by Laura Levine
Was it possible that his assistant Kevin was lying to the cops? Was he the one who bumped off Stacy? Was he a Hollywood barracuda willing to do anything to get ahead? Had Andy promised him a promotion? A corner office? A date with Calista Flockhart?
And what about Daryush? I kept thinking about that picture of him in bed with Stacy. He was the kind of guy who stuck his hands down garbage disposals all day. The kind of guy who didn’t mind dirty work. I wasn’t quite prepared to declare him innocent.
I told myself I was being ridiculous. Surely the LAPD knew what they were doing (if you don’t count Rodney King and the Ramparts scandal and the Watts riots). They were trained professionals, right? I’d gotten Howard off the hook, and that was all that mattered.
But then it hit me: Thanks to me, Andy was now on the hook. What if he was innocent, too? What if he got convicted on my testimony and spent the rest of his life in jail for a crime he didn’t commit? (Notice how I managed to hopscotch effortlessly from one guilt trip to the next in mere seconds. Impressive, isn’t it?)
I poured some Folgers Crystals into a cup of boiling water and watched them dissolve. If only everything in life were so easy.
I knew I had to stop fixating on this detective stuff and get back to my real job. Ever since the murder, I’d let my freelance writing gigs slide by the wayside. I had a pile of bills on my desk that were reproducing like rabbits. I needed to think up a clever promotional mailer and drum up some new business. Fast.
I grabbed a pad and sat down at my dining room table to think of ideas. After twenty minutes of brainstorming, the only thing on my pad was Prozac, napping.
My heart just wasn’t in it.
You don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to figure out what was happening in my tortured psyche. After all the excitement of the past few weeks, the thought of going back to my old life—churning out resumes and Toiletmasters brochures—was more than a tad depressing. Playing detective had been fun. A lot of fun.
And soon, I realized, the thrill would be gone.
Chapter Twenty-two
I spent the rest of the morning trying to think up ideas for my promotional mailer, but my mind kept drifting back to weightier matters, like what to wear for my lunch with Cameron.
Finally, I gave up and headed for the bathtub, where I soaked for a good twenty minutes. It felt divine. Whatever jangled nerves I had left over from my parking lot adventure the night before were now thoroughly unjangled.
When my muscles were the consistency of overcooked pasta, I wrenched myself from the tub and toweled off. Then I blow-dried my hair and completed my toilette (or “toilet,” as The Blob used to say). My legs could have used a shave, but I didn’t bother. No one aside from Prozac and my podiatrist ever looked at them anyway.
Freshly de-frizzed and perfumed, I threw on a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and an Ann Taylor blazer. Then I tossed Prozac some gourmet mystery meat and headed off for my lunch date with Cameron.
I wasn’t two steps out my front door when I was accosted by Lance.
“I knocked on your door last night. How come you didn’t answer?”
“I was in the bathroom,” I said, which was technically the truth.
“Oh.” Lance had the grace to look somewhat embarrassed. But not for long.
“So what were you doing with that cop?” he asked, once again the Grand Inquisitor.
“Having passionate sex on the kitchen floor.”
Okay, I didn’t really say that. What I said was: “Just once, can’t you mind your own business?”
Okay, so I didn’t say that, either.
“It’s a long story, Lance. I’ll explain later.”
Then I beat a hasty retreat down the path to my Corolla and threw the car in gear before he could come running after me.
I headed down Olympic Boulevard toward La Brea Avenue, a once seedy but now trendy shopping area.
Cameron’s store was tucked into a small lot between a psychic and a vintage-clothing store.
As I walked inside, a buzzer sounded, the kind that lets the shopkeeper know he’s got a customer.
Cameron was busy waiting on a Malibu Beach-y woman with streaked hair and stylishly wrinkled linen slacks. He looked up and shot me a smile.
I smiled back and started browsing around, trying my best to look like a paying customer. I was impressed by what I saw. The space was spare and uncluttered; just a few choice pieces of furniture on display. Unlike many “antiques” stores that are really just a step or two above thrift shops, Cameron’s place seemed to be stocked with genuine antiques. (Not that I’d know a genuine antique if it came and sat on my lap, but the stuff looked real to me.)
The Malibu babe was looking at a three thousand dollar chest of drawers.
“I’m thinking of converting it into a hamper,” she told Cameron.
A $3,000 hamper! I’m telling you, the people in this town have way too much money.
Ms. Malibu seemed a lot more interested in Cameron than she was in the chest. She kept smiling at him in a cutesy way that made me want to grab her fashionably wrinkled linen slacks and give her a wedgie. On closer inspection, I saw that she’d obviously been under the knife a time or two. I was betting that those taut cheeks of hers were probably once her kneecaps. Cameron was friendly but not flirty. After a while, sensing she wasn’t getting anywhere with him, she said she’d think about the chest and wandered outside to her waiting Mercedes.
“I thought she’d never leave,” Cameron grinned.
“You think she’s a serious buyer?”
“Nah. Just killing time between her morning latte and lunch at Spago.”
“Your place is terrific,” I said. “Such beautiful stuff.”
“Wait’ll you see what I just got in.”
He led me past a curtain to the back of the store, where several pieces of furniture were in various stages of being refinished. He pointed with pride to an intricately carved mahogany bed in the center of the room.
“It’s an antique sleigh bed. Isn’t it a beauty?”
“Gorgeous,” I said, touching the carvings on the headboard.
“But we’re not here to talk antiques,” Cameron said, going over to a small refrigerator in the corner. “We’re here to celebrate.”
He reached into the fridge and took out a bottle of champagne.
I looked at the label and blinked in disbelief.
“Cristal?” I gasped.
For all you K mart shoppers out there, Cristal is a fancy-dancy champagne that costs about $160 a bottle. I happen to know this for a fact because I’ve walked past it many a time at my local wine store on my way to the Rotgut Chardonnay section.
“Nothing’s too good for my favorite detective,” Cameron grinned.
“But that stuff costs a fortune!”
“Don’t worry,” he assured me. “I can afford it. I made a big sale yesterday. For the first time in a long time, I’m actually able to afford champagne with a cork instead of a screw-top cap. If I could only open the darn thing.”
He struggled with the cork until it finally popped out with a whoosh of champagne spray. Quickly, he poured the froth into two coffee mugs.
“Forgive the mugs. I don’t usually drink on the job.”
He held his coffee mug aloft in a toast. “To Jaine Austen, Defender of the Innocent. Crimefighter Extraordinaire. And Patron Saint of Lost Causes.”
The champagne was wonderful. Like velvet with bubbles. I tried not to gulp it down like 7UP.
“I’m proud of you, kiddo,” Cameron said. “You stuck by Howard when lesser souls were ready to bail. Because of you, the real murderer will be brought to justice.”
I smiled uneasily.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Actually, Cameron, I’m not sure that Andy Bruckner is the murderer.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No. I’m not kidding. I don’t think he did it.”
“You know what your problem is? You can’t take Yes for a
n answer.”
“But—”
“Andy Bruckner is a slime. He was cheating on his wife. He had his assistant out terrorizing you. What makes you think he wouldn’t kill somebody?”
“That’s just it. He’s the kind of guy who has someone else do his dirty work. I don’t think he’d actually kill someone himself.”
“C’mon. He’s a Hollywood agent. Those guys make the Mafia look like choirboys.”
“But—”
“No more buts. I mean it. This is a celebration, and that’s what we’re going to do. Celebrate.”
And then Cameron did the most amazing thing.
He put down his mug and kissed me. For real. On the lips. Mouth open. A little tongue. A soft, sweet, gentle kiss that aroused the hell out of me.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for the longest time,” he said when we finally broke apart.
“You have?” I was beyond stunned. “I didn’t think you were interested in me that way.”
“And I didn’t think you were interested in me.”
“But I was,” I confessed.
“Remember that night when I drove you home from your class, and you bent over to the backseat to get your books? It was all I could do to keep my hands off you. You’ve got one terrific tush, you know that?”
Then he started kissing me again, and before I knew it, we were rolling around on that antique sleigh bed like two crazed teenagers.
No doubt about it. I had died and gone to heaven.
Then suddenly we heard the front door buzz open.
“Damn,” Cameron hissed. “A customer.”
He got up from the bed and peeked out from behind the curtain.
“It’s a decorator,” he whispered to me, “a really important client.”
“Hi, Marilyn,” he called out, tucking his shirt back in his slacks. “Be with you in a minute.”
“Cameron, honey,” a raspy cigarette voice called back. “Great news. I’m decorating a house in Bel Air. Six thousand square feet. From scratch. Money no object.”
He turned to me and shrugged helplessly.
“That’s okay,” I smiled, wanting to hurl that damn decorator off a cliff.
“This could take a while. Why don’t you come to my place tonight, and we’ll take up where we left off?”
I nodded, still numb with joy. But then I remembered.
“I can’t. I’ve got my Seniors Class tonight.”
“Then stop by after class.”
He took me in his arms and kissed me again, our bodies touching in all the right places.
“To be continued,” he whispered.
He let me out the back door of his shop, and I stumbled out into the alley, like a drunk on a bender. There was only one thing I knew for certain:
I was definitely going to have to shave my legs.
I made my way back to my Corolla, wondering if it was humanly possible to lose fifteen pounds in eight hours. (What this country needs is a chain of Same-Day Liposuction Centers.) Unable to come up with a miracle weight-loss plan, I decided to buy myself a new bra and panties. If my body couldn’t be fab, at least my underwear would.
I drove over to Bloomingdale’s in Century City and headed upstairs to the lingerie department. I waded through racks of panties that seemed to come in three sizes: Tiny, Tinier, and I’ve-Seen-More-Cotton-on-the-Top-of-an-Aspirin-Bottle.
Finally, hidden in a corner, I found the Realistic Sizes and picked up a sexy black-lace bra-and-panty set. I tried them on in the dressing room, hoping there were no jaded security guards watching me on a hidden camera and sniggering at my cellulite. I surveyed myself in the three-way mirror. If I sucked in my gut and squinted my eyes, I actually looked pretty good.
Given the fact that I had absolutely no new business coming in, I couldn’t afford to buy anything else. Which is why I immediately stopped off at Ann Taylor and bought myself a new blazer and silk blouse. And then, feeling guilty about having spent so much, I economized by not buying a $250 pair of shoes at Joan & David, and buying a $60 bottle of citrusy Calvin Klein cologne instead.
Telling myself this crazy spending spree simply had to stop, I drove over to a hair salon in Brentwood and got an $80 haircut, a $20 pedicure, and a $30 parking ticket. (I forgot to put money in the meter.)
But it was worth it. I walked out of that salon with a headful of smooth, glossy Maria Shriver hair.
Finally I managed to make it home without spending any more money. Carefully wrapping my hair in a towel, I stepped in the shower and sudsed myself with a loofah till my skin was glowing. Then I shaved my legs, plucked my eyebrows, and waxed my bikini zone. It was a regular Exfoliation Festival. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do about my cellulite except hope that Cameron liked to make love in the dark.
Yes, folks, I’d definitely decided to go to bed with the man. I’d had it with my monastic existence. Cameron had me tingling in places I didn’t know could tingle, and I was ready to swing from some chandeliers.
I slipped into my new duds, spritzed myself in a cloud of my new cologne, and presented myself to Prozac for inspection.
“How do I look?” I asked, pirouetting. She gazed up from where she was napping on the sofa, and yawned. That’s what I get for asking fashion advice from someone who has been known to walk around with dried pieces of you-know-what on her fanny.
I scooped her up in my arms and hugged her.
“Wish me luck, Pro.”
She sniffed at my perfume and nuzzled her furry head under my chin.
“If I wind up loving him half as much as I love you,” I whispered into her pink ear, “I’ll be a mighty lucky lady.”
Chapter Twenty-three
He looked me up and down and whistled. “Hubba, hubba,” he said, lust in his eyes.
Unfortunately, the “he” in question wasn’t Cameron, but Mr. Goldman. He grinned at me slyly as I walked into my Seniors Writing Class at the Shalom Retirement Home.
“Got a hot date tonight?”
It was all I could do to keep from leaping on the table and shouting, “Yes! Yes! Yes! With a man who turns my thighs to Jell-O!”
Instead I managed to smile demurely and say: “As a matter of fact, Mr. Goldman, I do happen to have a date tonight.”
“With the gay guy?”
“He’s not gay,” I muttered through clenched teeth.
“Yeah. Right. Just like Liberace wasn’t gay.”
Mrs. Pechter shook her head in annoyance. “Don’t mind him, Ms. Austen. Everyone knows he’s impossible.” Then she turned to Mr. Goldman and hissed, “Put a sock in it, Abe.”
My sentiments, exactly.
“You look pretty as a picture,” she said, turning back to me. The other ladies cooed in agreement.
I blushed as I took my seat at the head of the table.
“Okay, who wants to read first?”
Down at the end of the table, Mrs. Vincenzo raised her hand.
“You’re on, Mrs. V.”
Bette Vincenzo stood up, as she always did to read her essay, holding her slim body erect, her long hair flowing loose down her back.
“ ‘My Fourth Husband,’ by Bette Vincenzo,” she began.
I didn’t hear a single syllable of Mrs. Vincenzo’s fourth attempt at matrimony. Try as I might to pay attention, my thoughts kept drifting back to Cameron. Mr. Goldman was wrong, wrong, wrong. Cameron wasn’t gay. I’d felt hard evidence to the contrary rolling around with him on the antique sleigh bed. He liked women, that was for sure. And miraculously enough, he liked me! I still couldn’t get over it. Cameron Bannick, he of the crinkly blue eyes and lissome body, actually liked me, Jaine Austen, she of the wiry brown hair and generous thighs.
I saw Mrs. Vincenzo’s lips moving, but the words coming out of her mouth faded into the background, like Muzak in an elevator. I got out my looseleaf binder and turned to an empty page. I picked up my pen and started writing, as if making notes on her essay.
But I wasn’t making notes. I was
regressing shamelessly back to my high school days, covering the page with doodles. Cameron & Jaine. Mrs. Cameron Bannick. J.A. loves C.B. Any minute now, I expected to hear my old high school principal’s voice on a P.A. system, announcing that tickets were still available for the spring prom.
I drew valentines and daisies and kittens with big eyes. At one point, I looked up and saw Mr. Goldman giving me a fishy stare, as if he knew exactly what I was doing. But I ignored him and kept on doodling until I filled the page. I gazed at my handiwork proudly, thinking that one of these days I really should enroll in an art class.
I doodled my way through Mrs. Ratner’s grandchildren and Mrs. Pechter’s trip to Israel. I’d filled two pages with my lovestruck scribbles, and turned the page to start on a fresh piece of paper when I saw it: a parking ticket. Wedged between two pages.
At first I thought it was the parking ticket I’d gotten that afternoon in Brentwood. But then I saw that it wasn’t issued to a Corolla, but to a Jeep. Cameron’s Jeep. I recognized the license plate number.
I remembered the night Cameron came to class with me and drove me home in his Jeep, the night I bent over and picked up my looseleaf from his messy backseat, ashamed of my ample tush. Little did I realize that far from being turned off by my derriere, Cameron had actually lusted after it.
In the process of gathering my scattered papers, I must’ve shoved the parking ticket inside my looseleaf by mistake. I’d have to give it to Cameron right away. The deadline for paying the ticket had probably come and gone. I checked to see the date the ticket had been written. February Fourteenth. Valentine’s Day. But that couldn’t be. That was the night of Stacy’s murder. Cameron was in San Francisco then. And this ticket was issued in Los Angeles. In Westwood. On Bentley Avenue.
The scene of the crime.
It didn’t make sense. Had Cameron been in town that night? Was he somehow involved in Stacy’s murder?
Impossible, I told myself. The owner of the bed & breakfast in San Francisco said he’d been at her restaurant the night of the murder. Was it possible that she was covering up to protect Cameron? Now that I thought about it, I had no actual proof that he was with her that night.
