House Secrets (36 page)

Finding the photographer was simple, much easier than getting the cop. To find the right guy all he did was call his pal Reggie Harmon at the
Washington Post
.

Arnie Berg was short, middle-aged, had a scraggly mustache, hair that needed a trim, and a face pockmarked with old acne scars. He wore a blue sports coat with dandruff sprinkling the shoulders, brown corduroy pants, and Hush Puppies. Imagine a producer calling a casting
agent and saying: “Hey, Morrie, send me a guy that looks like a sleazy paparazzo.” The agent would send a guy who looked like Arnie Berg.

And you only had to be with Arnie five minutes to know that he had no shame and would do anything to make a buck. He was the one who would follow an aging actress, take pictures of her in a bathing suit, and the following week, on the cover of a tabloid would be a close-up of the woman’s butt and a headline that read: STARS WITH CELLULITE.

DeMarco despised Arnie Berg—but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t use him.

She was in her early thirties. She was five foot four, had blond curls framing a sweet, heart-shaped face, dimples in her cheeks, and big blue eyes behind large-framed glasses. The glasses magnified her eyes into huge blue pools of innocence, making her appear more vulnerable than DeMarco suspected she really was. She also had a figure like Marcia Davenport’s: large breasts in comparison to her small frame, hips that flared nicely from a twenty-two-inch waist, and legs that looked good in the short skirt she was wearing.

The first words that came from the sweet face were: “Well,
fuck
, are you going to let me in? It’s colder than shit out here.”

“Brenda Hathaway?” DeMarco said.

“Right. Now let me in before I freeze my ass off. It was eighty fucking degrees in L.A. If I’d known it was gonna be so damn cold here, I would have asked for more money.”

DeMarco picked up her suitcases from his porch, ushered her into his den, and poured her a brandy to ward off pneumonia. While taking the first few sips of her drink, she walked around the room, stopped by a print on the wall, and nodded as if she approved of it. One of DeMarco’s many ex-girlfriends had given him the print. Slipping out of her shoes, she flopped down on the couch across from DeMarco’s chair and put her feet up on the coffee table. Her legs were visible to the tops of her thighs.

“To show biz,” she said, toasting DeMarco with the brandy snifter. “I understand you’ve got a part for me.”

“Who told you about the job?”

“My agent, the useless shit.”

DeMarco hoped Sam Murphy had paid the agent enough to ensure his silence. “What did your agent tell you?” he asked.

“He told me I was going to make fifty grand, and that I wouldn’t have to screw a German shepherd to get it. He also said the publicity would jumpstart my career. I hope so; then I can dump him and find a real agent.”

“Who talked to your agent about the job?”

“Geez, I don’t know. Lighten up, will you. What is this? Fucking
I Spy
?”

“Brenda, I want you to stop saying ‘fuck.’”

“Well, excuse
me
! What are you? Some kinda religious fanatic?”

“No. The role you’re going to play doesn’t have four-letter words in the dialogue. You’re going to be innocent. Naive and demure. Everybody’s kid sister. You need to start working on the part.”

“You gonna wash out my mouth with soap or tell me what the part is?”

That almost made DeMarco smile.

“Two days from now—”

“You married?” Brenda asked.

“No.”

“Gay?”

“No. Two days from now—”

“Divorced?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you get divorced?”

“We had different priorities.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Not anymore.”

She looked at DeMarco for a second, and turning serious for the first time, said, “Sorry. Looks like a fresh wound.”

“Yeah. Now if you’re through with the questions, here’s the deal.”

When he finished telling her what she had to do, Brenda said, “Fucking-A, this is heavy. Oops.”

“Yes, it is heavy, Brenda. And it’s risky. Are you sure you want to take the risk?”

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to get noticed in Hollywood?”

DeMarco shook his head.

“Well, thanks to plastic surgery, every woman out there has a perfect nose and perfect boobs. Getting a decent part is harder than winning the lotto. I’d do anything to break into the big time.”

The heat of her ambition seared the air.

“And in case you’re wondering,” she added, “there’s nothing man-made inside this body.”

DeMarco spent the next hour with Brenda going over her role. She asked smart questions. Beneath the blond curls was a good mind. At ten o’clock, she yawned and said, “I think I’ve got the idea. It’s been a long day, honey. Where am I staying?”

“Starting tomorrow, you’ll be staying in an apartment on Capitol Hill. Tonight, you can stay here or I can find you a hotel room.”

“I don’t mind staying here.”

DeMarco led her to his bedroom and said, “The bathroom’s across the hall, and the sheets and towels are clean.”

“This is your room, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. I’ll sleep on the couch in my den. It’s a Hide-A-Bed.”

She looked at him for a long heartbeat and said, “See you in the morning.”

Fifteen minutes later he heard the shower running and tried not to think about what she would look like wet and naked. He read for
an hour, then pulled out the Hide-A-Bed and tried to sleep. The reason he’d given Brenda his bed was that the Hide-A-Bed was as comfortable as an iron maiden.

At eleven-thirty the door to his office opened. He hadn’t been asleep. He looked up at the open doorway and saw Brenda framed in the entrance, the light from the hallway behind her. She was wearing a short bathrobe that showed off her legs almost to her hips.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “Still on West Coast time, I guess.”

DeMarco didn’t say anything.

She undid the belt of the bathrobe and shrugged the robe off her shoulders. She had a beautiful body.

DeMarco could tell when they were talking earlier that Brenda found him attractive—but he knew he wasn’t irresistible. He suspected that she was just a young woman who liked sex and he wasn’t repulsive and he was available. Going to bed with him may have been the equivalent, emotionally, of having a nice massage before falling asleep. And that was all fine by him.

Sliding under the covers, she said, “I promise—tomorrow I’ll start working seriously on innocent.”

The event needed to be timed like a Flying Walendas trapeze routine.

Clayton Adams stood in the waiting room outside Paul Morelli’s office, chatting with the receptionist, while watching the clock behind her desk. He was to wait exactly four minutes. As he waited, Jackie Arnold was inside Morelli’s office with Brenda. By now Jackie had already told Morelli how bad she felt about leaving on such short notice and had introduced Brenda to the senator as an old friend. Adams checked the clock, flashed the receptionist a smile, and started down the hallway. He passed the open door to Morelli’s office just as Jackie was beginning to discuss Brenda’s experience and extol her many virtues.

Adams stopped abruptly, did a ham actor’s double take, and said, “My God, is that you, Brenda?”

For ten years, Clayton Adams had been the Democratic congressman from the California district that included Burbank and part of North Hollywood. He could have served another ten years had he chosen to, but he was reaching his sunset years and concluded it was time to look out for number one. A year ago he’d left the House and joined a firm of political manipulators on K Street, and since he was making three times what he made in the House, his conscience didn’t bother him a bit. And when Sam Murphy called and asked him to perform a small service—and said,
“Oh, by the way, my cabin in Aspen’s gonna be vacant in December”—one-time Democratic loyalist Clayton Adams agreed to tell a wee lie.

“Oh, Mr. Adams!” Brenda said, acting equally surprised.

“Paul, excuse me,” Adams said, “but I just had to stop when I saw Brenda.”

Morelli—still frowning, clearly annoyed that Jackie Arnold was quitting—said, “You know Brenda, Clayton?”

“Know her! This pretty little thing worked in my L.A. office for a while. Best gal Friday I ever had. How long were you with me, Brenda?”

“Six months,” Brenda said.

“Paul, all I can tell you is, if you get a chance to hire this young lady, don’t you dare pass it up. Well, I gotta run. Sorry again for interrupting. And Brenda, it’s so good to see you, sweetie. Call me later.”

And the Flying Walenda caught the bar.

While all this was occurring, DeMarco waited impatiently at the Monocle. Brenda was supposed to have met with Jackie at ten a.m., and DeMarco figured that by ten-fifteen she’d either get the job or she wouldn’t. He figured her chances of getting it were maybe fifty-fifty. In addition to bribing Clayton Adams to provide a personal endorsement for her, Murphy had other folks supply Brenda with an impressive packet of references. But would it be enough? It was almost noon now, so he sat there stewing, wondering where the hell she was and what she was doing.

Brenda finally walked through the door thirty minutes later, gave him a little peck on the cheek, and wiggled onto the bar stool next to him.

“
Well?
” he said, as soon as she sat down.

“And it’s nice to see you too, cutie,” Brenda said. To the bartender she said, “A Manhattan please, and could I have two cherries?”

“Of course,” the bartender said. She was so cute he’d have given her a bushel of cherries if she’d asked.

“Brenda, don’t keep me in suspense,” DeMarco said. “Did you get the damn job or not?”

Brenda reached into her purse and pulled out the temporary badge she’d been given so she could enter the Russell Building. “Say hello to the newest member of Senator Morelli’s staff,” she said.

“Thank God,” DeMarco said. “So where in the hell have you been the last two and a half hours?”

“Getting my badge and meeting the folks in the office. And Jackie showed me some of the stuff she was working on. She’s gonna stick around a couple more days to break me in. Oh, and I had a nice chat with the senator. It’s a good thing I’m temporarily smitten with you, honey,” Brenda said. “Paul Morelli is absolutely beautiful.”

“Listen to me carefully, Brenda. Morelli is dangerous. Do not even try to play around with him.”

“Ah, lighten up,” she said, and gave his thigh a little squeeze.

After DeMarco and Brenda finished lunch, they drove back to DeMarco’s place, picked up Brenda’s luggage, and DeMarco helped her get settled into the apartment on Capitol Hill. When Brenda discovered silk sheets in the linen closet—which surprised the hell out of DeMarco considering the last tenant’s appearance—the settling in took on a new meaning.

DeMarco liked Brenda Hathaway. She was quirky, fun, and bright, and he found himself enjoying her company both in and out of bed. She wasn’t Elle Myers, and she wasn’t going to be the next Mrs. DeMarco, but he would miss her when she left. He would miss her—but he wouldn’t try to keep her from leaving.