test. I tasted it, not
taking my eyes off her, as if it were her I was tasting. "Fabulous!"
I whispered and put my arms around her waist.

"More
salt, vinegar, sugar?" She took a taste from the same spoon. "It is
pretty good," she acknowledged without waiting for further input from me.

"Good
in the kitchen, good in the bedroom..." I said.

"After
last night..." she said hesitantly.

I
reached behind her and deftly switched off the burners before leading her into
the bedroom where I pushed her gently back onto the bed and slid on top of her.

"You're
wrecking my hair, ruining my makeup, destroying my clothes..." she complained
gently.

"That's
precisely the plan," I said. "You'll just have to get used to
it."

Callie
swiftly rolled me over and grinned in delight at my surprise as I found myself
looking up at her.

"You
can't always be in charge." She grinned and unbuttoned my shirt and
unzipped my jeans. She glanced at my feet and, seeing I was barefoot, seemed to
come to a tactical conclusion. She bounced up, grabbed the hem of my pant legs,
and whipped my jeans off me in one swift move, not unlike a magician pulling a
tablecloth out from under the dishes without destroying a plate.

"So
have you done that a few times before?" My voice became uncharacteristically
high pitched.

"Were
you looking for someone who doesn't know what they're doing?" She arched
an eyebrow, looking very seductive.

"No,
actually, this is fine...good, actually," I stammered and she knew she had
the advantage.

She
pounced on top of me and kissed me into a frenetic frenzy, not giving me enough
breath to ask her to remove her clothes or allowing me enough space to remove
them for her. She moved down my breasts, kissing and caressing and holding them
in her mouth while I twisted in absolute ecstasy. Finally she slid all the way
down to my thighs, peeling the rest of my clothing from my trembling body, and
buried her face in me. I sucked in my breath with the first warm touch of her
tongue that stroked and I followed, demanded and I gave in, thrust into me and
I returned the pressure. I ran my hands through her blond hair, allowing her to
do whatever she would with me, pushing deeper into me until I let out a cry and
lay awash in love. She gently kissed her way back up my entire body, arriving
at my lips, staring into my eyes and saying, "Now, that was so
wonderful."