by Andrews
"His finger. Look at his little finger. It's white, not tan. That's where he wore a ring, but the ring's not there!" When I was slow on the uptake Callie finished her thought. "He's the guy from the tub. He was wearing the bird ring. Now he's dead in the desert without the ring."
"It was probably nibbled off him by prairie dogs," I said. She punched me playfully for not giving his mysterious death my full attention. "Is there coffee?" I asked.
She produced some black liquid in a ceramic mug that she'd brought upstairs especially for me since she never touched the stuff. "You drink it too strong—" she began, but I cut her off by pulling her down on top of me and kissing her. She sighed and seemed to relax for a moment.
"You have the most luxurious lips!" I sighed in return. Elmo sighed too, making us giggle. "He thinks they're luxurious and he's ten feet away. So what am I supposed to do with this startling information you've brought me?" I asked, gratefully sucking down the coffee and pulling Callie in closer.
"Bruce Singleton was dating Karla Black, wife of Mo Black, the now defunct owner of this hotel." She smiled smugly. "The waitresses in the restaurant downstairs were buzzing about it. I guess Karla and Bruce Singleton were quite an item, because he was fifteen years younger than she is." Callie could see I wasn't enthused. She bounced the bed as if kinetic energy would jar my enthusiasm level. "You love great stories. You write great stories. You sell great stories. This is a great story...and it will help my client. Come on, get excited! Word is that Bruce Singleton was set to come over here and run the Boy Review, become its executive producer, but he died before he got to do it."
"Significance being... ?"
"I don't know, but Karla's at home this morning. I rang," she said. Callie pulled a slip of paper bearing an address out of the pocket of her tiny jeans, and just the way she moved her hip to get her hand into her pocket looked sexy.
"You got the phone number and address from the waitress?"
"Nope. My client knows her. And I called her and she's invited us over."
I complained about having to leave the room. In other circumstances I, too, would have been curious about Karla Black, a woman who had managed to trap a big-time gangster into marrying her, and then outlived him to enjoy a hot young guy like Bruce Singleton. "If I'd been Mo, I would have at least inserted a prenup that specified, in case of my death, she couldn't screw her new lover in my hotel," I said.
"You would do that," she said flatly.
"Damn straight. Let the next Bozo take her to Motel 6. How did you get Karla to agree to see us?"
"Told her we're thinking about writing an article on astrological architecture and we want to feature the hotel lobby."
"Her lover just died and she's up for an interview on astrological architecture? I'd say the woman isn't too heartbroken."
"People cope in different ways," Callie said nonjudgmentally.
An hour later, we crossed the starstruck lobby, where a domed ceiling, painted in nighttime blue, held hosts of twinkling stars raked by hidden strobes that seemed to make the heavens come alive. Callie stood in the middle of the celestial display and stared up in wonder, leaning against me for support. It was a compression of stars and planets and asteroids, each carefully placed and correctly named. As if God hovered above the entire array, light filtered down through the stars, somehow managing to cast their images onto the floor below. Other images embedded in the floor were backlit, casting their shadowed shapes up into the sky. So looking up at the ceiling, we were, in fact, partially looking down, God-like, and looking down at the floor, we were, in fact, looking up. It was a wonderful, mind-boggling experience. I hadn't really taken time to admire the ceiling, having spent most of my time admiring Callie.
"I was so proud to be part of this at the time." Callie's voice was barely audible as she pondered the astrological implications.
"You worked on this ceiling?" I asked in awe.
"Mapping out the design. Mo directed it. He was obsessed with eights, can you tell? Look at all the eight clusters. He said he always won on eights and that the number eight had the best odds."
I stared at her wondering how many things I would learn about her over time that would surprise me. I couldn't expect at our age that life would only begin from the moment we met, but there was a piece of me that wistfully wished it could. How sad that there had been so many wonderful and interesting experiences she had already had without me—memories I wouldn't share with her, places she would talk about that I wouldn't have seen. I longed for us to have a history together, to be able to say, remember when we went to Sedona? Or, remember that time in New York? I suddenly felt cheated of her presence, as if God had left me to wander the desert alone for forty years before giving me a mate. Why couldn't we have met in our twenties?
As if reading my mind, Callie took my hand. "Had we known each other twenty years ago, we wouldn't have hit it off." We exited through the large front doors on the way to retrieve our car.
"Because you were busy designing the astrological equivalent of the Sistine Chapel?" I asked.
"No, because you were too cocky and arrogant." She jabbed me with her forefinger for emphasis.
"That could be construed as a negative remark," I mused.
We got into our car, and I tipped valet parker Sheik Skippy and headed north off the Strip.
"Right, right, right!" Callie suddenly shouted as we drove up into the hills above Las Vegas.
"Sorry," I said, making the turn at the last possible moment. "Thought you were just agreeing with me."
"You have no sense of direction, do you?" she asked kindly, as if inquiring about a loss of hearing.
I insisted I did have a sense of direction but merely became preoccupied. Her silence made me want to argue the point, but she quickly added, "The address is 888. You passed it!"
I threw the car into reverse and backed up in front of a two-story Spanish mission-style home with an arching entryway that led into a huge courtyard. Not a bad cottage, I thought, but the pink and turquoise walls, with inlaid tiles of half-naked girls, and the garish fountain, featuring three peeing lads, made me think that Mo Black had more money than taste.
"Hiya, kids." Karla threw open the door in a grand gesture, as if we'd known her for years. "Come on in." From what I could tell, she didn't appear to be in the emotional vicinity of any of the five stages of mourning.
Karla Black was what gangsters in the twenties called a floozy, a woman of disreputable character. When she was sober, her walk was a stagger, her massive head of bleached-blond hair looked as if she'd tried to comb it with an egg beater, and her makeup was Ringling Brothers. She was forty pounds too heavy, and her clothes needed another trip through the wash cycle; nonetheless, she had sadness behind her soft green eyes and a ready smile that made me mentally slap myself for being judgmental. So she liked sleeping with mobsters. Maybe they told her she was pretty and bought her nice jewelry. Who was I to judge?
Callie introduced us and explained we were on a literary mission. Karla didn't seem to care why we were there, as long as we would sit and chat. She obviously didn't get much female company.
A half hour into the conversation, Karla let out a big sigh. "Always wondered about all that crap on the ceiling. Some little chickie came in and sold him a bill of goods about the hotel bein' a livin' person and some jibberish about the planets. He just wanted to get in her pants, was my take on it." Karla laughed. I furrowed my brow at Callie, who avoided my stare as Karla rambled on.
"Aaaanywho, that was pre-me, so I didn't give a shit. Exceptin' he spent a zillion dollars of what woulda been my dough on the damn thing. People like it, I guess. So whadaya wanna know about it?"
Callie explained that the kind of color commentary Karla had just provided was exactly what she was looking for, and she artfully moved Karla away from the astrological design of the ceiling and onto her love affair with the builder. It was a subject near and dear to Karla's heart.
"So, Mo and me was just, ya
know, like in our second childhood and in love, humpin' all the time, not worryin' about nothin', then a couple of his buddies come along and they decide to build these kinda gigantic houses out here in the middle of nowhere! Ya know, for me, the desert was just like, well...deserted! But Mo, he was like a sand-schlepper, so we pulled some money together and times was tough, but then, I don't know, he hooked up with the right guys, and well, here I am in this desert palace, as Mo called it." Saying his name made her chin tremble, and tears came to her eyes. "I miss Mo. He was my baby."
"I'm sorry," I offered.
"Yeaaah, he was hot stuff, Mo was. That's him," she said and picked up a photo off the mantel of a chunky, Italian-looking stud. She gave the picture a big lipsticky kiss. "I got life-size cutouts of him stored down in the hotel basement. Used to have 'em in the lobby, but people said it made 'em sad. God forbid they should be as sad as me, huh?"
Next to that photo were other pictures of her and Mo at the beach, both looking well-fed, but less decadent and decidedly happier. There were photos of Mo kissing a large golden retriever, and Mo with an attractive woman. Must have been a relative, I thought. Or Karla would have chewed that portion of the picture off with her teeth.
Karla put her chipped red nail on the image of the woman. "That was Mo's first wife."
"So you must have liked her," I ventured, definitely surprised.
"Sure, 'cuz she was dead right after I met her. They had a couple a kids together, and she blessed Mo and me on her deathbed, so I figure, why not let her sit up on the mantel and look good, ya know, 'cuz she don't look so good now."
I was beginning to wonder how our conversation could transition from wonderful Mo, the love of her life, to Bruce Singleton, a shorter-lived love. I decided diving right in was the best solution.
"So I guess you met Bruce after Mo died..."
"Bruce died too! You hear about that? I just don't have any luck with men. Bruce was comin' over from another club to run the Boy Review for me. It was originally called Boys in Review Daily. BIRD. In honor of the big-winged finale. Mo named it that. The Bird Review. But we was gettin' so many calls from people wantin' to know how to get rid of starlings or clean out a martin house, for God's sake! Can you believe it? So we changed the name to Boy Review. Bruce was gonna run it, but not now. He drowned! You gotta go to a helluva lot of trouble to drown in the goddamned desert, ya know what I mean?" Karla's shoulders shook and she began to sob. "Cops comin' to talk to me...funeral plans...his mother bawlin'. It's a mess!"
"How did he drown?" I asked.
"Under water." She looked at me as if I were an idiot. "He couldn't breathe underwater."
I suppressed a grin as Callie dove in to save me. "What were the circumstances of his being out in the desert alone and then being found in that small lake?" Callie asked.
"How would I know that?" Karla was suddenly suspicious, "You're not like cops trying to be somethin' else, are ya? Because if you was, I would call some people you would not like to know. Because I had nothin' to do with my husband Mo's death or with Bruce's death. Bruce was a drinker, ya know, and for all I know he coulda passed out and fallen in the goddamned lake..."
Whatever Karla was on, it was starting to kick in. She was slurring her words, and her eyes rolled ever so slightly, as if she were about to faint. "I think you two better get the hell out," she said without malice, and rose unsteadily to her feet. Then, just as suddenly, her mood shifted again. "Don't be mad at me. I'm just not feelin' too well, ya know. Got a lot of things on my mind. Come see me another time."
"What do you know about the ghoul pool, Karla?" Callie asked as we walked to the door.
"Howcha hear about that?" Karla revived, shocked back into consciousness.
"I have a friend on the list," Callie said.
Karla gave us a large, tired shrug, her soft fleshy upper body jiggling with the effort. "Bruce said he was on the list, but I don't know. I was on the list one time. Mo was. It's like a naughty night that everybody in town wants to be invited to 'cuz they want to brag about bein' on the list."
"When the show was called the Bird Review, did you give anyone a gold signet ring with a bird on it?" I asked.
Karla let out a sharp laugh. "The day I pass out fourteen karat gold anything, you call 911, okay? You're soundin' as crazy as those women who call about the starlings! I'm not feelin' well. Goodbye." She closed the heavy carved door in our face.
"Well, she closes doors as abruptly as you end phone calls," I remarked.
"When there's nothing more to say, move on." Callie shrugged, seeming to understand Karla.
"Why are you fixated on this ghoul pool deal?" I quizzed Callie.
"Let's go have lunch and we'll talk," she replied, getting into the car.
"Okay, but start talking now."
"You sound like a cop." She grinned at me.
"Well, I was a cop, just not a very good one. I feel too sorry for people, like poor Karla. What a wasted life."
"Not in her eyes," Callie said in her typically cosmic way.
"So you're the little chickie who talked Mo into spending all that money, and he did it because he was trying to get into your pants?" I said, only half kidding.
"He was not trying to get into my pants," she said firmly, to put an end to further questions.
"Then he really was a dumb gangster." I slid my hand under her and squeezed her cheeks, and she yelped.
We stopped at a little sandwich dive with a couple of tables out front. Not much ambience but at least some fresh air after the stifling atmosphere of Karla's drug and booze den. We stood in the takeout line and Callie ordered a ham and cheese sandwich. I ordered a tuna melt. The words had no sooner left my mouth than Callie spoke up, "I wouldn't do the tuna."
"You're right. I'll smell like a fish, and cats will follow me down the street. Make it a ham and cheese," I said agreeably.
"I'm just cautious about food," she said. "I was poisoned in another lifetime, and it's a carryover."
The sandwiches came flying across the counter before I had time to respond to that startling confession. Callie took them both with her and unwrapped them, lifting the bread as if it were a manhole cover, staring down intently at the ham. I waited expectantly, amused by this blond woman of great insight who held all nourishment in suspicion.
"Are we safe?" I kidded her.
"Are you making fun?"
"Absolutely not." I smirked. "Just waiting for the green light on this sandwich so I can eat and then find out about the ghoul pool."
"Eat." She smiled and pushed my sandwich toward me.
"You were poisoned in another lifetime?"
"Around 1500 a.d. Conditions were hideous, of course."
I stopped midbite to stare at her.
She continued, "I think it was accidental. I don't recall the specifics, but I..." She stopped, realizing this was far beyond my ability to comprehend, believe, or perhaps even endure. "Let's talk about something else. We have years to discuss things like this."
"That last sentence was comforting," I said and reached over and gently wrapped my hand around the nape of her neck. She let out a great sigh, not unlike Elmo's.
"I've missed you," she said, looking up at me, and her translucent blue eyes sparkled. There was a long pause, neither of us quite knowing where to take the conversation. I let my hand drop from her neck, and Callie changed the subject.
"My client in Tulsa, Randall Ross, is a wealthy man. I've known him for years. He's been contacted by a man"—she seemed to be selecting her words carefully—"who told him his daughter is in trouble. This happened two months ago when I was in L.A. with you. He called, begging me to come back to Tulsa immediately. He thought his daughter's death was imminent. I've been trying to help him. Then a few days ago, he phoned me in a panic. His daughter had called from Las Vegas to say that she'd attended a party where she'd been put on a ghoul pool list."
"Who's the man who contacted him?" I asked.
"He...wasn't sure,
" Callie said.
"And your client's daughter is Rose Ross?"
"Yes. The problem is that people on the list actually do die with some regularity. Whether they are on the list because they are about to die, or they die because they're on the list, is the issue. Hard to prove. No one has the list. As Joanie Burr said, each name is 'read out loud and dropped into the flames, and only the ghost remembers the names.'"
"Pretty convenient. A bunch of drunks hear thirteen names and get drunker. No list. No evidence. So this trip is business, and I'm a nice adjunct to that?"
"I knew if I told you I was here on business, you'd feel slighted," she said.
"You think? Because the corollary of that is, had there been no business, you would not have bothered to meet me."
She leaned over and, in front of the couple dining at a nearby table, kissed me warmly on the lips in a lingering promise of even warmer things to come.
"I will always find you," she said softly.
"Not as good as I will always be with you," I replied.
She kissed me again and her lips were intoxicating.
"Callie, you've got to level with me," I said, unable to prolong the pleasure for fear of the pain. "You could have arranged to see me if you'd wanted to.. .you didn't want to."
"I wanted to," she managed to say.
"We've been apart for over two months. I know you want me, I can feel it. And God knows, I want you, and yet.. .we've been here for twenty-four hours and we haven't made love?"
"There was a dead man—"
"Why aren't we making love?" I gently interrupted and looked into her eyes. She shifted in her seat and looked away, then tried to formulate her thoughts. Apparently the truth was difficult—even for a psychic.
"It's...in LA....it got to feeling so...permanent...so quickly."
I was hurt by the fact that Callie Rivers had just admitted she wasn't rushing headlong into my life, but I was glad to have the source of her anxiety out in the open. Obviously I wanted more out of this relationship than Callie did. I let that sink in and then the survivor in me kicked in, that piece of me that always made sure I was okay. After all, this is the woman who confided in me that she 'd made love for years and never let herself climax, so why am I surprised that she can keep her emotional distance? Just take a different approach, the voice in my head commanded.
