Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 1 - Combust the Sun (6 page)

She
must have read my mind. "You're really not ready for me. It will take
time."

"I
am absolutely ready for you." I pulled her in too quickly and put my mouth
on hers too abruptly. She pushed me away as if to end it. Then suddenly, she
gave in, sliding her tongue inside my mouth, where it belonged, wet and hot and
wanting, sliding and coupling with my own, our pulse and our breathing
intensifying with
Bolero
-like speed until our bodies were
writhing in rhythm to the sub-lingual-cum-labial dance of our tongues, creating
a heat flash that exploded across my body like an atomic blast.

My knees
buckled. Callie Rivers could by-God kiss! In an instant she had set me on fire.
I was personally and undeniably Combust the Sun. I was also wet in every
orifice of the human anatomy that had any capacity to create moisture, as if my
body were trying to save itself from the flames. Callie slowly slid out of my
grasp and pushed me gently out the door. "Play that in your head,"
she said, and the door clicked shut in my face. I stood in the hallway, swaying
like a drunk, my mind as unsteady as my body.

What
in hell just happened? How did it happen so fast? I don't even know this woman,
and I'm hooked on her. She said we were destined for each other. Richfield and
Rivers. Perfect. The Psycho and the Psychic.
But no amount of mental sarcasm could destroy the feeling I was
experiencing. I knew I'd been struck by an uncommon meteor, something one sees
only once in a lifetime, someone who was destined to change my life.

The
night sky suddenly seemed clearer, the stars more radiant, the moon much
shinier, and life itself seemed to hold infinite possibilities.

As I
approached my car, I was jolted back into my body by the sight of a dark blob
on my windshield. I looked around to see if there was anyone else in the
parking lot, but I was alone. I told myself to snap out of it and pay
attention. I was in danger. I moved cautiously toward the car and then decided
to open the rear door and grab a flashlight before approaching the blob. I
flashed the light on the windshield and panned across it. The hair on my arms
stood up in fear. Globs of barely coagulated blood spelled out, "Retern
it."

I
wanted to stand in the parking lot and shout for the little coward to come out,
but suddenly the idea of being tracked by someone who couldn't spell
two-syllable words was more frightening than dodging Hannibal Lecter. I jumped
in my car and turned on the windshield wipers, heading down Riverside at
seventy miles an hour, my head swiveling around like Linda Blair's in the
Exorcist
as the red liquid ran off my windshield in rivulets. I knew whoever was
tailing me wasn't going to give up.
How did they know I was here tonight? No
one knew that. No one except Callie Rivers.
My heart sank as I contemplated
the fact that Callie Rivers could be involved in all this.

I lay
in bed awake—wide awake—rewinding the entire evening. Callie Rivers was the
most phenomenal person I'd ever met. How could she have had anything to do with
the message on my car window? She couldn't have. She was my mother's friend,
for God's sake! Nonetheless, I assured myself that I would be sensible about
the whole thing and do some more checking on her.

If
need be, I'll ask her point-blank if she's involved. I want to see her again
anyway.

The
mere thought of seeing her again triggered all my fantasies. Callie had
embedded her taste, her touch, her smell, into my senses, until I felt her
presence all around me. I thought about her, holding my breath, closing my eyes
and focusing on what kissing her had felt like. Nearly cramping with the erotic
pain, I could almost visually recreate it, that orgasmic moment when mind and
body separate on a viscous white wave of ecstasy. Callie was right. I played it
in my head. I placed a pillow between my legs to stop the throbbing. I wished I
were the self-gratification type, able in a few strokes to end my own longing, but
if ever there were a service improved by outsourcing, lovemaking was it.

The
light seeped in through the shutters and I was aware it was dawn. No sleep, and
yet I leapt out of bed, happy and looking like I'd slept twelve hours. Standing
on the scales, I realized I'd lost three pounds. "If we could bottle
sexual ecstasy, Elmo, we would all look like supermodels."

I
bounced into the kitchen and wished Mom and Dad a happy forty-second
anniversary, telling Mom I'd seen her friend Callie Rivers last night.

"Did
you like her?"

"I
did." I tried to sound nonchalant. "So what do you know about her?"

"She
likes women," Dad interjected without looking up from the paper.

"What
does that mean?" I asked absently.

"It's
not even a compound sentence, Teague. Figure it out." Dad looked at me
over the top of his glasses.

"She
likes everyone." Mother covered for anyone Dad attacked. "Just when
you think you know her, though, she surprises you."

I
buried my face in a section of the morning paper, not wanting to seem overly
interested in Callie Rivers. My eyes came to rest on the newspaper accounts of
Frank Anthony's death. The first article speculated that he was killed because
his company was involved in a greenmail takeover of a publishing house back
East. A second report said it was a case of mistaken identity, since Frank had
put his shoes in locker 34, a locker that didn't belong to him. The third
report said they had not ruled out suicide. The police never ruled out suicide
in Oklahoma. Even when a guy had to shoot himself in the stomach, then in the
head, and then set himself on fire afterward.

I
thought about giving Detective Curtis a call to report the road race with
Raider and last night's message on my windshield, but so far Curtis had been
useless as tits on a boar and he had no jurisdiction in Oklahoma, so I called
Wade Garner instead. Wade was a big, handsome, square-jawed police sergeant of
infinite good sense who'd befriended me when I did my short stint as a member
of the local police department. I got him on the phone, and after a few quick
pleasantries, told him about the guy who'd attacked Barrett at Orca's, then me
in the parking garage, and then I told him about the incident on the highway in
Texas.

"Same
guy?" he asked.

"No,
guy in L.A. was Latin with a spider tattoo at his left eye. The guy on the
highway was some blond kid."

"What
the hell ya doin' makin' guys mad at ya coast to coast?"

"It's
a knack," I said, and I could hear him grinning. He took down the license
plate number and ran a check while I waited.

"Vehicle's
been junked. Somebody probably stole the plates and put 'em on your
road-rager's car. I'll turn the report over to auto theft and see what they
find."

"Last
night after one a.m., I go out to my car and there's blood on the
windshield..."

"Does
this story ever end? Where were you?"

"Riverside
Drive," I said and gave him the exact address.

"Doin'
what?"

I
hesitated, not wanting to say it. "Seeing a psychic, a friend of my
mother's." Wade held his mouth away from the phone and belly-laughed.
"So how come you didn't know there was blood bein' put on your car while
you were talking to the psychic?"

"And..."
I interrupted him loudly, "the blood spelled out 'Retern It.'"

"Return
what? Hey, ask the psychic!" He burst out laughing again. "Man, you
need a keeper. Let me see if the security cameras caught anything. Am I gonna
see ya this trip?"

"Yeah,
if you get your glasses fixed," I said, and he snorted.

From
the newspaper accounts, it appeared that Frank Anthony's demise would make a
good movie. It had wealth, power, Hollywood ties, and murder, for starters. I
decided just to show up at the Anthony mansion and see what I could learn. As I
selected an appropriately somber blazer for the occasion, I stepped over Elmo
twice. The danger of my tripping and falling on him was not enough for him to
give up his comfortable spot on the floor. "I know, Elmo, since I'm your
only meal ticket, that you're worried about how I'm going to get into the
Anthony mansion without being arrested." Elmo kept his eyes fixed on me.
"I simply create a fabulous lie and then convince myself it's the truth,
since there's truth in all things. And because I believe it's the truth, others
will believe it as well. Just as I believe that you are truly not a dog, but a
person in a dog suit." Elmo rolled his eyes and began to lick a decidedly
private part of his anatomy. "Stop that, or your lips will never touch
mine!" Elmo ceased licking. "Thank you," I said, and patted him
goodbye on his big soft head.

There
were a half dozen Jags and Ferraris parked out in front of the Anthony mansion.
When I rang the bell, a uniformed servant answered, looking appropriately
solemn. I said I was a friend of the family's. He indicated a room to the left
of the massive entry hall and said, in a tone reminiscent of Max's in
Sunset
Boulevard, "Madam
is receiving in the parlor."

The
parlor had twenty-foot ceilings, with baroque crown molding that depicted
entire battle scenes, looming high above the gold-flecked marble floor.
Definitely not the kind of living room where I imagined a guy ever wandered
around in his Jockey shorts in search of his cigarettes.

A dozen
or more guests munched canapes and spoke in subdued tones beneath the domed
ceiling, consoling a woman wearing a gray designer suit trimmed in black. She
tilted her head up to engage me with her soft gray eyes and extended her long,
tapered hand. "Isabel Anthony." A blinding flash of gold and diamonds
radiated off her wrist and fingers. I told her I was sorry to hear about Frank.
Then, lying, I said I'd worked with him on a studio project in L.A. and I was
shocked to learn of his death. She thanked me and turned her attention to the host
of people gathered round her. Wakes were easier to crash than I'd imagined.

Across
the sea of well-coifed heads, I caught sight of a tall, handsome woman in her
early sixties with the angular features of an ex-model. I recognized her from
news accounts as Ramona Mathers, one of Frank's many attorneys, although her
picture in the paper had been decidedly younger. The tiny broken veins around
her nose were an indication that alcohol figured prominently in all her
activities, maybe enough so that she might talk to me openly about the
Anthonys. I introduced myself and told the same lie about being Frank's friend.

"What
a way to go," she said, finishing off her highball. "Makes you
rethink your life. Shot in your gym shorts at the club, for God's sake! If
Frank were here, he'd say, 'Had I known those were my last ten minutes on
earth, I wouldn't have done those last twenty reps.' That's why I don't
exercise. I'm afraid I'll get in shape just in time to find out I'm dead.
Ramona Mathers." She extended her hand, showing a smattering of liver
spots, and gave me a penetrating, questioning look that told me she'd slept
with a good many people in her time and was still open for business.

"Lot
of servants," I remarked.

"Frank's
board members sent extra staff to help Isabel get through this."

"What
board would that be?" I asked.

"Celluloid
Partners, I imagine."

"Have
the police found out anything about the murder?"

"Hank
Caruthers, who was in the gym at the time, told me that Frank was found lying
on the floor next to his towel, apparently trying to get his .38 out of his gym
bag. Reaching for a revolver and you come up with a rock, now that's fate,
isn't it?"

"A
rock? What kind of rock?"

Ramona
Mathers made a Vanna White gesture toward the study and took a short
stagger-step in that direction. I followed her into a teak-paneled room,
replete with leather-bound first editions and glass-enclosed displays of
strange Egyptian antiquities. A long, gold scepter sparkling with jewels, a
headdress trimmed in gold and black snakes, a large stone tablet covered with
hieroglyphs, and case after case of little cups, jewelry, and broken pots.

"What
was this used for?" I pointed to a miniature sarcophagus locked in a glass
case.

"I'm
not the docent. Tiny, tiny Egyptians?" She raised an eyebrow in an obvious
appreciation for the outrageous.

"And
this?"

"A
petroglyph tracing of a rock called a death stone, ironically enough, used on
the eyes of Egyptian corpses to hold the lids down immediately after
death."

My
God, it s just like the stone that was delivered to Barrett at Orca s,
my mind raced, as I tried to remain calm.
What is a
drawing of the stone left with Barrett doing in a display case fourteen hundred
miles away? Are these stones common and everyone knows about them but me?

"Replicas
were very popular in Italy at the turn of the century. Unsavory characters used
them as markers. A thug wearing the insignia of his mafia don would appear,
demanding money from a man or perhaps merely demanding his silence in a matter.
If the man refused, then very shortly thereafter a death stone would appear on
or near him as a sign that he'd been marked for death. That way, the man knew
by whom, and for what, he was being killed. A good thing to know, don't you
think?" She took a long sip of her drink as I remained transfixed by the
stone tracing. She bent her head toward me in an exaggerated style as if to
inquire if I were still in my body.