Shamus In The Green Room (25 page)

Which meant there had been no surfing accident in high

school. The scar came later, a gift from a photographer, whom

Rafe had practically killed by way of thank you. Steve Terrell

had as much as told me.

I fell asleep thinking about Rafe. His lies, his temper, his gun.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

I woke up to the sound of rain pounding on my windows.

And to the realization that the other side of the bed hadn’t

been slept in. I called Gambino at his apartment, but there was

no answer. I got up to go to the bathroom and saw that I’d left

a window open. There were tiny drops all over the sink before

I’d even turned the faucet on.

I closed the window, washed my face, and brushed my

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teeth. Then I headed into the living room. Tahoe Nights was

still in the machine. I hadn’t made it to the end.

Not on an empty stomach.

I put a pot of coffee on and grabbed a calcium-rich choco-

late pudding from the fridge, then sat down on the couch and

hit Play.

Cut from Rafe’s unscarred face to the beautiful townie girl’s

undimpled thighs, back to Rafe’s muscular chest, then to the

beautiful townie girl’s flat stomach.

I looked down at the half-eaten pudding in my hands, set it

on the floor for Mimi, who loves pudding, and got myself a

hard-boiled egg instead. While I was tossing the yolk in the

sink, I heard the music swell climactically. By the time I was

back, the screen had gone black, then it was Bob Seger and the

Silver Bullet Band. Night Moves. Oh, well. I should’ve hit

Pause. Now I’d never know how it ended. I curled up on the

couch with my egg white and let the closing credits scroll by.

Actors, producers, executive producers, assistant directors,

set designers, production designers, best boys, key grips, Fo-

ley artists, gaffers. Man, it takes a lot of people to make a

movie. No wonder you can never find a parking space in this

city. I glanced down. Mimi hadn’t touched the pudding.

Might as well finish it off. I scraped up the last bits with my

spoon.

And then I dropped my spoon.

What the hell was this?

I fumbled for the remote, sending cushions flying.

“Stop right there! Stop! Stop!” I yelled at my TV, frantically

pointing the remote at the screen. The credits froze in place.

It couldn’t be.

But it was.

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It takes a lot of people to make a movie, even a piece of

schlock like Tahoe Nights.

But who’d have believed three wardrobe assistants with the

unlikely names of Maren Levander, Lisa Lapelt, and Eleanor

Lonner?

t

E l e a n o r L o n n e r ’ s n u m b e r w a s l i s t e d , w h i c h made sense. People in the entertainment industry like to make

themselves available. Unless they’re as big as Rafe. Then they

don’t need to be available. In fact, the less available, the better.

But Eleanor Lonner was not as big as Rafe. She wasn’t even

as big as Steve Terrell. Despite that, she lived on Rossmore

Avenue, which is what Vine (as in Hollywood and Vine) turns

into south of Melrose—a step up from a trailer park, if you

asked me. There were lots of beautiful, old Art Deco apart-

ments on Rossmore, like the El Royale, with its glamorous

rooftop neon sign, and the Ravenswood, where Mae West

holed up for half a century and eventually died.

The message on Eleanor’s machine was curt: “Please contact

the Ron Stencil Agency for Eleanor Lonner.” No number was

given. Happily, the Ron Stencil Agency was listed as well. A sec-

retary who sounded like there was a clothespin on her nose an-

swered. I asked for Ron Stencil, which elicited a death-defying

laugh. I think I was supposed to know there was no Ron Sten-

cil. The secretary put me through to Miriam Halevy, who did,

apparently, exist. Miriam Halevy had her doubts about me at

first. I may have been a bit eager. But after hearing that I was a

colleague of Steve Terrell’s (which I was, in a manner of speak-

ing) and that I was involved in Dash! (which I definitely was, or

234

had been, and might still be), she informed me that Eleanor was

in India, doing research, and unreachable. I said it was really

important that I speak with her. Miriam said if it was that im-

portant, I could fly into New Delhi and take an elephant ride to

Eleanor’s encampment by the Goa River, in the middle of frig-

ging nowhere. I didn’t appreciate the sarcasm, not to mention

that this is not how an agent is supposed to operate. Might be

some personal stuff there. It was just as well.

I’d always been curious about what those old apartment

buildings on Rossmore looked like on the inside.

CHAPTER

THIRTY

Eleanor Lonner didn’t live in the El Royale or in the

Ravenswood, but in a blisteringly white Streamline Mod-

erne building that curved back gracefully from the street.

Shaded by arching palms, it reminded me of a luxury liner that

had docked on a tropical island.

Her apartment number was 4A or 4F. I couldn’t tell be-

cause the plastic letter in question was dangling illegibly.

Didn’t matter either way right now. First I had to get inside,

out of the rain. I tried the old buzzer trick that’d worked so

brilliantly at Hammett’s apartment building on Post, but no-

body went for it. Next, I tried to hitch a ride with a UPS guy

carrying a stack of boxes, but that was similarly a no-go. Then

I remembered a scam I’d read about recently in a novel about a

burglar. It had impressed me. The burglar, however, had de-

voted several days to pulling it off, something I did not have

the patience for. And was that kind of advance work really

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necessary? I wasn’t planning to steal anything, after all. I just

wanted to have a look around.

Denise Manovich. Number 6D. Massage therapist.

I buzzed.

“Yes?” Thick Russian accent.

“Denise? I got your name from—” I sneezed loudly. “I was

in the area and thought I’d take a chance, see if you were in.

My body is a wreck.” It was no lie.

She buzzed me in. I shook myself off. I was soaked. An

older gentleman in a Burberry raincoat reached into his pocket

and offered me a hankie, which I politely declined. I didn’t

want to get makeup on it. I dripped rainbow colors onto my

own coat instead. The lobby was elegant and spare: a bouquet

of white lilies; a crystal chandelier; shiny black-and-white tile

floors. The elevator, however, was in serious need of rehab.

I remembered to look pained when Denise Manovich

opened her door. It took a while. There was a lot of clicking

and sliding, which meant padlocks and bolts. Then some curs-

ing in Russian, which I assumed meant they were ancient. The

padlock and bolt part, not the cursing, did not bode well in

terms of Eleanor’s apartment, 4A or 4F, two floors down.

“Hello! Hello!” Denise said. “Please, darling, come in!” A

middle-aged woman, she looked ready for a night of boogying

in a skintight black Lycra jumpsuit, a thick gold-studded belt,

and matching gold-studded mules. Her feet were tiny. Every-

thing about the woman was tiny, in fact, except for her hair

and teeth, which were enormous.

“You are no wreck!” Denise said, peering at me through

pink-tinted granny glasses, the same shade as her lipstick. “Just

soggy a bit. And the head, of course.” She did some mother

hen–type clucks at my bandage. “But is no problem for me.

237

You should see most of my customers! They cannot stand

straight. But when I am done with them, they walk proud, like

kings and queens!”

Denise relieved me of my hat and coat and had me bend

over while she ran her hands up and down my spine. Then she

karate-chopped me from my neck to my waist and then back

up to my neck, after which she put her ear to my back. I could

feel her starchy blond hair through my silk blouse.

“Aha! Nobody home! What I am listening for is infection.

General White Cell, I am pleased to report, is not in the house.

But you are distorted.” She nodded gravely. “I will fix you with

my techniques. Do you know I have patents?”

That was when she sent me into the bedroom to strip.

The bedroom featured brocade. Headboard, bedspread,

curtains, slipper chairs. Gold and pink brocade. I started sweat-

ing. As I remembered, the burglar pulled this scam on a podia-

trist and wound up with orthotics for his running shoes. I

walked out of the bedroom, fully clothed.

“I forgot to put money in the meter,” I told Denise, taking

back my coat and hat. “Also, I have to pick up my twins from

school. I was hoping this would be a sort of consultation.”

“Tomorrow, then? Around ten? You shouldn’t wait too

much longer,” she added ominously.

I nodded, which she may have interpreted as a yes, but in

fact was me trying to get the feeling back in my neck.

I walked toward the elevator, waiting to hear Denise’s door

shut. When I heard that, along with the clicking and the slid-

ing and the cursing, I headed for the exit sign at the end of

the hall and went down two floors.

Number 4B it was. Eleanor Lonner’s name was on the

plate. It was near the stairwell, which helped. If the need arose,

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I could escape quickly. I looked both ways. No one seemed to

be around, which didn’t mean the elevator doors couldn’t open

any second and Eleanor’s neighbor couldn’t get out, her hands

full of groceries, and wonder about the strange woman at

Eleanor’s door. Which is exactly what happened, except for the

groceries.

“Eleanor’s in India,” said the woman, who was tall and

gaunt and the type not to suffer fools gladly, which was too bad

for me.

“Yes, I know,” I said.

“Can I be of some service to you?”

“Indeed you can.” She waited for me to go on. “I work at

the Ron Stencil Agency. We represent Eleanor.”

“The Amelia Earhart movie was simply marvelous. Kudos.”

She bent down to pick some lint from her welcome mat.

“Thank you.” I blushed. “I don’t usually boast, but I helped

negotiate the deal.”

“Kudos,” she repeated, straightening up.

“Yes, well, Eleanor is away, as you know.”

“Yes. I believe we’ve established that.”

Perhaps a pet Eleanor had forgotten she owned that we

needed to rescue from starving to death?

Ridiculous.

A fern drooping inconsolably?

“How are you?” I asked desperately.

“Fine.”

So how exactly was I supposed to get into this apartment? I

eyed the lock, not that I had the slightest idea of how to pick it.

“And you?” she asked dutifully, pointing at my forehead.

“Oh, this?” I asked, touching my bandage. “It’s nothing.

I’m kind of accident-prone.”

239

“Look, is it the package that came last week?” the woman

asked impatiently. “It was downstairs in the lobby for a couple

of days. I was afraid someone would steal it, so I let myself in

and put it away.”

Bells went off in my addled head. “You let yourself in?”

“Yes, I did.”

I laughed as if this were the pinnacle of hilarity. “That is

such a coincidence! Because that package you put inside when

you let yourself in is the whole reason I’m here! I really need to

get that package back.”

“And why is that?”

“It has some scripts in it that we need to go over before

Eleanor’s return?” It was supposed to be a statement, not a

question. “It was a mistake that they were sent here,” I said

with greater conviction.

“Let’s get them, then. I’ll be right back with the key.”

She shook out her umbrella, opened the door to her apart-

ment, and went inside. I had a small window. I could make a run

for it, or I could continue to stand here, taking life lessons from

a burglar in a mystery novel whose name I could not remember.

“Here we are,” the woman said, closing the door behind her.

The window had closed.

She stuck the key in Eleanor’s lock and opened the door.

It smelled musty, the way apartments do when you return

from a long trip. I took a quick look around. Eleanor was a

minimalist who didn’t abide clutter, or else she’d cleaned up

furiously before her departure. There was a beige tweed couch

in the living room, accented with two red pillows placed at rak-

ish angles, and a rattan coffee table, accented with two issues

of Film Quarterly, also placed at rakish angles. In the dining

area, there was a glass table with four metal chairs. The mail

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was on the table, in piles placed at rakish angles, but probably

that was my imagination. I cast my eye over the return ad-

dresses: American Express, Comcast, Department of Water

and Power. Big whoop.

Then I saw a skinny green envelope.

From In the Green Room.

Will and Rafe’s production company.

The woman crouched down to retrieve a smallish card -

board box from under the table.

“Here you go,” she said, just as I was frantically shoving the