Death of an Orchid Lover (39 page)

“No,” I said.

“Yes,” Gina said.

Sharon chuckled. “One of you is lying, and do you know what? I don’t care which.”

Again she pushed back her hair. “Much as I was enjoying things, you were becoming a bit of a nuisance.” I thought with your fumbling around you might discover something significant. Then, when you told me yesterday morning you’d resurrected Laura’s alibi, I knew what I had to do. She shook her head. “‘We need to talk.’ I knew saying that would make you crazy again.”

I looked for something to say. Nothing came to mind.

“Then, my show at the big tree. Part improvisation. Part truth. It would make things more of an acting challenge if you knew some of the truth. And it was a little bit of living dangerously, letting you know something significant, setting you up for last night.”

“For what last night?”

She looked at me with something resembling pity. “The script was that you came over, had your way with me, then confessed that you’d killed Albert and Laura, and told me you had to deal with me because I was getting too close to finding out. But I would have somehow managed to get the gun away, and to shoot you in self-defense.”

“But why would I have done it? I’d never met him, hadn’t seen her in fifteen years.”

“Because when you met Laura again after all those years,
you became infatuated with her. And you went up to Albert’s that night and killed him to clear the field for yourself. And when Laura wouldn’t have you, you shot her too.”

“That’s preposterous. Besides, I was with Gina that evening.”

“Ah, yes, Gina.” “Sharon shifted her eyes to her.” “I have to admit, she was very clever, finding me on the Internet.”

Gina looked sheepish. “One of the things we talked about before she slugged me.”

“I suppose I should have changed my name when I came to L.A.,” Sharon said. “But, as I said, I really had no plan at that point. You know, I’m actually glad you burst in last night, because it made me realize you were just as much of a problem as Joe. So I decided to postpone things a day, and deal with you both at once. And, as an extra bonus, I wipe out Joe’s alibi for when Albert was killed.”

She smiled. She was very impressed with herself. “So I invited you over, Gina. And you came, like a good little girl. And then, Joe, I was going to call and tell you, yet again, that I forgave you. And you would come over expecting to finally get some, and then I could deal with you both at once. But you ruined that by finding out I’d shot Albert.”

“And the police know too. I told them. They’re on their way.”

She whipped her head toward me. “I told you, no—oh. You’re lying. I can tell just by looking at you.” She shook her head. “But it doesn’t matter that you found out. The end result is the same. You and I will be on the verge of consummating our relationship when your jealous little friend will burst in and shoot you. And then I’ll get the gun away from her, and that will be that.” She waggled the weapon. “It was so considerate of you, Gina dear, to bring this with you.”

My eyes went to the gun. Sharon noticed. “I had one
ready, of course. Just like the one I used on Albert and Laura. That’s the one I would have used last night. But, with this scenario, Gina’s will be so much better.”

She smiled at me. “Now it’s time to set up the denouement of our little drama. Would you please take off your clothes?”

E
VEN WITH ALL THE WEIRDNESS, HER REQUEST DUMFOUNDED
me. “What for?”

“It will make it much more realistic if Gina bursts in on us when we’re already in the throes of passion.”

“I’d rather not.”

A tiny movement of the gun. “Just do it.”

I slowly unbuttoned my shirt and dropped it on the bed.

“The shorts too,” Sharon said. “And the shoes.”

I took off my Reeboks and stood up. I undid my shorts and let them drop. When they hit the hardwood floor I heard a tiny
clunk
, muffled by the fabric.

I reached down, picked up the shorts. Sharon looked me up and down. “Not bad,” she said. “A bit out of shape, but certainly not a ‘stack of flab,’ as you so cleverly put it the other night.”

“I’m glad you approve.”

“Now your underwear.”

“Come on, Sharon, this has gone—”

“Do it.”

I turned away to drop my shorts on the bed. Not that I
particularly cared about being neat, or about being modest, but I had the germ of an idea.

I caught Gina’s eye. She knew I was up to something. And, somehow, that I needed a diversion. She got up and headed for the door.

“Stop right there,” Sharon said.

“What if I don t?”

Sharon gestured with the gun. “I’ll use it.”

Her attention was all on Gina. I slipped my hand into my shorts pocket, found what I wanted, palmed it.

Gina looked my way, then back at Sharon. “You’Re really brave,” she said, “with that cannon in your hand.”

“Please. Leave the dramatics to me. Now step back toward the bed.”

Gina glanced at me again. I reached my right hand up to my ear, as if to scratch it. I thought she knew what I was up to. Or maybe she just trusted that I knew what I was doing.

Sharon turned back toward me. “Well? What are you waiting for?”

“Bitch,” Gina said.

The gun went toward her again. “That’s the last crack you’re ever going to—”

I didn’t have time to pull my arm back. The throw was all wrist. I flashed on my fracas with David Gartner, and how I hadn’t trusted my aim.

The gun snapped toward me. But before Sharon could squeeze off a shot, the steel socket I’d spirited away from Gartner’s Tires hit her directly above the left eye.

She screamed in pain. The gun went off.

Gina sprang toward Sharon.

Another shot. Breaking glass. Another scream.

In the space of a second I contemplated life without Gina. If the shot had hit her, if the second scream were hers, if the
worst happened, I would spend the rest of my life wondering why I didn’t save the person I cared about the most.

Unless I ended up dead too.

Time resumed its normal pace. Gina smashed into Sharon. Her momentum carried them into the wall. Gina had her hand on Sharon’s, trying to wrest the gun from her. A third shot filled the room with clamor.

I cast my eyes around, grabbed the lamp off the night-stand. I’d gone about two feet with it when the plug ripped from the wall and the room was plunged into darkness. A small detail I hadn’t anticipated when I was searching for something to belt Sharon with.

I stumbled over to the struggling shadows, raised the lamp over my head with both hands, brought it down on the taller of the two. The lamp shattered. I heard the gun thump onto the hardwood.

I dropped the rest of the lamp, stepped to where I guessed the light switch to be, pawed the wall. The overhead fixture flooded the room in time for me to view the last of Sharon’s unconscious slide to the floor.

Gina looked down at her, then at the ruins of the table lamp, then at me. “Isn’t it the
girl
who’s supposed to hit the villain over the head with a lamp?” she said.

I couldn’t think of a clever reply. Or any, for that matter. I stumbled over to Gina, my brave Gina, and enfolded her in my arms.

When things had quieted down—after I’d put my clothes on and we’d called Burns and she’d called Casillas, after they’d both shown up and he’d made a big stink about people messing around in his case, after the paramedics had examined
and bandaged both Gina’s head and Sharon’s—I got a chance to talk to Sharon one more time. I had this scene from a movie in my head. It’s the one where the bad person acts like theyre attracted to the hero or heroine for some nefarious reason or other, and at the end the bad person’s caught, and it’s sad because we realize the bad person has, despite themselves, actually fallen for the good person. And, of course, it’s too late, and the weepy music comes up as theyre carted away, calling to the good person, “I really did love you.”

We were outside, after they’d bandaged Sharon’s head and handcuffed her and put her in a cop car, pushing her head down like you see on TV. I bent and looked into the car. I caught her eye and said … nothing. There was nothing to say.

She looked up at me, seeming to take a second to realize who I was. She blinked several times, but didn’t say anything either. A couple of cops got in and slammed the doors and carried her off.

I plunged my hands in my pockets, trying to draw myself into a tight little ball. I needed to walk away, but it was too much effort. Gina came and took my arm and led me to her car.

We were on my couch, each leaning up against one end, with our feet jumbled in the middle, much as we had the night a week earlier when Gina had been dumped and we shared a bed. Gina had listened for an hour as I bemoaned my love-starved idiothood, and my failure to see through Sharon’s choreographed attraction to me. At least six times I’d said,
“How am I ever going to trust a woman again?” At least six times Gina had generated an appropriate response.

Finally I sensed I’d beaten the subject to death, at least for that evening. “I’ve been thinking of getting out of commercials,” I said.

She gave me a what-now look. “Why?”

“It’s just too ridiculous. I mean, there I am acting like a boob to sell stuff I don’t really believe in, taking jobs away from people who really care about doing it. I’d be better off putting my energy into getting back into the theater.”

“You want to get back into the theater, is that it?”

“Yeah. It would be much more rewarding. You meet a better class of people.”

“Like Sharon.”

“Well, she was an okay person, except for the fact that she was a lying, conniving murderer.”

“I see. And this isn’t just some sort of transference, you thinking that because you’ve had this incredibly horrible thing happen to you, you need to make a significant change, whether it’s related to the bad thing or not.”

“No, Gi, I really would like to do some theater again.”

“So do it. Get off your ass and do it. And it’d be stupid to give up commercials. You have an easy income source that hardly takes any of your time. Not that you have to worry about time. Your dance card of life isn’t exactly full.”