Dim Sum Dead (17 page)

He stood up.

“Honnett?”

“I’ve got to go anyway. It’s damn cold out here…don’t you feel it? You really ought to go inside and warm up.”

“Right.”

“Thanks for filling me in,” he said.

“What?” I asked. “Are you leaving? For good?”

I was getting that unmistakable sinking feeling that I was splitting up with my second man this week.

He smiled at me, but it wasn’t an altogether happy smile.

I stood up, too, and went over to him. “Will you call me?”

“I know you’re busy trying to find your answers, Maddie. I hope they are there for you.”

“So…” How had I allowed everything to get so damn
heavy and mawkish? Everyone knows a new boyfriend prefers things light and romantic. I had definitely been thrown off my game. It was probably too late, now, to reverse the damage.

“So…you’re tired of hearing about movie stars and their love affairs? Man, the
National Enquirer
would go broke if everyone were like you.”

“And,” Honnett said, grinning, “that would be a bad thing?”

“So, are we still going to see that movie we talked about?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said. “Why don’t you call me when you have some free time.”

I put my arms around his waist and pulled him toward me. Leaning forward, going up on my toes to reach him, I gave him a slow kiss. I knew Honnett and I were not going to have a chance at any sort of real relationship until I got this whole Quita McBride thing out of my system. I just wanted to mark my place. I just wanted him to still want me when it

I
pushed aside the blue-and-white pineapple-pattern quilt and stretched. On Saturdays, I usually wake up late and spend the day cooking and prepping for whatever party we are catering that night. But not this Saturday. The “couples” baby shower we had planned for a pair of expectant parents in Pasadena was called off because their twin daughters arrived a month earlier than expected. Things happen for a reason, I thought to myself again. I had too much on my mind to cook today.

I went through my shower-and-dress routine, sweeping my hair back in a low ponytail, putting on my favorite jeans and a black sweater. I knew I should use the free day to plow through the snowdrift of correspondence and invoices and menus that covered my desk downstairs. I was falling behind on orders. Last week, Wes and I had made a list of items we needed and others we wanted to try from specialty growers. For instance, I had promised to order a dozen bulbs of Metechi garlic. Each bulb of this fireball-hot variety is the size of an artichoke and with its purple stripes, beautiful enough to put on a pedestal in an art museum. Last week, I couldn’t wait to get some in from Texas so we could try their potent flavor in our garlic mashed potatoes. That’s the sort of thing I should be taking care of. Instead, I was thinking about Quita McBride and her fatal accident.

If I was right about Catherine Hill and her old cronies, they had sent their guy to grab the mah-jongg set from Wesley
at the Farmer’s Market, but figuring that out and finding the red book had brought me no closer to understanding what had happened to Quita McBride.

I found my black clogs and stepped into them.

Those old movie stars. They took a stupid risk. I had read McBride’s diary with Wesley, and then again later last night. There was simply nothing in it that was worthy of theft, much less murder. The tepid long-ago scandals that were mentioned would hardly shock anyone today. Dickey’s diary was from the forties, with a marked forties-era sensibility. It hinted darkly at infidelities of the day. It noted rumors of certain celebrities’ closeted homosexuality, and detailed petty studio betrayals, all among figures whose glory days were half a century ago, and most of whom had now been dead for years. In today’s culture, most of these scandals would be thought of as staggeringly boring.

I shook my head. Only the puffy egos of women like Catherine Hill and Eva James and Helen Howerton could lead them to imagine that their old secrets were news. All that fuss and all that bother and nobody cared anymore what they did.

But there was something else that was not quite right. Even with all these answers, I now began to realize I hadn’t been asking the right questions. Catherine Hill might have sent someone to grab the book, but she wouldn’t have harmed Quita. Once Catherine got her hands on McBride’s diary, Quita would no longer have been a threat. After all, Quita hadn’t even seen the book yet.

I roamed around downstairs in the kitchen, putting on the teakettle, getting a big white mug, rooting around for some soothing carbohydrates to nibble with my tea as I thought it all over.

Had Quita’s death been an accident? Then why had she seemed so terrified when we saw her? Why had she begged me for help? What had she been afraid of? It still didn’t add up.

The pine farm table near the back of my kitchen had ten chairs around it, but I picked my usual spot at the end.

I had to start over. Eliminate the mystery of that damn
book and what was left? The key to Quita’s state of mind seemed to have been money. Her plan had been to sell Dickey’s book. But what if Catherine Hill had something to hold over Quita. What if they were trading secrets? I tried to remember exactly what I had overheard at Hill’s house. She had said, “Everyone has secrets. Dickey taught me that. Even her.”

I looked down at the thin slice of apple-blackberry pie. Not, perhaps, a traditional breakfast, but decent enough, I rationalized. It contained fruit and grains and if I just added a dab of ice cream, I’d have dairy. I went to the freezer.

Buster should know why Quita was so hyped-up for money. Maybe the others who were at the mah-jongg party with her, like Verushka or Trey, knew what was up with Quita that night.

I looked down and realized I wasn’t hungry after all, so I cleared my dishes and rinsed them off. Then I grabbed my bag and keys. It was time to go visit Buster Dubin and, this time, ask the right questions.

Outside, it appeared to be a typically bright day, this one perhaps clearer than most. Rose parade weather. The temperature was mild. Late January was a nice time of year to come visit our side of the continent. The postcard palm trees that lined my street looked like they were ready for their close-ups. I walked the two blocks to Buster’s house in a few minutes.

His large white stucco home was set on the hillside, up a steep flight of steps. I stopped. Over the past six months, I’d run up and down those steps a hundred times. But I looked at those fourteen steps now and felt the heat of tears rush up behind my eyelids.

A soft breeze picked up a tendril of hair and set it gently down. I could feel the heat of the sun warming my back and arms. It was a beautiful day. And I was alive to feel it.

I took the steps slowly, checking them out as I went up. There was no indication that a young woman had slipped here. There was no blood or broken railing. Everything was peaceful. Two blocks from the freeway, this part of Whitley
Heights was much quieter than mine. Birds perched on an overhead wire sang sweetly, oblivious to the recent calamity.

I rang Buster Dubin’s doorbell and waited.

To my surprise, Trey answered the door. “Hey. Madeline. What’s up? You looking for Bus?”

“Yes. Is he home?”

“Sure, come on in,” he said. “We’re sitting out back, drinking Bloody Marys. We have a pitcher.”

I stepped in and was greeted by Buster’s gold-leaf Buddha, smiling benevolently from his place of honor in the entry. The fellow seemed to be the only one who was sanguine enough in the face of such disturbing events to hang on to his grin.

I followed Trey through the darkened house.

“I thought you were traveling out of town this week,” I said, just making conversation. I remembered Trey was a sales rep with manufacturing accounts in Indonesia and the Far East.

“Right. Well we’re
not supposed to leave
,” he said, whispering the last part in mock menace. He sounded rueful. “They scared us shitless, the cops. They were pretty uncool.”

Ah. Honnett had been there. I hoped Buster wouldn’t hold it against me. At least he hadn’t been arrested.

Trey walked through his friend’s house barefoot. He wore a rumpled black T-shirt with the sleeves cut off and a pair of drawstring pants. As we stepped outside into the dappled sunlight, I noticed Trey’s normally tawny skin had a slightly grayish cast.

Buster looked up from reading the paper. “Maddie? Hey.” He jumped up and kissed my cheek and then pulled over a third oversize teak patio chair to the table. “How cool is this?”

Trey poured himself another Bloody Mary and offered one to me.

“No, thanks. I’m just here for a minute.”

“I’m glad you stopped by,” Buster said. “I’ve been meaning
to call you. We’re going to cancel the Sweet and Sour Club for a while.”

“I sort of figured,” I said. “It would be strange.”

“Everyone is freaking about Quita’s accident,” Trey said. He sucked down a third of his Bloody Mary and added as an afterthought, “Verushka is a total wreck.”

Buster nodded. “She’s been out of it, lately. She’s got business problems, doesn’t she?” Buster asked Trey.

“She’s always got business problems. Everything works out,” Trey, the philosopher, said.

“Are you talking about Verushka’s model-making business?” I asked.

“Right,” Buster said. “She’s got about eight thousand square feet out in Culver City. Have you seen it?”

I shook my head.

“Oh, man, you should. It’s a very retro concept she’s got, very very cool. They create miniature models for special effects. It’s almost a lost art. They have to train a whole new group of craftspeople to get it going.”

Verushka had gotten some publicity when the new company started up. She was working with two master model-builders in a motion-picture special-effects technique that had been used since the days of the silents. By playing with scale on film, the exact miniatures that her craftspeople constructed became life-size on the screen. Now that computer animation had taken over, almost no one was doing miniatures anymore. For one thing, the time-intensive craft was phenomenally expensive compared to the cost of using today’s computers. But Verushka and her partners figured there were an awful lot of a hundred-million-dollar film budgets out there. And a lot of big-spending, spoiled directors. There was something irresistible about working with perfect replicas.

“I think she’s nuts to invest in a business that’s so medieval,” Trey said, sucking on a sliver of ice cube.

“CG is fine…” Buster, the director, said and the two of them started arguing about computer-generated images on film.

I tuned out and thought about Verushka. If she was working
today, I would go out to Culver City and pay her a visit. Maybe she had some idea of what had been bothering Quita.

“So,” I said to the guys. “I hear they’re keeping you both close to home still. The police. I’m sorry it’s been so harsh.”

“I am over that, Madeline,” Buster said. His grin reminded me of the Buddha statue in his front hall. “You know how it goes in this devilish world. You cannot escape your karma.”

Trey snorted. “Right, man.”

Buster ignored Trey and continued, “I figure that it is not my karma to be directing that
Warp
music video in Copenhagen. I’m cool with that. I figure there must be a higher plan. You dig?”

Actually, I did.

Buster said, “But my man Trey here is freaking.”

I looked at Trey. He certainly looked bad.

“I need to get to China, brother,” Trey said. “I got business, you understand? These Chinese partners don’t get why I’m not over there right now. It’s so stupid.”

“You know what would make you feel better?” Buster asked his friend.

I quickly thought of several good answers: sleep, a change of clothes, something to consume that didn’t include alcohol as its main ingredient…

“You should jump in the pool,” Buster said. “It will cool you off, bro.”

Trey drained the ice-cube melt from the bottom of his glass and stood up. “I think I will. You coming?”

“In a minute,” Buster said. “Go ahead. You gotta chill.”

Trey left us and walked down to the large swimming pool way down at the end of the property. I watched him in the distance as he pulled off his shirt and stripped down to his boxers. Athletic and slim, Trey Forsythe dived off the side into the pool, sending perfect aqua ripples up onto the glassy surface.

“He’s been so out of it,” Buster said. And then he leaned over and opened a cooler, bringing out two bottles of Arrowhead water. He set one frosty bottle before me and then unscrewed the cap of the other one for himself.

“Thanks,” I said. “What’s wrong with Trey? Is he staying here?”

“Yeah. Just for a few nights. I hate to be alone, know what I mean?”

“Sure.”

“Anyway, he’s leaving today. I’ve got a friend who’s moving in for a while.”

“Someone I know?” I asked, turning to look at Buster.

“Do you know Doris Ann? She and I have started seeing each other.”

Since when? I sighed. I suppose it was inevitable. Buster had been trying to dump Quita. This Doris Ann must have already been lined up. I felt uneasy thinking about Quita’s replacement.

“I don’t think I’ve met her,” I said.

“She’s great,” Buster said, happy. “She’s not like the other babes I bring around here. She’s smart. Kinda like you.”

I smiled, and said, “Awwww.”

“Remember Lee Chen and our mah-jongg fortunes, Mad? Mine is coming true. I’m the East Wind, don’t forget. I’m one very lucky guy. Doris Ann will make a difference in me.”

“What is she?” I asked. “A model? An actress?”

“A librarian.”

I almost spit out my bottled water. Imagine that.

“What’s wrong with Trey?” I asked.

“He and Quita used to be very tight.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that.”

“They dated or something. Long time ago.”

“Really?” I didn’t know that.

“But you know, Trey doesn’t fall apart,” Buster said. “I just can’t see him falling apart because of some woman he used to be tight with.”

“He looks pretty bad,” I said, sipping water.

“Tell me. He’s not sleeping. He just sits around and drinks my booze. He’s no fun at all. And he’s been after me to borrow money. Maybe that’s it. He’s broke again.”

“Money is tough,” I said, hoping to draw out a few more answers. This is what I had come to talk about, after all.
Why had Quita McBride been so desperate to get her hands on money the night she died?

“No lie. But that’s why we have to make a lot. Right?”

“Quita was very upset about money, too, wasn’t she? But didn’t she inherit a bundle when Dickey McBride died last year?”

“Well, you would have thought so, wouldn’t you? But there are still some legal things that were up in the air. These lawyers are bloodthirsty mothers. You know. And they thought Quita was dim. They were dragging her over coals. Red-hot coals.”

“About what?” I asked.

“There are always technicalities. Paperwork, whatever. Quita was always tense about it.”

“Buster, did Quita ask you for any money lately?”

He nodded, matter-of-fact. “Everyone is always asking Buster for money.”

“That’s what has been puzzling me. I barely knew Quita, and she asked me for money, too. Why? Did Quita tell you what she needed the cash for?”

“Maybe lawyers? I don’t know. Verushka came up to me at the Sweet and Sour Club and asked for twenty grand, too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, she told me it was to pay off a loan or something.”

“And Trey?”

“He said he was in trouble with some guys.”

“So will you lend it to him?” I asked.