by Lois Greiman
Now I did glance. “Really?”
“Do you have your doors locked?”
“Wouldn’t that be bad for business?”
“You’re still at work?”
“I’m brave and ambitious.”
“You should consider changing your hours.”
“Maybe I could counsel the neurotic and paranoid just until noon. In case it gets dark.”
“There’s a reason for paranoia.”
“Too much time talking to you?”
“I’m only …” he began, then sighed as if giving up. “Did you have a reason to call?” The “other than to irritate me” part was implied.
“I was wondering if you had learned anything about those letters yet.”
He paused. I realized I was holding my breath. “The analyst has a suicide letter, two ransom notes, and five bomb threats ahead of you.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Unfortunately, there’s no overt threat implied in those letters.”
“Unfortunately?”
“It would still put them behind the bomb threats and the ransom notes, but might boost them ahead of the suicide.”
“Any idea when things might be happening?”
“A week maybe. If no one else feels the need to blow up anything or talk about offing himself.”
“Laney’s right,” I said. “You’re overly sensitive.”
“Occupational hazard,” he said.
“I’ve got some info on the Overo case.” Someone was speaking from the background of the precinct.
“A minute,” he said, partly covering the mouthpiece, then to me: “I’ll try to hurry it up, but no guarantees.”
“Do you think Laney’s in danger?”
He exhaled softly. “I’m a cop.”
“Ergo everyone’s in danger?”
“Check your trunk,” he said.
I snorted and moved to hang up, but he spoke again.
“Who are you planning to call next?”
“What?”
“To ask ’bout the letters. Who else do you have on your list?”
“No one.”
“No one owes you any favors?”
“Besides you?”
“What do I owe you?”
“I saved your father’s life.”
“And I’m trying to forgive you for that,” he said, and hung up.
I sat there for a while, fidgety and fretful, reminding myself that, as Rivera had said, the letters weren’t overtly threatening. But sometimes danger isn’t obvious. I thought of a dozen such scenarios. Scenarios regarding people who thought they had been perfectly safe.
Rivera’s father, for instance. Rivera himself, paranoia personified, had thought the senator was safe. But that hadn’t been the case. In the end, I had found the senator held at gunpoint on his ranch in the Santa Monica foothills. And from there things had gone downhill. The gunman had gotten angry, the police had revved their sirens, and I had been shot.
On the upside, the senator had sworn his eternal gratitude.
The thoughts spun to a halt in my head.
Of course, Rivera and his father were barely on speaking terms. Hence, I shouldn’t get senior involved in junior’s affairs, namely police work. That would be wrong.
Then again, I wouldn’t feel all that great about letting my best friend get killed, either, I thought, and picked up the phone.
16
I believe in sex and death, two experiences that come only once in a lifetime.
—Woody Allen
That night I was lying in bed, surrounded by tasseled pillows and gorgeous, half-naked guys. One was massaging my lower back with a scented oil that smelled like man. Another was giving me a foot massage. My toes were nestled up against his warm, muscular chest when a bell rang.
The foot man sucked my baby toe into his mouth and I moaned. The bell rang again. Probably summoning the dessert-bearer. But perhaps I would forgo dessert this once. At least until the pedi-masseur was finished …
“Hello,” crooned a voice. I smiled and snuggled a little deeper into my pillows. “Yes,” he said, but the voice had morphed from the sexy rumble of a good man-slave to the high, jittery tone of a nerd.
Damnit! I had been dreaming. Or maybe I was dreaming now. If memory served, and history was repeating itself, I had gone to bed alone.
But the voice spoke again. I reached out, groggy, hair in my eyes. And sure enough, my hand met the body of another human being.
Unusual. I slipped my hand over what felt like a shirt.
“What? Oh.” There was relief in the voice, which, now that I was marginally coherent, sounded a full octave higher than that of any self-respecting sex slave. I scowled and slipped my hand down my visitor’s spine. It was conspicuously devoid of heaving muscle. And his ass …
“You’re going to want to wake up now, Mac,” Laney said.
I opened one immediately paranoid eye.
Solberg turned toward me, his Woody Allen face illuminated by the diffused light of the hallway.
I jerked upright. Harlequin lifted his head, offended that I had yanked my foot out of his tongue’s reach.
Laney was staring at me from beside the door. “The man-slave dream?” she asked.
I snapped my gaze from her to Solberg. “What’s going on?”
“Phone. I thought it might be important,” Elaine said. moving nearer.
Solberg nodded and handed over the receiver. “It’s for you.”
I scowled, still hoping I could chalk up this late night interruption to just another good dream gone bad. “Is it a mass murderer?”
“Don’t think so,” Solberg said. “But it’s probably not a sex slave, either.”
I shot a jaundiced glare toward Laney, reminding her that best friends keep secrets, but she just shrugged. “Would you rather have him believe you were coming on to him?”
I said something suitably nasty and took the receiver.
“Hello?” My voice sounded like a cross between a rusty hinge and a water buffalo.
“Ms. McMullen?”
I glanced around the dimly lit room. There were four articles of clothing on the floor, six half-read novels beside the bed, and a dehydrated philodendron wilting by the window. Probably my house. “I believe so,” I said.
“This is Renee Edwards.”
I patted the top of my head. The snarl quotient felt about the same as mine usually does at this time of night. Evidence was rising that I was, indeed, Christina McMullen. “Who?”
“I’m a handwriting expert,” said Edwards. She had a tough, impatient voice. “I work for the Los Angeles Police Department.”
“Oh, yes.” I shot my gaze to the twosome near my bed and tightened my grip on the phone.
“I’m told your case is of an extremely urgent nature.”
I bit my lip, feeling the slightest twinge of guilt. After some soul-bending deliberation, I had called Rivera Senior. Subsequently, the senator had worked his usual magic. But as with any genie’s lamp, there were always repercussions. I was still waiting to discover what they would be.
“Yes,” I said again.
“Ergo, I’ve reviewed the letters in my free time,” she continued.
Ergo, she sounded a little miffed about it. “All of them?”
The affirmative seemed to be implied. “And worked up a preliminary analysis.”
I was trying to get my ducks in a row, but there were a couple little buggers that kept popping out of line. “What time is it?”
“Four hundred hours.”
My mind worked dizzily on that for a while only to realize it was an ungodly time of the night when no one in her right mind should be conscious. What on earth did this gal owe the senator?
“I’ll send you a written transcript of my findings, as well, of course, but thought you might like to hear an expedited opinion of my conclusions immediately.”
At four hundred ungodly hours? Was she kidding? “Yes,” I said, trying to wrestle my
hair out of my eyes. “Please.”
“It is my estimation that the author knows Ms. Butterfield personally.”
“How personally?”
“An acquaintance.”
“A man or a woman?”
“I can’t ascertain that with any accuracy at this time. But for the moment let’s assume he is male.”
“Okay.”
I could almost hear the military-crisp nod. “He has strong feelings of inferiority and an intense need to be accepted.”
So he was human, I thought, and tucked my wet foot under the blankets. Harlequin looked bereft, which might mean that the letter-writer could also be canine. Or Great Danish.
“In your opinion is this person dangerous?” I asked.
There was a long pause. For a moment I wondered if she had fallen asleep. It was, after all, Ungodly Hour. But she spoke finally.
“That’s impossible to say for certain.”
“Let’s say for uncertain, then.”
“In the wrong circumstances, I believe he may be.”
I glanced at Laney again. “What circumstances would those be?” I asked.
“If there was a situation that was pushing him to act, perhaps violence would be imminent.”
“What kind of situation?”
“Something that needed immediate attention. My evaluation suggests that he is not a person who likes to be rushed.”
There were a few more salient pieces of information, but I hung up shortly afterward.
I couldn’t help but notice that Solberg was now sitting on my bed. The sexy man-slaves were notably absent. For a moment I questioned the existence of a loving God.
“A handwriting expert,” I said.
Laney nodded. “Who keeps odd hours.”
“Maybe she’s a night person.”
“Or you called in favors,” she guessed.
I didn’t comment. “Why is Solberg on my bed?”
“I thought maybe you were comatose,” Solberg said.
“Get off,” I said. “Or someone will be.”
He grinned and rose to his feet.
“Rivera’s not going to be happy if he finds out you contacted his father,” Laney said.
I scowled at her psychic weirdness. “I didn’t know who else to call.”
“We could have hired our own analyst,” she said.
“Or bought one,” Solberg suggested.
“Most of those analytic slaves don’t work around the clock like they used to in the good old days,” I said.
“Plus, doing it this way had the added bonus of irritating the lieutenant,” Laney said, watching me.
My first instinct was to brush off her statement, but even at Ungodly Hour, it made a certain amount of sense. So I filed it away for later analysis of my own before recapping my recent phone conversation.
“Inferiority and an intense need to be accepted,” Solberg said, ruminating.
“Yeah.” I stared at him. “Can I see a sample of your handwriting?”
He watched me for a second, then threw back his head and laughed.
I resisted rolling my eyes as I returned my attention to Laney. “Any ideas?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who didn’t feel inferior,” she said.
“Besides yourself.”
“I would hate to spoil your delusions, Mac.”
“Thank you. Can you think of anyone who might fit that description?”
She shook her head, then stopped abruptly.
“What?” I asked, and she adopted my scowl.
“I have a stunt double. I never even considered him before.”
“Aren’t stunt doubles built like … well, like you, thereby making her immune to inferiority.”
“I’d give an Oscar for his legs.”
“It’s a man?”
“Emery Greene.” She grinned. “We’ll discuss Santa Claus later.”
“Leave Santa out of this,” I said, then, “So why would you suspect Greene?”
“He hasn’t …” she began, then looked surprised and laughed at herself. “Nothing.”
I caught the drift. “Maybe he just hasn’t gotten around to proposing yet.”
“Not everyone has to like me,” she said, but there was something in her voice. It almost sounded like insecurity. I hadn’t seen that in Laney since she was buck-toothed and built like a chopstick.
“If that’s true we have no supporting evidence,” I said.
“I love you, Mac,” she said, then shook her head and waved away her previous thought. “Come to think of it, Emery just came on board recently. After Stevie broke her arm.”
“Stevie?”
“She was my other double.”
“Stevie’s a girl.”
“Bending the genders,” she said. “Anyway, the first letter arrived before Emery.”
“Which doesn’t necessarily rule him out.”
“But doesn’t put him at the top of the list.”
I scowled, hating to agree, but if the truth was told, I didn’t even have a viable list. “Who’s the king of the heap?”
She considered that for a minute, then shook her head. “I just can’t think of anyone who would threaten me.”
“We’re not talking out-and-out threats, remember. We’re talking skin prickles.”
She thought some more, then did a little head tilt.
“What?” I asked.
“Do you know Morab?”
“It’s the language they speak in Morabia, isn’t it?”
Her brows lowered, etching tiny creases in her forehead. “There is no Morabia.”
“Then I don’t know it.”
“Morab,” she repeated. “He’s one of the characters in Queen.”
I shook my head, feeling guilty for my lack of time spent devoted to her rising success. Some say the Catholics have taken guilt to an art form. I would say it’s more like a science. “I haven’t had much time lately to watch—” I began, but she was already shushing me.
“Mine is not a series you should apologize for missing,” she said.
“Not everything has to be the History Channel,” I said.
“You’re too good to me,” she said, but before we got sappy, she continued. “Morab … he’s one of the Withians. His name is hardly ever mentioned, but you’ll see him in the background periodically, looking … shiny.”
“Shiny?”
“These guys could keep Chevron in business.”
I thought for a moment. “Ahh, they’re oiled.”
“Like the Tin—” she began, but suddenly I remembered my wet dream.
“Are you talking about the guy in the loincloth?”
“All the Withians wear loincloths,” she said. “It’s to denote their lowly status.” Her voice was deadpan. Despite her well-fought climb to success, she was not one to overemphasize the importance of pop silliness.
“Yeah, but the guy with the …” I took a deep breath and tried not to burst into spontaneous orgasm. This guy had probably prompted my current fantasies. “The guy with the brand on his …” I motioned vaguely toward my right hip.
“Shall I get you a paper bag?” she asked.
“I’ll be fine as soon as my vision clears.” I shut my eyes for an instant and shook my head. “Yeah,” I said finally, making my tone perfectly matter-of-fact. “I think I might have noticed him.” I glanced at Solberg. For his own self-preservation, he rarely watched Amazon Queen. Thinking of Laney surrounded by beautiful people tended to make him depressed. I figured there wasn’t enough Prozac in all of L.A. County to offset the effects of seeing Morab in a loincloth.
“He has talent, classical training, and an accent,” she said.
“Not to mention the fact that he’s hotter than tamales,” I added, and thought I could actually feel Solberg pale. I liked this Morab guy better by the moment.
“And he’s intelligent. Still, he was cast because of his physique, more than anything else. He exercises like a machine. Cross-training,
weight lifting, tria—”
“I think he’s the culprit,” Solberg said.
Laney and I each raised a brow at him.
He shuttled his gaze back and forth between us. “You can’t trust those bodybuilder types. Obsessive-compulsives.”
I blinked.
“Neurotic,” he added. “Maladjusted. Weird.”
I smiled a little and turned back toward Elaine. “Why didn’t you think of him earlier?” I asked, and she shrugged.
“Generally, he seems really secure.” She paused, mouth quirking. “In fact, sometimes he seems a little too secure.”
I considered that for a second. Thought about Emily Christianson, the self-destructive girl who had everything; Micky Goldenstone, uncertain he would make a better parent than a violent crackhead; and Howard Lepinski, still obsessing about sandwich options after umpteen years of therapy. “I rarely see that in my line of work,” I said.
Elaine shook her head and sighed. “I mean … the chances of getting a successful show … they’re astronomical.”
“So?”
“What determines an actor’s success? Besides luck?”
“Tiny pores?”
“Sergio happens to have tiny pores.”
“Sergio?”
“Sergio Carlos Zepequeno. Aka Morab. He’s Brazilian.”
“A Brazilian who you think is hiding his jealousy?”
“I would be if the situation were reversed.”
I stared at her. Laney … jealous? I hadn’t seen that since the neighborhood boys had started an all-male clubhouse. “Please don’t tell me the Easter Bunny’s fictional, too,” I said.
She gave me a bland expression. “He once told me there was no one more deserving than I. And he said it with absolute conviction.”
“The Easter Bunny?”
“Sergio.”
I shrugged. “I concur. With both of them.”
She was stellar at ignoring me. “What about the Dalai Lama.”
“I wasn’t even aware he belonged to the actor’s guild.”
“You know what I mean,” she said.
“Maybe he just admires you. This Morab guy, I mean. Not the Dalai Lama.”
“The point is,” she said, “no one’s completely secure.”
“And you think if his act is too convincing …”
“He’s an excellent actor. Worked on Broadway to sold-out crowds.”
“Then maybe you can’t tell if he’s acting or not,” I said.
