Hollywood Forbidden: A Hollywood Alphabet Series Thriller

by M. Z. Kelly

  “The lieutenant is inside,” one of the cops said. “I heard the vic is some kind of TV personality. Name’s Jiggy Biggs.”

  I thanked him for the information, thinking I’d heard the name he’d referenced somewhere before but couldn’t place it. The house was one of those massive Spanish estates set on a hillside bluff with courtyards, a security fence, lots of palm trees and ferns. It wasn’t too far from a home that I knew from the publicity the mansion received belonged to Ben Affleck.

  Bernie and I stopped at the front door where I showed my credentials to another uniform and entered a great room with high ceilings that looked out on an infinity pool. I saw there was some temporary lighting set up near the pool and guessed that was where the victim’s body had been found. I walked across the polished oak floors to the dining room where I found Lieutenant Edna with a man wearing what looked like an expensive Italian suit.

  “Bout time you got here,” Edna growled. “We’ve got a shitload of people waiting to be interviewed, including your goofball friends.”

  “Natalie and Mo?” I don’t know why I asked. My friends were partners in a private investigation firm they called Sistah Snoop. I had to admit they epitomized goofiness, along with a few other qualities that I wasn’t sure language had been invented to describe.

  Natalie was tall, blonde, and beautiful with a vocabulary that was contrary to the usual British reserve and full of her own creative brand of expletives. Mo was her opposite; big, black, and bad, as in willing to physically take care of any trouble that came their way and trouble almost always seemed to find them.

  “Your friends are downstairs, along with their realtor buddy,” the man in the expensive suit said. “I’m Harvey Gluck.” He held out a hand that looked like it had a recent manicure, the nails shiny with a coat of clear polish.

  “Your new partner,” Edna said, motioning to Gluck. “And just so you know he’s nothing like Charlie.”

  Charlie Winkler was my former partner who had recently retired. He was about fifty pounds overweight, a food addict, and in poor health.

  My new partner looked to be in his mid-forties, about five seven. His brown hair had artificial highlights and was slicked back from a forehead that was remarkably smooth. His skin was a unnatural brown tone, probably produced by spending time in one of those tanning salons. While I had green eyes, my new partner’s eyes were a translucent green color, maybe enhanced by contacts. To make matters worse, he smelled like he’d overdosed on an expensive aftershave.

  “Worked Chicago PD for a few years before moving to Cali and working the Wilshire Division,” Gluck explained to me in a voice that seemed artificially deep. I wondered if there was anything real about my new partner. “Just worked the streets and did some time with vice. This is my first gig in homicide.”

  I nodded and turned back to Edna as Bernie settled in a corner of the room. “I understand our victim is a TV personality?”

  “Jiggy was on the show Hollywood Gold,” Gluck said, answering for the lieutenant in a voice that had pitched a little higher with excitement.

  “Never heard of him or the show.”

  Edna answered before Gluck could open his mouth again. “Jiggy Biggs is the vic. The show’s one of those idiotic real estate dramas where the hot shot agents all try to outdo one another by selling the biggest, most expensive places in town. Bunch of fucking bullshit if you ask me.”

  Our lieutenant had the habit of using only one adjective when he talked and it began with the letter F.

  “He was also a rapper,” Gluck added. “Topped the hip hop charts with some songs a few years back. His biggest hit was, G-B-O-S-C.”

  “What?”

  “Gonna Bust Out Some Crazy.” My new partner’s eyes narrowed on me. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard it?”

  I now made the connection, having heard the song a few times. In fact, I thought it might even be on my iPod. I ignored his question and turned back to the lieutenant. “Anything else we should know before we begin processing the scene?”

  “Coroner’s on the way. The press is starting to call. All I need is the fucking paparazzi showing up and causing a seen. Let’s fucking move on this.”

  Bernie came up from his nap and we moved back through the great room to where some hand carved oval doors opened to the backyard with a swimming pool. The pool’s infinity edge disappeared against the downtown Hollywood skyline, serving as the perfect backdrop. It made me think about my own humble living arrangements.

  Natalie, Mo, and I had been renting a room in the Mount Olympus neighborhood of Hollywood for the past several months from Nana Hannah our elderly landlord. Mo once described Nana as eighty pounds of crazy, thanks to a sexual rejuvenation drug that had boosted her sex drive. Our other roommate was Prissy, Nana’s transsexual great grandson. He owned a bondage store on Melrose called Voodoo Mama. Prissy, didn’t plan to move with us, explaining that he was going to stay in his store for a few weeks until he could find other living arrangements.

  I was thinking about the promise I’d made to my half-sister Lindsay to move in with us when my new partner interrupted my thoughts. “Just so you know, I’m going to need a little time to adjust to my new duties.”

  We were approaching the pool and adjacent hot tub where our victim was located. “I’m not sure what you mean?”

  “Like I said, I’ve never worked homicide. I have this thing…”

  I saw that his eyes were fixed on the victim who was floating in water that had turned red from the blood. It looked like he’d been shot in the head.”

  “I’m sorry,” Harvey Gluck said, bending over and vomiting. It wasn’t bad enough that my new partner had a weak stomach. He was also a bad aim. When he turned away from the body, he turned in my direction, and barfed all over my best pair of Jimmy Choo flats.

  Copyright © 2014 by MZ Kelly

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