Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 2 - Stellium in Scorpio (33 page)

"You're
such a busy little bee." Karla smacked me with the butt of her gun,
splitting the side of my head right above the temple. I screamed and Callie
winced, sending me a look that said "stop talking," but I refused to
shut up.

"Elliot
had a lot to protect: the theater that made millions each year and was a nice
source of young boys that the hotel needed for the boy porn ring, which in turn
was the source of the cash that flowed to the church and its pseudopriest. If
the theater, the hotel, or the church was threatened, one of you would step in.
Bruce was using Karla to get control of the theater so you, Elliot, had to
arrange that fatal dip in the desert, since I doubt even Karla would have had
the heart to off yet another lover."

"Karla
has always put business before pleasure. The two of us like money. We call our
spending a result of the 'fuck fund,' which is far more reliable in its returns
than the stock market, since the dick goes up more often than the Dow."
Elliot Traugh smiled at his clever remark and then quickly changed his
expression to one of regret. "But, Karla, my dear, I'm afraid our fun has
come to an end."

Marlena
stepped out from the darkness and into view, dragging Sophia at gunpoint. Rose
gasped and begged Marlena to let her go. Marlena replied in her rich, deep
voice, "I don't think so, sweetie. Drop the gun, Karla."

"Do
something, Elliot!" Karla pleaded as she let the weapon slip from her
hand. Elliot did. He gave Marlena a long kiss on her even longer neck.

I
was trying to stay focused on getting us out of this mess, but I couldn't help
but be amazed.

"Surprised?"
Marlena asked the room at large. "Certainly you don't think I wanted that
corpulent old queen over there as my lover?"

This
was apparently sad news for Giovanni, who, having been betrayed by his priest
and now by his lover, begged Marlena not to say those things.

"You
son of a bitch!" Karla screamed and charged Elliot, but Marlena knocked
her backward with one blow of her long, gloved hand. That movement sent
Marlena's distinctive cologne wafting across the room, and I knew it was she
who had been in the theater with Elliot, plotting and planning.

"Everyone
seems so out of sorts!" Marlena said. "We have paid the ultimate
price for ownership of this theater and control of the church coffers: me
having to go down on an old Italian goat, and Elliot having to kiss up to a
viper. The theater is going to be signed over to us in a document dated a year
ago. Gio will continue to help us operate the hotel, and I will run the
theater, and Elliot will run the church, so the only purely expendable member
of our disparate band is...you, Karla."

"No,
please!" Giovanni begged. "Marlena, you mustn't do this!"

"I
think we're going to have a carbon monoxide accident, much like Mo's. These
crazy backup generators just weren't vented properly, and sometimes when you
try to create a fog effect the vent hose just"— with a gloved hand,
Marlena yanked the hose loose from the side of the wall—"comes
loose!" And I now understood how Mo could have been killed in a theater by
carbon monoxide gas. He was killed in this very small and private theater.

"I
think the police will discover that all of you were in the private theater
asking Gio to demonstrate how the special effects work, and because poor, dear
Gio was self-medicating and couldn't operate the controls, he asked Karla to do
it! And instead of hitting the fog controls, Karla accidentally hit the
generator start button." Elliot yanked Karla viciously by the hair toward
the control box, grabbed her hand, and used it to punch the button on the wall,
breaking the button's plastic seal and Karla's hand simultaneously. The
generator and Karla roared in unison; I suspected Karla's pain was not in her
hand but in her heart. She had been betrayed yet again, and one had only to
look at her hardened expression to know this was a woman who despised betrayal.

Elliot
tossed Marlena a knife and ordered her to cut the rope binding Rose. He
instructed Rose and Sophia to lie beside the large silver disk that formed the
stage as it began to rotate slowly and fog seeped out from under the disk.
Generator exhaust fumes containing carbon monoxide began to fill the room. I
knew we had only a few minutes, and I looked over at Callie to determine who to
attack first when Sophia flung her body onto Rose, crying that she loved her
and distracting everyone for an instant. That was our break. Elliot pushed
Karla down to the floor alongside the girls, but Karla, fueled by anger and
regret, got a grip on Elliot's leg with her good hand and toppled him to the
floor. Sophia and Rose attacked him as Marlena took aim at them. Giovanni
shouted a warning that Marlena was going to kill them, and Callie and I tackled
her. Callie got the knife out of Marlena's hand while I wrestled Marlena for
the gun, attempting to keep the barrel pointed away from everyone and up at the
ceiling.

So
many bodies slammed up against one another and wrestled for control of weapons
that it looked like a World Wrestling Federation SmackDown. I caught a glimpse
of Sophia giving Elliot a decidedly vicious whack to the head just as Marlena
overpowered me and got control of the gun. She pointed it at Callie.
"Everyone, attention! Stop!" On her face was a wild, triumphant
smile.

She
turned to Elliot. "Are you all right, my darling?"

He
jumped to his feet and grabbed me by the throat. It appeared that in seconds,
all of us would die, if not from a gun or knife, then surely from the carbon
monoxide that was already making the air toxic.

Out
of the corner of my eye, I saw Callie focus on the disk, squinting, her hands
out to her sides as if she were saying one final prayer.

And
then, as if by magic, the disk began to turn even faster and spin hypnotically.
A thicker fog seeped out from under it, and the center of the disk separated
from its outer edge and pushed up from the underworld to reveal a figure
beneath it. A smoky, amorphous image.

"Look!"
Callie said loudly.

"What
the hell?" Elliot breathed and loosened his grip on my throat.

The
substance began to take form, as if the smoke were being coalesced and poured
into the shape of a person: a silver-haired man wearing expensive black pants
and a black suit jacket and a black fedora. He stood there staring at us.

"Holy
Mary Mother of God, it's Mo!" Giovanni gasped.

"Mo!"
Karla said quietly.

Marlena
stared at him and shook from her shoulders to her shoes, and her gun clattered
to the floor. Mo stared at all of us, and then he vanished in the same way he'd
appeared.. .into thin air. Karla retrieved Marlena's gun, took aim with her one
good hand, and fired at Elliot Traugh, killing him on the spot.

It
was a showstopper. Elliot Traugh, master of disguise, performer extraordinaire,
a star of the
Boy Review,
appeared to be dead at the hands of his friend
and confidante. The enormity of the event even took its toll on Karla, as she
let the gun dangle from her hand. She looked defeated and lonely and betrayed.
Giovanni put his arm around her as Callie turned off the generator and opened
the theater doors.

Sophia
was up and dialing the police, and her mom, and the few employees whom she knew
to be on the right side of the hotel's business. Before I knew it, the stage
was covered in crime tape and cops, hotel staffers, and hospital paramedics.

"Who's
who?" the cop shouted.

"Arrest
her," Sophia ordered, pointing to Marlena, who was sobbing over Elliot
Traugh's body. "And I have an entire list of hotel staff you'll need to
arrest: look for Brownlee, the security team—"

"And
who are you?" the officer interrupted.

"I'm
Mo Black's granddaughter. This is my hotel." Sophia sent Karla a look that
clearly said this was the new deal if she and Giovanni didn't want to end up in
jail.

"That
true?" The cop looked at Karla.

"Family
arrangement," Karla said, and the cop focused on what Sophia wanted done.

"Sophia
was afraid that if she told you what was going on.. .well, exactly what just
happened would happen," Rose said.

"Drew
it to her," I said to Callie.

Barbara
Loomis burst into the theater and flung herself on Sophia and hugged Rose,
showing emotion for the first time since I'd met her, telling the two girls how
frightened she'd been and how they would no longer have to look over their
shoulder in fear every minute. Loomis caught sight of us and came over with the
girls to thank us for stepping in and saving their lives. It was a veritable
love-fest as each of them kissed us and thanked us. We watched them retreat,
arms around each other in a grateful group hug, joyful their travails were over.

"So
you think Rose will live with Sophia?" I asked.

"Maybe.
There seems to be a cosmic connection," she said.

"Did
you actually summon Mo?"

"Did
it blow your mind?" Callie grinned.

"Hell,
yes."

"Well,
sorry to disappoint you, but despite all my beliefs, I still haven't mastered
the summoning of spirits on cue."

"So
he just showed up?" I asked and Callie smiled.

Across
the room, Sophia was looking up at the dark technical booth. "The theater
has always had the ability to present holographic imagery. The walls were
painted black at one time," she explained to the police officer. "Mo,
my grandfather, bought the laser equipment years ago. Let's see, the light
source must have come from in here, because there's nothing down on the
stage." She led the police officer up the steps to the booth.
"Frankly, I didn't know there was any holographic film of my
grandfather."

"So
who do you think ran the equipment?" the cop asked.

Sophia
stood perfectly still, staring at the empty room. "There is no
equipment," she said.

"Then
how does this hologram thing happen?" he asked.

"It
doesn't," she said softly.

I
turned back to Callie. "Is this one of those 'body-in-the-bathtub, there
but not there, the bakery with your grandmother writing in the flour, the dead
are creating illusions' kind of thing?"

"Maybe
death is an illusion," Callie said quietly and I shook my head like Elmo
when he doesn't want to think about something too hard.

I
could see the Las Vegas police putting crime tape across the stage and beginning
their interviews. I was certain they'd be in a quandary as to how to book Mo
Black's widow and Giovanni, one of the richest mafia types in town.
They’ll
be searching the books, and their collective shorts, for misdemeanors and
extenuating circumstances,
I thought to myself and grinned. Off to one side
of the theater, Rose had joined Sophia and was kissing her with a passion born
of relief and wanting. Callie and I stood back and watched the entire scene as
everyone busied themselves unraveling the story.

"Stellium
in Scorpio...it unearthed everything and brought it into the open. On the
negative side, the hidden secrets and lies, on the positive side, hidden love,
and in this case, it was all for the good. Energy retrieved," Callie said,
quite pleased with the way things had turned out, and she took my hand and
kissed me.

That
night in our room, Callie and I breathed a sigh of relief. For the first time,
I felt like we were alone, not being watched by anyone but each other—and Elmo,
who had watched us nonstop until he was certain we were safe. He was now lying
on his back about to go to sleep.

"So
you don't think I listen," I said to the exhausted basset. "Well, I'm
sorry. Go ahead and tell me something. I'm all ears, just like you." I
smirked and paused, dutifully waiting for an answer.

Elmo
sniffed loudly and Callie giggled. "What?" I asked.

"He
said you're still talking—not listening." I must have looked hurt because
Callie added, "It's okay. I told him that you just aren't able to hear him
yet, but that you will."

"How
do you know I will?"

"Because
you don't know it, but you're getting more in tune with things around
you."

"Speaking
of things around me," I said, "I want you around me. I want to live
with you."

"Remind
me again why we need to settle this right now?" She cuddled up to me.

"For
a very practical reason. You've made me afraid of the dark. I don't want weird
guys materializing on me in the middle of the night, and you not there to tell
them to hit the road. Elmo absolutely chatters if I don't let him sleep with a
pillow over his head now. He hates spooks."

I
rolled her over playfully and jumped on her, rumpling her and wrestling her and
ultimately diving into lovemaking with her. I was relaxed now. I felt the
auditioning was over. I had admitted I was wild about her and she had, in an
unguarded moment, told me she was in love with me. There was nothing left to be
said, only things left to be done. She needed to be with me. Why she couldn't
get to that point was beyond me.