Swingin' in the Rain (6 page)

  “Is that more important than what they actually say?” I asked.

  “Sometimes it is.”

  “I can do that. I’ve got a good bullshit meter. I’m an actress. I bullshit for a living.”

  “You just have to be sure that while you’re watching them for lies, you make sure you tell the truth.”

  “Okay.”

  “You have to work tomorrow?”

  “Yes, most of the morning, part of the afternoon.”

  “So tomorrow you’ll talk to Patti.”

  “I haven’t known her all that long. But I think I’ll know if she’s lying.”

  ”Watch her carefully.”

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  “Yes.” He squeezed me tightly. “Time to go to sleep.”

  I felt him against my butt.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “I’m sure,” he said. “You need your rest. You’ll need to be alert.”

  “Okay.”

  I snuggled back against him.

  “You’re bad,” he said in my ear.

  I wiggled back against him and said, “I just want to be sure you’re alert.”

  We made love again in the morning, and then I made breakfast for all of us.

  “I’ll take Sarah to school if you want,” Jakes said, at the table.

  “Yaaay!” Sarah said, clapping her hands.

  “No, that’s okay,” I said, “I want to do it.”

  “Awww, Mom!”

  “Finish your cereal,” I said to her.

  “Jakes has a nicer car than we do.”

  I looked at him and he raised his eyebrows helplessly.

  “No, he doesn’t. What about Marilyn?” I asked. Marilyn is my Porsche Speedster. Classic.

  “You won’t let me ride in Marilyn except on special occasions. You said it’s not safe.”

  “It’s not. But my explorer is pretty nice. Isn’t it?”

  “The surfboard racks are always loose and they make that funny sound when you drive.” She put a spoonful of Cheerios in her mouth.

  “All right,” I said, “Jakes can take you to school.”

  “Yaaaay!”

  “Get your books.”

  As she ran to her room he came up behind me while I stood at the sink and encircled my waist with his arms.

  “What made you change your mind?” he asked in my ear. I got the chills, as I always did when he spoke—or breathed—into my ear.

“I decided I want to make a few calls this morning before I go in.”

  “Are we still gonna play detective?” he asked.

  “Yes, we are.”

  He kissed my neck and stepped away. “But you’re only gonna talk to Patti. Leave the rest to me.”

  “All right.”

  “Sarah!” he yelled.

  “Comiiiiing!”

  She came into the kitchen to kiss me goodbye, put her arms around my neck. I got a whole different set of chills.

  “See you later, Sweetie,” I said. “I’ll pick you up, later.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll try to get the surfboard racks tightened.”

  She smiled and said, “Okay, Mommy.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  ”Sarah?”

  “Coming, Jakes!” she yelled.

  She picked up her back pack and ran to the door.

  “I’ll talk to you later,” he said, blowing me a kiss from the door. It was one of the reasons I loved him. He was never afraid to blow me a kiss. Men just didn’t do that, anymore.

  I watched from the window as they drove away, then dialed my mother.

  After telling my mother about Randy and assuming her she didn’t need to come home, I hung up and dialed George’s number.

  “I was just getting ready to go in.”

  “I’m going to question Patti today.”

  “What happened yesterday?”

  “I saw her at police head—I mean, the Police Administration Building. I saw her coming out, but that’s all I know.”

  “So she didn’t see you?”

  “No.”

  ”Who did she talk to?”

  “I don’t know.”

  ”Jakes can’t tell you? Or won’t?”

  “Can’t. He’s not the investigating detective on this case.”

  “No, of course not,” George said. “You’re involved. There’s a conflict of interest. So what are you gonna do?”

  “We’re going to find out who killed Randy,” I said. “I’m doing it for Sarah. Jakes is doing it for Sarah and me.”

  “Won’t he get in trouble?”

  ”Only if he gets caught.”

  “And you’re gonna start with Patti?”

  “I just want to find out if she went to talk to the police about Randy’s murder,” I said. “Or if she went for some other reason. Then I—we--can eliminate her from a list of suspects.”

  “Wow,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You talk like him,” George said. “You talk like a cop.”

  “Yeah, well, comes from spending so much time with one.”

  “My mom ended up talking like a plumber,” he said.

  I frowned. “Your father wasn’t a plumber.”

  “I know,” he said. “Do you think that means my mother was having an affair with one?”

  “I’ll see you at the studio, George.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Stop! Your eyes are all over the place,” Patti said. My eyes moved from side to side when I had a lot on my mind. Not good when someone has a pointy brush near your cornea.

  Patti was usually very patient with us actors. Having to do beauty make-ups and special effects make-ups (cuts, bruises, etc.) while we ran lines (rehearsed), chatted with one another, moved around and got ourselves coffee. I have to admit we could be very annoying sometimes.

  This morning was different. Patti seemed preoccupied and a little on edge. Usually we would talk while she made me up. Just superficial stuff. I don’t think I ever had a conversation with her that didn’t take place with me sitting in her chair. Not a deep one, anyway. She was kind of a quiet person. Except when she had a few drinks. I remember seeing her at one of our Christmas parties. Give her some tequila and she’d be dancing on a table top by night’s end.

  But she hadn’t had any drinks this morning and she wasn’t responding to my small talk. And she didn’t gossip. So I was going to have to be direct.

  “Alex, you have to sit still!” she snapped.

  “I saw you, yesterday,” I blurted. So much for Jake’s coaching.

  “Oh? Where?”

  “On the balcony,” I said. “You were on the phone in the rain. It looked like you were upset.”

  She stood up straight and stared at me, blinking.

  “I . . . got the bad news, that two more soaps had been cancelled,” she said. “I was so emotional I had to leave.”

  “Please. You had to leave because the shows got cancelled?”

  “Like I said, I was too emotional and I needed a break.” She was using a black eyeliner pencil under my eye. And in it.

  “Ow!”

  “See? We shouldn’t be talking while I’m trying to do you! Now stop. I’ll be done in a sec.” She bent to finish my make-up, but I wasn’t done. I jerked my head back and she stood up straight again.

  “Something else?” she asked.

  I considered being a little more cagey then decided screw it. I figured I’d just put it out there. “Yes,” I said. “I saw you again later in the day.”

  Now she got a wary look on her face. “Oh? Where?”

  “At the Police station.”

  She stood very still, her brain working.

  “Why were you talking to the police, Patti?”

  She didn’t answer. She was still trying to think of an explanation.

  “Patti?”

  “I, uh . . .”

  “It wasn’t the cancellations, was it?” I asked. “You were talking to the police on the phone.”

  She compressed her lips. Her eyes started to dart about. According to Jakes, she was about to lie.

  “Patti . . . did you know Randy?” I asked. “Is that what this was about?”

  She stared at me, and then a resigned look came over her face and she said, “Oh, God.”

  I hadn’t been called to the set yet, so I took Patti to my dressing room so we’d be able to talk in private.

  “Okay, Patti,” I said. “Tell me about you and Randy.”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “What do I think? Did you have a relationship with him?”

  “Yes, but . . . not what you think.”

  “I still don’t know what it is you think I think.”

“I did meet Randy while you were married, but only once or twice in passing at parties,” she said. “I don’t think you and I even knew each other, then. He didn’t remember me when . . .”

  “When what?”

  “When we met again, a few weeks ago.”

  “Where?”

  “At a club.”

  “What club?”

  “A club,” she said.

  “In L.A.?”

  She nodded.

  “I had no idea you were such a club rat, Patti,” I said.  But it didn’t surprise me that Randy was.

  “I’m not a club rat,” she said. “Not the kind of club you’re talking about.”

  “Patti,” I said, “you’re not being very clear, here.”

  “I met Randy at a club a few weeks ago,” she said. “I recognized him, he didn’t recognize me until I told him who I was. We became . . . friends.”

  I hoped what I was thinking wasn’t showing on my face.  Like I said before, Randy liked his women young and dum--, after me, I mean. But I guess there’s always an exception. After all, it was all the rage to be a cougar, these days. Patti would certainly have qualified, having ten years or more on Randy.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said.

  Uh-oh, I still wasn’t sure what I was thinking. But I didn’t want her to know that.

  “I don’t blame you, Alex--”

  “Patti—“

  We both got interrupted by Herbie’s voice calling for me to be on the set.

  “I have to go,” I said. “Can’t you just tell me what you know?”

  We stood up awkwardly.

  “Not much. And I can’t talk now—not here,” she said and then resignedly, “but I can show you, later.”

  “Show me what?” I asked impatiently.

  “Meet me tonight.”

  “Where are we going?” This was getting stupid.

  “Clubbing,” she said. “But not the kind of clubbing you’re used to.”

  Actually, I wasn’t used to much clubbing, at all. It wasn’t something that was usually at the top of the priority list for single mothers. At least not this one.

  “Are you talking about Trois ou Plus?” I played my trump card and definitely got what I was hoping for.

  She stared at me and for a moment I thought her jaw was going to hit the floor.

  “How did you know?” She could hardly speak the words.

  “I saw a napkin with that name on it in your, uh, on the floor . . . you must have dropped it.” I lied to her because I didn’t want her to know I had been snooping.

  She actually looked a little scared.

  Herbie starting calling for me again, with a more adamant tone in his voice. That was never good.

  “You better go before he has a stroke,” she said as she reached into her purse. “I’ll meet you in front of this address at ten p.m.” She handed me the same napkin I’d seen.

  “That late? I have to work tomorrow. Oh God, and I have a love scene, too.”

  “Believe me,” she said, “where we’re going, that’s not late.”

  Where exactly was that? I looked at the napkin she had given me. It read: Trois ou Plus 710 S. Alameda, Los Angeles.

  She was walking out the door when she suddenly turned around. “Do you have a cowboy hat? And chaps, maybe?”

  “What?”

  “It’s cowboy night at the club. Whatever you can dig up will be fine.” Then she hurried out of my room.

  I turned and looked at myself in the mirror. “Cowboy night?” I said. “Really?”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I got home mid afternoon, called Tonja and asked if we could meet at her place and maybe have some coffee. I had an hour before I had to get Sarah and thought we could catch up, but I had an ulterior motive. I needed someone to watch Sarah while I went out “clubbing” with Patti.

  “Would you mind if I came to your place?” she asked. “Mine’s a mess!” I told her I didn’t. It dawned on me after we’d hung up that I’d never actually been to her place since she moved in.

  While waiting for Tonja to arrive, I pulled out the napkin I’d gotten from Patti. It looked like your basic bar napkin, I assumed Trois ou Plus to be a garden variety dance club, so why had Patti said it wasn’t like any club I had ever been to?

  Tonja was due any second so I went to the kitchen and made coffee then went to the cupboard and pulled out a couple of brownies I had gotten at the corner grocery store. The kind of brownies that are iced with butter cream frosting? That damned store had the best bakery. Okay, my name is Alexis Peterson, and I am a chocaholic.  Not good when you have to simulate mad, passionate love the next day. After all, you wanted your body to look good when you were half naked on television. But I decided to throw caution to the wind and I took a bite.