Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 1 - Combust the Sun (18 page)

"Certainly
not from me. Now, why are you pretending to be Marathon employees? I could, on
behalf of Marathon, prosecute you, you know, but instead, I'll simply ask you
to hand over the merchandise you stole. The stone." He held out his hand.

"I
stole nothing, and the stone doesn't belong to you or me," I said.

"I
just purchased it recently." He smiled convincingly.

"What's
so important about a rock?" I pressed my luck.

"It's
not necessary to know what's important about other people's property, only to
know that what you have doesn't belong to you."

"I'm
interested because this is the second time in two days we've been roughed up
for it, but you're a day late. We no longer have the stone. Lee Talbot's men
took it from us yesterday."

"You're
lying," he said, and I felt the stones move inside my shirt.

"Call
him!" I said with my best poker face. "Call him now." It was a
gamble, but I was pretty sure Isaacs wouldn't call.

"I'll
contact Talbot tomorrow. If he doesn't have the stones, I'll be seeing you
again."

His
refusal to contact Talbot led me to believe that whatever they were doing, they
weren't doing it together. He obviously didn't want Talbot knowing what he was
up to.

"The
gentlemen who brought you here will give you a lift back to your car,"
Isaacs said.

"No
thanks. We'll catch a cab." I took Callie's arm and walked past the
staring goons.

"We're
not through with each other yet, Callie!" Isaacs called after us.

I
pulled her through the front door before anyone could have a change of heart
about our departure. When we hit the street, I kept up a fast pace to Sunset,
wanting to make sure we weren't being followed.

"He's
gonna find out Talbot doesn't have the stones, and he'll kill us. You don't
know who you're dealing with here!" Callie panted at my side.

"You
married that guy! Are you still married to him?"

"Of
course not," she said.

"Of
course not. Well, how the hell would I know?"

"I
was a kid. My friends all thought he was wonderful. I was married for ten
minutes..."

"What
is this 'married for ten minutes'? No one is married for ten minutes."

"A
year."

"Good,
now we're talking English. You were married for a year and..."

"My
kid brother came out here with us to work for Robert Isaacs, his hotshot
brother-in-law. Isaacs was working for Artinia Records. Drugs and the record
business are synonymous."

"Incidentally,
lying is bad karma. Am I right?" I said, angry over her deceit.

"Robert
knew people were giving my brother drugs, and he did nothing to stop it. In
fact, toward the end, he was paying my brother in drugs himself, rather than in
cash. Another of his barter deals. My brother died of a drug overdose at a club
on Sunset. He was so young and green and stupid that he accidentally
OD'd," Callie said.

"So
that's why I got the passionate kiss on the first night I met you, and that's
why you wanted to travel with me. Someone who's mad about you like 'all your
other girls,' and that's why you've been fine with our risking our lives to
crack this story, because you knew it would lead you to Isaacs and your
revenge. The word you hate, by the way!"

"Teague,
I came out here to be with you, but when you told me about Barrett working at
Marathon, I knew that's where Robert Isaacs was. Then you mentioned the barter
system and I knew."

"Knew
what? That Isaacs is our killer? Like you 'psychically' knew at the
shareholders' meeting that it was Isaacs's voice behind that partition? You
knew it was Isaacs's voice because you used to wake up next to it! You know,
you're making it real hard for me to separate the psychic stuff from the
grief-stricken, pissed-off, ex-wife stuff. And just for the record, you fucking
lied to me, Callie! Lied!"

"I
never lied to you."

"Okay,
let's be completely accurate. You committed a sin of omission by not telling me
that you were: A) married to a
man,
B) married to a man who's a
crook,
C) married to a man, who's a crook, who's trying to
kill
me!"

A
cab picked us up and we rode through the darkness in silence.

"And
you slept with that son of a bitch," I threw in for good measure.

"Not
really," her voice drifted.

"And
I suppose you never climaxed with him either?"

The
cab driver's eyes darted to the rearview mirror, and the cab swung over the
center line, forcing another car to swerve and honk violently.

"Quit
looking back here and watch where the hell you're driving!" I yelled at
the cabbie, and he cut his eyes away.

Back
at Bono's, our car was parked right where we'd left it, the hubcaps
miraculously still attached. Two half-dazed addicts lounged across the front
fender of our car. I was too hurt and mad over what I'd learned about Callie to
be frightened of the half dead. "Get your fried, fat asses off the hood of
my car before I blow your balls off!" I shouted at the two men, who looked
at me as if I were the societal outcast.

Hollywood
nightlife was getting darker by the hour, and it matched the cold, gray wind
that swept across my heart. Callie Rivers had lied to me, and I didn't know how
deep that lie went. Maybe it went all the way to the heart of our relationship.
After all, Isaacs had touched her, had owned her, had gotten her body in
exchange for his name. The rage in me was molten, flowing through my veins in a
thick, angry, leadlike mass that weighed down my desire to even breathe.

At
home, we sat in our robes curled up on the couch, having washed Hollywood's
back streets off our auras. Callie sipped Swee-Touch-Nee tea, her latest
Gelson's discovery, while I berated her. I couldn't seem to stop. My pride was
damaged. First Barrett, then Callie. Apparently, in the lover department, I was
a poor judge of character.

Callie's
small, slender fingers juggled an ice pack in an attempt to keep it in place on
her bruised forehead. "In choosing to marry Isaacs, I set up the entire
series of events that led to my brother's death," Callie mused.

"In
choosing to take drugs, your brother set up the entire series of events that
led to your brother's death." I wanted to lessen her pain, but I was still
feeling my own. "I guess being figuratively screwed by a crook is
unforgivable, being literally screwed by one is unbearable. Just out of
curiosity, how can a cosmically in-tune, spiritual psychic still have a little
corner of her heart reserved for absolute hatred? According to your beliefs,
isn't the cosmos supposed to take care of that for you?"

"I'm
part of the cosmos." Callie's eyes glistened with tears. "The part
that won't let Robert Isaacs get away." She saw my flat, emotionless expression.
"Look, Teague, I know you're angry and hurt." She tried to take my
hand but I pulled it away, for the first time feeling nothing for Callie
Rivers.

"Don't
touch me," I said.

Elmo
hoisted his heavy frame off the floor, walked to the far corner of the room,
flopped down against the wall, and let out a loud, forlorn groan, refusing to
take sides.

The
death stones rested on the coffee table looking innocently like dominoes. Who
would think they could cause this much trouble? I stared at the symbols. After
a long pause, I made an attempt to disassociate from my emotional state and
focus on this story that had now become my work.

"Evers
said it meant
bathing cloth
or
towel."

"Same
difference, I guess," Callie said, seemingly detached as well.

I
picked up a pad and pencil and began doodling little squares across the top of
the page. "Now how do you suppose that symbol came to be towel?" I
asked. I scribbled the word Towel, then Twl, and Towl, Tal. I looked up at
Callie, light dawning in my eyes. "Towel, could be Tal, as in Talbot.
Maybe Frank Anthony was holding the rock when he died because he was trying to
say Talbot, and not Isaacs, murdered him. I'll bet Talbot knows everything
about the barter deals. He worked too closely with Isaacs not to. We've got to
get into his house. He'd never leave any incriminating evidence at the
studio."

That
night I slept with my back to Callie, not touching, not wanting. How could I
have trusted that Callie Rivers wanted me? She wasn't able to give herself
fully to me because the whole relationship with me was a cover-up to get her to
Isaacs. It was obviously him, and not me, who held her focus. Thinking about it
created a dull pain in my chest where my heart used to be.

I
took a chance, at nine the next morning, that Talbot wouldn't be in his office
and I phoned his secretary. I told her Paramount's T. Elliott Golden had a gift
for Mr. Talbot and wanted his home address. She gave it promptly.

At
eleven o'clock, I stopped off at North Hollywood Magic, a prop design studio. I
left Callie in the lobby to look at all the miniature motion picture props and
sets while I went to a small office in the back. Peter Trayber had spent the
last forty years of his life designing everything from tap shoes for terriers
to cameras hidden in high heels. Rumpled and disarming, Peter rose to shake
hands and gave me his big, boyish grin. I explained that I needed something
replicated right away. I showed him the death stone.

"A
domino?" He examined the stone.

"An
ancient rock that somebody's trying to kill me to get."

"Can
you leave it with me?" Peter asked, never reacting to my remark that
someone was trying to kill me for it. In Hollywood,
kill
was a word
everyone used but nobody meant.

"I
can let you make a rubbing of the inscription, the dimensions, weight, and
texture. Other than that, I've got to take it with me."

Peter
smiled and said copying it would be a cinch.

Twenty
minutes later, I went back to the lobby and collected Callie, telling her I'd
just bought us some life insurance.

"So
you'll have more stones than Mick Jagger." She grinned, trying to get back
on friendlier terms.

"Cute,"
I replied. "Let's get some lunch."

I
pulled into Stanton's Restaurant on Ventura Boulevard, forced to valet park
since on-the-street parking was at a premium. Inside the restaurant, the bar
was packed, the acoustics were terrible, and the chairs uncomfortable, but the
bread was sourdough and arrived in large, hot hunks, which was worth all the
inconvenience it took to get here.

"Look,
I'm really sorry," Callie began.

"No
problem," I lied.

"Stop
being that way."

"What
way?"

"That
way that says you don't trust me," she said loudly, and a woman at a
nearby table turned to listen. This was my first realization that Callie Rivers
liked to air her unhappy feelings out in the open, and right now, her unhappy
feelings could have filled a soccer stadium.

"Just
because I was married a million years ago doesn't mean I betrayed you!"
she said loudly. I raised my hand, signaling her to lower her voice, but she
ignored me. "I didn't
know
you! You're making a big deal out of
nothing! You need to get past this!" Her voice scaled up an octave,
putting us in contention for the next reality series:
Gay Gatherings Gone
Bad.

"Excuse
me," I whispered, demonstrating how to argue in public places, "could
you lower your voice? I don't really want all these people knowing my
business."

"I
don't care about these people. They're not going home with me. You are!"

"I
have a right to be upset! I just learned that you were married to a despicable
human being, who may be a murderer, who, P.S., fucked you. None of which,
ironically enough, would have kept me from loving you had you only told me
rather than pretending to be someone else! Let's just focus on the story,
okay?"

I
tried to calm down. "I have a plan to get us into Talbot's house to find
out his involvement."

"I
never pretended to be someone else." Callie refused to drop the argument.

"You'll
deliver flowers. Flowers so huge they'll create a diversion that will allow me
time to get inside while you're getting them situated with the housekeeper."
I ripped into my sourdough like tyrannosaurus rex.

"You
know in your heart I never lied to you, and I don't think delivering flowers to
Talbot's house is a good idea," she said, maintaining two conversations at
once.

"It's
so simple it will work. If you don't want to do it, I'll figure out how to do
it by myself," I threatened.

"Why
do you want to put us in danger like this?"

"There's
no danger. Danger is not telling the woman you're sleeping with that you were
once married to a slimy crook," I said sweetly, getting the last blow in.
"If anything goes wrong, you say this is your first day doing deliveries
and then burst into tears and run out of the house," I instructed.