Dim Sum Dead (19 page)

“
H
ey, Madeline?” Buster opened the front door. “You forget something?”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that. I forgot to talk to Trey. Is he still here?”

“Trey? I think he’s sleeping. He was on the patio a while ago.”

“Would you mind if I checked?”

“Oh, sure. Come in. Yeah.” Buster opened the door wider.

“Trey and you go back pretty far, right?” I walked in and stood in the entry, back once again in the presence of the golden Buddha.

“Since fifth grade. Long time.” Buster walked me through the big house. He was now wearing his lucky red-silk jacket with the embroidered slogan
The Hand from Hell.
I figured he was playing mah-jongg on the computer before I interrupted. “It always amazes me,” he said. “He doesn’t go after chicks, they come after him.” Buster turned and gave me a very deliberate look.

“Well, don’t worry about me,” I said, startled to the point of laughter. “I’m not interested in Trey.”

“Good thing,” Buster said. “I love the guy, Maddie. But he is not the easiest guy to love.”

Buster opened the French door out to the patio for me. “Looks like he’s still sleeping. But go on over. Maybe for you he’ll wake up.”

I crossed the flagstone patio. The teak table and chairs
were positioned just the way they had been when I had stopped by earlier. I found the path that led down onto the lawn and followed it to the pool farther off. Trey Forsythe was reclining on one of the padded teak lounge chairs at the edge of the pool. He lay motionless, eyes closed, with one knee up.

I studied him: his dark blond hair, his thin and poetic face, and the little patch of light blond beard that covered his chin. I tried to see him the way Verushka did. He was lying there with his shirt off in the late-afternoon sun. His tan was an even mocha. My eyes swept over his smooth, well-defined chest, his hard stomach. Below, a fine line of hair traveled south of his navel, disappearing beneath the open drawstring of his low-slung pants. My eyes traveled lower.

“Find something you were looking for?”

I brought my eyes back up to meet Trey’s pale blues.

“I always do,” I said.

“So you’re back. Not enough party business to keep you busy?”

“My business is doing just great, Trey, thanks for asking. You know, catering in L.A. is a big money deal. Wes and I can’t complain.” I stood next to his chaise lounge, looking down.

“That’s great. But I bet you could be doing better.”

“Really?”

“It’s all about marketing.” Trey lightly slapped his flat stomach. “That’s what I do, and I’m the best.”

“So, you want to give me some advice?”

He took his time looking me over. “You are obviously a very beautiful woman. You work that. I’ve seen you.”

“Ah,” I said, “so maybe I should have skipped cooking school altogether?”

Trey smiled. “You can always do a better job with marketing…maybe take on a new partner. I mean Wes is a good guy…but he’s not exactly chick bait. Your business could only do better if you had someone the girls appreciated more.”

“Like you?” I stared down at him.

“You could do worse.”

My back was to the setting sun, and Trey squinted up at me.

“I don’t think you want to get into event-planning, Trey,” I said, finding a seat on the chaise next to him. “I just think you are looking for a way to raise some cash.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Quita McBride.”

“Now, I’m not following you at all…”

“Let’s say Quita wanted to help you out. What would Quita do to raise money fast? She didn’t have anything worth selling. But then she was reminded that her husband had kept a journal that might prove valuable. She hadn’t paid much attention to the journal when Dickey was alive, but now that she was hungry to get cash, it probably sounded like her only shot.”

Trey looked bored.

“Of course, Dickey’s old diary couldn’t do Quita any good as long as it was missing. But that all changed when Wes called. He’d found the old mah-jongg case hidden behind a wall. Quita was sure the diary had been kept in that case, but she couldn’t wait to turn it into cash. So she called Dickey’s old movie-star friends and offered to sell them the diary, sight unseen.”

“You making all this stuff up?”

“But poor Quita didn’t figure on just how badly those old ladies would want to protect their secrets. When they learned that Quita hadn’t even seen the book yet, Catherine Hill and the others arranged to get the book back themselves. Faster and cleaner. The way they did it, Quita never got a chance to read any of their silly old secrets.”

“Really?” Trey looked at me. “They sound pretty sharp.”

“Sure.” I took off my sunglasses, as the sun had begun to set. “So Quita was frantic, wasn’t she? Wes and I saw her Wednesday evening. When she learned Dickey’s mah-jongg case had been stolen and the red book was missing, she panicked. There was nothing to sell to the mah-jongg ladies. No more big payoff.”

“And even if all this is true, Madeline, what is it to you? You think there was something wrong with a friend trying to help another friend?”

I looked at the young man, so cool and relaxed as we talked about his “friend.” Nothing of her pain seemed to touch him. “Was Quita in love with you? Is that why she was so worried about the money?”

“We had a thing a long time ago. She was a good kid. I guess she couldn’t get enough of me. Her old man was famous, you know? But he wasn’t…”

Trey didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t have to. McBride may have fulfilled Quita’s fantasies of Hollywood. He may have given her a thrilling last name. But he was in his seventies by the time Quita grew up enough to move to Hollywood and marry him. The reality was Dickey McBride wasn’t a handsome young man anymore. Age is the enemy of any vain person, but it’s worse for the famous. They trade on their youth and their energy and their sex appeal; they make a fortune simply because we want to look at them, and then when they age, we look away.

“So you were seeing Quita before Dickey McBride died.”

He gave me a slow smile. “Are you shocked?”

This couldn’t possibly pass for charm, but like a beautiful reptile, he was fascinating somehow.

“My friends say I’m unshockable,” I said, seeing his bet.

“Quita wanted to help me get some cash. This was like a year ago. She told me her husband had a stash of money. I thought, Dickey McBride—he must be loaded. The trouble was, she couldn’t get to it. Then, after he died, she couldn’t find any great stash. And the lawyers kept hassling Quita. They were never going to let her get her hands on McBride’s dough.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Something about paperwork.”

“That must have been disappointing.”

“No shit,” he said, still smiling his most charming smile. The setting sun lit the ends of Trey’s short blond hair, creating a halo.

“So what did she do?” I asked.

“Come on, sit closer and I’ll tell you,” he said. “Quita sold that old house as fast as she could. But after paying off the mortgage and taxes and a whole load of other stuff, she didn’t end up with much.”

“And you grabbed whatever money she had, I’ll bet. To pay off your debts.”

“Don’t look at me like I took it from her. She wanted to give it to me. It was her choice.”

But what Trey was telling me didn’t entirely scan with the fear I had seen in Quita McBride’s eyes.

“Why don’t you tell me the rest of it, Trey? Why she was frantic to raise money for you on Wednesday? It wasn’t your fantastic body alone, was it? That’s been over for months, right? Why don’t you tell me what had Quita so motivated to help you out?”

“Why should I?”

I got up on one knee and moved to lean down over him as he reclined in the chaise. He looked up at me, surprised.

“Because,” I said, my anger hard to contain, “I want to know.” Then, to make him jump, I slammed my hand down on the side of the chaise lounge just a few inches from his ear.

But he didn’t flinch at all. His face was now close to mine. I could feel his breath on my cheek. He reached up and took my other hand and placed it on the warm skin on the flat of his stomach.

“How badly?” he whispered. “How badly do you want to know?”

I left my hand where he’d placed it, not flinching myself. “What did you have on Quita? Something scared her. Was it your old affair? How could that…?” I was lost. How could that be a threat? McBride was already dead.

But then, maybe we had all heard the story backward. My expression must have changed.

“Did you figure it out?” Trey reached up and slowly pulled on the clip that held my long hair back off of my face. A tumble of heavy hair fell forward.

The rumor had been slightly off.

I said, “The night McBride had that fatal heart attack in his bedroom, he wasn’t making love to Quita, was he? He died because he walked in on the two of you.”

I saw it clearly. The rumors were right as far as they went. Quita was naked and Dickey’s old heart couldn’t take it. Only she wasn’t having sex with Dickey that night. Quita was in bed with Trey when her old husband found them.

“I don’t know a lot of girls who could have figured that out, Madeline. In fact, I don’t know any. And I find girls with brains very sexy.”

“So what did you do? Did you blackmail her? If she didn’t keep coming up with money to pay off your gambling debts, you would let people know about the way Dickey really died, is that it? What could that matter, really?”

“She was fighting for a piece of a very big pie, Madeline. She was hyped to keep the movie star name and all of Dickey’s money. She wanted to be interviewed on
Entertainment Tonight
when the limos pulled up for the Dickey McBride memorial auction. And Quita didn’t want any investigation into how Dickey had died.”

“And all you wanted in return for your silence was money she couldn’t get her hands on.” I moved back and took my hand off of Trey’s lean body.

“You can put it any way you want to. She was just helping me out.”

“What I still don’t get is how Quita ended up with your best friend, Buster. That must have been awkward for you. Your old girlfriend and your best friend.”

He just stared at me, waiting. Waiting for me to…what?

And then I got it. Quita ran out of money and Trey set her up with his oldest and dearest friend, the one who still had money but refused to pay any more of Trey’s gambling debts.

I shook my head. “She never really liked Buster at all, did she?” I asked.

“Now, now. Hey. She liked him okay,” Trey said. “But it is also true she was trying to help me. Buster was being a jerk about the money. He always used to be a sport about it.
He was always good for a loan, you know? But then, one day out of the blue he says, ‘no more.’ No more. He’s got a ton of it. He makes more off of directing one of those car commercials than I make in a year busting my hump arranging manufacturing deals in China. He could have solved the whole problem if he’d just agreed to give me another loan. But he wouldn’t. Don’t go feeling sorry for Buster. It’s his own damn fault.”

To support his gambling habit, good-looking Trey had used them all. First Buster, who had paid his friend’s debts for years, then Verushka, who picked the wrong guy to love, and then there was Quita, whose fears about Dickey’s death made her open to blackmail.

Trey watched me stand up. “You sure you want to leave?”

“I’ve heard enough. Unless you’d like to tell me about the night Quita died.”

“What? What are you talking about?” For the first time, Trey sounded annoyed.

“Quita told me she was supposed to meet you after the party.” She hadn’t said anything at all about Trey, actually.

“Okay, sure. But I never came back to the house. What was the point? She hadn’t gotten the money.”

So, Quita had been expecting him that night. And how was I to know he really stood her up?

“Look.” He sat up and made eye contact. “Lend me some money, Madeline. I know Buster. He’ll get all concerned about you. He’ll be raging at me. Then Buster will pay you back. You lose nothing.”

“And why, Trey, would I ever do that?”

“You were looking at it when you first came outside. You know you want it.”

“Oh,” I said. Oh,
really.
“You’re scaring me, Trey. You know me so well.”

He smiled.

On some, sarcasm is entirely wasted.

“Madeline, you are really funny. Don’t you remember that fortune cookie you e-mailed me the other night? It said, ‘Taste everything at least once.’ Follow your own damn advice, sugar. Come on down here. Take a taste.”

I kept a tight rein on my rising disgust. Years of working in Hollywood had trained me well for this particular form of self-control.

“Out of respect to Verushka,” I said, “who believes the two of you are engaged, I will have to fight my natural urge.”

“What? You think I love Verushka? Come on.”

Some slight movement, out of the corner of my eye, caught my attention. I looked aside and saw a woman standing in the shadows not far away. Verushka. She stood there, silently listening, tears streaming.

“Verushka has been a pal,” Trey said. “But that’s it. Jesus, where’d you ever get an idea like putting me next to her? I mean, God.” He couldn’t hold back a low throaty chuckle. “That’s kind of gross. Have you looked at her, Maddie? She’s fat. She’s never gonna be a beauty. You worried about Verushka? Hell, she’s a dog. She’s got nothing that you’ve got.”

I didn’t dare look up again. I knew Verushka was standing there, humiliated, hating me, as Trey rambled on, reassuring me that Verushka meant absolutely nothing to him. He hadn’t yet realized that another source of financing had just dried up for good.

“Come on, Maddie. I know you feel something for me.”

Did he seriously imagine he was going to seduce me into giving him money?

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you love the raw way. You’ll like it. You just gotta loosen up and show me what you feel.”

“What I…
feel
?” I asked, looking down at his lank, sinewy body, almost tempted.

“Don’t fight it, Madeline,” he said, closing his heavy-lidded eyes.