Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 1 - Combust the Sun Read online

  "Knew what? That Isaacs is our killer? Like you 'psychically' knew at the shareholders' meeting that it was Isaacs's voice behind that partition? You knew it was Isaacs's voice because you used to wake up next to it! You know, you're making it real hard for me to separate the psychic stuff from the grief-stricken, pissed-off, ex-wife stuff. And just for the record, you fucking lied to me, Callie! Lied!"

  "I never lied to you."

  "Okay, let's be completely accurate. You committed a sin of omission by not telling me that you were: A) married to a man, B) married to a man who's a crook, C) married to a man, who's a crook, who's trying to kill me!"

  A cab picked us up and we rode through the darkness in silence.

  "And you slept with that son of a bitch," I threw in for good measure.

  "Not really," her voice drifted.

  "And I suppose you never climaxed with him either?"

  The cab driver's eyes darted to the rearview mirror, and the cab swung over the center line, forcing another car to swerve and honk violently.

  "Quit looking back here and watch where the hell you're driving!" I yelled at the cabbie, and he cut his eyes away.

  Back at Bono's, our car was parked right where we'd left it, the hubcaps miraculously still attached. Two half-dazed addicts lounged across the front fender of our car. I was too hurt and mad over what I'd learned about Callie to be frightened of the half dead. "Get your fried, fat asses off the hood of my car before I blow your balls off!" I shouted at the two men, who looked at me as if I were the societal outcast.

  Hollywood nightlife was getting darker by the hour, and it matched the cold, gray wind that swept across my heart. Callie Rivers had lied to me, and I didn't know how deep that lie went. Maybe it went all the way to the heart of our relationship. After all, Isaacs had touched her, had owned her, had gotten her body in exchange for his name. The rage in me was molten, flowing through my veins in a thick, angry, leadlike mass that weighed down my desire to even breathe.

  Chapter Sixteen

  At home, we sat in our robes curled up on the couch, having washed Hollywood's back streets off our auras. Callie sipped Swee-Touch-Nee tea, her latest Gelson's discovery, while I berated her. I couldn't seem to stop. My pride was damaged. First Barrett, then Callie. Apparently, in the lover department, I was a poor judge of character.

  Callie's small, slender fingers juggled an ice pack in an attempt to keep it in place on her bruised forehead. "In choosing to marry Isaacs, I set up the entire series of events that led to my brother's death," Callie mused.

  "In choosing to take drugs, your brother set up the entire series of events that led to your brother's death." I wanted to lessen her pain, but I was still feeling my own. "I guess being figuratively screwed by a crook is unforgivable, being literally screwed by one is unbearable. Just out of curiosity, how can a cosmically in-tune, spiritual psychic still have a little corner of her heart reserved for absolute hatred? According to your beliefs, isn't the cosmos supposed to take care of that for you?"

  "I'm part of the cosmos." Callie's eyes glistened with tears. "The part that won't let Robert Isaacs get away." She saw my flat, emotionless expression. "Look, Teague, I know you're angry and hurt." She tried to take my hand but I pulled it away, for the first time feeling nothing for Callie Rivers.

  "Don't touch me," I said.

  Elmo hoisted his heavy frame off the floor, walked to the far corner of the room, flopped down against the wall, and let out a loud, forlorn groan, refusing to take sides.

  The death stones rested on the coffee table looking innocently like dominoes. Who would think they could cause this much trouble? I stared at the symbols. After a long pause, I made an attempt to disassociate from my emotional state and focus on this story that had now become my work.

  "Evers said it meant bathing cloth or towel."

  "Same difference, I guess," Callie said, seemingly detached as well.

  I picked up a pad and pencil and began doodling little squares across the top of the page. "Now how do you suppose that symbol came to be towel?" I asked. I scribbled the word Towel, then Twl, and Towl, Tal. I looked up at Callie, light dawning in my eyes. "Towel, could be Tal, as in Talbot. Maybe Frank Anthony was holding the rock when he died because he was trying to say Talbot, and not Isaacs, murdered him. I'll bet Talbot knows everything about the barter deals. He worked too closely with Isaacs not to. We've got to get into his house. He'd never leave any incriminating evidence at the studio."

  That night I slept with my back to Callie, not touching, not wanting. How could I have trusted that Callie Rivers wanted me? She wasn't able to give herself fully to me because the whole relationship with me was a cover-up to get her to Isaacs. It was obviously him, and not me, who held her focus. Thinking about it created a dull pain in my chest where my heart used to be.

  I took a chance, at nine the next morning, that Talbot wouldn't be in his office and I phoned his secretary. I told her Paramount's T. Elliott Golden had a gift for Mr. Talbot and wanted his home address. She gave it promptly.

  At eleven o'clock, I stopped off at North Hollywood Magic, a prop design studio. I left Callie in the lobby to look at all the miniature motion picture props and sets while I went to a small office in the back. Peter Trayber had spent the last forty years of his life designing everything from tap shoes for terriers to cameras hidden in high heels. Rumpled and disarming, Peter rose to shake hands and gave me his big, boyish grin. I explained that I needed something replicated right away. I showed him the death stone.

  "A domino?" He examined the stone.

  "An ancient rock that somebody's trying to kill me to get."

  "Can you leave it with me?" Peter asked, never reacting to my remark that someone was trying to kill me for it. In Hollywood, kill was a word everyone used but nobody meant.

  "I can let you make a rubbing of the inscription, the dimensions, weight, and texture. Other than that, I've got to take it with me."

  Peter smiled and said copying it would be a cinch.

  Twenty minutes later, I went back to the lobby and collected Callie, telling her I'd just bought us some life insurance.

  "So you'll have more stones than Mick Jagger." She grinned, trying to get back on friendlier terms.

  "Cute," I replied. "Let's get some lunch."

  I pulled into Stanton's Restaurant on Ventura Boulevard, forced to valet park since on-the-street parking was at a premium. Inside the restaurant, the bar was packed, the acoustics were terrible, and the chairs uncomfortable, but the bread was sourdough and arrived in large, hot hunks, which was worth all the inconvenience it took to get here.

  "Look, I'm really sorry," Callie began.

  "No problem," I lied.

  "Stop being that way."

  "What way?"

  "That way that says you don't trust me," she said loudly, and a woman at a nearby table turned to listen. This was my first realization that Callie Rivers liked to air her unhappy feelings out in the open, and right now, her unhappy feelings could have filled a soccer stadium.

  "Just because I was married a million years ago doesn't mean I betrayed you!" she said loudly. I raised my hand, signaling her to lower her voice, but she ignored me. "I didn't know you! You're making a big deal out of nothing! You need to get past this!" Her voice scaled up an octave, putting us in contention for the next reality series: Gay Gatherings Gone Bad.

  "Excuse me," I whispered, demonstrating how to argue in public places, "could you lower your voice? I don't really want all these people knowing my business."

  "I don't care about these people. They're not going home with me. You are!"

  "I have a right to be upset! I just learned that you were married to a despicable human being, who may be a murderer, who, P.S., fucked you. None of which, ironically enough, would have kept me from loving you had you only told me rather than pretending to be someone else! Let's just focus on the story, okay?"

  I tried to calm down. "I have a plan to get us into Talbot's house to f
ind out his involvement."

  "I never pretended to be someone else." Callie refused to drop the argument.

  "You'll deliver flowers. Flowers so huge they'll create a diversion that will allow me time to get inside while you're getting them situated with the housekeeper." I ripped into my sourdough like tyrannosaurus rex.

  "You know in your heart I never lied to you, and I don't think delivering flowers to Talbot's house is a good idea," she said, maintaining two conversations at once.

  "It's so simple it will work. If you don't want to do it, I'll figure out how to do it by myself," I threatened.

  "Why do you want to put us in danger like this?"

  "There's no danger. Danger is not telling the woman you're sleeping with that you were once married to a slimy crook," I said sweetly, getting the last blow in. "If anything goes wrong, you say this is your first day doing deliveries and then burst into tears and run out of the house," I instructed.

  "What about you?" she asked worriedly.

  "Stay on the back side of the house after I'm in and listen for me."

  A tall, thin waiter swished over to us and brandished his pad and pencil. "Do you two need more time...or would that just make things worse?"

  Later in the afternoon, we swung back by Peter Trayber's and picked up the fake stones. He'd done a brilliant job. I asked him to rough up the corners on the two fake stones so that I could tell them from the real ones. The duplication was that good. I then put all four stones in my jeans pocket and zipped it shut, confident I could tell the real from the fake just by feel.

  The next stop was a florist, where I purchased a magnificent flower arrangement the size of downtown Detroit, and I wedged it into the car between Callie and me, this time having her drive. I was barely able to keep the huge vase of flowers upright, and it occasionally sloshed water on us. She drove over the hill to Bel-Air conversing through three layers of orchids and tiger lilies, her blue eyes peering at me like some exotic bird behind the heavily scented foliage.

  "I have a very bad feeling about this," she said.

  "Relax. You're giving a guy this terrific vase of flowers for free!"

  We drove down the 300 block of Bel-Air Canyon Road to make certain we had Talbot's house staked out. I had Callie let me out fifty yards away. Once I was in position behind a shrub, Callie pulled up in the Jeep and struggled to lift out the huge vase of exotic flowers.

  A doorman was already holding the front door open for Callie, who came staggering up the walkway. She thanked him profusely, saying she was asked to deliver these to Mr. Talbot. The doorman tried to take them from her, but she said it would be easier if she could just put them on the hall table. As she was about to deposit them, she feigned a loss of balance, and for ten seconds she and the doorman were totally occupied trying to keep the flowers from hitting the marble floor. I slipped inside the foyer right behind the doorman, thanking God for the lack of hall mirrors, and hid behind an enormous oriental room divider. Callie blushed and apologized and left the doorman in a huff, thanking him for his kindness.

  From behind the Chinese room divider, I checked my watch. It was 5:45 p.m. The doorman paced and tidied and dusted, as if he sensed something wasn't quite right. I wore no cologne, so that even a sensitive-nosed doorman wouldn't be able to detect my presence in the house. At 6:30 p.m. he went back to the kitchen and told the maid that he was going home. She nodded, saying she was putting Mr. Talbot's dinner on and she would be going herself soon.

  Suddenly I heard the scuffling of feet, as if someone were being subdued, and then a few groans and moans. I peeked out through the crack in the Chinese room divider to see the doorman with his back to me, and the maid sitting up on a low countertop, her arms clutching him, her legs wrapped around him while he was banging and grinding away in her. She let out a series of whimpers as he quickly finished off inside her, tucked himself back in his pants, helped her slide off the countertop, and gave her a brisk pat on the bottom, in a routine they obviously looked forward to. "See ya tomorrow, my sweet," he said and whistled out the door as she straightened her uniform.

  Callie s right. Never eat off a countertop until you've wiped it down.

  My legs were cramping from my tenuous crouch, but I didn't dare move. When the doorman left the house, I plopped onto my butt and rubbed my legs, certain the maid would not be touring the domain.

  Then I heard the kitchen door open and the scurry of toenails on marble. My worst nightmare was unfolding. Robert Talbot had a dog, and it was headed into the living room. I held my breath. Maybe he was an old dog without a keen sense of smell. But no. In less than thirty seconds, a compact Boston bulldog flew around the corner of the Chinese room divider and into my arms, snorting and licking and letting out a playful growl.

  "Rockingham!" I heard the maid calling. "Rockingham, dinner."

  "Rockingham," I whispered, trying to hold the squirming animal. "Go get your dinner." Rockingham wasn't leaving. A minute later, I could hear the maid shuffling into the living room searching for Rockingham and calling his name. I was frantic. I had to get the dog away from me long enough to distract the maid and to allow myself time to move to a new hiding place. The dog was making loud snorting sounds.

  "Rockingham, are you behind that divider?" The maid was bearing down on my location.

  I grabbed Rockingham by the snout and buttocks and rolled him out into the center of the room like a fourteen-pound bowling ball heading for a strike against the Ming vase in the corner. The maid let out a shriek, steadied the vase, and began shouting at the dog, saying he knew better than to roughhouse in the living room.

  "Out, out, out!" She chased the hapless animal through the room, back into the kitchen, and outside.

  Sorry, Rockingham, but it s you or me, I thought.

  I made my way to the back of the house, down a cavernous corridor to a large master suite, and checked the alarm box on the wall to make sure the master suite wasn't independently armed. I unlocked and opened the window, letting out a low bird whistle. Callie came around the back of the house clutching her heart.

  "My God, I thought they'd found you," she gasped, and I was pleased she was concerned.

  "Had to wait for the doorman to quit boffing the maid. He's having a better day than I am." I grinned. "Didn't take long." I helped her over the window ledge just as Rockingham rounded the corner at a dead run. Callie let out a small yelp at seeing how close the dog had come to getting a piece of her leg. I put my hand over her mouth and towed her into a large walk-in closet, suggesting we make camp until the maid went home.

  At 7:30 p.m. the front door clicked open and shut. I slipped out of the closet and peeked out of the large bedroom window in time to see a car pick up the uniformed maid. We were safe, but the alarm system had been set by the maid, so we couldn't open any doors. Other than that, we had the house to ourselves.

  "Go through his desk drawers and his bedside table," I said.

  "What am I looking for?" Callie asked.

  "Bankbooks, date books, letters. Anything that'll tell us if Talbot is involved in the barter deals or skimming studio money off the top."

  I booted up Talbot's computer and began going through his files. They contained a list of names and phone numbers from his last two trips to the Cannes Film Festival, an organizing list for a charily golf tournament, a host of personal correspondence, legal documents, and other miscellany.

  Callie was staring intently at a photo of Talbot at a groundbreaking ceremony at the studio. "This picture has something to do with the murder. I know it psychically. I feel the hairs stand up on the back of my neck when I look at it."

  "Looks like a studio groundbreaking," I said.

  "I don't know, but I'm taking it," Callie replied and lifted it from the bookshelf.

  We heard a sound in the hallway and looked at each other, our hearts in our throats. It flashed through my mind that no one had opened any of the doors. There was someone in the house who had been here all along. But who? Goosef
lesh the size of eggs crawled along my arms as I signaled Callie to be quiet and follow me.

  Chapter Seventeen

  We crept down the dimly lit hallway and there, standing in the shadows at the end of the columned corridor, were two men. Even in the fading light and with the addition of dreadlocks, I could see that one of the men was Spider Eye, the man who'd brought the stone to Barrett at Orca's. Apparently, now that we were back in L.A., Raider had passed the baton and we were being handed over to the first string, honest-to-God, serious killers.

  The ceilings were roughly twenty feet tall and the corridor sixteen feet wide. That said, there still wasn't much room to outmaneuver two killers, even if I had a plan for doing it, which I didn't.

  "Your curiosity has killed a cat," Spider Eye said, almost getting the phrase correct. "Finish them, Gigante!"

  Gigante was a short, medium-built man who had apparently received his giant name from the size of his head, which lolled back and forth on his neck as if it were too great a burden to be carried by a man of moderate frame. He headed our way.

  "Get behind me," I whispered to Callie. "We've got to keep Gigante between us and Spider Eye, in case Spider Eye decides to shoot." After I said it, I realized how stupid it was of me to be giving instructions as if I knew what the hell I was doing. I was just babbling, thinking out loud in a panic, and hoping to get lucky.

  "I don't think they do things with guns, Teague. Remember the poison and the ampoules in their mouths?"

  Fear of being murdered on the spot in some bizarre fashion sent adrenaline coursing through my body.

  "Just chant or pray or do something with white light. Not that I'm relying on it at this juncture in my evolution, but do it anyway," I muttered with a sarcasm that masked fear.

  Gigante lunged forward to grab me, and I thrust out my left leg, smashing the sole of my foot solidly into his kneecap and hearing it crunch. He bent over, giving me a momentary height advantage, and I unwound, slamming my right elbow down on his head and glancing up for only an instant to see Spider Eye stripping off his shoulder holster. Not a good sign, I thought somewhere in the back of my brain. Why is he taking things off at a time when he should be coming after us?