Alex Ames - Calendar Moonstone 02 - Brilliant Actors (32 page)

“Stop meddling, you bitch!” Rip shouted and pounded his fist against my head, sideways. I managed to grab the gear stick and put it into park with good effect. The Oldsmobile gave a major crunching, screeching sound as the wheels locked and the whole car moved sideways, burning rubber all the way. Rip was slammed against the driver’s door, holding onto the steering wheel. I managed to get on all fours and rammed my head against his, doubling the impact because Rip’s head bounced hard against the window. The Oldsmobile slid sideways into the building on the other side of Sunset Boulevard; a loud crunching noise told us of disintegrating car parts, and we finally came to a rocking halt.
 

I was thrown against Rip once more. He still wasn’t done and tried to push me away. His eyes were unfocused and glazed, his hands wildly fighting me off. I turned away from him to protect my face and managed to grab his beautiful black curls, giving a hard push. His head bounced against the window again. And again. His fighting spirit and ability waned.
 

“Never. Fuck. With. Me. Again!” I shouted, punctuating each word by smashing his head against the door window several times until it left a bloody imprint.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Teeth, Claws, Blood and All

I think my looks scared Henry a little when he approached the scene thirty minutes later. His cop’s eyes inspected the scene routinely but were drawn toward me constantly. I was leaning against the side of a building near the crash site. The police had just reopened all lanes again, and the stop and go slowly dissolved. Police cars, an ambulance that was tending to Jamaica’s head wound, and the Oldsmobile wreck were still standing on the side of the road.
 

If I had been a smoker, I might have smoked a cigarette, but as I wasn’t, all I did was stand there in my dirty, cut jeans, my ripped shirt, and my uncombed hair, scratches and blood on my face and arms.
 

Henry wasn’t sure what to do, whether to take me into his arms or not. He leaned beside me; we were not touching each other.
 

“Are you all right, Cal?”

“Yeah, guess so. Need a new cellphone and clothes. Broke our bottle of wine for tonight and lost the dinner stuff. Lost my appetite. And I am not in the mood to watch the sunset.”

“Rip is on the way to the hospital. There will be guards around him constantly. He will be secured, I think.” Henry sighed. “Incredible!”

“You think?” I asked, too tired to be angry. “You had a suspected cat burglar arrested who may be a little more skilled than your average TV-stealing Joe. He probably had nicked a paper clip from his lawyer or from you. That’s enough for him.”

“You did a good job, honey.” Henry put his strong arm around me and pulled me close.
 

“Don’t
honey
me! The kitchen is staying cold tonight,” was all I was able to say.

We all rode up to North Hollywood again. I made my statements over and over; the media was beleaguering the police station. Shit had hit the fan all over the station, and the chief of the station would probably lose his pension over it. By sheer coincidence, an electronics shop manager had filmed Rip’s drainpipe adventure, and it made good showing on the evening news and went viral on Facebook and YouTube.
 

Good news came in around eight, when Detective Homer called in and told us about the fucking big diamond that had been retrieved from deep within the pool outlet behind a plug and a dead rat. From the description, it could be the Acura diamond. Yeah, high fives all around, one more bad guy behind bars, one more case solved.

It was ten o’clock in the evening when I opened my garden door and found Mundy sitting at the pool, wrapped in a blanket as he browsed a magazine under a weak garden light.
 

“Hey,” he said and put away the magazine, opening the blanket to invite me.

“Hey, yourself.” I dropped beside him on the large pool chair, and Mundy moved aside and wrapped the blanket around us both.

“You’re famous again.”

“Never been infamous.”

“Good catch. Heard that they retrieved Swan Collins’ famous Acura diamond from the pool of prime suspect Rip Delaware.”

“Yeah, piece of cake,”
 

“Post-war depression?”

“Just be quiet for a moment, and don’t move,” I said and cuddled up against him.
 

“What about your personal policeman?” he asked. “His strong arms fell off during the chase?”

“Too complicated for tonight. It was his responsibility, too, to secure Rip, and he slipped up. And he saw my other side today and probably didn’t like what he saw.”

“Your other side? Is that the cat burglar side I hate so much?” Mundy asked.

“No, that is my normal side as you know me. My other side is the tough, violent self. Doesn’t come out often. Scratching and fighting cat—teeth, claws, blood, and all, you know,” I said wearily.

“Hey, even I haven’t seen your other side, and I have known you much longer,” Mundy protested.

“You like me?”

“A lot.”

“See.”

“I see, and I bet your favorite chief of police will, too” Mundy conceded.

“Shut up and hold me,” I said.

He was warm beside me. I was tired, and when I awoke the next morning, I was lying alone on the very same pool chair under two thick wool blankets with a soft cushion under my head and a note pinned under a stone on the small table: “My privilege, luv, Mun.”

The morning papers mentioned my name several times as an important witness but played down the chase. Jamaica was cited with a photo on page three as “the bystander” who had taken on the master criminal when the authorities had been too slow to respond. I decided to call him up one of these days for dinner and a small present.
 

The case was hot because Rip seemed to fit the different burglaries in the Hollywood area and the Acura diamond had been found in his possession. Rip was in jail, and it looked bad for him and better for me. And that was all that mattered in the end. Dog eats dog.

Some people’s calls were waiting on the answering machine: Mrs. Otis and my parents to ask whether I was okay, probably just hounding for more sensational news. Henry, inquiring how I was, ending with a “Call me, whenever you are ready.”
 

“Ready for what, Henry?” I asked the answering machine, and it felt like post-war depression all over again.
 

Fowler Wynn: “Thanks for the Rip Delaware catch and the Acura, Calendar. Saves me millions. Pity about the missing Metro Imperial. Costs me millions. But, it seems you got your head off the block one more time. I’ll keep my eyes on you….”
 

Thomas Cornelius: “Thomas here. Car chase, retrieved famous diamond, super girl in action. Hope you are all right. Give me a call if you feel like it. You know, I love talking to you.”
 

Thomas-dear, I will never understand your attachment to me after all these years.
 

Nicole Berg: “Calendar, I just read about your movie-style car chase through the bay area, and I must say, I am absolutely thrilled and shocked at the same time. If you want to confide in a notorious Hollywood gossiper or meet someone to sell the movie rights, call me up. It’s time that we meet anyway. By the way: next time with an explosion!” I had to laugh about that. At least somebody was able to cheer me up. I decided to give her a call one of these days, indeed.

And the best call of the morning: “Ned Palmeri here, District Attorney’s office. Miss Moonstone, as the situation in the Swan Collins case seems to have been resolved by Rip Delaware’s arrest, we would like to officially clear things. Please give me a call, or have your lawyer Mr. Peters call me. Either way. Have a nice day.”
 

Delighted, I hung up and dialed Terrence’s number. Let him earn his money.

The next days brought things slowly back to normal. Fowler Wynn’s insurance paid for the stones that Rip Delaware had stolen from my safe and that had not been retrieved in Rip’s possessions. Money in the bank, back to business. My newly ordered diamonds from the East Coast enabled me to start working again and to clear away my backlog. Usually I preferred to buy them in person and be able to inspect them at the dealership, but as I wanted to get things going quickly and didn’t want to travel, I relied on the quality inspection and good taste of my East Coast connections.
 

Terrence Peters worked things out with Ned Palmeri. We had to appear before the judge a week later, and I was cleared officially of the theft of Pretty McAllister’s necklace and the two Collins’ diamonds. Fowler was sitting in the back of the courtroom and stayed quiet.

I called Thomas in New York. If Mundy and I were a clean
3
on the relationship complication scale from
1
to
10
, Thomas Cornelius and I would wind up around
100
. He was my former lover coming from an old East Coast family. We once had almost been married and had split under very tragic circumstances—and he had a secret identity as a major art theft crime czar where I had a secret identity as a cat burglar. Let’s put it mildly: things didn’t work out after we discovered each other’s secrets. As I frequently stole valuable art and he frequently bought stolen valuable art, our paths had crossed again, and we had struck a kind of truce simply by avoiding certain topics.
 

We chatted for a few moments.
 

“Did that necklace thing clear up?” he asked.

“Yeah, don’t you worry. I got out clean. It all got blamed on Rip Delaware. By the way, you could do me a favor.”

“Sure, anything,” Thomas offered.

“Remember Uncle Mortimer? He quit New York and supposedly settled down in France or Italy. Could you find out his current phone number for me?”

“You are still not on speaking terms with the old man?” Thomas asked.

“No, after I had decided not to take over his business, we had that terrible fight … you probably remember.”

“How could I not?”

“I mean, he wasn’t close to my family either, so he simply wrapped things up after a few years and called it a professional life. And didn’t tell me where he moved.”

“I will find out. I have many contacts in Europe. Think he settled down under a new name?”

“Possible, but then…”
 

“Doesn’t matter, I’ll let you know. Anything else on your side—you know what I mean?”

I gave a short laugh. “I think the complexity of our relationship is by far the most entangled web of activities, emotions, and hopes that ever existed.” He had to laugh at that, too.
 

“Well, to answer your question … let us say, I am making good headway,” I told him.

“Take care, Calendar,” Thomas said softly.

“Take care, Thomas,” I said and after a few seconds of silence hung up.

Glad, again, that this call was over.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Master and Apprentice

 
It took Thomas one day to come up with the contact—and it took me another few days before I built up the courage to make the call. Eventually I did. Uncle Mortimer in Nice, France.
 

“’allo, Stoneee residence.” A young girl answered in French, probably the maid.

“Mortimer Stone, s’il vous plait.” About as much French as I can utter.

“Qui-est-ce?” Her asking for my name was a good guess.

“Calendar Moonstone.”

“Un moment, s’il vous plait,” the girl said and was gone.
 

“This is Mortimer, hello?”

“Hi, Uncle Mortimer, this is Calendar.”

“Calendar, how very pleased to hear from you. I heard of your adventures.” He sounded easy going and a little bit older than five years ago when we had spoken last. Mortimer was the much older brother of my mother, Dolores Stone.

 
“Still well connected to the old home?”

“Just to Thomas. He keeps me in the loop about you from time to time.”

“Listen, Uncle Mort, can I ask you some questions regarding the two of us?”

“Regarding ‘us’?” Uncle Mortimer echoed. “Very intriguing, Calendar.” This was Mortimer at his coolest, not divulging anything, neither information nor emotion.