Chapter 36
Mitch Hilsten arrived at the party at Richard Morse’s home in Beverly Hills with Cyndi Seagal on his arm. They made a truly stunning pair. She, tiny and dark, with her medically enhanced tits blossoming out of the top of her dress. He, darkly tanned against a white dinner jacket.
Of course everybody watched Charlie for her reaction and even some of the cameras were aimed her way. Her escort, however, was even more gorgeous. He managed to guide her away from approaching reporters without touching her.
“Okay, I can almost believe you’d sleep with him,” Larry Mann said, “but not for the good of the agency. Independent guy that you are.”
“I didn’t.” Charlie snagged a glass of champagne off a passing tray and a cracker covered with ground black pepper, capers, and a huge naked shrimp from another. Then the shrimp reminded her of herself at the top of the steps at the Visitors’ Center when press and posse arrived together and she dropped it in an artificial floral display.
“Didn’t sleep with him? Or didn’t do it for the agency?” Larry enjoyed the camera and video attention. People at all savvy to Charlie’s particular echelon in the industry (lower) knew that he was her assistant (secretary) and both were here on command. But Congdon and Morse was hardly a well-known agency and many of those present were impressed by her “date.” And who knew but what some producer would see his picture in the trades and think, “Who is the hunk? Get me that hunk. He’s perfect for the Handsome Hunk part. We’ll make him a star!”
“Thanks for helping out with the condo damage in Long Beach, Larry. I really appreciate it and I don’t know what Maggie would have done without you.” They were speaking through false smiles and sounded weird. But right now it was what they looked like that mattered.
Charlie was wearing about thirty-four layers of makeup over peeling skin. (Superstars tan, agents peel.) She was, however, more slender than she had been recently (okay, for years) and thus able to wear a knockout cocktail dress Libby’d worn to one party at the Long Beach Yacht Club and outgrown the next day. It had enough shimmering net to appear revealing while masking the ravages of healing skin.
“How else could you get the Mitch Hilsten to sign on for the train engineer’s part?”
“Maybe some of us have exceptional people skills, powers of persuasion.”
“Maybe somebody got a fabulous raise too.”
Actually, it was a pretty good raise. “What happened had nothing to do with the agency or Phantom of the Alpine Tunnel. It’s hard to explain, Larry, but … there was a peculiar set of circumstances and it happened to be a … peculiar time of the month.”
And as soon as the economy picked up, Charlie would get a job at William Morris or TNT or ICM and give Richard Morse the bird. The old buzzard.
“Is there truly nothing a woman can’t blame on the exigencies of her monthly cycle?” the hunk asked with a sigh and cocked a dramatic eyebrow in case someone worth noticing, was.
Richard’s mansion was a typical Beverly Hills pastiche. English Tudor on the outside, art deco on the in, all uncomfortable harsh angles and corners, glass tops on tables, black and white marble tiles on the floor.
An ancient dance orchestra on the raised dais at the far end of the room was playing even more ancient music for people too busy networking to dance.
Richard Morse appeared suddenly, one foot on a black square the other on a white. He too was smiling through his teeth and talking at the same time. Certainly makes for interesting expressions. “You’re a real trooper, babe. Thanks.”
And you’re a real bastard.
“Kid.” The boss recognized Larry Mann, known around the office as Larry the Kid. Richard looked as elegant as someone with pop eyes and a twitch or two could. Wearing a zillion-dollar shiny gray suit made to fit better than his skin. Hair allowed to whiten at the temples only. “He wants to talk to you,” he said to Charlie, nodding importantly. “Privately.”
“He?” Charlie told herself she put up with this guy only because Libby would need college money in a couple of years. Maybe it was his energy and cunning. Maybe it was the challenge.
“Himself,” Larry explained, sardonically, and sauntered off.
“I told him you’d be out behind the lemon tree in two minutes.” Richard screwed up one twitching cheek and sighed like Edwina. He was still nodding and the bulging eyes tried to register pity. “And, Charlie, I also warned him you don’t like men, unless they’re like the Kid, there.”
“I love men, Richard.” Respect takes a little more time.
“I wanted to thank you for the kind word,” Mitch Hilsten said out behind the lemon tree. “I really appreciate it, Charlie.”
“I didn’t say a word, kind or cruel, about you and the train engineer part to anyone. Not a soul.” She really hadn’t. But she deserved the raise anyway for all the damned notoriety.
“Your boss called my agent for some reason.” That searching, sensual, hurt look.
“I told you, Richard wanted you for the part the minute Ashton dropped it and he found out I had access to you. Why won’t anybody listen to me?”
“Beats me.” Mitch Hilsten either assumed his most sincerely vulnerable look or felt sincerely vulnerable. “Charlie …”
“I don’t think so.”
“Are you sure?”
No.
But Charlie stood her ground. It wasn’t that time of the month. “My life’s a zoo already, Mitch.”
The lemon tree was between the requisite swimming pool and a hedge made of solid, pruned, scratchy greenery. Looking every inch the wounded hero, Mitch Hilsten turned away from Charlie to return to the house just as a guy with a minicam rose from behind a planter on the sandstone patio.
Charlie resisted the urge to go after Mitch. Like the superstar had said, “A woman’s got to do what a woman’s got to do.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to acknowledge the patience, guidance, and suggestions of producer Mae Woods, screenwriter Lisa Seidman, and editor Michele Slung. Of Bette Stanton, Executive Director of the Moab to Monument Valley Film Commission. Ranger Rock Smith, Park Manager of Dead Horse Point State Park. Royce Henningson of Royce’s Electronics in Moab. And Jay Millhiser, the handsomest pilot in the sky. These people all did their best and are not responsible for any screw-ups in these pages.
I have not rearranged the landscape nearly as much as Hollywood would have.
About the Author
Marlys Millhiser is an American author of fifteen mysteries and horror novels. Born in Charles City, Iowa, Millhiser originally worked as a high school teacher. She has served as a regional vice president of the Mystery Writers of America and is best known for her novel The Mirror and for the Charlie Greene Mysteries. Millhiser currently lives in Boulder, Colorado.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1995 by Marlys Millhiser
Cover design by Elizabeth Connor
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1026-9
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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