Hollywood Dirty: A Hollywood Alphabet Series Thriller

by M. Z. Kelly

  ***

  More by this author:

  The Hollywood Alphabet Thriller Series, with Detective Kate Sexton:

  •Hollywood Assassin

  •Hollywood Blood

  •Hollywood Crazy

  •Hollywood Enemy (coming soon)

  Buy Hollywood Assassin by MZ Kelly.

  Visit MZ's Website

  Now an excerpt from

  HOLLYWOOD ENEMY

  MZ Kelly

  CHAPTER ONE

  “We have exactly two minutes and forty-seven seconds before the doors open,” Jack said. He had that playful, amused look that always takes my breath away. He stripped off his shirt and began working on his shoes.

  I tossed a pair of Dolce Vita pumps in the corner of the glass elevator and slipped out of my black dress. “So, I guess if we’re too quick it would be considered premature evacuation.”

  Jack’s a few years older than me, in his mid-thirties, with a firm muscular body. His dark smoky eyes hinted at something divine. The grin broadened as his pants came off and I saw the bulge in his boxers. “Just pray we’re not too slow,” he said. “I heard the governor, half the big-wigs in the state, not to mention the chief of police and his minions of idiots are downstairs for the grand opening.”

  I was naked now and took a second to glance through the glass pane of the elevator. We were still a few hundred feet above the grand ballroom of Hotel Ooh La La, an opulent marble encased skyscraper with gold leaf trim and crystal chandeliers. The glass was mirrored on the outside, so I knew no one in the lavish hotel would be able to see us— unless Jack didn’t work fast enough.

  There were at least a thousand people on the ground floor of the hotel, including a couple of my roommates, their boyfriends, my canine partner, Bernie, and my other, less hairy, partner with the police department, Charlie Winkler, along with a gaggle of media personalities covering the event. I was unable to suppress an imaginary scene of the TV cameras and crowd taking everything in as Jack and I lay spread eagle on the floor of the elevator when the doors opened.

  The thought sparked my anxiety. “I just hope you can get it…” I turned back and saw that wasn’t going to be a problem. “Oh…”

  A few seconds later, the, “Oh,” became, “Oh, yes…oh my God…,” followed by, “Yes, yes…yes,” as Jack and I did our best to join Club Ooh La-La. It was an exclusive fellowship of those who claimed to have made history by doing the dirty deed in one of the hotel chain’s notoriously slow glass elevators before descending from the top floor to possible eternal, abject humiliation if they weren’t quick enough.

  Maybe I should explain how I came to be naked, having sex in an elevator, and descending to either destiny or ignominy. For that, you’re going to need a little history.

  My name is Kate Sexton. I’m a detective assigned to LAPD’s Robbery Homicide Division. My elevator co-pilot was Jack Bautista, another detective. We were on again, after an on and off relationship, that was now going full speed ahead after a brief break-up.

  We’d been invited to the grand opening of Hotel Ooh La La in downtown Hollywood after my success in solving the murder of an Olympic athlete three months earlier. To be honest, most of the credit for the “collar” should have gone to my hairy canine partner, Bernie, who helped bring the bad guy down. My roommates Natalie and Mo had tagged along and were downstairs because…well, just because they always seem to find a way to insert themselves into my life, no matter what the circumstances.

  The elevator challenge was the result of a bet I’d made with Natalie’s boyfriend, Tex. The twenty-something brainiac had told me that it was statistically and biologically impossible to engage in what he termed, elevator-coitus, complete the deed, and dress again in the time allotted for the descent. Natalie’s nerdy boyfriend had been so sure of his claim, that he told me he would donate $10,000 of his recent inheritance to my favorite charity if Jack and I could pull off the feat.

  Never one to take a challenge lightly, I accepted, partly because I desperately wanted the 10K to help out a foundation for at-risk kids in Hollywood. If I failed the challenge, I’d agreed to be on some idiotic fund-raising poster for one of Tex’s nerdy causes.

  My, “Oh,” came again but this time it wasn’t the, “Oh yes,” I’d been screaming a moment earlier. This was a bigger “O,” as in, “Sweet jeeze…yes…yes…yes…Ooh La La!”

  As we took a few moments to recover, Jack looked into my eyes and said, “Was it good for you?”

  I caught my breath. “It will be just as soon as you get off me, we get our clothes on, and we act like nothing ever happened.”

  His lips turned up. “Sounds like high school to me.”

  We wriggled into our clothes as the seconds ticked down. The elevator was dropping like a rock while we were both still on the floor, struggling with our shoes. I glanced out the windows and saw we were now descending into the ballroom. Our ride seemed to pick up speed as we swept past the upper balcony and exotic crystal chandeliers. I grew frantic. We were running out of time.

  Jack checked his watch, zipped up. I saw that his shirt was still untucked as he said, “Five seconds ‘til the doors open.”

  I struggled to my feet, realizing the strap on my dress had broken and I was still unzipped. I had one shoe still off and screamed, “There’s no time left. We’re going to be caught…”

  I looked up just in time to see the elevator doors open wide. Maybe it was my imagination, but the governor, the chief of police, and everyone else in the ballroom seemed to turn to us at the same time. An instant later the elevator’s glass windows above us shattered.

  Someone was shooting at us!

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Get down,” I yelled. I wasn’t sure if I was yelling at Jack or the crowd of onlookers gathered outside the elevator. The lights in the ballroom suddenly dimmed. Screams split the air as the guests ran for cover. Every cop in the arena had his gun out. There was a surge of bodies rushing toward the exits, a growing panic in the room as the lights went out. I heard someone shout, “Clear the area, NOW!”

  I crawled forward, gun in hand, and came out of the elevator with Jack at my side as the hotel’s dim emergency lights came up. I estimated the shooting had lasted no more than thirty seconds before it stopped. By some miracle, it looked like no one had been injured.

  Jack motioned with his gun toward the rooms surrounding the enormous ballroom. “The shots came from upstairs.”

  I got to my feet, went over, and found my friend Natalie pushing her boyfriend, Tex, off her and getting up off the floor. I quickly ushered them to an alcove off the main room where we had cover from the shooter. The chief of police and his aides scrambled past us, rushing the governor out of the ballroom.

  “I think I ripped me bloody dress,” Natalie said, in an English accent that’s almost always more explicit than proper. “I find the ugly wanker that shot at us and I’m gonna blow is fuzznuts off.” Even in the chaos my gorgeous friend looked stunning in her sleeveless black mesh Vera Wang dress.

  Her boyfriend, Tex, tried to smooth the wrinkles out of a baggy suit that looked like something handed down from his father, or maybe even his grandfather. “I don’t believe you accomplished your task.” He pointed at my outfit, “Your dress is ripped and you’re missing a shoe.” I glanced down, realizing I must have left the shoe behind in the elevator. Then I remembered, not only was my dress ripped, it was still unzipped. I found the zipper and said, “It must have happened during the shooting.”

  Tex was taking exception to my excuse as Mo, Natalie’s partner in a private detective business they call Sistah Snoop, came over to us with her three hundred pound boyfriend, Larry. I was looking at a combined total of about five hundred pounds of angry ex-pimp and wrestler, one in gold spandex and the other in one of those expensive suits that only professional athletes wear.

  Mo was big and black and sometimes a little scary. She placed her hands on her wide hips, looked at me, and cranked her head toward Jack. �
�You finally get up the nerve to do the nasty dance with Rock Balboa here and somebody tries to blow up your vagina. Your life is one big shit storm, Kate.”

  Even though Mo and Natalie are what I call tact-challenged, there was some truth to what she’d said, thanks to a series of relationship problems I’d had. Behind her I now saw that most of the civilian population had left the ballroom. Only cops remained, including LAPD’s chief, Bradley East, who had returned from his save the governor mission.

  “You all need to wait on the street until we secure the scene,” I said, to my friends. “The shooter could still be active and in the building. No one is safe.”

  After a round of protests, my friends reluctantly trudged off. I then realized LAPD’s chief of police had come over to my side. “You want to explain what’s going on here,” the chief demanded.

  Chief East was about six-four, solid as a rock, and ugly as a goat. My superior had been given the nickname, The Beast, thanks to a placard at his recent swearing-in ceremony that read, B East. I had little patience for the department’s brass, and The Beast in particular.

  I leaned forward, stretching my five-nine frame until I was inches from his face. “I think it’s pretty obvious what’s going on. Someone was shooting from the upper floors and tried to kill us.”

  “I mean, in the elevator, Detective.” He glanced over at Jack who had one of his trademark go to hell smirks that he reserved for the department’s command staff. “You and Bautista seemed…disheveled, preoccupied with other activities.”

  Maybe The Beast had heard rumors about our elevator challenge, but I wasn’t giving anything up. “We were just late, got stuck in traffic.”

  The Beast tapped a foot, or maybe a cloven hoof. “Are you trying to tell me that you arrived by helicopter, rode down in the elevator?”

  I ignored him as Charlie Winkler, my overweight partner, came over to us with Bernie. My big dog is a mixed breed of attitude, lust, and mischief. He’s the first canine ever assigned to the department’s Robbery Homicide Division. He’s also a horny hairball, who recently sired a couple of pups, one named Bubba, who I was also trying to raise.

  My other partner, an overweight cardiac case, had the remnants of something that looked like a cream cheese canapé on his face that he’d probably stuffed down just before the shooting.

  Charlie handed me Bernie’s leash as we all took a couple of steps toward the ballroom. He motioned to the balcony rooms above the main floor.

  “I saw a flash about there.” Charlie pointed to the third floor row of rooms overlooking the opulent main pavilion. “We need to check it out.”

  As I was about to respond, I heard a voice say, “Can you give us an update on the shooting?”

  I turned and saw that the reporter for Hollywood Confidential, Haley Tristan, was at our side. She was a pushy, arrogant loud-mouthed TV personality who I’d been forced to work with on my last case.

  “You need to clear the area, now,” I said to her before The Beast could respond.

  Tristan pointed to her camera man who was a few feet away. “We’re live and on the air.”

  “I don’t care if you’re live and on crack. Turn off the camera and leave the premises now or you’ll be arrested.” She started to protest. “NOW!”

  After Tristan scurried off like an angry ferret, The Beast scowled at me. “That could have been handled more diplomatically. Maybe you need a refresher course with Media Relations.

  “And maybe you need to bend over so I can stick Tristan’s microphone up your ass.” Okay, so my fantasy life was getting the better of me. I just ignored him, turned away, and said to Jack, “Let’s get upstairs, see if we can locate the shooter.”

  On the way up to the third floor, I caught sight of myself in one of the hotel’s glass windows. I’m tall with dark skin, even features, and green eyes, so I’m usually half-way presentable. But I was shocked by what I saw. My hair, for once, looked terrific, despite all the stripping, shooting, and scrambling. I’d recently met a new stylist who helped me embrace my heritage. I learned that I had a distant relative with some African-American blood and loved what she’d done with my naturally curly locks. All things considered, I was feeling pretty good about myself—for once.

  We took our time moving down the third floor hallway, clearing rooms as we went. Most of the guests had already evacuated, but we found a straggler here and there who we sent downstairs.

  After clearing the area, Charlie motioned to the last room on the floor. “The door’s cracked open. It has to be the shooter’s room.”

  I stayed back with Bernie until the suite was secured by Jack and Charlie. When we got the all clear notice, my big dog pushed his nose through the door and we went inside. My adrenaline spiked when I saw the rifle near the glass windows.

  “It’s an M24,” Jack said. “a sniper rifle used by the military. It’s a miracle that he missed us.”

  I walked over and examined the rifle with its telescopic sight. It was on a table, fixed to a tripod, and overlooking the window where the shooter had been stationed. The room’s glass window that looked down on the ballroom had been shattered. There were at least a dozen shell casings on the floor.

  “He set up on us and waited,” I said, the dread of what I’d been fearing for weeks now settling in. “We had to be the intended targets.”

  As Jack and Charlie took another cursory look through the adjacent living area and bathroom, my eyes again swept over the room, the sniper rifle, the shattered glass, the wannabe killer’s perch. I walked over to the broken window. My eyes held on something shiny that was on the window ledge where the curtains had been pushed back by the shooter. Even before I picked up the gold shield and saw the numbers 1329 I knew who it belonged to.

  Jack must have seen the shocked expression on my face when he came back into the room. “What is it, Kate?”

  I turned to him, holding up what I’d found. “It’s my father’s badge. The one he wore on the day he was murdered.”

  Copyright © 2014 by MZ Kelly

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