Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 3 - Venus Besieged (12 page)

"Okay,
okay, I'm making notes. Need contact for digging up Native American woman we
don't believe is dead. When in doubt, dig 'em out. You're gonna need an
attorney, as much as I hate to say that word. Somebody who can do business in
Arizona and knows people. Come to think of it, I might know someone who has a
cabin in Sedona and could even be out there for the holidays. I'll check it out
and get back to you."

"You're
great—once you get to the damned point." I hung up before the snorting
began.

The
phone rang in the middle of the night, and as I grabbed it I thought it might
be Wade. Despite the electronic breakup, I could make out Jeremy Jacowitz's
voice. Apologizing profusely, he said he was overseas and could never figure
out what time it was.
A famous director should get a clock that tells him,
or a secretary who tells him,
I thought but remained politically correct,
saying only, "No problem."

"Barrett
forwarded your rewrite of the opening scene, the therapist and the hooker, and
I think it's brilliantly done. Brilliant!"

I
held my breath. There was a day when words like
brilliant
coming from a
director would send me into a double backflip and have me high-fiving Elmo. But
after years in Hollywood, I understood exaggeration was the norm and, further,
that it was sometimes used as a left hook to set me up for the right punch.

"I'm
over here in Paris seeing so many avant-garde films— films that take chances,
break barriers, change the way people think.

Groundbreaking
work and I'm thinking, my God, this film Teague Richfield is writing has that
same quality, that potential, and so I wanted to call you while I'm still
enthused from my last screening and give you
une petite matiere a reflexion.

He
chuckled at turning a cliché like
"food for thought"
into
something that sounded a lot sexier. "We're not driving enough young
people to the theaters because we're frightened, don't you agree?"

I
never thought about young people or theaters, being interested in neither. I
only thought about stories: writing them, living them, breathing them, but my
breath alone would not resuscitate a screenplay into a motion picture. It was
Jacowitz whose creative CPR counted. So I agreed with him and then hated myself
for agreeing, because I had no idea what I was agreeing to—to Jeremy Jacowitz,
I guessed—agreeing that whatever he wanted me to agree to was fine so long as
he liked my first draft. I was no better than any other Hollywood wannabe, and
it put me in a bad mood.

"We're
afraid to be borderline, we're afraid to say everything is okay, we're afraid
to commit in the most fundamental, elemental, raw way. I want us to be
fearless, Teague, break open our heads..."

I
was getting more irritated as Jeremy Jacowitz led me on a forced march through
his mental recesses, a trip short on scenic variety.
Give me the notes. What
the hell are you trying to say? I know you’re working up to something that
undoubtedly involves six-inch heels and a spiked ball.

"...and
so I feel strongly that we go back to the abused wife—"

He'd
apparently said several paragraphs between the time I was listening to him and
the time I was listening to myself.

"You're
right. It has emotional purity," I interjected, feeling myself grow
calmer.

"And
an alien comes down and has sex with her."

Left
hook, right jab, KO!
"An
alien?" I said, reeling.

"Aliens
represent our primal fears, our alien selves, and this woman represents our
inner core as we confront that fear—"

"She's
raped by—"

"Attacked
at first, but then it's consensual." Jacowitz was serious.

"She
has consensual sex with an alien?"

"And
because she's been abused and no one has believed the abuse, why would they
believe she's had sex with an alien?" he said.

"SHE
CAN'T HAVE SEX WITH AN ALIEN!"

"EXACTLY!"
He had obviously mistaken my shouting for enthusiasm and was matching it with
his own. "So of course they COMMIT HER!" He shouted as triumphantly
as if the curtain had rung down on
Gone with the Weird.

"I
should be committed for ever selling you my story. I can't write this
screenplay!"

"Don't
worry, we can hire a cowriter. I know a great guy—"

"I
want out. I quit! My attorney will call your...aliens."

I
hung up and turned to Callie, who seemed completely untroubled by my giving a
huge motion-picture director the figurative finger. "I'm fucked. I unsold
my screenplay."

"You
did the right thing."

"How
can I prostitute myself any further? It's ridiculous. I don't want to write
movies about abused women who have consensual sex with aliens, even if it attracts
every date-night teenage boy on the planet."

"What
happens now?"

"My
attorney calls and yells at me. Barrett Silvers calls and yells at me. People
threaten that I'll never work again and I fret."

"Great
business." Callie tried to pull me down on the bed and kiss me but I
fended her off reflexively, wanting to pace. "Come over here and lie
down," she said, wanting, I surmised, to relieve my tension in ways I
should have loved but couldn't focus on.

"Sorry,"
I said as she got up and followed me, trying to be close. "I'm too
freaked." We both went back to bed, but this time it was me propped up
against the headboard with my arms clutching my legs, chin resting on my knees,
wondering how something as great as a green-lighted screenplay could end up a
convoluted, corrupted mess.

"I've
never seen you this upset," Callie said, making no further attempt to hold
me. "You're seething."

"I'm
pissed that I continue to walk into the same blind alley again and again.
Nothing worth shooting happens through this studio system. It's designed by
little boys, for little boys, to play into little boys' fantasies. Because of
the boys at the studio, Xena Warrior Princess had to leave Gabrielle and have
sex with a guy, and then, she was so confused that in real life she went out
and got pregnant."

"I
think she got pregnant because she's straight."

"Xena
is not straight and don't start spreading that rumor."

"Come
here to me." She pulled me into her and I reluctantly gave in this time,
but remained in the vertical fetal position up against her.

"I
need to get you some herbs. Going through the change makes everything seem
bigger."

"Yeah,
well, fuck the change," I said, and Callie kissed me and consoled me as
she would a fussy child.

We
couldn't do much to help Manaba at the moment, at least the way I viewed it.
Government buildings, Indian Affairs, and anyone with a brain had closed all
offices for the holiday. Nizhoni was dead—seemingly, Kai had died a long time
ago, and Manaba's grandmother had been out of the picture for years, so why get
hysterical over the historical. No woman was in immediate jeopardy despite
whatever planets were trapping Venus and wrestling her to the ground.

Besides,
the day before Thanksgiving was supposed to be about celebrating, and I'd
surfaced from my funk, never wallowing in self-pity for more than a few hours.
Callie and I were in a festive mood despite the death of my screenplay. No one
had phoned to chastise me after my director decoupling so I was feeling free
and vindicated, looking forward to being snugged in the cabin with Callie and
Elmo and cooking our first Thanksgiving turkey together.

We
found a fairly large supermarket outside of town, and by noon we were skipping
down the aisles literally tossing food into our basket: frozen cranberries, a
sack of potatoes, fresh corn, broccoli, and carrots.

"Somebody
must be coming," she said.

And
I replied that I hoped it would be me, as I picked up the largest turkey I
could find.

She
giggled over my sexual reference and grabbed my behind as we danced down the
aisle in full view of more disciplined and serious shoppers who undoubtedly had
relatives coming, in a far more traditional sense—and judging by the sour looks
on their faces, relatives they could do without.

At
the checkout stand a lanky, mid-twenties boy in a sweat-stained T-shirt, with
dirty fingernails and a finger tattoo in place of a ring, began to total our
items. Noticing the fresh carrots rang up as $8.90, I stopped him and pointed
that out.

He
paused to stare at me. "That's what it says." He pointed to the
scanner display, which indeed read $8.90.

"But
we know that's wrong because carrots don't cost $8.90."

"I
have to go by what it says." He shrugged and I could see Callie out of the
corner of my eye trying to conceal a smile.

"Well,
I don't. Call someone," I demanded.

"No
one's here except other checkers and they're busy."

"Well,
I'm not paying $8.90 for a bag of fresh carrots."

"So
you don't want them?" he asked amicably and cancelled the screen amount.

"I
do
want them but—"

The
boy scanned them again and the scanner read $8.90. People behind us were
beginning to shift their weight from side to side, the international sign for
"Could you move the fuck along."

"We
could forget the carrots. I've got other vegetables," Callie said, sensing
a war about to break out.

I
waved her off, leaned in conspiratorially, and whispered to the boy so the
other people couldn't hear and he would be saved the embarrassment of my
revelation. "Look, think about it. Do you really believe a small bag of
carrots costs $8.90?"

The
boy paused to give this inquiry real thought and finally whispered back,
"You know, I don't eat carrots, so I don't know."

My
body sagged into a worn and weary heap. Callie took the carrots out of my
hands, the boy cancelled them from the screen, and the bag boy followed us out
to the car.

"How
will they ever learn if we give up and let them keep the carrots? He can't
figure out the scanner because he's high on something—did you see his
eyes?"

"It's
a new generation. They go by what's on the screen."

"And
what if I go to the hospital for X-rays and the bill pops up 890 instead of
$889? Will the twenty-year-old technician look at the screen and say, 'Yes, 890
for your X-ray. That's what the screen says'?"

"He'll
say 890. You must have eaten a bag of carrots." Callie chuckled and pushed
me into the car. We drove home holding hands and singing along with a young
woman insisting "There is no Arizona," and I thought she would have
gotten along splendidly with the carrot boy.

Back
in our cozy cabin, I spent my time draped over Callie, kissing her soft
shoulders, which I reached by different paths up the sleeve of her T-shirt and
down the back of her neck as she tried to make me leave her alone while we
prepared turkey dressing and cut up vegetables for an appetizer tray, treating
ourselves like company, all the while laughing and drinking wine.

"I
forget what I've put in the dressing because you are so annoying," she
teased.

"Really?
Having your lover kiss your neck and slide her hands up the arm of your T-shirt
and massage your back..." She dropped the fork she was holding and
swooned. "Is that the kind of annoying thing you're referring to.. .is
that the thing that's distracting you?"

She
grabbed my arms, playfully pinning them to my sides, and kissed me, her mouth
white hot moving to blue flame, an igniting kiss that melted everything below
my belt buckle. I kept my lips on hers and slowly walked backward toward the
bedroom, happy to desert the dressing for the undressing, and amused that we
seemed to only enter the bedroom backward.

The
crunch of tires on rock startled us both into awareness that we had company.
The sound of feet on the steps made my heart jump, and I signaled Callie to be
quiet as I rummaged in a drawer for my gun. Glancing out the bedroom window,
which was only a few feet left of the porch steps, I spotted a nicely dressed
woman standing on the steps knocking lightly on the door. "Teague
Richfield," the voice called.

Callie
and I exchanged puzzled looks. A svelte, older woman dressed as if she had left
an upscale cocktail party, stood on the porch, in a light gray wool suit and
matching cape, her beautiful, thick, silver hair blowing slightly in the wind,
something about her familiar but out of context here in the woods. I walked across
the living room and opened the door to greet her. My shock was total as the
china blue eyes locked with mine.

"Teague,
do you remember me? Ramona Mathers?"

I
was nearly speechless. Ramona, the wickedly enchanting attorney who had worked
for Frank Anthony whose murder I'd investigated, the attorney who had hit on me
at the Anthony mansion, then again at her estate right in front of Callie,
prompting Callie to say Ramona would sleep with anything on the planet that had
skin—
that
Ramona was standing in the Sedona woods on our doorstep.