Dreams of Jeannie and Other Stories

by Catherine Dain

  Greg wouldn't leave it there, she knew that. He'd come after her, worse than the last time. But when he came for her, she would be ready. A knife? No, a gun would be better. More certain.

  It was a matter of self-defense.

  Defrauding the Cat

  A Faith Cassidy Mystery

  This story was Faith Cassidy's first appearance in print. I had written several stories about Los Angeles, with the thought that sometime I would turn them into a book, fol­lowing the lives of three interconnected women. None of the stories were published in their original forms. But when I received an invitation to contribute a story to an anthology about cats and Hollywood, I had to have a pro­tagonist who wasn't Freddie O'Neal. Freddie and Holly­wood just couldn't get together. So I called on Faith Cassidy, the actress turned therapist. Here is her first ad­venture as an amateur sleuth.

  "Tell me again. What were you doing with twenty-five thousand dollars in your checking account?" Faith started to lean on the round white table, which rocked just enough to slosh cappuccino into her saucer. She stuck her napkin under the cup and crossed her arms instead.

  Sitting in the open area at the Farmers Market always sounded better than it seemed once she got there, particu­larly in June, when the low cloud cover that marked the be­ginning of summer in Los Angeles cast a pale gray light on what would otherwise be stalls of brightly colored fruits and vegetables. The tables next to the food stands were surprisingly full, considering the lack of sun. Fluorescent t-shirts saying I SURVIVED THE 6.8 marked the tourists. The na­tive Southern Californians all wore multiple earrings and looked hung over.

  "Elizabeth's contract. For the commercial. The money was only supposed to be in the checking account tempo­rarily."

  "Right."

  "And it wasn't taken. The bank was worried about the amount of the check, so when the commodities firm called them to make certain it was good, they called to make sure I had written it, which of course I hadn't. So they didn't pay it. The money is still there." Michael had been holding his cup until he was certain the table was through rocking. He placed it carefully in the pristine saucer.

  "Does it ever bother you to live off Elizabeth like this? You've let your practice go to hell."

  "My practice hasn't gone to hell. My clients were all cured. The two I still have only see me once a week out of habit, because they like to talk to me. I'd end the depen­dency, but they're both so entertaining that I'd miss them. And of course it doesn't bother me to live off Elizabeth. After all, I paid six hundred dollars for her. She wasn't even two months old, and I knew she was going to be a star."

  "Michael, she was a kitten. How could you know she was going to grow up with an attitude?"

  "Because she was my kitten, Fay. She was therefore going to damn well have my attitude."

  "Faith. How many times do I have to tell you—I don't want to be called Fay anymore." She started to lean on the table again, but remembered in time. "I want to be called Faith. It's not such a great leap, from Fay to Faith. It's not as if I wanted to be called Hope or Charity or anything like that."

  "Hope would have made more sense. Hope is what you need, not Faith," Michael said cheerfully, impervious to the glare he got in response. "I've been calling you Fay for too many years now. I'm sorry. And I don't understand why you have this sudden need to change your name."

  "Because I'm claiming my own identity. People should be named what they want to be named, not stuck with whatever name their parents happened to stick them with. If you wanted to change your name, I would change what I called you."

  "Michaelmas, perhaps? Michelangelo? I rather like that."

  "Michelangelo it is, then. Anyway, start again from the beginning. I don't understand how this happened."

  "Really, I don't either." Michael sighed. "But someone who knew how much money I had in my checking account called the bank and told them I had moved, that I needed new checks sent to my new address, and the bank actually sent them. Sent new checks, ordered in the proper number sequence, to the new address. The recipient then wrote a check to Max Strother Commodities in the amount of twenty-five thousand dollars, to open a trading account. Then the bank called to make certain that I was opening an account at Max Strother Commodities—and astoundingly, inefficiently, called my real telephone number, not the new one the thief had given them, which was the only thing that tripped up whoever wanted to pull this thing off."

  "How much did the thief know about you?"

  "My Social Security number, my mother's maiden name, and the date and amount of my last deposit." Mi­chael paused to watch the pigeons descend on a half-eaten croissant that a young man two tables away had tossed to the concrete. "I really, truly want it to be an inside job, someone with access to the bank computer. Because if it isn't, the only other people who had that information are my mother, Elizabeth's agent, and Jason."

  "Jason! I didn't know you'd seen him."

  "He happened to stop by the day the check arrived, and so he rode with me to the bank. That's all."

  "Oh, Michael. Do you really believe Jason would steal from you? Is he that desperate?"

  "He's not employed, and he didn't look well. He might decide he was stealing from Elizabeth, not from me. Jason could rationalize it that way. And he was always so jealous of her."

  Michael was still watching the pigeons. Faith turned away from the table to watch them with him.

  "Better Jason than your mother," she said.

  Michael didn't say anything, and Faith began to wish that she hadn't, either.

  "Is the bank keeping you informed about their investiga­tion?" she finally asked.

  "I don't think they're doing much. As far as they're con­cerned, nobody lost anything. I talked to somebody at the West Hollywood sheriffs station, and he said that Holly­wood had jurisdiction, because Max Strother Commodities and the alleged new address are both in Hollywood. He added that it would be a low priority with the LAPD, too, because all I could file a complaint for would be stealing checks and attempted forgery. Even if the person is caught, he or she—and I'm talking about Barbara, Elizabeth's agent, not my mother—even with all our past problems, I really don't think it was my mother—could plead it down to a misdemeanor."

  "Then let's investigate it ourselves."

  "What?" Michael turned back to Faith.

  "I love the way you can express so much disdain for an idea in a single word," she said, uncowed. "Let's check the address and the phone number, at least. We might be able to eliminate both Barbara and Jason, even if we can't do anything more."

  "I'd ask if you have a life, but I know you don't. Why do you want to seize my life? Did you make the mistake of calling Brian?"

  "No, I heard, though. He and Frances are getting mar­ried Sunday. Ten years younger than I am, and she finished her dissertation. She officially gets her Ph.D. Saturday, the day before the wedding. Not that I feel bad anymore about never having finished mine, you know I worked that out. It's been too long since I dropped out of the program, and the family counseling license brings me all the clients I can handle."

  Michael nodded and smiled his professional therapist smile. "Well, I suppose neither of us can feel any more inept than we do now, no matter what our next failure is. How do we start our investigation?"

  "By calling the phone number, of course. And then driving to the address. Do you have them?"

  "The bank gave them to me, to make certain that they weren't mine. They're at my apartment, sitting on my desk. Do we finish our cappuccino first or start our Nick and Nora caper at once?"

  "I was thinking more Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. Down the cappuccino and let's go." Faith stirred the cinnamon-topped foam into the brew and drank it in two gulps. She didn't like Farmers Market cappuccino very much anyway.

  "I don't suppose there was a couple who didn't sleep to­gether." Michael finished his cappuccino and stood, fishing his car keys out of his fanny pack.

  "Nancy Drew and Ned Nickerson, but yo
u'll have to wear a football jersey and let me drive."

  "Separate cars as far as my place, and then we flip a coin. I'll think about the football jersey."

  They threaded their way around tables to the aisle be­tween the falafel stand and the gift shop. That led them to the parking lot, where they parted company.

  Faith never liked the hunt for a parking space that she had to endure when she visited Michael's Kings Road condo, so she grabbed the first one she spotted, just north of Santa Monica Boulevard. She walked the block and a half, past buildings that all looked alike—four stories over an underground garage, evenly spaced balconies with views of other balconies, white stucco with greenery around the front doors. Michael was waiting on the sidewalk.

  "You might as well have walked from the Farmers Market," he said, unlocking the security door. "There were at least three spaces closer."

  "If I owned a Yugo, I could have parked in two of them. The third couldn't accommodate anything bigger than a tri­cycle."

  "Suit yourself, but I could have slid the Honda into all three."

  "Then we don't need to flip a coin. When we leave to in­vestigate, you drive, you park."

  "Investigate. My God, this is so absurd."

  They took the elevator to the third floor. Michael un­locked the deadbolt, and Faith followed him in.

  "My God, indeed," Faith said, having held her tongue during the short trip. "It smells like a cattery in here. You ought to show your meal ticket more respect. When did you last change the cat box?"

  "Elizabeth doesn't mind the smell. She was born in a cattery, after all. But the cat box is probably still clean. She doesn't like to put her feet in it, so she sort of backs up to it, and sometimes she misses it entirely. Wait here, I'll check."

  The cat in question, looking like a blue pearl with darker blue eyes, was stretched out on a pink velvet chair, staring at Faith with what was undeniably attitude.

  Michael returned almost immediately, spritzing the air with a pseudo pine scent.

  "At least she hit the paper," he said. "I flushed it down, and the smell will be gone in a minute."

  "That cat is lucky she's both smart and beautiful, and you don't want to work for a living. It seems to me, though, that if you can teach the cat to give you high fives on camera, you ought to be able to teach her to use the litter, not the paper."

  "The difference is, she likes to give high fives on camera."

  "The address and the phone number. Quickly. The cat shit smell is not dissipating, and the air freshener is dis­gusting."

  Michael's desk was a rectangle of distressed oak in a corner of his living room. He sat in the bentwood rocker and began sifting through small slips of paper.

  "It can't be too far down. I saw it yesterday."

  "Why don't you ever file anything?"

  "Here it is." He handed Faith an envelope with an ad­dress and phone number scribbled on the back. "If I filed, I'd have to clean out the files. I don't have room for files. What I want is on my desk. Everything else I throw out."

  "Let's call the phone number."

  Michael pointed to the phone. Faith picked it up and punched in the number.

  "Four nine two seven," a woman's voice said.

  "Michael Haver," Faith responded.

  "I can take a message."

  "Is that what this is? A service?"

  "That's right. What message do you want to leave?"

  "Never mind." Faith replaced the phone. "Let's check out the address."

  "You know it's going to be a mail drop."

  "Yes, but somebody had to establish it. And somebody had to open the trading account, so if we don't find any­thing out at the mail drop, we talk to Max Strother Com­modities."

  Elizabeth watched them leave. With attitude.

  The La Brea address was indeed a minimall mail drop. Michael parked the Honda right in front.

  "It's so simple when you pray to the parking gods," he said.

  Faith slammed the car door in answer and marched ahead of him into the narrow store. No one was near the front counter. Both side walls and a center stretch of shelves held boxes, envelopes, tape, and other mailing para­phernalia, carefully arranged to make the selection look larger than it actually was.

  "Hello!" Faith called.

  A young Asian woman, not more than twenty, emerged from the back.

  "Can I help you?" she asked.

  "I'm trying to get in touch with Michael Haver. He left this as an address, and I need to talk to him."

  "If you leave a message," the young woman said, staring at Faith through large, dark eyes.

  "But I don't want to leave a message here. I want to find him."

  "You leave a message," the woman repeated.

  "This is silly, Fay-ththth," Michael said. "All these places offer confidentiality. That's the appeal."

  "Look," Faith said. "This is the real Michael Haver. The Michael Haver who gets mail here is a fake."

  "This is Michael Haver? You found him?"

  "I know this Michael Haver," Faith said patiently. "I want to find the other one, the one who calls himself Mi­chael Haver but isn't."

  "I don't know," the woman answered. "You leave a mes­sage, I put it in his box, the Michael Haver box."

  "Do you know when he will be in to pick it up?"

  "No. Whenever."

  "Let's go," Michael said. "Unless you want to leave a message."

  "Thank you for your help," Faith said to the woman.

  Michael was starting the car before Faith slid into the passenger seat.

  "Just one more stop," she pleaded. "Max Strother Com­modities. If they can't help, we give up."

  "I'm surprised you aren't suggesting a stakeout of the mail drop."

  "I thought about it, but there are only the two of us, and I couldn't really count on your cooperation."

  "You're right. Max Strother Commodities, and that's it. Where is it?"

  "Haven't you ever noticed the sign? It's on the woefully tacky part of Hollywood Boulevard, near Western."

  "Dear Lord and Baby Jesus protect us." Michael glared at her briefly, but he turned north on La Brea and east on Hollywood. The neighborhood quickly deteriorated from office buildings to souvenir shops to thrift shops to bars.

  Michael parked in a space almost directly in front of the Max Strother Commodities sign, which was on the second story of an Art Deco building too small and probably too deteriorated to make the preservationists' lists. Graffiti al­most obliterated the sign warning them of a two-hour parking limit.

  "I may wait in the car," Michael said.

  "Put the Club on the steering wheel, turn on the alarm, and pray to the antitheft gods," Faith replied.

  He caught up with her in the lobby.

  The elevator door had an OUT OF ORDER sign. They climbed the stairs, not to the second floor, but to the fourth.

  "And you complained about the cat," Michael said as they traversed a landing that smelled of old vomit.

  Faith didn't bother to answer.

  Max Strother Commodities was at the back of the building, behind a frosted glass-topped door that jangled as they opened it.

  "I'll handle this one," Michael added.

  The large office was illuminated only by the gray haze from the windows on the back wall. Five-foot partitions had been strategically placed so that visitors couldn't tell how many of the cubicles were actually staffed.

  Michael and Faith waited until a short man with a bur­gundy toupee, wearing a white shirt rolled to the elbows, paisley tie loosened, came to greet them.

  "Yeah?" he said.

  "I'm Michael Haver." Michael automatically held out his hand.

  "The guy who gave us the bum check? No, you aren't."

  Michael retracted his hand. "I didn't give you a bum check."

  "That's what I said. You aren't the guy."

  "Can you describe him?" Faith interjected.

  "Who are you?"

  "Faith Cassidy, Michael's f
riend."

  "Which Michael? This one or the guy who gave us the bum check?"

  "This one. We're trying to find the person who forged Michael's name on the check."

  The short man appraised the two of them.

  "Got ID?" he asked.

  Michael pulled out his wallet and displayed his driver's license.

  "The other guy was shorter than you are. Almost bald. Fringe of white hair. Wire-rimmed glasses. Nervous. That's why I remember him. I wasn't surprised when I called the bank and they wouldn't okay the check. Or when the tele­phone number he gave was a service."

  "Oh, hell," Michael whispered.

  "You know who it is?" Faith asked.

  "Thank you for your time," Michael said.

  "No problem."

  Faith smiled at the little man, then hurried after Mi­chael.

  "Who is it?" she asked again as they started back down the stairs.

  "I can't be positive, of course, but the description sounds like Barbara's husband." Michael didn't pause or look back at her.

  "Then we have to go see Barbara."

  "No. You said Max Strother Commodities would be the end of it. And I want to think before I go any further."

  "You have to talk to Barbara—you've known her too long to file a complaint without talking to her—and it seems to me that I ought to be along. Third party."

  Michael was moving so quickly that Faith stopped talking. She needed the breath to keep up with him.

  A thin young man in a torn t-shirt and jeans was eyeing the Honda when they got to the street. Michael glared fiercely. The young man shrugged and moved away.

  "How can I go in and accuse Barbara of stealing from a client?" Michael asked once they were settled, the Club re­moved from the steering wheel, the engine going.

  "You don't accuse her of stealing. You ask her how she's been doing. We approach this as an intervention. We're both licensed therapists, we ought to know how to do this."

  "I hope you're right."

  Michael took Hollywood Boulevard to Fairfax, then dropped down to Melrose. He parked in front of an art gal­lery two blocks west.