by Laura Levine
And he did.
Epilogue
Remind me never to badmouth Lance again. It turns out that darling man and thoughtful neighbor had his ear glued to my wall, as usual, and as soon as he realized I was in trouble, he called the police. If it hadn’t been for him, at this very moment I’d be plot mates with Stacy Lawrence at The Vale of Peace.
As a gesture of gratitude, I took him to dinner at a local trattoria where we spent a good part of the evening listening to the couple in the next booth breaking up. This eavesdropping thing can be quite addicting, once you get the hang of it.
Anyhow, Lance isn’t nearly as bad as I thought. He actually likes his job selling shoes at Neiman Marcus, and has a whole repertoire of shoe salesman jokes. Like the one about the bimbo customer who asks, “What have you got to go with a short, fat millionaire?” (I never said they were funny.)
After a few glasses of chianti, Lance said he could get me an employee discount on Neiman Marcus shoes. So instead of a quatrillion dollars for a pair of Manolo Blahniks, I’d only be paying half a quatrillion. But it was sweet of him to offer.
Naturally, they arrested Cameron and charged him with all sorts of unpleasant things. Like murder, attempted murder, and assault with a deadly ThighMaster.
And believe it or not, Detective Rea was kind enough to give me credit for solving the case. Ever since he saved my life, he’s been surprisingly sweet. He actually apologized for not having taken me seriously, and he’s called me several times just to make sure I’m okay.
Anyhow, he sang my praises to the news media, and they ran a story about me in the Los Angeles Times. With my picture and everything. True, it was right next to an ad for vericose vein removal. But lots of people read it.
The story mentioned that I was a freelance writer, and my phone has been ringing off the hook with job offers. In fact, just yesterday I was asked to write a brochure for a national plumbing corporation. (I’m not at liberty to divulge their name; let’s just say it rhymes with Toto Tooter.) So I guess you could say I’m back in the toilet again.
I have to confess I miss being a detective. Yes, I know it was dangerous. And I know I almost got mowed down by a BMW. And gunned down by a psychopath. But it was exciting. My blood was rushing, my corpuscles were puscling.
Which is why I’ve signed up for a course at the Learning Annex. How To Be a Private Eye. Kandi’s coming with me. Not to meet men. I’m happy to say she’s stuck by her resolution to give up the whole manhunting thing. No, she’s coming to get story ideas for a new show she’s working on, a spin-off of Beanie & The Cockroach called Maggot, P.I.
Who knows? I just might wind up making a career change and become a detective. One of the growing breed of PI’s with PMS.
In fact, I’ve already been working on an idea for an ad in the Yellow Pages. What do you think?
Jaine Austen, Discreet Inquiries
Work Done with Pride, not Prejudice
I know. It needs work.
As for men, my encounter with Cameron has set me back light-years in the Meaningful Relationship department. After The Blob, I thought I’d never love again. After Cameron, I know I never will. It’s over, as far as men are concerned. I’m happy to live out my life single, one of those crazy old ladies whose Significant Other is her cat.
So that about wraps it up. Things have pretty much gone back to normal. Mr. Goldman is still irritating the kapok out of everyone at the Shalom Retirement Home. Andy Bruckner is still doing lunch at Spago—and doing Jasmine in the backseat of his BMW. Prozac is still eating like a longshoreman. And the last I heard, Howard was dating a waitress at the House of Wonton.
Oh, wait a minute. There’s the phone. I’ll be right back.
You’ll never guess who that was. Detective Rea. How’s this for crazy? He wanted to know if I was free for dinner tonight.
He’s got to be kidding, right? Me, go out with a person of the masculine persuasion? After what I’ve just been through? Ridiculous. Impossible. Out of the question.
He’s picking me up at eight.
Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of
Laura Levine’s
LAST WRITES
now on sale!
Chapter One
I should’ve known there was trouble ahead when I saw the sign over the studio gate:
MIRACLE STUDIOS
“If It’s a Good Picture, It’s a Miracle”
Miracle Studios, for those of you lucky enough never to have been there, is a sorry collection of soundstages in the scuzziest section of Hollywood, a part of town where the hookers outnumber the parking meters two to one.
But when I drove onto the Miracle lot that hazy Monday morning, I was a happy camper. I, Jaine Austen, was about to become a bona fide Hollywood Sitcom Writer. After years of toiling at my computer as a freelance writer, churning out brochures and resumes and personals ads, I was about to strike it rich in show biz. No longer would I have to come up with fictional resumes for college grads with room-temperature IQs. Or slogans for my biggest client, Toiletmasters Plumbers (In a Rush to Flush? Call Toiletmasters).
I owed my good fortune to my best friend, Kandi Tobolowski. Six weeks earlier, she’d called me with the news:
“Guess what,” she said. “I’ve kissed the cockroach good-bye!”
The cockroach to whom she was referring was the star insect of a Saturday morning cartoon show, Beanie & The Cockroach, a heartwarming saga of a chef named Beanie and his pet cockroach, Fred. Kandi had been a staff writer on Beanie for more years than she cared to admit. Like most animation writers, she’d long dreamed of landing a job in the far more prestigious world of live-action television.
And that day had finally arrived. Her agent had taken enough time off from lunch at Spago to line up a job for her on a comedy called Muffy ’n Me—a Saturday morning syndicated show about a buxom teenage girl who gets hit on the head with a volleyball and develops magical powers.
As the Miracle bigwigs pitched it to the network, “It’s Bewitched with tits.”
Okay, so it wasn’t going to win any Emmys. But it was a big step up from the cockroach, and Kandi was thrilled. So was I, two weeks later, when she told me she’d managed to get me a script assignment on the show.
At first, I was terrified. After all, I wasn’t much of a comedy writer. But then Muffy ’n Me wasn’t much of a comedy. So, after chaining myself to my computer, armed with only my wits and a copy of Henny Youngman’s Giant Book of One-Liners, I managed to complete my comedic masterpiece, “Cinderella Muffy.” It’s all about what happens when Muffy magically changes her ratty bathrobe into a glam prom dress, only to have the spell wear off in the middle of the prom, leaving her stranded on the dance floor, doing the Funky Chicken in her jammies.
I know, it sounds ghastly to someone of your refined tastes. But remember, we’re talking Hollywood here, the town that brought you My Mother the Car and The Gong Show. The head writers loved it! Okay, so maybe they didn’t love it. But they liked it. Enough to invite me to be a “guest writer” on the show for a week. And here’s the truly wonderful part. If they liked working with me, they were going to offer me a staff job! And if I did well on Muffy, it would be only a matter of time before I made the leap from syndication to prime time. Do you know how much prime-time sitcom writers make? Well, neither do I. But I hear it’s scads. Truckloads of really big bucks. Think Bill Gates. Think Donald Trump. Think plumbers on overtime!
Ever since I’d handed in my script, I’d had visions of Seinfeldian contracts dancing in my head. I’d already mentally bought my beach house in Malibu, complete with his and hers Jaguars for me and my husband. Not that I had a husband, but I was sure I’d pick one up along the way.
All of which explains why I was in a jolly mood that morning as I drove past the wino sunning himself at the studio gates and onto the Miracle lot. I pulled up in front of the guard booth, where an ancient man with rheumy eyes and the unlikely name of Skippy asked me where I was headed.
“Muffy ’n Me!” I grinned.
Was it my imagination or did I see a trace of pity in those rheumy old eyes?
“Park over there,” he said, waving to a tiny spot next to the commissary dumpster.
I parked my trusty Corolla in the shadow of the dumpster and stepped out onto the lot, trying to ignore the smell of rotting garbage. Swinging my brand-new attaché case, I headed over to the office I was to share with Kandi, eager to start on this exciting new chapter of my life. Somehow it still didn’t seem real. I had to keep reminding myself that I actually had a job at Miracle Studios.
Of course, I didn’t know it at the time, but the real miracle was that I’d live to tell about it.
Love is in the air as freelance writer Jaine Austen begins a new job at the Dates of Joy matchmaking service—but between juggling her boss’s demands, deflecting the advances of an eccentric suitor, and tracking down a calculating killer, she hardly has time to think about romance . . .
When Jaine lands a job writing web copy and brochures for matchmaker Joy Amoroso, she’s excited for a chance to help the lovelorn just in time for Valentine’s Day—until she realizes what “Dates of Joy” is really all about. Joy is a ruthless taskmaster who screams at her employees for the smallest infractions, pads her website with pictures of professional models posing as clients, and offers up convincing but empty promises of love in exchange for inordinate sums of money. And woe betide anyone who lays a finger on her heavily guarded stash of chocolates.
So it’s no surprise when the chiseling cupid turns up dead at a Valentine’s Day mixer. Aghast to find herself on the cops’ suspect list, Jaine sets out to track down the killer. Who could it be? Joy’s harried assistants, whose lives she made a living hell? Her younger lover? The handsome hunk of a client with a secret in his past? Or the furious Beverly Hills widow who forked over the last of her savings for a Prince Charming who never materialized?
Joy left behind a slew of enemies struck by her deviant arrows, so finding the culprit may prove harder than spotting that elusive caramel praline in a box of chocolates—and Jaine will have to flirt with danger to get to the truth . . .
Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of
the latest Jaine Austen mystery
KILLING CUPID
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Chapter 1
There it was, waiting for me on my bedspread. An early Valentine’s gift from my Significant Other.
Gingerly I picked it up.
“A hairball. How very thoughtful.”
My cat, Prozac, looked up from where she was lolling on my pillow, beaming with pride.
I left another one for you in your slippers.
At this stage of my life, I was used to crappy Valentine’s gifts. Mainly from my ex-husband, The Blob. I remember the Valentine’s Day he came sauntering through the door with a slightly wilted bouquet of roses.
“For you, pickleface,” he said.
He liked to call me pickleface. One of the many reasons we are no longer married.
The Blob never brought me gifts, not unless you consider a complimentary toothpick from Hop Li’s Chinese Restaurant a gift. So my heart actually started to melt just a tad. Seeing a small envelope sticking out from the bouquet, I opened it eagerly, only to read the words:
Rest in peace, Esther.
With heartfelt sympathy, the
Rosenkrantzes.
Nothing says Happy Valentine’s Day like used funeral flowers.
So like I say, I was used to dreadful Valentine’s gifts. But none as dreadful as the one I was about to get that day when Joy Amoroso called.
I was stretched out on my sofa, scraping Prozac’s hairball out from my slipper, when the phone rang.
“Jane Eyre?” asked a woman with a decidedly phony British accent.
“Austen,” I corrected her. “Jaine Austen.”
“Yes, right. Whatever. This is Joy Amoroso calling. You’ve heard of me, of course.”
Something in her tone of voice told me to answer in the affirmative.
“Um, sure,” I lied.
“I need someone to write advertising copy, and Marvin Cooper gave me your name.”
Marvin Cooper, aka Marvelous Marv, The Mattress King, was one of my biggest clients. What a sweetie, I thought, to have recommended me for a job. If I’d only known what hell was in store for me, I would have smothered him with one of his Comfort Cloud pillows. But at that moment, I was thrilled at the prospect of a paycheck winging its way toward my anemic checking account.
“I assume you know all about my business,” the phony Brit was saying.
“Of course,” I lied again.
“Come to my offices tomorrow at ten a.m., and I’ll decide if you’re good enough to work for me.”
What nerve! I felt like telling her to take her silly job and shove it. She may not have realized it, but she happened to be talking to the woman who won the Golden Plunger Award from the Los Angeles Plumbers Association for the immortal slogan In a Rush to Flush? Call Toiletmasters!
Yes, I would have dearly liked to flip her a verbal finger, but “Okay, sure,” were the lily-livered words I actually uttered.
“Good. See you tomorrow. Ten a.m. sharp.”
And before even giving me her address, she’d hung up.
Who on earth was this presumptuous woman?
I was just about to head over to my computer to check her out online when there was a knock on my door.
I opened it to find my neighbor, Lance Venable.
A normally bubbly fellow with bright blue eyes and a headful of tight blond curls, Lance looked distinctly bubble-free as he trudged into my apartment.
“Oh, Jaine!” he sighed, summoning his inner Sarah Bernhardt, “I don’t think I can face another Valentine’s Day without a date.” With that, he plopped down on my sofa, his arm slung dramatically across his forehead, very Marcel Proust Yearning for a Madeleine.
“Cheer up, Lance. We’ll stay home, order a pizza, and watch Fatal Attraction like we always do.”
“No, I’m afraid not even the thought of Glenn Close with a butcher knife is going to cheer me up this year. In fact, I was thinking of going to a weekend retreat at a monastery.”
“A monastery? But you’re not even Catholic.”
“That’s not the point. I need to meditate, to contemplate, to see how I look in one of those cowl neck robes. And besides, who knows? I just might meet somebody.”
“Lance, you can’t go to a monastery to pick up guys! They’re celibate.”
“So? I like a challenge.”
The scary thing is, he wasn’t kidding.
“But enough about my pathetic life. What’s going on in your pathetic life?”
“For your information,” I said, scraping the last of Prozac’s hairball from my slipper, “my life does not happen to be the least bit pathetic. “But now that you asked, the most maddening thing just happened. I got a phone call from a mystery woman named Joy Amoroso, telling me to come in for a job interview without even giving me her address or the name of her company.”
“Joy Amoroso!” Lance’s eyes lit up. “I know all about her. She owns Dates of Joy, Beverly Hills’s premier matchmaking service!”
He sprang up from the sofa, his lethargy a thing of the past.
“Be right back!” he cried, dashing out the door. Seconds later he was back, as promised, waving a glossy news sheet.
“The Beverly Hills Social Pictorial,” he said, leafing through it. “I subscribe to keep track of my customers.”
The customers to whom Lance referred were the wealthy dames who shopped at Neiman Marcus’s shoe department, where Lance toils as a salesman, fondling billion-dollar bunions for a living.
“Aha!” he cried, finding the page he’d been searching for. “Here she is.”
He handed me the magazine, pointing to an ad for the Dates of Joy matchmaking service.
There in the middle of the ad was Joy Amoroso, an attractive blo
nde sitting behind a desk, a statue of Cupid slinging his arrow in the background. At least, I assumed Joy was attractive. The picture itself was extremely hazy, as if it had been shot through a lens liberally lathered with Vaseline.
“When you get the job,” Lance was saying, “you’ve got to promise you’ll get me a date.”
“I thought you were going to a monastery.”
“A monastery? Why on earth would I go to a monastery when I could be going on a Date of Joy? I hear she’s got a client list filled with gazillionaires.”
“Don’t get your hopes up. I haven’t got the job yet.”
“Oh, but you will.”
And as very bad luck would have it, he was right.
Little did I know it then, but my Valentine’s Day was about to go from Fatal Attraction to just plain fatal.
Chapter 2
I found Beverly Hills’s premier matchmaker several miles outside Beverly Hills, in the perfectly pleasant but distinctly less prestigious town of Mar Vista.
Housed in a three-story stucco office building between Ellman’s Upholsterers and Jerry’s Discount Flowers, Dates of Joy was a far cry from the swellegant mecca of matchmaking I’d imagined.
Nabbing a spot in front of Jerry’s Discount Flowers, I made my way past buckets of drooping carnations into Joy’s office building. There I stepped onto a musty elevator, where some industrious hoodlums had etched the walls with an impressive display of male genitalia.
I got off at the second floor and found Joy’s office at the end of a dank hallway. In contrast to the oatmeal walls surrounding it, Joy’s door was painted a bilious Pepto-Bismol pink, the words DATES OF JOY etched in flowery calligraphy.
I headed inside to find the walls painted the same Pepto-Bismol pink and lined with large framed blowups of happy couples gazing at each other, gooey-eyed with love.
