Hot Shot (6 page)

“No, I've still got my rental car.”

“All right, then.” I didn't move. “Did you have something you wanted to ask me?”

“You know Jack Danziger. What do you think the chances are…”

“Of the book getting done? Do you think you have enough information?”

“Well, I've got the manuscript, and the tapes.” Not a lie.

Kitty appraised me shrewdly. Despite her dithery demeanor, this woman was no dummy. “And do you want to, dear?”

“Yes.”

“Well, let me see what I can do, then.” Kitty punched in a combination and opened her car door. She gave me another smile, and this one didn't look so weary. “The book will happen. One way or another. I promise.”

*   *   *

It was seven-thirty by the time I got back to Claudia's. She wasn't there. Judging from the debris level, she'd barely been home since I left. By the time I took a cool shower and put my dirty clothes in a garbage bag for the cleaners, it was almost eight, and Claudia still wasn't home. I hadn't eaten since Denny's that morning, so I raided the refrigerator and came up with a container of coffee yogurt, a jar with olive water at the bottom, and some kind of leftovers in an old margarine tub. Grumbling, I called the House of Phuket and ordered in twenty-eight dollars' worth of Thai food. It was expensive, but … well … phuket.

When the phone rang a few minutes later, I assumed it was the delivery boy, lost somewhere, but it was Jack Danziger.

“The book's off, right? Well, nice working with you.”

He laughed. “Hey, Sport. Don't jump to conclusions. I thought you'd want to know: I just got off the phone with Enrique Gustavo of the Mexican police.”

“So what happened?”

“They think it was a simple case of robbery that got out of hand. The place was torn apart and some jewelry was missing. None of the neighbors noticed anything, but from what Gustavo told me, I gather that break-ins aren't uncommon down there.”

I was telling him about Via del Paraiso, how the luxury was cheek-to-jowl with the poverty, when Claudia came in. Her hair was tied back in a purple bandanna, and there was fine plaster dust all over her shirt and shorts. The bags under her eyes were big enough for two weeks in Cancun. She dumped three sacks of food on the counter and disappeared into the bathroom.

“I've got a breakfast meeting tomorrow,” said Jack. “But I'll be in touch with your agent sometime tomorrow, Sport.”

“Thanks.” I hung up, uneasy about something. Something about the conversation didn't sit right, and I couldn't figure out what it was. I opened one of the bags and took out a container of soup. The aromas of lemongrass and galangal permeated the room like steam.

“You off?” Claudia yelled.

“Yeah. Thanks for getting the food.”

“I met the delivery boy downstairs. You owe me fourteen bucks.” The shower went on with a shudder of pipes. “So when'd you get back?”

“A couple of hours ago.”

“I thought you were there through the weekend.… Why can't I get any hot water?”

“What?”

“Did everything go okay?”

“I'll tell you later. Why don't you take a shower and I'll get the food set up?”

“I can't hear you,” she yelled. “I'm in the shower.”

The kitchen table was still covered with my unpacked cardboard boxes. I laid a tablecloth on the floor, set two places, and was spooning green beans over rice when Claudia came out of the bathroom, hair wet and wearing a Saints jersey. She pecked me on the cheek, and I took her in my arms for a hug, but she wriggled away.

“Eat first,” she said. “Kiss later.”

While we ate, she told me all the latest complications: the discovery of termites in one of the supporting columns, the contractor who had vanished and wasn't returning messages. I pinched lime and sprinkled peanuts on my noodles, asking questions in the right places. When she was done, I told her an abbreviated version of my adventures with Felina. “That was Danziger on the phone when you came in. His lawyer talked to the cops down there.”

“So what happened?” Claudia walked over to the fridge. “You want a beer?”

“Sure … They think it was a break-in gone wrong. There's something weird about—” I looked at the beer Claudia handed me. “Dixie?”

“My parents sent a care package. Craw-Tator chips, cane root beer, everything. My mother put in a note and said they're coming out for the grand opening of Canem.”

“Oh. Good.”

Claudia's parents had always treated me cordially, considering my precarious financial and social situation. Both of them came from old New Orleans families; it was a merger as much as a marriage. I liked the Doctors Dubuisson, but I wasn't quite sure what they thought about me.

“Lydia's coming, too,” Claudia continued. “She and Charlie split up a couple of weeks ago.”

“What happened?”

“No one's clear on it. You know Lydia.”

Lydia was Claudia's older sister by two years. They shared facial features, but where Claudia was all angles and ambition, Lydia was pure curves and languor. She was a travel agent, but she also worked part-time as a “plus-size” model in department store fashion shows, modeling sixteens with a panache that no anorexic runway rat could match. I liked Lydia, but her laissez-faire attitude toward child rearing made me nervous. Her motto was “If they're not dead at the end of the day, I've done my job.”

Claudia took another bite of curry and washed it down with Dixie. “So what's going to happen with the book?”

“I'm still not sure. I could paste something together. Even with padding, though, I'm not sure it's enough for a whole book. And Danziger's backpedaling.” I explained
force majeure
to Claudia. “The ball's in his court, and he's got Dunne, Dunne, and Lambert to back him up.”

“So if he decides to pull out, you're screwed.”

“Pretty much.” I killed the Dixie and started to clear away the remains of the dinner. “Listen, Claude, I'm sorry. I'll get out of here soon. Somehow. I promise.”

“Don't worry about it. Something will happen. It always does.” Claudia got up and stretched. “Right now I'm too tired to think about it, and I've got to be back at Canem at seven in the morning.”

“Go to bed. I'll clean up.”

“Just dump it in the sink, Kieran. You can take care of it tomorrow.” She started toward the bedroom and banged her shin on a packing box. “Ow. Dammit.”

“I'll get that cleared away tomorrow,” I mumbled.

Claudia shot me a look that told me what she thought of my promises these days.

In bed, she curled into me spoon-fashion and was asleep in a minute. I, on the other hand, was too exhausted for sleep. Tired but wired. And I wasn't sure what was weighing on my mind—Felina's death, the fate of the book project, or Claudia and me.

How the hell am I going to save this project?

How could Felina afford that beach house, anyway?

Under my arm, Claudia shifted, pressing herself into my chest. Her breath came heavy.

Once, this position would have built into slow kisses, hands all over each other, rummaging in my old gym bag for condoms and lubricant. Since I'd moved in with Claude, any passion was gone between us. Even our arguments had dribbled away into inconsequence, as if none of it mattered anymore.

Claude, what's happened to us?

*   *   *

She was gone when I woke up in the morning. The backdrop of sky over the Pacific Ocean was roiling, black as poison. The one clean pair of 501s I found took a little extra tugging to get them over my hips. Wonderful. Just past my thirtieth birthday, and soon I'd be shopping for “relaxed fit” jeans. The first stop on the long downhill slide to Dentu-Creme and Depends.

Claudia had left a carafe of French roast, and I scared up a couple pieces of toast, smearing them with cream cheese. Not bad; nine in the morning, and I already had two food groups out of the way. Three, if you count coffee.

The morning paper didn't have anything on Felina's death. I went on to Ann Landers and Metro, relieved.

Rain began to fall, a restless sound. I turned on the lamps in the living room, making it cozy as a ship's cabin. I got out my laptop and the Felina tapes and started transcribing.

At twelve-thirty, thoroughly discouraged, I took a break for lunch. There were tidbits here and there—some juicy stuff about Vernon Ash and the Hollywood drug scene, Dick and Betty Mann's marriage—but it still felt more like an article than a book. If only I had one more day with Felina, I might have been able to stitch together a workable manuscript, but nothing short of a channeler could make Felina available for rewrites.

Crap. I put last night's leftovers into the microwave and watched them spin in the little window.

The phone rang.

“Kieran?” It was Jack Danziger. I pictured him leaning back in an ergonomic executive chair, talking into one of the little operator headsets that all the Hollywood types used. “How's it going?”

“Fine. Just transcribing Felina's tapes.”

“You think there's enough there for a book?”

“Sure,” I lied. The two primary rules of Hollywood deal-making are “Anything's possible” and “Tell them what they want to hear.”

“Good. I'll be talking to Jocelyn in a day or two, as soon as I figure out what's going on. Listen, Sport; I had a call from Frank Grassley a few minutes ago.”

Frank Grassley used to be a local TV reporter in Los Angeles, a town where journalism skills were never as important as really good hair. Frank had excellent hair. A few months back, Frank had left the
Eyewitless News
beat to become an “investigative reporter” for
Hollywood Today!,
an entertainment show that sucked up to the stars. Frank and I had crossed paths a few times over the years, never with pleasant results.

“He's doing a story on Felina. He wanted an interview,” Danziger said grimly. “I told him no.”

“Good. Grassley's a sleaze.”

“I know. But get this: Then he asked for your phone number.”

“My … how did he get my name?”

“I don't know. You're a reporter. How do you people get your information?”

“Frank Grassley isn't a reporter. He's a two-hundred-dollar coiffure with a microphone.”

“Of course I didn't give it to him.” I heard a beep. “I've got to take that. Listen, he left a number in case you want to call him. You want it?”

“No. Thanks, Jack.”

Shit. I found the TV listings from the morning paper.
Hollywood Today!
came on at six-thirty, right after the local news. With a little luck, it would be a busy news day and the Felina story wouldn't merit more than a footnote. With a little luck …

A little luck was a lot to ask for.

*   *   *

I tried to go back to work, but Danziger's call was eating at me. What the hell could Frank Grassley want? At one-thirty I gave up and headed for downtown. I needed to do some research.

I parked in the Second Street garage and jaywalked over to the paper, feeling vaguely like a shoplifter returning to the scene of the crime. But the guard in the lobby said hello as always, giving my ID badge the most cursory of glances, and no alarm bells went off when I got on the elevator.

Sally's pod was in the back of the fourth-floor bullpens, a tiny cubicle dominated by teetering stacks of reference books, several weeks' worth of old dummies, and her prized Wayne Gretsky jersey. Sitting in the middle of it all was a giant Coyote monitor that bathed the full catastrophe in a sickly green light. Sally was typing away like a madwoman, oblivious.

“I've been a subscriber for sixty years, and I'm sick and tired of the hidden Satanic messages in
The Family Circus,
” I said.

Without missing a keystroke, Sally waved at a nearby chair. Shut up and sit down.

Like every other company in America, the paper was undergoing what management referred to as cutbacks, buyouts, and “right-sizing.” Employees had several other words for it, none of them suitable for a family newspaper. The cutback was a companywide constriction, but it had hit no other section harder than the one for which Sally and I worked. There would always be room for sports and business, but the “soft” pages such as features were taking a big hit.

Sally finally stopped typing and pressed her hands together, trying to ease the carpal tunnel—reporter's arthritis—in her wrists. Her hair needed a trim, and she'd put on a few pounds.

“Busy?” I said brightly.

She tossed me that day's section. “There's less and less of us, and it just keeps getting smaller and smaller.”

“Are you trying to tell me something?”

Sally didn't react.

“What? Have you heard something? Am I not coming back?”

“I don't know, Kieran, honestly.” She dropped her voice. “I don't know if there's going to be a section to come back to. It's just cafeteria chatter at this point, but there's talk about folding the section unless advertising picks up.”

“I'm sure you'd be okay. They'd move you to Metro or something.”

“I doubt it. I've been here twenty-seven years, Kieran. With what I'm making, they could hire three kids straight out of J-school.” She rubbed her wrists. “I don't want to think about it. What are you doing here?”

“I need to use the library.”

“You might as well. No one else is.” She swiveled and began typing again.

“Call me when you get a minute. I'll take you to coffee.”

She nodded distractedly.

*   *   *

Up in the library, I sat down in front of the supercomputer we called the Beast. It was really a hypersophisticated web crawler; type in a name, a place, a string of words, and some lightning-fast computer chip would comb the electronic catacombs for matches. It felt good to lose myself in research and forget the conversation with Sally. If the section folded, my job prospects would be reduced to asking if people wanted fries with that.