X Dames: A Lucy Ripken Mystery (The Lucy Ripken Mysteries Book 3)

by J. J. Henderson

  “Hey, Bobby,” she said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “Likewise,” he said. “Only I’ve heard nothing but good and I’m sure you’ve heard nothing but bad.”

  “Bobby,” Terry mock-whined. “I wouldn’t badmouth you.” She laughed.

  “Yeah, right,” he said, still holding Lucy’s hands. “Other than to call me the number one sexist pig in Hollywood, and a complete moron, and…”

  “Hey, she’s a big fan,” Lucy said, firmly withdrawing her hands from his. “Let me assure you.”

  “Yeah, we both are,” said Terry. “As long as you keep signing those checks.”

  “Har har har,” said Bobby. “But seriously, Lucy, I did read your Mexican book, and I thought you spun a great story. Your skill at working a non-fiction story into a fiction-style narrative was impressive. That’s why I was willing to let this here dame talk me into hiring you without a meet.”

  “Hey thanks,” Lucy said, relenting. The guy gave good compliment. “I only wish the book was selling better, so that—“

  “The X Dames takes off, I’ll option it,” he said. “And you can write the screenplay. That’s a promise.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Meanwhile, what’s with the sorcerer costume, Bobby?” Terry asked as they headed towards the front door. “You’re not throwing a séance tonight, are you?”

  “No. As you know, that was my mom’s game, and I never did like to play it. I was just—this was my dad’s robe,” he said. “And Judy—Judy’s my ex-wife and current partner—it’s a strange combo, I know,” he said to Lucy. “But it works for us. Anyway she was telling her surfer pal Henrietta—who’s here tonight, and is going to be one of the X Dames, by the way—about Teresa and her book, and how my Dad was such a sixties space cadet, so I got this old robe out to sort of illustrate. I mean, I remember my dad in this thing, long hair flying as he danced around the house. He and my mom.” His eyes abruptly darkened. “Hey Jude,” he said as a woman appeared in the doorway. “Terry’s here, and she’s got our new writer with her.”

  They stepped up onto the threshold. Terry said hello and went in, bound for the bar. Lucy and Judy shook hands, said hello, and instantly disliked each other. Lucy didn’t know why, but the woman was off. Wrong. Dangerous. She was strikingly beautiful, in her indeterminate thirties, her perfect LA breasts well-displayed in a short, tight black dress. Stop looking at the tits, Lucy, she told herself. They all look like that! Judy also had long, strong legs and a firm butt, muscular arms, olive skin, great tan, black hair—and the coldest, blackest eyes Lucy had ever seen. A first class beach vampire if she’d ever seen one.

  They all went in and did their introductory dances, and then the dinner went as such dinners go. Lucy found some stuff out about Judy Leggett and her friend Henrietta Walton, a small, pretty blonde woman with clear blue eyes that stared blankly, unblinking. She was in her late twenties, and served as Bobby’s paramour of the moment, it seemed. She and Judy had passed back and forth the number one American ranking in the women’s pro surfing tour for seven years in the 1990s. Then Judy retired and Henrietta ruled until last year, when this Hawaiian girl Moki Sue Kalahana’I took over. Henrietta and Moki Sue, who Bobby described as an “Asian-American surf dominatrix,” were both signed up for the X Dames, their fierce surfing rivalry a sure bet for on-set and on-show intrigue. At least that’s the way Judy figured it, and had sold it to Bobby. Moki Sue was already in Mexico, sharpening her claws.

  This particular pre-dinner conversational minuet hit its climax when Judy smiled at Lucy, baring her gleaming fangs, and said, “But you already know your way around Mexico, right Lucy? I read that book you wrote about it.”

  “Did you? Cool,” Lucy said. “I only wish more people had. I’ve made about five bucks off that…”

  “In the book it seems like you really like to…stick your nose in places you shouldn’t,” Judy went on, still smiling.

  Lucy picked up the vibe. “I guess I’m just a curious kind of girl,” she said, eyes suddenly locked in a staredown with Judy.

  “Curiosity,” said Judy. “Now that’s an interesting trait, don’t you think?” She sipped at her sake. “Are you into the movies, Lucy?”

  “Yeah, I mean I go, you know…”

  “I’m a film nut,” Judy said. “Comes from being involved, I guess. Anyways, I was just thinking…Do you remember the scene in Chinatown that stars the director, Roman Polanski, Lucy?” Judy said. “You know Chinatown, with Jack…”

  “Of course, “ Lucy said. “It’s one of the great ones. I bet you’re talking about the scene where Polanski plays a little gangster who sticks a knife in Nicholson’s nostril as he threatens him.”

  “Exactly,” Judy said. She reached out towards Lucy, as if holding a knife. “And Polanski’s line was, ‘You are a very nosy fellow, kitty kat.’” Judy smiled. “You know what happens to nosy fellows?” “And then he flicks it up,” she said, flicking her invisible knife upwards, “and rips a slash in Jack’s nose. And when Jack’s bleeding, and reeling in shock, Polanski says, ‘Wanna guess? No. OK? Lose their noses’.” She stopped, sipped her sake, smiled at Lucy. “It’s perfect, don’t you think?”

  “Wow,” Lucy said. “You’ve got a great memory for lines.”

  “I think I know that entire script by heart. Robert Towne wrote it. But I met Roman Polanski in Paris a few years ago,” she said. “When I was just starting out on the surf circuit. There was a contest in Biarritz and we flew in through Paris. He’s a sexy little guy, and I was still young enough to catch his eye.” The smile abruptly left her face. “His last line in the scene, when Nicholson’s about to collapse, goes like this: ‘Next time you lose the whole thing, kitty kat. I’ll cut it off and feed it to my goldfish, understand?’ It was like, the perfect closer.” She turned and walked away.

  Dinner consisted of endless plates of freshly prepared sashimi and sushi. Two drop-dead gorgeous female Japanese chefs in short, slit-to-the-hip silk dresses were on site in the thousand square-foot designer kitchen at the center of the house, slicing and chopping furiously. The gang feasted at a large round table on a round patio set amidst sandstone boulders on the west side of the spaceship house. At the edge of the patio the land simply dropped away into darkness. Where Bobby’s mother had fallen, or been pushed, many years back. They drank expensive sake by the quart and Japanese beer by the gallon. After a couple of trips to the head, Lucy figured out the floor plan: with long stretches of curving granite countertop open to the living and dining areas, the remodeled circular kitchen sat in the middle of the building, rooms arrayed around like wedges of pie, with dividing walls like wheel spokes. Situated on the west side, the living and dining spaces were vast, made vaster still by the ceiling which sloped down from a height of thirty feet over the kitchen to fifteen feet over the glass doors and walls framing the view. Stainless steel rods placed at eight foot intervals supported the cement roof. The whole thing was a weirdly amazing piece of engineering and architecture.

  They had a panoramic view of the bay and sea. They had fabulous food and drink. There were six women there counting the sushi chefs, and two men: Bobby and a big blonde guy named Max, who served as driver, gardener, pool dude, and Judy-fucker, according to Terry. When not driving, gardening, doing the pool or fucking Judy apparently he stood in the shadows and didn’t say a word.

  Lucy found Bobby to be much as Terry described—a nice guy, sharp, funny and even on occasion thoughtful, except that he was not only doing Henrietta but also hot to trot with at least one sushi chef, judging by the way he pawed at her every time she delivered another perfectly sliced and organized platter of pink and red fish meat. She didn’t seem to mind at all.

  He slept with anybody he could con into his bed, Terry said, in a genial conversation that included the Bobster himself, as long as they had shapely tits and proved willing to blow him. He didn’t disagree.

  As the evening wound down Lucy and Terry found themselves alone on
the patio with double espressos, sobering up so that they wouldn’t crash down the mountain driving home. At that moment Lucy decided that nothing that had happened on her first day and night in LA had really surprised her, other than her visceral and seemingly reciprocated dislike for Judy Leggett, which had not lessened through the evening.

  That was that. This was LA. And then as the two of them got up to leave they heard laughter and splashing and went to see what was up. Teresa led her through a doorway to another outdoor space, where a blue swimming pool shaped like a giant Egyptian scarab beetle glowed, set amidst elegantly illuminated landscaping. In the beetle-shaped pool sloshed Bobby, Judy, Max, Henrietta, and both sushi chefs, all naked and ready for a promiscuous frolic. Bobby waved. “Coming in, girls?” he said.

  “Yeah, right, Bobby,” said Teresa, arms crossed. “Fat chance.”

  “Okay, okay,” he said. “So I’m a dirty old man. Don’t forget the meeting tomorrow.”

  “Two pm at your office.”

  “Nice to meet you, Lucy,” Judy said from the deep end, where she and her gardener were playing.

  “Likewise,” Lucy said. “Let’s get out of here, Ter,” she added under her breath. “I’ve got to walk my dog.” And so they said thanks goodbye, and took off.

  “So that’s the way it is, eh?” Lucy said once they’d gotten off the dirt road onto pavement, and Lucy felt safe enough to breathe. “They all end up in bed together.”

  “I guess,” said Terry. “I’ve been here a couple of times and by midnight its always Bobby and whoever’s willing in the pool. In this case, however, he’s got himself a sure thing. I’m pretty sure those two chefs were more than sushi slashers. They were working girls.”

  “Hooker sushi chefs?”

  “Hey, hot shot sushi chefs are a dime a dozen in LA. As are beautiful young Japanese prostitutes. But you put the two together and you’ve nailed a niche in the market. Those two are savvy girls. They’ll probably walk away tomorrow morning with a couple of grand apiece. Bobby is nothing if not generous.”

  “I see what you meant when you called him a sleaze. And not a bad guy at the same time.”

  “I know. He’s a sexist creep, and yet he’s so self-deprecating and self-aware, even though you know he’s totally manipulative you still forgive him.”

  “What about the ex?”

  “Judy? She’s—I don’t know, I’ve never really had a personal conversation with her.”

  “It was strange. She parlayed this little chat we had into an odd sort of threat. It was—oh, never mind,” Lucy said.

  “What?”

  “I just got a bad hit off her.”

  “Aah, she’s just another LA dame, Lucy. At her age—our age, actually—here in LA if you’ve ever been in what they all call “The Industry”—as if there is no other—you feel threatened all the time. By other women I mean. The ageism is just so intense. In truth I kind of admire her for being a surfing champion, you know? That’s a really hard sport to get good at.”

  “Yeah, maybe I’m just jealous. Surfing’s so much cooler than windsurfing these days, after all.”

  “Well, your windsurfing skills should help you figure it out fast. And from what I hear Sayulita’s a great spot to learn. The Wave Divas, a women’s surfing school from San Diego, has been running a camp there for years. In fact one of their instructors, this girl Sandra Darwin, is one of the X Dames. She’s lives in Sayulita and she’s helping us put the show together. And competing. She’s really cool.”

  “So we’ll see her in a couple of days?”

  “Yeah. In fact she’s picking us up at the airport in Puerto Vallarta.”

  During dinner Bobby had informed them that they were all leaving for Sayulita in two days, since most of the cast and crew were already down there, the surfing contest was set up for the upcoming weekend, and they needed Lucy and Teresa to write up some orchestrated sideshow confrontations between competitors, and possibly to do some casting of sexy Mexican and tourist extras as well as help with production logistics.

  “Well, I guess I’ll re-pack a bag,” Lucy said half an hour later, as she and Teresa walked the quiet streets between their apartments, Claud offleash frolicking ahead. For all its balmy, low-rise pleasantness, the neighborhood was not to be walked alone at night, Terry had said. A shadow could surprise you, jumping out from an unlit alleyway.

  “Yeah,” Teresa said. “Sorry you unpacked, but who knew?”

  “It’s cool. I love Mexico,” Lucy said. “And I’m ready to roll into—whatever the heck we’re going to be doing. But meanwhile, what about tomorrow?”

  “I’ll pick you up around ten, if it’s OK. There’s this old friend of Schamberg’s I have to see in Pasadena, and I need back-up. I’ve been trying to line up this interview for like two years, and the guy’s a pain. I hear once you’re in his house you’re fair game.” She paused. “Then you and I can grab lunch before the meet at Bobby’s office.”

  “No problem. I’m gonna take an early beach walk—I haven’t seen Venice Beach in years, so I need to do one before I cut out again—but I’ll be back before ten.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  CROSSTOWN CRUISING

  At six a.m. Lucy got up with the early light, fed Claud a biscuit, then put on her speed-walking uniform—tennies, tight black shorts and a midriff-baring, stretchy, form-fitting black-and-white top—and headed out. To a pleasant surprise: on the street in front of the building she and Claud discovered Marcia and Mariah Hobgood groggily loading surfboards, wetsuits, and towels into Flash the Cadillac. She said hey, and they said hey, wanna go surfing? She said, no but I’ll take your picture. She ran back in to grab her digital camera, and a minute later she and Claud found themselves leaning against a pair of surfboards sticking up out of the back seat of a 1965 Cadillac convertible, headed to Bay Street, south of the Santa Monica Pier. Looking way cool in the rosy dawn, after a latte stop they cruised up Neilsen and cut over to the beach a few blocks below the pier.

  In the nearly deserted beachfront parking lot, where a trio of scruffy teenage skater boys performed assorted board-flipping tricks, the girls wrapped in towels and transformed themselves from unkempt early morning hipsters into black rubber-suited surf seals. Lucy documented the transformation, and then documented the waxing of the boards. Mariah rode a six-foot four-inch shortboard thruster sporting a red and black anime-style supergirl skateboard queen, while Marcia’s classic nine-foot longboard noserider featured black and green snakes slithering intertwined up both sides in comic book Maya mode. Lucy captured the girls posing with their boards in the smog-softened pink dawn light, then she and Claud stood at water’s edge to watch them paddle out. On this particular weekday morning, here at the edge of LA, the two sisters had this spot to themselves for the moment. A small miracle.

  The set waves were shoulder-to-head high. With the sun rising behind her to illuminate them, and no marine layer to speak of, and a light offshore breeze blowing the wave edges back, the conditions approached perfection. This was LA at its best, Lucy thought, focusing her digital telephoto lens as Marcia snagged a head-high right-breaking wave, dropped in, and coolly shredded it with a series of classic, old-style bottom turns and cutbacks.

  A minute later Mariah paddled into a waist-high curl on her shortboard, and she, too, ripped her first wave, a backside left with a little tubular section maybe halfway down the line. Clearly they had both mastered the surf domain.

  She watched for forty-five minutes, capturing a couple of dozen images, then speed-walked the beach with Claud, who happily chased gulls and shorebirds along the water’s edge. By the time she’d done fifteen minutes south and fifteen minutes back, the girls were paddling in, ready to begin their day. And Lucy had a plan.

  “You were great!” she shouted as the sisters walked in together, laughing it up as they talked over the day’s waves.

  “Hey thanks,” said Marcia. “If I didn’t get out here every day I think I’d go nuts. LA is so wacko.”

/>   “The surf is sweet today,” Mariah said. “The offshores really set up the lines.”

  “Yeah,” said Lucy. “I think I got some good shots of both of you.”

  “Cool,” said Marcia. “Hey, you want to come back and check out my paintings now?” she added as they headed up to the car.

  “Sure,” Lucy said, checking the time. “What I’d really like to do is try a few waves but I don’t have a wetsuit.”

  “You surf? You can borrow my stuff,” said Marcia. “We look about the same size.”

  “Sounds good,” said Lucy. “But I think I need a lesson. Maybe you can show me a few tricks.”

  “Anytime, Lucy,” Marcia said. “Just knock on my door.”

  Lucy waited while they peeled out of their wetsuits and dressed. By the time they left the lot was half-full and about thirty surfers battled for the waves they’d had to themselves an hour earlier. Lucy read the journals: surfing had entered one of its periods of faddish popularity, when everybody all at once decided it was the cool thing to do. She knew from her windsurfing experience how fickle that scene was: once they all discovered how difficult it was to actually get good at surfing, most of them would be back on the sofa, watching it on TV. Watching the X Dames. Bobby had good timing. She opened up that line of conversation as they headed out of the parking lot. “So you girls know why I’m here, right? In LA I mean.”