The Manipulated (Joe Portugal Mysteries) (6 page)

“Sorry, man. Don’t get all irate.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sorry too.”

“Did you tell her?”

“Tell who what?”

“Your wife. About—”

“Yeah. Everything’s cool. Just drop it, okay?”

“Okay.”

A car pulled into the driveway, and in a moment Gina came in. “Company. You Mike?” He nodded. She looked down at the coffee table. “Not surprisingly, my husband hasn’t offered you anything to drink.” You could see the instant of unfamiliarity when she said “husband.” We were still getting used to the
h
and
w
words.

“S’okay, I’m fine,” Mike said.

“No, you’re not. Beer? Juice? I think we have a couple of Cokes.”

“A Coke’s fine.”

“It’ll just be a second.” She went in the kitchen.

Mike came closer. Sotto voce: “Your wife’s a babe.”

“Goes without saying.”

“Great ass.”

Gina came in with Cokes and glasses. “I’ll just leave you boys to your … whatever it is boys do.” She picked up her purse and walked into the bedroom. Then she popped back out. “Mike?”

“Uh-huh?”

“You might want to work on your stage whisper. At least, if you’re planning on continuing your anatomy critiques.” She went into the bedroom again.

“She hates me,” Mike said.

“No.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure,” I said.“She was smiling when she said it. Drink your Coke.”

The next morning I called the number Carrie at the tea shop had given me. She wasn’t there, according to her roommate. I asked if I could reach her at work. She said no, that Carrie was taking a class at Santa Monica College, and that was where she was. Then she asked if I was trying to go out with Carrie. I said no, that I understood she had a boyfriend. The roommate said, oh, that old fart, he’s just using her for sex. I said I’d call back later. She asked if I wanted to leave a message, but remembering Carrie’s warning I said no.

I heard noise out back and went to see what was going on. There was a lone workman out there, futzing with some insulation. I said hello. He said the same. I asked what he was doing. He said, “Insulation,” and it was clear that if I asked for further explanation it would be in a language I didn’t understand. I nodded, went back in the house, turned on the TV. On the Channel 6 morning news ace reporter Claudia Acuna was discussing liposuction. Sweeps month, I thought. They always hauled out the cosmetic surgery stories.

I flipped the channel and found a James Bond movie. Part of a marathon on Spike TV. Jack Lord came onscreen, the first in a long line of Felix Leiters. It was
Dr. No
, Bond’s filmic debut. I’d missed the beginning, but no matter. Ursula Andress would be showing up soon. I sunk onto the couch and watched the rest of the movie. And the one after.
Moonraker
. I’d forgotten how bad it was.

When it was over I went to Trader Joe’s. When I got home there were two calls on the machine. The first was Carrie.

“Samantha said someone called but didn’t leave his name. I thought it might be you. I looked you up in the book. Hope that’s okay.”

The second: “Portugal. Burns. I have something for you. You’ll like it.”

I called Burns back. “It’s Joe.”

“The tickets belong to a man named John Santini.”

“That was easy.”

“No, it wasn’t, but I won’t bore you with the details. You want his number?”

I took it down.

“When do I get to see Dennis Lennox?” she said.

“Soon.”

“Don’t screw with me, Portugal.”

“Hey, you’re going to hang with us Hollywood types, you have to expect to get screwed with.”

“Don’t give me—”

“I need a little time, okay? Let me straighten Mike out, then I’ll see what I can do.”

“It better be good.”

“It will be,” I said. “I guarantee it.”

I went out back. The workman was still there. He was sitting exactly where I’d seen him earlier, holding a piece of insulation that looked suspiciously like the one he’d had before. I said, Insulation, he said, Insulation, I went back inside and called Carrie.

Samantha the roommate answered and passed the phone on. “Hi,” Carrie said.

“There you were all worried that if I left my name Samantha wouldn’t give you the message, and I didn’t leave my name and you got the message anyway.”

“Life’s funny that way.”

“You want to talk some more?”

“Sure. Want to come over for tea?”

“To the shop?”

“To my house. Actually, it’s Samantha’s house, but you know what I mean.”

“And where would that be?”

“Venice. Near the beach.”

“Okay.”

She gave me the address. Said parking was terrible, but she’d pull the cars up so there was room for me in the driveway.

Fifteen minutes later I was there. A block from the traffic circle, near Mao’s Kitchen and Aaardvark. I turned into the driveway and parked behind a gray Civic. In front of it was a VW Thing in military green. It had a
WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER
sticker in the back window and a Jack in the Box antenna ball.

The cottage was pale blue and white, with hibiscus in the tiny front yard and an arbor overgrown with dead wisteria above the gate. A couple of sets of wind chimes jingle-jangled overhead. As I stepped onto the porch the door opened. The woman standing there was wearing a Che sweatshirt and cutoffs and a dab of green paint on her nose. Her black hair was piled on top of her head, held in place by a red, white, and blue ribbon. “I’m Samantha,” she said. “Which you probably figured out. Come on in.”

The windows were arched and there was stained wood trim around them and bordering the doors. There were a couple of bookcases and some art on the walls and magazines scattered all over. Something sweet was or had been baking.

“How come there’s paint on your nose?” I said.

“I’m an artist.”

“Do all artists have paint on their noses?”

“At some point, yeah, all of us do.”

Carrie popped out of the kitchen, said tea and scones would be ready soon, retreated.

“Let’s go out back,” Samantha said.

“Lead the way.”

I followed her toward the back. Near the end of the hall were two doors, one on each side, with a tiny bedroom beyond each. The one on the left was a mess. Samantha’s, I guessed. The one on the right was in perfect order. Carrie’s.

Another door in the back, and we were through it and in the yard. It was a little bigger than the front one, but still miniscule, and most of it was filled with a rundown gazebo. Several paper Japanese lanterns hung down. There was a table with four chairs, and sitting in one of the chairs was Dennis Lennox.

“Hi,” Dennis said. “Surprised to see me?”

“I guess I am.”

He came down the two steps to ground level, walked over, shook my hand. “I thought it was time we talked.”

“You could have had your girl call my girl. We could have taken a meeting.”

He smiled. Real? Maybe. “Dad said you had a good sense of humor.”

“What else did Dad say about me?”

“That you’re a hell of a guy. Sam?”

“Hmm?” she said.

“Could you give us a little time alone?”

“Sure, Sweetie.” She stepped over, kissed his nose, went back in the house.

“Let’s sit,” Dennis said.

We took over a couple of chairs in the gazebo. The table was set for four. The plates and cups had a steel gray undercoat, a green iridescent glaze. The flatware looked vaguely Asian.

“Let me see,” I said.“Your father’s involved with Carrie, who lives with Samantha, whom you met and are now seeing.”

“Very good.”

“How do you feel about your father and Carrie?”

“Fine. Shouldn’t I?”

“You don’t think he’s being—”

“Unfaithful? Let’s face it. My mother’s dead.”

“You seem pretty sure of that.”

“I am.”

“Your father’s not.”

“No.”

“This person he saw at Staples. The one he has me looking for. You do know about that.”

He was nodding. “Someone who looked a little like my mother. Or even a lot. Come on. They keep her in captivity for four-plus years, she escapes, comes back to L.A., doesn’t tell my dad?”

“Amnesia.”

“If one of my writers on
Protect and Serve
came up with that … well, I’d probably let them run with it. But this is real life.”

“What did you want to talk about?”

“I want you to tell Dad you found the woman.”

“Oh?”

“And that it wasn’t my mother.”

“I see. And why would I do that?”

“How does a recurring part on
The Galahad Sisters
sound?”

“Like a bribe.”

He smiled, looked at the house. The light had gone on in Samantha’s bedroom. She was watching us and gave a little wave. He blew her a kiss, she moved from the window, he turned back to me. “That’s exactly what it is.”

“Look, kid, I don’t even care about my commercials. Being on a sitcom isn’t much of an inducement for me.”

“On
Protect and Serve
then.”

“Neither is being on a cop show.”

He sighed. “Thought I’d give it a shot. “

“So what comes next? I’ll never work in this town again?”

“No. I may have more power in this town than anyone my age should ever have—did you know I was number forty-two on
Entertainment Weekly
’s list of the most powerful people in Hollywood?—but my tentacles don’t reach commercials.”

“Why are you so set on your father forgetting about this woman?”

“He’s in a kind of purgatory. On the one hand, he’s capable of having a relationship with another woman. On the other, he still thinks my mother’s going to come waltzing back some day. I just want him to get this behind him.” A pause. “Did you know Ronnie’s contract is for one year?”

“So?”

“Come on. Do I have to spell it out?”

He didn’t have to. But I wanted him to. I wanted to hear it from his own lips. “Go ahead and spell.”

“
Eight Simple Rules
is going on without John Ritter. They killed off his character when he died.”

I said nothing.

“And going back to your day, they killed off McLean Stevenson on
MASH
.”

My day.
The little shit.

“My point being, no one on a sitcom’s ever not expendable.”

“You do anything to hurt Ronnie, I will—”

“You’ll what? Hunt me down to the ends of the earth? Stick a cactus down my throat?”

It wasn’t a cactus, you little fuck, it was a euphorbia that killed my friend Brenda Belinski, but it sure is nice to know you’ve done your homework on me.

“Think about it,” he said. “That’s all I ask.”

I stood up. My fists, I realized, were clenched. I wondered what I could do to this creep’s face with them.

“Think about this too,” he said. “You and Ronnie. In bed together at my house. Have you told your wife?”

I surprised myself, how fast I moved. Within two seconds the front of his shirt was in my hand and I had him suspended several inches above his chair. “Tell me what you know,” I said. “Or I’ll break your neck.”

“Let go of me,” Dennis Lennox said.

“What do you—”

“Let go of me, or I’ll have you arrested for assault.”

I looked in his eyes. Clear and green, they said
and I can do it too
.

I let him go. Didn’t step back, though. “Tell me what you know.”

“Think about what I said. That’s all I ask.”

“Tell—”

“Asking me again is going to get you nowhere. You know that, don’t you?”

Yeah, I knew it. The prick wasn’t going to say anything, not without some bodily harm involved, and the time wasn’t right for that. Not yet, anyway.

And with no information coming, what I needed more than anything was to be away from there. To be well clear of this worm.

I turned and made my way inside. I told Carrie, “Sorry, change of plans,” and went out the front. I got in my truck and drove away.

I told Gina the story—less the part about Ronnie and me—when she got home. “It’s impressive,” she said, “that he’s gotten to be such a jerk at such a young age.”

“Being such a jerk is probably how he got where he is. Screw it. I’m going to call this Santini guy.”

“Who’s he?”

“Right, I didn’t tell you. Burns called this afternoon. She found out who had the tickets for those seats. A man named John Santini.”

“Call him.”

“What if Dennis finds out and cans Ronnie?”

“Don’t call him.”

“Then I’m letting Mike down.”

“I hate when you dither.”

“I hate when I dither too.”

“Speaking of Ronnie—and of producers—did you know she has a boyfriend?”

“She does?”

“Name’s Eric something. He works on your friend Dennis’s cop show.”

“
Protect and Serve
. How’d you find this out?”

“Theta and I were talking. She’s not fucking him yet, though. I asked.”

“Well,
that’s
a relief.”

“I know. You want your surrogate daughter to stay a virgin all her life. Why the face?”

“What face?”

“The face on your face. Sour. Like you got some bad yogurt.”

“Heartburn.”

“You never get heartburn.”

“Well, I’ve got some now. We got any Tums?” I headed for the bathroom.

The supermarket strike led off the late news. It had been going on longer than anyone expected. If it didn’t end soon—and there was little indication it would—it was going to affect Thanksgiving shopping. Though more people were crossing the picket lines. Channel 6 showed an interview with a picketer. They were in it till the end. Then one with a line-crosser. She supported them at first but, you know, I’ve got five kids and it’s too much trouble.

Gina pressed the mute. “Which reminds me,” she said. “Catherine called. We’ve got vegetable duty.”

Catherine was one of my father’s housemates. Gina and I were going to their place for Thanksgiving.

“I was thinking,” she said, “that we ought to invite Mike.”

“Why would you think that?”

“I get the feeling he’s the kind of guy who might end up alone on Thanksgiving.”