Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 3 - Venus Besieged (13 page)

"Ramona!"
I swooned effusively the way people in the South do when surprised by someone
they don't want to see and are afraid that their internal horror will be
externally conveyed in an unguarded facial expression, so they make an
exaggerated attempt to exhibit joy to throw the visitor off. "What are you
doing here?" I dragged out the words, another sign I was faking it.

"Do
I have to stay out on the porch until I fully account for myself, or may I come
in out of the cold and have a brandy?"

"Come
in. You know Callie."

"Not
as intimately as you," she gave us a catlike smile, "but yes."

"Hello,
come in." Callie smiled back and took Ramona's cape, heading for the
bedroom to lay it on the bed, an odd genteel custom, taking coats from people
and making the coats lie down in other rooms when closets were lacking.

"Quite
a little love nest you've found here, very chi-chi little nook down by the
creek. I love it here. You're looking good, Teague." Ramona eyed me like
the last piece of cherry pie on the plate but, like a good guest, left it for
the hostess. "Wade Garner called to ask if I could help you, and I laughed
when he told me where you were because I'm a mile away." She slid out of
her matching gray wool suit jacket and tossed it over the back of the couch,
revealing firm breasts and a small waist for a woman of her years. Under one
gray cashmered arm she held a stuffed toy in the shape of a basset hound.

"Something
for you, Elmo." Ramona handed it to him, smiling up at me as if to say
she'd remembered his name and everything else about me. "I couldn't resist
this. Everyone needs a girlfriend."

"That's
what I was telling him on the way in from L.A.," I said, thanking her and
making a mental note that I'd never told Ramona I had a basset hound, much less
his name and sex. Elmo examined the stuffed basset toy, a cute twelve-inch
fake-fur body, almost a replica of himself wearing a pink bow around its neck.
Nudging its plush body, he finally punched it with his nose, dragged it by the
leg over to a corner of the room, and settled down to sniff it.

"I
think he likes her, he's licking her leg." Ramona smiled. "At least
that was always
my
first clue."

"Ramona,
a drink?" Callie asked.

"Please.
I see you're about to molest a bird." She eyed the turkey in its pan.
"Whoever thought of taking a poor bird and sticking its neck up its ass,
packing its vagina with bread, and calling it a celebration?" She arched
an eyebrow and I laughed in spite of myself.

There
was something about Ramona's knowing blue eyes, sly smile, and witty charm that
forced me to ignore her chronological age and find her sexy. Something about
the way she looked into me and smiled as if she knew a secret she'd like to
share if she could only get me alone for a moment.

"So
who are you trying to dig up?" Ramona languidly plucked a black olive from
a relish tray Callie offered.

"A
Native American woman who was reportedly attacked by a wolf and when she tried
to escape went over a canyon wall and fell to her death," Callie said.

"They
must have recovered the body with a spatula," Ramona said, dangling the
word in a way that made me laugh even though I didn't want to, recovery with a
spatula appealing to my comic sensibilities—life as cartoon.

"Reportedly
tribal people recovered the body and buried her in a cemetery at the base of
the vortex plateau," Callie interjected over the chuckling.

"And
why do you want to dig up the body?"

"I
don't believe she's dead and, therefore, I don't believe she's buried,"
Callie remarked.

"So
the grave holds someone else?" Ramona reached for another olive.

"Or
no one," Callie said.

"What
does the family say?" Ramona sounded more like an attorney with every
passing phrase.

"I've
only spoken to Nizhoni's partner. Nizhoni is the woman whose grave we're
discussing. The partner is Manaba, who says the family buried Nizhoni."

"And
you think otherwise because..." Ramona elongated the words.

I
suddenly felt compelled to vouch for Callie. "Because she's a psychic and
a good one. She knows things. They may seem like crazy things to you and me,
but they turn out to be dead-on.. .so to speak."

"Spoken
like a woman in love," Ramona said and I was suddenly shy. "Well,
dead
is the operative word, it seems. Maybe my old friend Cy Blackstone could
lend a hand."

"We
met Cy Blackstone at some kind of evilway-payday-hooray ceremony," I said,
and Callie looked at me as if she was keeping track of my irreverent remarks,
perhaps having some limit in mind, after which she would simply crack me over
the head with a ceremonial rock.

"Cy
loves being a friend to Native Americans while he develops their land right out
from under them," Ramona said.

"How
do you know Cy?" I asked.

"Everyone
knows Cy Blackstone. He's an old retired politico rumored to have fixed more
elections than anyone else in U.S. history," Ramona said. "He has
something on everyone and uncanny timing in knowing when to hold it over their
heads. Cy and I go Way back."

Callie
glanced in my direction as if to say I could chalk Cy Blackstone up as another Ramona
Mathers conquest—she was seemingly drawn to men of power and money.

"He
was on the news talking about the new mall," I said.

"Cy
gets press. A lot of people owe him. The mall came about as a result of a debt
for which his family took possession of the land in kind."

"Who
owed him?" I asked, and Ramona shrugged noncommittally.

"Cy's
probably gotten his hands on more land formerly owned by Indians than any white
man in Arizona. I represented an Indian fellow who nearly lost his hunting
grounds to Blackstone."

"Did
you win?" I asked.

A
pause while Ramona looked me up and down to make me squirm, I was certain, for
asking such a question, but then she smiled benignly. "I always win."

The
sound of a car door slamming nearby jarred us all out of our conversation, and
Elmo looked up from his stuffed toy and growled. I went to the door without a
weapon. We were three women and a slobbering dog, the sight of which should
keep the most nefarious out of our living room. Three loud bangs on the outside
and I opened the door.

"Barrett!"
I said, my mind reeling.

Barrett
Silvers stood on the porch looking as if an eruption of some sort was imminent.
Judging by her breathing and body tension, I had entirely caused the
inconvenience of Barrett having to be on this porch, which in turn had
apparently produced enough bile in her belly to sustain her current state of
insanity through a glacial thaw.

"What
in the goddamned hell do you think you're doing?" she yelled into my face,
despite the fact that my face was only two feet from hers.

"Greeting
madwomen on my doorstep," I said flatly, taking two steps back to avoid
having to share her breathing space.

"Don't
get smart with me! Do you realize what this means? Do you realize what this
means?"
she repeated an octave above the first question. "This means..."

"...you'll
never work in this town again," I repeated, in sync with Barrett, unable
to resist mocking the cliché Hollywood executives couldn't stop themselves from
invoking even when, at the moment, they weren't in Hollywood.

"Ahhh!"
Barrett threw her arms up in the air as if to hurl my personal being into the
stratosphere. Her appearance in a place nearly five hundred miles from L.A. in
search of me was a sure sign she believed I'd compromised her reputation with Jeremy
Jacowitz, and she apparently had decided beating my lips off would somehow
restore it.

"I
have driven all the way from L.A. simply to let you know that this is one of
the largest fuckups of your entire career. You dumped Jeremy Jacowitz. No one
dumps Jeremy Jacowitz!" Barrett was shouting again.

"Come
in, Barrett," I offered, realizing I hadn't quite dodged every bullet
related to my ankling Jacowitz. Barrett entered the cabin without seeming to
know where she was, as if she'd been rehearsing this outburst for seven
straight hours on the drive here and now wanted to give it to me unedited at
high volume.

"You
have made me look like a fool. I told him you were terrific to work with, so
professional, so quick, and then you tell him that you quit because he wants to
make a few small changes in your fucking screenplay."

That
was the flick of the Bic that set my ass on fire.
How dare she suggest they
were small changes, and how dare she refer to my work as a fucking screenplay.

"Not
a few small changes in my fucking screenplay. He wanted to change the fucking
characters, the fucking plot, and the entire fucking movie!" My vehemence
rocked Barrett back, catching her by surprise; however, like all studio
executives, immune to battering, she quickly recovered.

"And
most likely make it better. He's won an Academy Award, while you on the other
hand have not!"

"You
and Jacowitz can stick his Academy Award up your collective ass!"

"Yes,
well, you've made one of youself!"

"Really,
well, as a person who's had her face in every female writer's ass in Hollywood,
I guess you would recognize us all!"

"Fuck
you, you ungrateful little—"

"Fuck
you, back!"

"Alright,
enough. I will not have that kind of negativity in this cabin!" Callie
shouted, startling me because I'd never heard her raise her voice in anger
above my own.

Ramona
applauded Callie as if the curtain had rung down on a very exciting play she'd
directed.

At
the sound of hands clapping, Barrett and I sagged to a stop and both took a
deep breath as I turned to Ramona, her rakish grin reminding me I hadn't made
introductions. Barrett's gaze must have followed mine and, for a moment, we
shared one emotion, seeming embarrassment over having had a brawl in front of a
virtual stranger.

"Barrett."
My tone was intentionally supercilious. "I would like to introduce you to
Ramona Mathers, attorney for...well, actually for your studio, Marathon.
Ramona, this is Barrett Silvers, your executive vice president of worldwide
talent, who is here to berate me for killing my studio deal."

"You
don't have the power to kill a studio deal. I'm here to berate you for killing
your career." Barrett flipped me the verbal bird, but her eyes were locked
on Ramona's and her larger, visibly stronger hand clasped Ramona's long and
slender one. They remained in that tableaux for a full ten seconds until
Barrett, of all people, actually ducked her head and backed away in
acquiescence of the alpha position.

"I
apologize, but this is a deal that is good for the studio and good for Teague
if—"

"If
I would only prostitute myself along with my character," I interjected.

"Please
proceed." Ramona's voice had taken on a deep purr like a well-built engine
in a classic chassis, causing me to whip my head around to see what in hell was
going on. "It's fascinating to think that you drove all this way to abuse
a writer," Ramona said with a wry but velvet twist to her voice.

"I
spent a solid year setting her up." Barrett spoke of me as if I'd vanished
from the room. "Getting her pitched, finding the right director, and she's
here in Sedona to write the screenplay. When Jacowitz called from Paris and
gave his notes—"

"They
weren't notes. They were his sexual fantasies—aliens raping an abused
housewife. Now would either of you two buy a ticket to watch that?" I
addressed Callie and Ramona, making them my audience.

"You're
very talented, Teague, and you have to write what makes you happy," Callie
said, jumping to my rescue, and her support emboldened me and fueled my anger
toward Barrett.

"This
is what women get caught up in—helping men succeed at things that don't benefit
women!" I was pumped. "I'd just as soon write a freaking Viagra
commercial."

Barrett's
expression clearly communicated that she wouldn't lower herself to argue
further and dismissed my behavior as childish, so I moved to the kitchen
counter to help Callie with the drinks.

Apparently
worn out from shouting, Barrett slumped onto an armchair. Her short black
Eisenhower jacket open at the chest, the V-neck of her silk blouse falling
seductively low, and the gold cuff links twinkling at the edges of the French
cuffs, she was a stunning adversary, I thought as Callie and I returned to the
living room and gathered in the surrounding chairs.

Barrett's
passion for her work, or perhaps the way Barrett looked, apparently stoked a
fire in Ramona, whose eyes glistened, and for a split second I thought I saw
them travel up and down Barrett's chest performing a breast scan, perhaps as a
result of Callie's having made rather stiff drinks.

"Where
did a psychic learn to make martinis?" I whispered, taking a sip of mine,
amused as she muttered something about not bruising the gin.