In Cold Blonde (35 page)

“Get that gun
out of my face before I make you eat it,” I said. It’s tough to talk tough with
a gun an inch from your nose, but I didn’t think he’d really pull the trigger.

He pulled the
trigger. The bullet blew a hole in the wall a micro millimeter from my left
ear.

There was a
scream from outside the door then a fearful Bernice asked, “Alex, are you
okay?”

“Just dandy,
Bernice,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine. To me he said, “The next one is
between your eyes. Now, where is she?!”

“Who?”

“Christine.”

“Christine
who?”

His eyes nearly
bored holes in mine before he said, “You don’t know, do you?”

“No.”

A little more
cornea drilling, then: “I believe you.” He lowered the gun, backed away and
sagged into his desk chair. “I’m sorry, Mr. Kincaid. I hate violence, but this
kidnapping’s got me a little crazy.”

“Maybe you
should start at the beginning.”

“I got a call
this morning at five-fifteen. One of the gardeners found Christine Cole’s crypt
open and her body missing.”

Holy shit
.
“Christine Cole?”

Christine Cole
was one of the biggest movie stars of the sixties. A model turned actress, she
vaulted to fame the year after Marilyn Monroe died and took her place as
Hollywood’s “it” girl. A sultry blonde with a killer body, Christine oozed sex.
And she used it. To the gossip columnists’ delight, Christine unabashedly slept
her way through the rich and famous. And she battled some personal demons with
drugs and alcohol. But Christine also had talent, and she made a string of hit
movies. Four, to be exact, and only four. Because, on a foggy April morning, a
drunk Christine lost control of her silver Jaguar XKE on the Pacific Coast
Highway and plunged to her death. She was thirty-three years old.

Her death had
shocked the world. And, like that of Bogart and Monroe, Christine’s fame had
only increased since her passing. Her image was on everything from tee shirts
and coffee mugs to perfume and push-up bras. A true Hollywood icon.

Someone had
robbed her grave. Stolen her corpse.

Who steals a
corpse?

I said, “There
can’t be much of her left after forty years. Just bones, right?”

“Bones. The
gown she was buried in. And some jewelry. She was buried wearing a bracelet,
necklace and diamond ring.”

“Valuable?”

“On another
body, no. But these were on Christine Cole.”

“How much is
the kidnapper asking?”

“Two million
dollars.”

It suddenly hit
me. “Wait a minute … why’d you think I knew where the body was?”

“Your business
card was attached to the ransom note.”

“What?”

“The kidnapper
says you have to deliver the money.” He handed me the note. The words looked
like they were cut out of a variety of magazine articles.

IF YOU
WANT TO SEE CHRISTINE AGAIN, HAVE GIDEON BRING $2,000,000 IN USED $100 BILLS TO
THE NORTHWEST CORNER OF HOLLYWOOD AND VINE AT 3 P.M. TODAY, OR I’LL SELL THE
BODY, BONE BY BONE.

My business
card was paper-clipped to the top of the page. In the six years I’d been a PI,
I must’ve given out hundreds of business cards. Was this guy an ex-client?
Someone I’d interviewed? Someone who’d picked up my card from a desk? No way of
knowing. “I’ll be happy to deliver this ransom free of charge.” I wanted to
find out who this son of a bitch was.

“I appreciate
that, but I’ll pay for your time—as long as you promise me you won’t do
anything to jeopardize the safe return of Ms. Cole’s remains.”

In other
words, don’t let it get too personal
. “I won’t.” Something was nagging at
the back of my brain. There was a familiar aspect about all this, but I
couldn’t get it to bubble to the surface. “I’d like to see her crypt.”

“The funeral
itself was small, only thirty-five guests. But outside the gates stood hundreds
of reporters, photographers, police officers and fans.”

We were
standing in front of the open crypt. The marble facing had been pried off, the
bronze casket slid open. The only thing inside was the dried remains of a few
roses.

“I played the
organ,” Alex Snyder said. “You know what they requested? ‘Yesterday.’ Christine
loved the Beatles.”

A set of
footprints in the still-wet grass led to a rear gate. The chain had been
broken, snapped by a crowbar, from the looks of it. Probably used the same
crowbar on the crypt. “I could talk to a few neighbors,” I said. “See if anyone
saw anything last night.”

“Absolutely
not! Don’t talk to the neighbors. Or the police. Anyone. We’ll be ruined if the
tabloids find out we lost Christine Cole’s body. I just want to pay the money
and get her back.”

“You realize
the kidnapper might take the money and not return the body.”

“I’ll take that
chance. Will you help me?”

I fingered the
ransom note and my business card. “I don’t think I have a choice.”

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