Celebrity Sudoku (15 page)

Liza raised a hand to get their waitress. “Let’s settle the bill so we’ll be ready to roll.”

No sooner did she send the server off with their payment and a tip than Liza saw Rikki Popovic enter the restaurant and head for their table. “Michael is waiting outside with the car,” she reported.

As Liza labored her way out behind the Popovics, Lolly filled her mother in on the call to Michelle and the possibility of getting a new doctor that no one connected with
The Lowdown
would know about.

Reaching the door, Rikki went out first to check for the dreaded paparazzi. Turning back, she said, “Why don’t you go first, Liza?”

Liza set off, accompanied by Rikki. “Thank you so much for your help with the doctor,” the older woman said. “I’m worried and want Lolly to be looked at, but we can’t go back to that place. If one of those camera people turned up today, four will be there tomorrow. They breed like lice.”

She helped Liza get into the backseat and stowed the walker, then beckoned to Lolly, who quickly entered the front passenger’s seat.

They didn’t go too far, aiming for a nondescript motel about half a mile away.

Michael cruised past once while Rikki scoped out the street and parking lot for the enemy—especially the SUV serving as a hunting blind for the paparazzo who’d stalked them at the hospital.

“He’s persistent,” she said grimly. “What if he went to the dispatcher who sent the cab that brought us to the hospital? Then he could backtrack us to the last place where we were staying. He could even have followed us from there and gotten more people to wait for us here.”

Michael sighed. “Rikki, I think you’re getting paranoid.”

“Did you see the way he went after my daughter?” Rikki demanded. “I just want to make sure that Lolly will be safe.”

At last, even Rikki was satisfied. Michael pulled up in front of their room. Rikki got out. But before Lolly left, she leaned over, whispered something, and kissed Michael on the cheek.

As they drove away, Liza asked, “What did she say?”

“ ‘I’m glad my Mom knows such good people.’ ” Michael glanced back at Liza in the rear seat. “What did you do that polished up our halos so much?”

Liza shrugged and told him how she’d asked Michelle for help with finding a doctor for Lolly. “And by the way, we’d better get onto Santa Monica Boulevard again. Michelle is expecting us in Century City ASAP.”

“Well, that just puts the cherry on top of my day,” Michael said. “Dealing with Rikki, I knew she was giving me grief because she’s just about out of her mind over her daughter. Michelle just gives me grief because it’s her way of life.”

Still muttering, he drove down the Boulevard into Century City. They pulled up in front of the building where Liza used to work, and Michael left the Honda’s keys with a parking valet whose expression showed that he usually dealt with Beemers and Mercedes.

The guy’s face just about went purple when Michael said, “Don’t get it dirty,” and then accompanied Liza into the lobby.

“Looks as if the place got a little shaken up in the quake.” Liza nodded to one of the large windows where workmen were removing a piece of cracked plate glass.

“I’m sure we won’t see anything upstairs,” Michael assured her. “No way would Michelle let God mess up her office.”

A brief elevator ride delivered them to the reception area of Markson Associates. Liza’s eyes opened wide with delight when she saw who was sitting behind the enormous front desk.

“Ysabel! I thought I’d find one of those temps that Michelle delights in terrorizing.”

The striking Latina came from behind the desk to give Liza a hug. “Haven’t quit this week—yet.”

Ysabel Fuentes would have the record as the longest-serving employee of Markson Associates. The receptionist not only knew the company’s history but also had an encyclopedic knowledge of the clients and the film business in general. Ysabel also had a stormy relationship with Michelle, regularly quitting and then being wooed back—that had been part of Liza’s job when she worked full-time.

In between, the front desk was manned by a succession of temps, most of whom barely lasted a day in proximity to the Markson take-no-prisoners style.

“The boss is in her office with Buck Foreman.” Ysabel gave them a mischievous grin. “In conference, but not incommunicado.”

Michelle had a habit of disappearing during quiet times, cutting the cords that connected her to the agency. Liza and Ysabel had both noticed that Buck turned out to be unavailable at the same times.

The receptionist went back behind her desk. “I’ll phone in and say you’re here. Don’t hurry—it only feeds her megalomania.”

“Hurry?” Liza shook her walker. “With this?”

“Just shows the power of your personality,” Ysabel said with a smile. “I didn’t even notice it.”

Liza humped the walker down familiar hallways to Michelle’s office.

“It still baffles me how Ysabel manages to keep a job here—especially when she quits all the time,” Michelle said.

Liza shrugged. “It helps when you know where all the bodies are buried.”

She found the door to Michelle’s office open. Buck Foreman sat on the oversized couch. Michelle stood in front of her desk, arms crossed and leaning one hip onto the desktop.

Before Liza could speak, Michelle stepped forward and gave her a piece of paper. “That’s the number you wanted for Lolly Popovic. Now, as to why I asked you here ...”

She turned to Buck, who held up a photo. “Based on the description you gave us, this is the guy who’s been stalking Lolly?”

It looked like a publicity photo, but even though his lank hair had been artfully teased around, Liza recognized the paparazzo’s high cheekbones, snub nose, and cleft chin.

“That’s the guy,” she said.

Michael nodded.

“He’s Chester ‘Chick’ Benson,” Buck reported with a grimly amused smile. “Apparently, he got the nickname because people think he looks like a chick.”

“As in female.” Michelle scrutinized the photo. “Well, he does have feminine features, which only makes me wonder about Ritz Tarleton’s choice in men.”

“You mean, this guy and Ritz—?” Michael broke off, stumbling over his own tongue.

“It shouldn’t be that much of a surprise,” Michelle told him. “After all, Britney hooked up with a paparazzo for a while.”

“Talk about sleeping with the enemy,” Liza said.

“Ritz and Chick managed to keep their connection under the radar,” Buck reported. “They ate at burger joints—places were Ritz Tarleton normally wouldn’t be found dead, pardon the phrase—or takeout. Also, Ritz would arrange for them to rendezvous at various vacant houses and apartments—vacant because her friends were out of town.”

“Ummmmm . . . ick?” Liza ventured.

Michelle wrinkled her nose. “I hope they had the decency to launder the sheets afterward.”

Buck just shrugged. “I wouldn’t even have gotten a line on any of this, except one of her friends—ex-friends now—happened to come home unexpectedly and caught Ritz and a guy in the sack. The guy bailed out a window, but the friend got a glimpse of his face.”

“And then recognized him as one of Don Lowe’s stooges on
The Lowdown
,” Michelle finished with a look of distaste.

“For a couple keeping up a supposedly secret relationship, they took plenty of big chances,” Liza pointed out.

Buck shrugged again. “I wouldn’t say discretion was one of Ms. Tarleton’s strong points.”

“Discretion, not so much,” Michael agreed. “Thrill-seeking, on the other hand ...”

“On the other hand, Ritz had as strong a reason to keep this on the down-low as some of the people she blackmailed,” Liza said. “It would not help her fading rep as a hot celebrity babe for it to get out that she was boffing a—a—”

“A lower life-form like Chick Benson?” Michael suggested.

“I find myself wondering who initiated this liaison,” Michelle said.

“Let’s face it—Ritz had just about gotten to the point where she couldn’t get arrested in this town,” Buck pointed out.

“We kidded about her sleeping with the enemy, but it seems more like a symbiotic relationship.” Michael spoke slowly, frowning in thought. “Chick could use Ritz to get access to her celebrity friends.”

“And she could use him to drum up some sort of publicity for herself,” Liza finished. “What I’d like to know is how long had this been going on?”

She looked over at Buck. “Do you have any line on their being together recently?”

The detective responded with a quick headshake. “Nothing after that time they almost got caught.”

That got Michael’s attention. “So either they went even farther under the radar—”

“If they tried, they’d have to go underground,” Buck interrupted.

“Or they’d have had to break it off,” said Michelle, taking it to the logical conclusion.

“That would explain Chick’s bad attitude with Lolly,” Michael suggested. “He’s still PO’ed after being dumped.”

“If there was dumping involved, that would probably be Ritz,” Liza had to admit.

“That might explain his aggressive ambush style, but not the questions,” Michelle disagreed. “He was trying to get Lolly Popovic to confess to murdering Ritz Tarleton. Sounds more like guilt to me.”

Michael laughed. “You mean, ‘Oh, if only we were still together, Ritz might not have come to such a terrible end’?”

Michelle gave him a dead serious look. “No, I mean that he might well have been the person who pushed Ritz back into that collapsing bungalow.”

She paused at the look on his face. “Never underestimate the power of rejected love.” Michelle glanced over at Liza. “I would think you should realize that.”

Thanks a lot, Michelle,
Liza thought.

Michelle, however, didn’t even notice the uncomfortable silence. “I think you should go and ask Chick Benson about it,” she said.

 

 

The building that housed operations for
The Lowdown
was either less well constructed or considerably less lucky than Markson Associates’ Century City digs. The wall by the entrance had a big crack, as if a large sledgehammer handled by an even larger person had landed in the middle of the marble panel.

Sitting in Michael’s Honda, Liza kept staring at the crack. Was it getting larger?

I hope that’s not a load-bearing wall,
she found herself thinking.

Then she remembered the incident that had nearly brained Lolly Popovic, where a facade sheathing a building’s front had fallen away and crashed to the street.

Was that crack getting bigger?

All of a sudden, the notion of staking out
Lowdown
HQ seemed less and less of a great idea.

Liza alternated between looking at her watch and glancing at that crack in the wall. She tried to console herself with the idea that one of them not moving was probably a good thing.

As the wait continued to stretch, however, she began to feel a new strain.

If this falls apart because I had to find a john,
she silently groused,
I don’t know who’ll be more annoyed—Michelle or me.

Then she spotted Chick Benson walking up the block.

Should I let him get closer?
Liza decided to open the door. She slid out her walker, hoping the door panel would hide it from Benson’s sight. Then she boosted herself out of her seat, ignoring the warning twinge her knee gave at all this enthusiastic movement.

Liza was up and on the sidewalk before Chick Benson noticed her.

Benson should have had no problem escaping from a woman with a walker—hell, he could probably have outrun Michael, who had just come out of the driver’s side door.

But the paparazzo was just as shocked as all the people he regularly ambushed. Instead of running, he stood knock-kneed, his hands placed to block any possible shot at his crotch.

“Lady,” he started, then stopped himself. “It’s Liza, isn’t it? Liza, you gotta stop taking all this stuff so personally.”

“Yeah, it’s funny how people react to guys like you taking pictures of their personal lives.” Liza shoved her walker a step closer. “But this time I wanted to ask about
your
personal life—at least the part of it you spent with Ritz Tarleton.”

For a second, Benson stood very still. Then his hands slid away to his sides, as if there were no hope of shielding anything.

“I guess I had to expect it would come out sooner or later.” He let out a deep sigh. “It was fun while it lasted.

“Everyone made fun of her as if she was stupid,” Benson said. “But she could be really smart, the way she talked people into doing things.” His face softened a little in memory. “My Irish grandmother called it blarney. My Dad just called it BS. Ritz knew how to use it, and she stuck it to a lot of people.”

“People who were supposed to be her friends,” Liza pointed out.

“What friends?” Benson asked scornfully. “She hated most of ’em! To those guys, she was just a walking charge card. ‘Oh, Ritz will pick it up!’ ” he mimicked in a falsetto voice and a dismissive wave of his hands.

“I saw her set up some big names beautifully—if she could do that, she had the chops to be a real actress.”

Liza thought about Chard Switzer, Sukey Tupp, Samantha Pang . . . and maybe even Chick Benson. Ritz must have been very plausible to pull off the things she did.

Liza almost missed what Benson said next. “Lowe thought that was pretty funny.”

“So Don Lowe knew about her?” Liza pounced. “She wasn’t just setting up people for your camera?”

“He figured it out and busted us,” Chick Benson admitted.

“And did Ritz dump you after that?” Michael asked.

“It’s not like you’re saying!” Benson flared. “We just hit bad times. A friend of hers almost caught us, and her old man cut off her money.”

Liza nodded encouragingly. That tied in with what Fritz Tarleton had said.