Hot Shot (19 page)

“Hi. I'm Kieran.”

“Hey. I'm Elise. As in ‘Für Elise.' Grab me the rest of the peppers, would you? They're in one of those bags.” She grinned. “When Jack surprises me with an overnight guest, it's usually a woman.”

The bags were heavy with summer fruits in riotous South Beach colors: plums, peaches, oranges. I found two cello bags of yellow and red peppers and brought them over.

Elise was only about twenty-three, but she was efficient, in a butch way. She used the end of her knife to scrape the green peppers into a neat pile and began chopping away at the yellow ones. “You looked outside yet?”

“Sorry about that.”

“I drove up from the greenmarket this morning and felt like a movie star. Don't worry, they're not going to bother us. Jack called Southtec and they sent over a security car. There's two guards in the driveway, making sure they stay on public property. You're safe.” She gave a pepper a whack with her knife, cleaving it into two perfect bells.

“Can I have a plum?”

“
May
I. But sure. Have whatever you want.” She wrinkled her nose. “I'll find you a fresh shirt when I get done here.”

I took my plum and sat down at the butcher-block island. The kitchen was as designer-perfect as the rest of the house. Wood floors, emerald marble countertops, and a two-basin stainless-steel sink deep enough to wash an Airedale. The cabinets were light wood with matching green marble pulls. The focus of the room, though, was a built-in wine cellar with a glass front. Hundreds of bottles were neatly racked with their necks pointing sixty degrees toward the floor. Gauges on the front controlled temperature and humidity. This is the house that Jack built, paid for by a million tell-alls.

“What are you making, Elise?”

“Three-pepper pasta. You don't cook the sauce. It's just yellow, green, and red peppers, mixed with vinaigrette and a little nonfat mozzarella. You pour the whole thing over bowtie pasta and add some fresh basil. Best thing you've ever tasted. You hungry?”

“A little. You think I could have some coffee first?”

“Jack doesn't drink coffee.”

“Oh.”

“But I do.” She pointed to a French press on the stove. “Get yourself a mug and pop it in the microwave. Jack said he'd be home for lunch about one, one-thirty. You hungry now? There's a pitcher of yogurt smoothies in the fridge, or I could whip up an egg-white omelette.”

“No, thanks. I can wait.” I liked my omelettes with plenty of yolk, dripping with butter and melted cheese.

The microwave beeped. I took out my coffee and drifted around the kitchen for a minute, munching my plum and enjoying the clean, pungent smell of bell pepper.

One whole wall was hung with a collection of cleavers, whisks, and other professional equipment that looked straight out of the Williams-Sonoma catalog. I had no idea what most of them were designed for. On a low counter was a collection of oversized plastic vitamin-type bottles with names like Yohimbe, Whey Protein, Shark Cartilage 2000, and Protex Z-100. I read the back of one bottle.
Formulated with a blend of protein isolates and fractions chosen for high biological values, maximum amounts of BCAA's, high L-Arginine ratios, and excellent amino acid profiles.
Well,
that
cleared things up.

“How long have you worked for Jack?”

“About six months.” She slid the tiny yellow squares off her chopping block into a stainless-steel bowl and started in on the red peppers. “He hired me and my partner to cater a party last winter. We've got a company, Movable Feasts. Then he offered me mucho dinero to come work for him. So Beth is running the catering firm while I cater to Jacko.”

I flicked my plum stone into the garbage can. “He lives in this place all alone?”

“Yup.” She laughed. “Beth told him that we'd cater his wedding for free.”

“Jack's getting married?”

“Nah. It's never gonna happen. Jack's a dog. That's why she offered it.” She grinned at me. “Hey, you want to grab a shower before he gets back? All the stuff is out at the pool house.”

“Thanks.”

Outside the back door was a pool so long it should have had mile markers on the sides. In the cabana was a dressing room and shower, complete with shampoo, conditioner, designer soaps, towels, even shaving cream and disposable razors. I took a long, lazy shower, scrubbing my scalp with peppermint-nettle shampoo and enjoying the sensation of having four shower-heads pelt me at the same time.

This wouldn't be a bad place to ride out the remainder of the book, with a pool in the backyard, a Southtec car in the drive, and Elise in the kitchen.

Money may not be able to buy happiness, but it sure gets you damn good water pressure.

*   *   *

When I padded back into the kitchen, wearing a pair of flip-flops from the cabana, Elise wasn't there. There was a fresh shirt draped over the back of a chair. I stripped mine off and put it on. Through the swinging doors, I heard Kitty and Jack.

“… best place for him,” Kitty was saying.

“It might work. It's going to be expensive, though. I swear, sometimes I wish I'd never cooked up this project.”

“I know.”

“No, Kitty, I mean it. If we hadn't dropped so much money so far, I'd have half a mind to cancel it. Never had a book give me so much trouble. Never.”

“Don't worry, Jack. It'll be over soon. I figured out where we could put him.”

First Jocelyn, now Kitty and Danziger. Was this what it was like to be a celebrity? People planning your life for you?

“Hi,” I said brusquely, walking in. “So what's up?”

Jack and Kitty looked up guiltily. Elise was ladling pasta into three plates. Kitty had pulled herself into a semblance of her old self. Even Jack looked slightly rested, in a maroon polo shirt that showed off his biceps. “Hey, it's the media man,” he said. “How you feeling, sport?”

“I'm sorry. I don't know how they found out I was here. Even if it's a slow news day, they should go away in a few hours.”

“Don't worry. I've never had this much pre-publicity on a book before.” Jack grinned.

“How are you feeling, dear?” Kitty asked.

“I'm okay. I slept good.”

“Slept
well,
” said Elise. “I got C's in English and I know that much.”

I sat down. “So what now?”

“Kitty and I have been talking about it—”

“I just talked to the police again. They want to speak to everyone who knew you were at the Beverly Hillshire. Especially Sloan Baker.”

“They're convinced it wasn't a simple robbery, dear,” Kitty said. “They're going on the presumption that it all points to the manuscript.”

“Well, that's brilliant. Whoever it was left forty bucks and my watch sitting on the table. Obviously he was after something else.”

“Or she,” said Elise.

Danziger made a face. “Thanks, Elise.”

Elise drifted back into the kitchen, giving me a conspiratorial smile.

The pasta tasted as good as it smelled: light and fresh, herbed with flecks of fresh basil. I couldn't get it on my fork fast enough. I always preferred home cooking to restaurant food, as long as I wasn't the cook.

“So what exactly
was
stolen?” Danziger wanted to know.

“The only things missing, besides Sloan Baker and her wardrobe, were my laptop, the disks, Felina's original manuscript, and the one hard copy of the Felina book that was in the safe. Nothing else.”

Kitty smiled. “The hotel's insurance will get you a new computer, dear.”

“Pardon my French, but to hell with the computer.” Danziger poured a glass of San Pellegrino. “Somebody has a copy of this manuscript.”

“Manuscript…” My voice trickled away.

Jack stopped in mid-bite. “
What?
What's wrong?”

“There was another manuscript in that room,” I said slowly. “I forgot to tell the police about it. I completely forgot I had it.”

“Another copy?”

“Another
manuscript,
Jack. Vernon Ash's manuscript.”

“Ash?”

“I interviewed him a few days ago.”

“In jail?”

“He's out now. And he gave me the manuscript to a book he was writing. He wanted me to ghost it for him. That was taken, too.”

“Vernon Ash?” Danziger looked interested. “What did he say in it?”

“Nothing. No great loss. It was pretty terrible,” I added hastily. Christ, he was a regular deal-making pachinko machine.

“Sailors and ports?” said Danziger.

“What?”

“That's what you need in a tell-all. Which sailors, which ports. Names and dates. No one outside of L.A. remembers Vernon Ash. He'd have to get real specific—”

“Oh. No sailors. No ports.”

“We could always spiff it up,” said Kitty. “It might make an interesting follow-up to Felina's book. Would you be interested, dear?”

“I'd like to get this one done first,” I said dryly. “And find a place to sleep tonight.”

“The Beverly Hillshire wasn't a good idea to begin with. There's hundreds of employees there. Some of them have to be tabloid informants,” said Kitty.

“There's only one place in town we could think of that the tabloids haven't been able to get into,” added Jack. “Yet, at least.”

“Where's that?” I asked, trying not to sound disappointed. There went my fantasy of sleeping in Jack's guest room, swimming in the pool, and eating Elise's cooking. I'd already pictured myself becoming the Youthful Ward of Danziger Manor.

“St. Elizabeth's.”

My fork stopped halfway to my mouth.

14

J
ACK AND
K
ITTY GRINNED
at me, delighted at my response. “Come on,” I said doubtfully. “You're kidding, right?”

“Why not?”

“For one, I'm not sick. Why would I stay in a hospital? And this isn't just a hospital. It's
St. Liz.
”

St. Liz was a five-story marble cake located incongruously in a Santa Monica residential neighborhood. When it was built in the 1940s, it was known as St.-Elizabeth's-by-the-Sea, a place of none-too-fancy sickbeds for the folks of West L.A. Everyday people—at least the ones with good health insurance—still went there to get their prostates probed and their gallbladders removed. St. Liz also had formidable oncology and HIV wards, but that wasn't why the rich and famous flocked there for treatment from D.C. and Aspen and Biarritz.

St. Liz was the elective-surgery capital of Southern California, if not the world.

The doctors there were the leading authorities on rhinoplasties, blepharoplasties, dermabrasion, tummy tucks, cheek implants, and liposuction. They lifted faces, foreheads, eyelids, necks, and butts. They deadened facial nerves to reduce wrinkles and painted their patients' faces with trichloroacetic acid for a more dewy complexion. If you wanted an extra-slim waist-line, there was always the option of removing a few ribs. Some surgeons were even injecting botulin into their patients' faces to remove wrinkles. It also left them unable to form facial expressions, but what price beauty?

“I can't afford that, Kitty. I couldn't afford a bottle of aspirin at St. Elizabeth's.”

“What if someone else picked up the tab?”

“Like who, Kitty?”

Kitty took a birdlike bite of pasta, looking smug. “The Beverly Hillshire can.”

“What?”

“It was Kitty's idea,” said Danziger. “I thought it was weird, too, but it makes sense. In a weird way.”

“The hotel doesn't want it to get out that someone could get up to the thirty-fourth floor, much less get into a locked room, right? So I had Jack call his lawyer—”

“Gilbert called over to the hotel this morning and talked to the management. Made a little rumbling about lawsuits and publicity—”

“So they asked if we'd be willing to be compensated, aside from the material losses—”

“And Gilbert suggested that things might be averted if they'd foot the bill to put you up ‘somewhere a little more secure.' And that's when he brought up St. Liz's.”

“It's not a typical hospital room,” soothed Kitty. “It's Four West. I've been up there. The rooms there are like little suites. Felina stayed there for a while. You'll be able to relax and not worry about anyone bothering you anymore.”

“Safe as Air Force One,” said Jack. “I know for a fact that the tabloids haven't been able to get in there. And they've tried everything.”

Once again, someone was planning my life for me.

“Do I really have to?”

“Sport, somebody's got your manuscript, Felina's manuscript, the tapes, everything,” said Danziger. “If they sell 'em, we could probably sue, but it would still kill our project here. No one's gonna buy this book if they've already read it in the tabs or seen it on TV.”

“I'm taking you over there at four o'clock.” Kitty checked her watch. “You can get settled and get down to work immediately. You have to work fast, dear. Very fast. You don't have five days anymore.”

“How long do I have?”

“Seventy-two hours.”

*   *   *

We outfoxed the media—outfaxed them, actually.

Jack's assistant faxed a press release to the assignment desks, saying he would be having a press conference at four o'clock at Danziger Press. Right after lunch, he left for the office, telling the news crews outside that he'd answer all their questions at four. Two of the three vans packed up immediately and left. The
Headline Journal
crew hung around for a few more minutes, but by three o'clock they were gone, too.

When the street was clear, I put my car in Danziger's garage and climbed into Kitty's Mercedes. The door shut with an authoritative
thunk,
like a bank vault.