A Breath of Dead Air (The Mysteries of Bell & Whitehouse Book 8)

by Nic Saint

  Quite insensitively, Reece decided to use this moment to display a proud grin from ear to ear. “Yep. I’m going to be presenting Temptation Town. Can you believe it? Celebrity host for at least three seasons! Yee-hah!”

  Yee-hah? Yee-nah! Alice couldn’t believe what she was hearing, but was determined not to let her perturbation show, as Jezebel was watching her intently. “But what about your movie career? What about your fans?”

  Not to mention his fiancée, she might have added. She could just see Reece whooping it up with Jezebel Baskerville in any number of possibly enticing circumstances. Each time Reece went off to shoot a movie she was afraid he was going to fall for his co-star. And now he would be spending weeks, possibly months, in close quarters with this painted hussy? No way.

  Reece raked a hand through his dark mane, his eyes clouding. “I was going to talk to you about that. There’s been a setback on the movie front.”

  “A setback?”

  “A hack, actually.”

  “A hack? Who got hacked?”

  “The film studio. Their entire email correspondence of the past decade was published on WikiLeaks, reams and reams of the most embarrassing stuff.” For a moment, he couldn’t suppress a grin. “Seems their main shareholder didn’t like being called a goose-stepping squiggly-eyed Nazi. He kicked the entire management team to the curb, going for a clean sweep.”

  “Clean sweeps are good, right?” she asked uncertainly.

  His face clouded again. “Wrong. Clean sweeps bring in new regimes. And new regimes don’t like to be associated with the movies of the old regime. The new CEO decided to wipe the slate. No more Crunch Time 4: The Stiffening. No reboot of The Graduate. And no more Dracula: The Teething.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “Oh, yes.”

  The Crunch Time movie franchise was Reece’s bread and butter. Those silly action blockbusters had made him a household name across the globe.

  “So you see—I need this Temptation Town gig to tide me over, babe.”

  Alice could see, all right. And since she was a dutiful future wife, she wavered. But then she caught sight of La Baskerville’s jutting bust and was strong again. And so she said the only thing a future dutiful wife could, which was: “You’re not doing it, Reece. No Temptation Town for you. Uh-uh.”

  Reece’s response was both immediate and eloquent. “Huh?”

  It was one of those reality show moments, Alice saw. Where cast, crew and viewers alike are stunned by the shock revelation that the goody two shoes middle child is pregnant with the daughter of the ex-boyfriend of her brother’s new girlfriend. Jezebel, however, seemed to take the whole thing in stride, her face not betraying a single emotion. Which Alice took as proof she was probably a botoxee.

  “But, babe,” Reece implored, his noble brow puckering, “can’t you see I have to do this? Just think about the exposure!”

  “It’s the exposure I’m most worried about,” Alice riposted, directing a scathing look at Jezebel.

  “I need this, babe,” Reece went on. “My career needs this.”

  “But what about all those other movies you made? They must bring in a pretty penny. And it’s not as if your career is over. There’s plenty of other studios, other movies you can make.” She took him by the shoulders. “You’re Hollywood’s darling, babe. Their number one star. You have to protect your brand. Not associate yourself with this…” She gestured vaguely in Jezebel’s direction. “This tawdry Temptation Town turkey.”

  “Hey! I’m right here!” Jezebel cried. Even though she was used to people casting aspersions on her, it rarely happened they had the gall to do so to her face. Most trolls preferred to hang out on Twitter or Instagram, hardly ever venturing out into the real world to spread their particular brand of vitriol.

  “Look, Temptation Town is the biggest hit of the season,” Reece explained. “The brand might be tawdry, but that doesn’t stop it from reaching millions of viewers. Besides, everybody is doing television these days.”

  That was true enough. Even The Rock was doing HBO. The fact of the matter was that she didn’t feel she could trust Reece around Jezebel Baskerville. Though she didn’t know the woman very well—she’d seemingly popped up out of nowhere—she’d seen her show and knew her reputation.

  “I need to keep on working, Alice,” Reece continued. “Sooner or later the Crunch Time franchise will be revived. They’re not going to kill the chicken that lays the golden eggs—”

  “Goose.”

  “Whatever. But until they do, I have to keep my name out there. The moment you’re out of the limelight for even a couple of weeks or months your career is over. That’s the reality of the business.”

  He was right, of course. She plunked down on a chair. This whole thing had taken her by surprise. So not only was she out of a job, it looked like Reece was, too. But how had this suddenly happened? Only a couple of weeks ago he was on top of his Tinseltown world, and she and Fee had a nice thing going with their wraith wrangling gig, chasing ghosts all over the place. And now suddenly she was reduced to begging her best friend for a job while Reece was co-hosting a reality show. How much lower could they go?

  She placed a hand on Reece’s arm. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  He gave her his best puppy-eyed look. It had worked wonders for him in Crush Hour, where he’d played a goofy cop alongside Will Smith. “I need to keep my name out there, babe. You know how fickle this celebrity thing is. One day you’re hot to trot, and the next you’re delivering a speech at the GOP National Convention, heaping praise on their presidential candidate.”

  “All right. I’ll let you do this. But on one condition only.”

  “Anything,” he said, his fabled lopsided grin making a sudden comeback.

  “I’ll be second co-host.”

  “Done!” Reece boomed, high-fiving her.

  “What?!” Jezebel cried, visibly horrified. “You can’t do this! You can’t just foist some…” She looked Alice up and down. “Snooty baker on me.”

  “Hey. That’s my fiancée you’re talking about,” Reece warned her.

  “And I’m not a baker. For your information, I don’t even bake,” Alice snapped. “I’m actually an ex-gun store and ex-funeral home employee.”

  “You don’t know the first thing about hosting a reality show!”

  Neither do you, Alice wanted to say, but she decided to keep her mouth shut for once, and let Reece do the negotiating. He was, after all, the prize Jezebel wanted to bag. The fact that he came with a caveat in the form of a pesky fiancée was something she’d have to take in stride. Didn’t all celebrities have their list of demands when they were doing a gig?

  “She’s a fast learner,” Reece assured Jezebel. “Aren’t you, babe?”

  “Sure am,” Alice responded, perking up. She was killing two birds with one stone here, she saw: keeping a close eye on Reece, so he didn’t accidentally wander into Jezebel’s ken and launching herself into a new career. If women like Jezebel Baskerville could become rich and famous simply by strutting their stuff in front of a camera, so could she. “So when do we start?”

  Jezebel rolled her heavily made up eyes. “Oh, God!” she groaned.

  Chapter 9

  “It’s really not necessary, sir. I washed the car myself last week.”

  The raggedy bum leered at him, then decided to ignore him.

  “No, you don’t understand,” Elroy protested when his assailant sloshed some kind of sludge on the windshield, then proceeded to smear it across, turning what was a reasonably clean windshield into a dirty mess. “I really don’t need my windshield washed, or any part of my car, for that matter.”

  Elroy Pomace, a smallish middle-aged man with thinning mane and a particularly nervous disposition, had been idling at the red light on the corner of Colbert and Loy when seemingly out of nowhere this seedy bum appeared, armed with tin bucket, squeegee and sponge, and proceeded to attack his car with steely determination etched on his otherwi
se vacant map.

  The man looked old, too, with his shaved head and long, flowing white beard. He might have been Santa Claus, if not for the dirty smudges on his face, his torn and tattered clothes, and generally unkempt appearance.

  “Not a problem, sir!” the bum croaked, dragging the squeegee across the sludge, detaching the goo from one spot and expertly attaching it to another. “I’ll have this car of yours clean in no time! I might even manage before that darned light goes and changes on me again!”

  “But I don’t want my car cleaned!” Elroy cried out with pretty petulance, helplessly observing how the light turned red again for the third time, his Volvo now a great deal dirtier than before this Santa wannabe’s intervention.

  Finally, the deed was apparently done, his windshield now resembling a finger painting executed by a not very talented three-year-old. “You’re welcome, sir!” the old-timer croaked, sticking out his hand in the gesture universally known to everyone who’s ever been accosted by a person or persons intent on transferring the burden of their livelihood onto them.

  “Oh, all right,” Elroy muttered angrily and pressed a dollar bill into the man’s hand. “Here you go. And don’t spend it all on drink now, you hear?”

  The bum eyed the money disdainfully, the corners of his mouth curling down in disapproval. “Never heard of inflation, sir?” he grumbled. Then he patted his chest, where a careless hand had haphazardly sewn a patch of some kind onto his frayed shirt. Elroy thought he recognized it as the NASA emblem. “Fought for my country, if you hadn’t noticed,” the bum declared proudly. “Yes, sir. Vietnam vet as I live and breathe. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you Vic Gulley put his life on the line so the likes of you could sleep safely in their beds at night.” He crinkled the dollar note, lowering his head and giving Elroy a nasty look. “Yes, sir. Safe and sound in the comfort of their warm beds.” He crinkled the note some more, hoping this would induce his victim to fork over more dough.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Elroy mumbled, and took another few notes from his wallet, then handed them to the old-timer. This time, it appeared as if the amount met with the man’s approval, for he smiled, displaying the few surviving teeth of what had no doubt once been a complete set.

  “Thank you, sir,” Vic Gulley said, tipping an imaginary cap. Then he stepped back, removing his tin bucket from the hood of the car, and finally releasing Elroy from the dubious pleasure of his company. “And may I officially bid you welcome to Happy Bays, the greatest town in the world!”

  As Elroy rode into this greatest town, he was surprised to find Happy Bays remarkably pleasant-looking, the storefronts cheerfully inviting and the houses and streets perfectly spotless. Someone had gone to the trouble of attaching overflowing floral displays in a riot of color to all the streetlamps, lending the whole an uplifting quality. In fact, the entire town looked like it might have been painted by the hand of the illustrious Norman Rockwell.

  Quite possibly no giant superstore had descended upon this small town yet, allowing the local baker, butcher, grocer, and barber to ply their trade in peace and prosperity. Time and the relentlessly churning wheels of big commerce had clearly forgotten about Happy Bays. And as Elroy steered his car into town square, he watched as the American flag billowed atop Town Hall, and how the benches dotted about the square, pleasantly surrounded by perfectly coiffed trees, were all occupied by old-timers busily playing games of chess or generally shooting the breeze with others of their ilk.

  Yep, it looked as if he’d just stepped into a time machine and had been whisked back to the fifties, an era when life was lived at a less relentless pace.

  He heaved a deep sigh, for even though Happy Bays tried its darndest to lift his spirits, it failed miserably. It might have worked on others, but Elroy Pomice’s soul was weighed down with the weight of woe—two hundred thousand woes, in fact—and no picture-perfect small town could change that.

  Only one man could, and that man was Rick Dawson.

  He circled the square and rode on until his GPS told him he’d arrived on Lake Street. He exited the vehicle and shielded his eyes from the blazing sun, glancing across the street at the establishment he’d singled out for this visit.

  Bell’s Bakery & Tea Room was apparently one of the best places to buy fresh pastry, its bakery goods known far and wide. Unfortunately, he wasn’t in the market for bakery goods, or any other wares for that matter. And as he set his teeth, and balled his hands into fists, he just hoped that the man he’d come here to find was in attendance. If not, he was prepared to wait until he was. He was going to give Rick Dawson a piece of his mind, whether he liked it or not.

  Chapter 10

  Rick had been trying to find a parking spot for a little while. Usually there was plenty of space on Lake Street, but today all the best spots—in the shade the elm trees were providing—had already been taken. Finally he found the perfect spot, but just as he was indicating to turn and steer his car into it, a gray Volvo with remarkably filthy windshield beat him to it and snatched it just before his very eyes.

  Cursing under his breath, he drove on. He’d tried to phone the mystery woman who worked for Senator Vickar, but the call went straight to voicemail. So he’d decided to return home for now, and have a bit to eat at Bell’s.

  He wanted to talk things through with Fee. Pick her brain about this Vickar thing. And he’d finally parked his car and was crossing the street to the bakery when he saw through the store window that the same man who’d snatched his spot was inside, engaged in a spirited conversation with his housemates Alice and Reece and a third woman he didn’t recognize.

  He frowned and quickly entered. The moment he did, he saw that Fee was darting worried glances at the foursome as they exchanged heated words. She was on the phone, jotting down an order.

  “Hey, honey,” he said, attracting her attention.

  She pressed the phone to her chest. “Oh, Ricky. That man over there is looking for you.” She gestured to the booth where Reece, Alice, and the woman were seated, the man now yelling at them quite vociferously.

  He nodded and stalked over to the table where this stranger was making a ruckus. There was no one else in the tea room, so at least the loudmouth wasn’t driving away paying customers. Already Rick had formed an ill opinion of the man. First he’d snatched his parking space, and now he was making a nuisance of himself in Fee’s place of business. Not done, he felt.

  So he approached the man, preparatory to giving him a piece of his mind. But the moment the other caught sight of him, he cried, “You!” and attached himself to Rick’s person by placing both hands on his shirt and giving him a vigorous shake. Why he did this, Rick did not know. And just when he thought his shirtfront was going to become detached from its moorings, the man hauled off and decked him with a surprisingly powerful sucker punch to the nose. Rick stumbled back, abruptly landing on the floor.

  As a reporter, Rick Dawson had lived through quite a few ordeals in his time. He’d interviewed cannibalistic tribesmen in the dark heart of Belgium and had been forced to share a meal with them. Luckily no humans had been on the menu that night. Once, he’d even been targeted by a gang of former beauty queens, now stalking the seedier parts of Los Angeles and terrorizing the locals into paying their botox treatments. He’d come away from these harrowing experiences with a profound respect for his own life, swearing never to venture out there again. But this little man took the cake.

  Irritated, he scrambled to his feet, but then saw that Reece was already subduing the violent twerp, holding him in a tight grip, and instructing Alice to call her dad, Happy Bays’s chief of police.

  “Are you crazy?” he cried, holding his nose, blood seeping onto his shirt.

  “I want my money back, Mr. Dawson!” the little man screeched, his face red as a tomato. “I want my money back right now!”

  “What money? I don’t have your money!”

  The man managed to extricate a fist from Reece’s grip and shook it vehemently
in Rick’s direction. “You’re Baldemar Calypso’s brother-in-law. When that son-of-a—”

  “Watch it!” Rick cried.

  “When your brother-in-law embezzled that money, CalypsoCo stock took a nosedive.”

  Rick winced at the mention of the word nose. “So?”

  “So I’ve got my entire life savings invested in CalypsoCo! I lost my shirt!”

  Rick’s shirt was starting to resemble the aftermath of a bloodbath, but he thought he could see what this guy was so upset about. Still he decided to dispense a PSA. “Why would you ever invest all your money in one stock?”

  The little man hung his head. “I didn’t. My banker did. I gave him carte blanche, thinking he probably knew best. He said CalypsoCo was the new Coca-Cola or Microsoft. Told me Warren Buffett himself was invested heavily in the company, Berkshire Hathaway sinking billions into the stock.”

  “How much did you lose?”

  “Two hundred thousand dollars. My entire life savings. That money was for my kids’ college fund, and me and my wife’s retirement.” He shrugged. “I’ve got nothing left now that CalypsoCo is trading for cents on the dollar.”

  Rick saw all now, and even though his nose was still hurting like hell, and his pride was still wounded, a wealth of compassion welled up in his bosom. “For your information, Bomer never embezzled that money. He was set up.”

  The man looked up in surprise. “What are you saying, Mr. Dawson?”

  “I’m saying that when I’m through with this story, CalypsoCo will come out of this swimmingly, their reputation restored and their stock soaring to new and greater heights.” He smiled when he saw hope dawning in the man’s eyes. “I’m going to set the record straight, Mr…”

  “Pomice. Elroy Pomice. Do you promise, Mr. Dawson?”

  “He does, Elroy. Mr. Dawson will make things right again.”

  The words had been spoken by the unknown woman, and all eyes now turned to her. Rick thought she looked vaguely familiar, and then he recognized her. She was the star of that new hit reality show Temptation Town. Though usually he was more into highbrow stuff, he’d managed to catch one or two episodes with Alice and Fee. Purely for informational purposes, of course. To keep abreast of the current entertainment landscape.