Not A Girl Detective (32 page)

my briefcase when I’d dumped everything out. I could

get Gambino on auto-dial. But he was going to kill me.

Stand in line, buddy. Maybe I could call 911.

“Don’t even think about it,” Asher said.

“What?”

“I’ll shoot you if you so much as touch that phone.”

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“Like you shot Jake.”

“Jake shot himself.”

“Of course. I forgot. Jake shot himself because he

felt so awful about killing Edgar.”

“And nobody’s going to mourn him when he dies.”

“He’s not going to die.”

“What a sorry fucking life he led. Waiting around for somebody to take notice. Always showing up at the

wrong time.”

“Like in Palm Springs?”

“Time is up, Cece,” he said, his voice cold. He

stepped onto the same board I had used to get across.

I tucked the Dalí back into its hiding place and lifted up the painting by its frame. “Stay away from me!” I

shouted, waving it in the air. “Stay away from me or I’ll destroy them both!”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“Yes, I would,” I said, bending down to pick up my

mangled sling-back. “I’m going to slice through both

paintings with the heel of my shoe. I’m going to shred them just like you shredded that copy Edgar made, the one you found in Palm Springs. You were furious, being duped like that, weren’t you? Well, I’m furious, too.”

He said nothing.

“I’m warning you, Asher.”

He started walking toward me.

“Don’t take another step.”

There wasn’t anyplace for me to go. There wasn’t

anyplace I could hide.

“Look at Grace Horton. How lovely she is,” I said.

“It will all have been for nothing if you let me do this.”

He took another step.

It had cost Edgar his life, this painting of Grace Hor-N O T

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ton. Gambino had once asked me what it had meant to

Edgar. He owned dozens of beautiful things: why did

this one matter?

Grace posed as Nancy, who was brilliant like the sun.

But Grace wasn’t Nancy; she was Grace, and fickle like the moon. Quicksilver. What Edgar saw in the painting was a woman who didn’t want to be true to type, all of a piece, constant. What he saw in Grace was his own rest-less spirit.

I looked at the painting one last time. Was I willing to destroy it? Them both? Then I noticed something. A

speck of dirt clinging to Grace’s ankle. I went to brush it off, but it wasn’t dirt. It was something painted onto the canvas.

A zipper.

A tiny, curving zipper, perfectly placed to allow

Grace to slither in and out of her own skin.

Jesus. This painting wasn’t by Russell Tandy. It was

by Salvador Dalí, too.

Salvador Dalí, the man who had understood Grace

all too well.

I was so blind. I’d seen only part of it. Dalí had

staged a painting contest, yes; but not against his old drinking buddy, Russell Tandy. He’d staged a contest

against himself.

Dalí versus Dalí.

It was the only way he could be sure he’d win. The

only way he’d know the crown of laurel leaves would

be his.

Suddenly, there was a clatter from the staircase.

“Cece!”

“Stay where you are, hon, we’re coming!”

“Careful!”

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“They need Tomas in here to fix these steps.”

Bridget and Lael.

“Who the fuck is that?” Asher asked, turning

around. In that split second I could see him start to lose his balance.

“The cavalry, you asshole,” I yelled as I bent down,

dropped the paintings, picked up
The Chicago Manual
of Style,
and hurled it at him with all my might.

Who knew I had perfect aim?

3 6

Let’s go over the whole thing again,” Lael said.

“We like the part where we save the day,” Bridget

prompted. “Tell that part again.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’m getting us refills and then I’m

going to tell that part again.”

It was Friday morning, and we were at the Farmers

Market on Third and Fairfax, an L.A. institution since the thirties. In the old days, farmers used to park their trucks on the undeveloped land and sell produce to the locals. These days, it was tourists who spilled out of state-of-the-art motor coaches to marvel at the monster strawberries. The regulars—sitcom writers, rock-and-rollers, aggressive retirees—liked to feign noncha-

lance, but it was obvious that even for them, breakfast at the Farmers Market was akin to a sacrament. We

weren’t regulars but knew enough to arrive early if we didn’t want to duke it out with the old ladies for one of the good tables near Bob’s Coffee and Doughnuts.

I returned to the table with three coffees and a pink box.

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“We’re celebrating,” I said, handing around dough-

nuts. “There’s three for each of us, two for the pigeons, and one for the memory of James Dean.”

Legend has it that James Dean ate breakfast at Bob’s

the day of his fatal car crash.

“Delicious,” said Lael, getting powdered sugar all

over her blouse.

“All right,” I said, sitting down. “He was about to

kill me.”

“Shoot you dead without mercy,” Bridget inter-

rupted. “It’s the details that make the story.”

“He was about to shoot me dead without mercy. He

owed the government eight million dollars.”

“Honey, that’s really getting all over you,” Bridget

said. “Here.” She handed Lael a napkin.

“You only get two hours free with a validation,

ladies. Shall we get on with it?”

“Sorry,” said Bridget.

“It was the money or the slammer. He needed that

painting. I was a goner. I wouldn’t be here today if my two best friends, my stouthearted chums, hadn’t

charged in like the cavalry.”

Bridget beamed.

“It was a phone call that alerted you to my situation.”

“A phone call from Mitchell,” said Bridget.

“Go away, now! Shoo!” said Lael. A pigeon had

landed on her green wooden shopping cart and was

about to go after the loaf of rye she’d just bought at J

and T Bread Bin.

“Excuse me,” said a good-looking guy at the next

table, looking deeply into Lael’s eyes. “Do you need

any help?” Another one bites the dust.

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“No, thank you,” she replied, but without her usual

sparkle.

Bridget cleared her throat. “I thought we were focus-

ing here.”

“Right. So Mitchell remembered about your shop

and called you there around ten in the morning. His

housekeeper, Miss Vasquez, had gotten him on his cell at yoga class. The guru was probably apoplectic.”

“You don’t call them gurus,” said Lael.

“As Cece was saying,” Bridget interrupted, “the

housekeeper told Mitchell she’d let a woman into the

house, a very odd woman who’d wanted to take a look

around the attic. The housekeeper was worried she’d

made a mistake, but this very odd woman talked so fast and was so insistent, she couldn’t think straight.

Mitchell said that sounded exactly like you.”

“It does,” Lael said, nodding. “You misjudged him,

but he didn’t misjudge you.”

I decided to let that one pass. She was in some mood.

“Anyway,” Bridget continued, “he called me. He

wanted to give me a chance to get you out of there before he called the police.”

“I think he had a sense something might be wrong,” I

said. “That I might be in trouble.”

“We rang the bell a few times, but there was no an-

swer.”

“Asher Farrell sent Mrs. Ramirez away,” I said.

“So we let ourselves in.”

“Bridget.”

“Don’t stop me now. I’m on a roll.”

“No, I want to apologize about Andrew.”

She let out a sigh. “All right.”

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“That night you had me look in Andrew’s desk for

your wallet? I saw the missing key from Palm Springs

in there. I was worried you might be in over your head with Andrew.”

“You found the what in where?”

“The gold key Edgar gave me. In Andrew’s desk.”

“There was a gold key in there all right, but it wasn’t what you think it was.”

“It wasn’t?” I put down my doughnut.

“It was a key to my house. I had it made for Andrew.

I left it in there as a surprise for him.”

What kind of idiot thinks she can tell one key from

another? Jeez. I wanted to slap myself. Luckily, I didn’t have to. Bridget would tend to that. I knew what was

coming next. She was going to get huffy. Imperious.

Make me pay for leaping to conclusions. But there was none of that. She was actually squirming in her seat.

“What is it, Bridget?”

“I should tell you something, too.”

“What?”

“Andrew was with me the whole time.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, not the whole time. He showed up at my place

Tuesday, after I saw you. He was in my bedroom while

those miserable cops were grilling me.”

How could that be?

“Andrew was hiding in the kitchen that night when

Asher came to his place to kill Jake, only Andrew didn’t know it was Asher. He had no idea who Asher even was.

And it all happened so fast, by the time Andrew came

out of the kitchen, Asher was gone. Andrew thought

Jake was dead. He didn’t know what to do. He ran out

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at a twenty-four-hour coffee shop on Ventura Boule-

vard. He sat there for hours, drinking coffee. That was when he called me to say he’d had an emergency and

wasn’t coming in to work.”

“Then what happened?”

“After you left the store, he showed up. He didn’t

know what he was doing. He only knew he needed to

see me.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Cece. I

should’ve told you right away. I should’ve had more

faith in you.”

Lael finally spoke up. “I slept with that man.”

Bridget and I looked at each other.

“I don’t have a lot of regrets, but I regret that.” She looked down at her lap.

“Lael,” I said, reaching for her hand.

“Forget it,” she said, screwing up her face.

“You didn’t know.”

“I didn’t want to know.”

“I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you, Lael.”

“She’s right,” Bridget said. “It’s just like in frigging Nancy Drew. Us girls against the world. What could be better?”

I laughed. “Life isn’t exactly like that.”

“Women do need men,” said Lael, wiping her eyes.

“What I meant was, where’s the happy ending?”

My cell phone started to ring. I reached down into

my purse and pulled it out.

“Hello?”

It was Gambino.

“What?” I asked.

“What?” Lael asked.

I held up a finger for her to wait.

“Me, too. Bye.”

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“What?” Bridget asked.

I dropped the phone back into my purse and smiled.

“Jake’s up.”

HE WAS THE ONLY person I’d ever seen who looked good

in a hospital gown.

An orderly was taking his pulse and a nurse was fluffing his pillow. It looked like a scene from a porno movie.

“People, I keep telling you I’m fine,” he said with a grin. “Go take care of somebody sick.”

“You’re amazing,” the orderly said.

“Thanks. Can you give us a minute?”

Reluctantly, they left.

I sat down on the edge of the bed.

“You saved my life, Cece.”

“Jake,” I said, shaking my head.

“No, I mean it. I don’t know how to thank you.”

“I’m glad you turned out to be such a fighter.”

“I don’t remember much about what happened.”

“There’s time for that later.”

“Somebody came to the door.”

“Jake, stop.”

“I assumed it was you, so I opened it.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“I should have known.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was me who let it slip where I was.”

I stared hard at him.

“I left a message on the phone machine for Mitchell.”

“You didn’t.”

“I needed money. Asher Farrell must’ve heard it.”

Or twisted Mitchell’s arm pretty hard. Mitchell was

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finally going to get back at him, though. Mitchell was going to escape prosecution by telling the cops everything. His testimony was going to be the nail in Asher’s coffin.

“That piece of shit left me for dead. If you hadn’t

shown up, I’d never have made it.”

“That’s not important right now. What’s important is

that you get better.”

“You can’t keep a good man down.”

“Rest up a little first, would you?”

He laughed. “Do you want some candy?”

“Always.”

He held out a velvet-lined box and I took a cocoa

truffle with a hazelnut on top.

“Since we’re on the subject, there is something I

want to know,” I said. “Umm.”

“A busy mouth is a happy mouth.”

“Jake.”

“Sorry. Sometimes I can’t help myself. What?”

“What was so urgent that you had to get me to An-

drew’s in the middle of the night?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said, suddenly sheepish. “I was driving Andrew crazy, walking in circles, pacing

around. He was exhausted. He couldn’t keep his eyes

open another minute.”