Rage Factor (13 page)

Dixie parked in the Galleria Mall garage, across the street from the Transco Tower. A gray Camry passed and continued to another level. Dixie jotted down the license number, but she’d already decided she was being paranoid. With so many freeways crisscrossing Houston, tailing somebody was difficult enough when you knew the routes. An L.A. stalker would’ve gone nuts trying to stay on the Porsche’s tail this morning.

She checked the dash clock. With luck, she could be in and out of Belle’s office in ten minutes, take another ten to drop by Brenda’s for a brief chat, and still make Sarina’s eleven-thirty appointment.

“I’ll stay in the car.” Sarina reached for the cell phone. “I need to make a call.”

“You can make it from inside. Come on.”

“You’ll only be in there a couple minutes, right? I’ll keep the doors locked.” She punched numbers on the dial pad.

“Sarina. Put it down and come on.”

“What can happen in broad daylight in a locked car?”

“I’m not interested in finding out.”

The girl stared, as if Dixie had sprouted a second head.

“You’re kidding about this, aren’t you, Flannigan? You’re not really telling me we’re going to be joined at the hip until Friday!”

“Ms. Flannigan. And no, Sarina, I’m not kidding. For the next four days I’ll stick to you like toilet paper to a fresh cut. My job is to keep you out of trouble until you fly back to L.A., where another chump can take over, maybe let you sit alone in a car in a public parking garage. Until that happens, you and I, as you say, are joined at the hip.”

“But—”

“Sarina!”

“Hey, all right, Ms. Flannigan. Don’t weird out.”

She slapped the phone down and climbed out of the car.

They took the skywalk across the street, rode an elevator to the twenty-third floor, scooped up the file, and were back in the Porsche without incident in nine minutes, Dixie feeling slightly abashed about their dispute. Yet she had to make the kid understand up front that even the smallest breach of security was unacceptable. Otherwise, the girl would make life hell during the coming days. Protecting a cooperative principal was tough enough; guarding a target who didn’t want to be guarded was a nightmare.

But Dixie didn’t like the heavy silence that hung between them.

“You can call me Dixie,” she said, steering the Targa toward downtown.

“Is that a Southern thing?” Sarina drawled. “Ah mean, is Dixie like a nickname or the appellation on yore burth certificate?”

Dixie ignored the kid’s sarcasm—she couldn’t help being a Hollywood brat. But few people knew Dixie’s real name. When the Flannigans adopted her, they’d insisted she keep her given name out of respect for her birth mother. Later, changing it hadn’t seemed important enough to bother with the paperwork. After all, her full moniker appeared only on her driver’s license and other legal documents.

“My birth certificate says I’m Desiree Alexandra.” She tossed the kid a shamefaced grin. Maybe sharing what was essentially a minor embarrassment would loosen up communications. “Could you look at this mug and say Desiree Alexandra without cracking up?”

“Well—” Still the sarcastic drawl. “It is sweet enough to make mah teeth ache.”

“I think my mother pictured me in pink organza on the sweeping lawn of a Southern mansion, mint julep in one hand, ruffled parasol in the other, and a dozen suitors at my feet.”

“You mean, she didn’t expect you to grow up to be a bodyguard?”

“Even
I
didn’t expect me to grow up to be a bodyguard.”
Not to mention a bounty hunter. “I wanted to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.”

“So what happened?” Sarina had dropped the sarcasm, but was fiddling with her rod puppet, apparently losing interest.

Dixie shrugged. “Life happened.”

Surprised to find a parking meter within a block of the courthouse, she whipped in, telling Sarina to stay put until she circled to the passenger side of the car. Security inside a deserted parking garage hadn’t bothered her nearly as much as out here in the open where an assailant could be anyone who passed. Gray cars in every direction. She hadn’t spotted a Camry, but the street was teeming with traffic, as were the cross streets. Who could tell?

Sarina waited without comment while Dixie scanned the area, then she motioned the girl out. As they walked, Dixie instinctively took the side nearest the street.

Inside the courthouse, she surrendered the .38. Even with a carry permit, the law forbids weapons in courtrooms, except on cops. The guard also took the Kubaton from her key chain. It might be only a six-inch cylinder of hard plastic, but in the right hands it was lethal.

As they waited their turn at the receptionist’s desk in the busy sixth-floor office suite, District Attorney Sonny Grossman sidled out of his cave.

“What brings you in from the farm, Dix?” He shook hands, giving hers a discreet squeeze.

She and Sonny had engaged in a brief, unspectacular romance after she quit the system, him teasing her constantly about going soft. He’d been supportive when she took up skip tracing, but there remained a mild sexual tension between them.

“I have some questions for Brenda. She around?”

“On the phone a minute ago.” Grossman glanced at Sarina. Dixie introduced them without giving the girl’s pedigree. “I can flag Brenda down, if it’s important.”

“No, I’ll wait a few minutes. She seemed upset after Coombs’ acquittal. How’s she doing now?”

“Treated the whole department to breakfast this morning.” He nodded toward an orange juice carton and an open box of pastries. “I’d say she’s taking it fine. Besides, Coombs didn’t exactly escape justice, did he?”

“Any idea who worked him over?”

“If I did, I’d send a thank-you note.” He looked at Sarina. “You didn’t hear me say that, miss.”

“Hear you say what, sir?” Sarina mugged a look of doltish innocence and wandered over to forage for pastries in a blue and white package mottled with grease spots.

“Astute kid,” Grossman commented. “Cute, too. Where’d you find her?”

Dixie mentally debated how much she could say without infringing on her client’s privilege. News of Joanna Francis arriving in town had already made the papers, and Belle hadn’t mentioned that Sarina’s presence was a secret. Anyway, it wouldn’t hurt to have Grossman alerted, in case the greeting card stalker tried anything more serious than an occasional love note. She briefed Grossman quickly. Then he spotted someone he needed to talk to and was gone. Dixie poured a cup of coffee from a stale-smelling pot. Pondering whether she really wanted to drink it, she saw Brenda approaching, her smile as radiant as her hair.

“Hey, sport. Are you recovered from our game?” The prosecutor looked fresh and vibrant in a brown tweed jacket and tan skirt. No telltale circles under her eyes.

“As a matter of fact, I’m ready for the rematch. How about right now?”

Brenda laughed. “I can appreciate that you might want to get even, but next week will have to do.”

She didn’t look like a woman riddled with remorse, Dixie noted. She motioned her friend away from the receptionist’s eager ears.

“So, what happened last night?”

“What do you mean, what happened?”

“Regan and Clarissa. I left you cooling an argument.”

“Oh, that. We had a long talk, a couple of beers, and a few laughs.” Brenda shrugged, still smiling.

“How many are a couple?”

“Not enough to need a designated driver. What are you getting at?”

“The Coombs beating. Those two women were upset enough before they started drinking. You don’t think …
maybe
… they decided to teach him a lesson?”

Brenda’s smile faded only slightly. “I’m smart enough not to wonder.”

“Brenda, wrong is wrong—”

“Listen, kiddo, I have work to do. Catch you later.” She turned abruptly and headed back down the hall, a spring in her walk that had definitely been absent the evening before.

“Thursday,” Dixie called. “Defense class. It’s your turn to be the poor dumb bastard attacker.”

Brenda looked back long enough to flash her radiant smile and a quick thumbs-up, then continued down the hall.

The road to Sarina’s eleven-thirty appointment degenerated from pavement to gravel to graded dirt, the Porsche picking up road grime with every mile. Dixie watched for the gray Camry, but if it followed, the driver had to be damned good. Finally, at a pocket of undeveloped land a good five miles east of Greenspoint Mall, the address Sarina had supplied materialized.

“This is it?” Dixie asked. The building looked deserted.

Two-story, windowless aluminum, it jutted among colossal pines that shrouded the late-morning sun. The ground had turned marshy from last night’s rain, which threatened to start again as she and Sarina picked their way along a broken concrete path. Sarina hurried ahead.

“Are you sure this is the right address?” Dixie called after her. A sign to the right of the metal door said
STONED TOAD PRODUCTIONS.

“Its the right place. I’m expected.” Sarina pushed the doorbell. Inside the building a buzzer brayed.

“Why would your mother send you way to heck and gone out here?” A car passed on the road. Dixie looked uneasily through the trees.

“She didn’t send me.”

“What do you mean?” This mysterious appointment wasn’t on Joanna’s list, but then neither was the dentist.

“Mother doesn’t know. If she hadn’t hired you to
protect
me, I’d have taken a taxi.”

“A taxi would’ve dumped you at the last turn. If those rain clouds open up, we’ll be hubcap-deep in mud.” Dixie counted to ten, reminding herself this wasn’t really the kid’s fault; all teenagers were handicapped with pubescent brain damage. “Sarina, tell me what’s going on here.”

The girl scuffed her feet on the gravel-studded concrete, her gaze riveted to the silent building.

“You can’t tell my mother!”

“You know I won’t promise that.”

“She’ll weird out, and this is really no big deal.”

“If it’s no big deal, why all the mystery? What
is
this place?”

Sarina pushed the bell again, as if hoping someone would rush out to rescue her.

“Sarina.”

“A cinefex studio. Alroy Duncan”—she said the name reverently—“creator of only the
best
innovations since Spielberg—well, small-time stuff, but good—sort of invited me to visit his studio.”

“Sort
of invited you?”

“I met him when he came to the premier of
Devil’s Walk.
Soon as I heard we were coming to Houston, I called, and Duncan said sure, come on by.”

“Cinefex? As in special effects?
Close Encounters? E.T.? Titanic?”
Dixie had heard that film production companies were sprouting in Texas faster than bluebonnets, but this was the first she’d heard of a “cinefex” house in Houston.

“The only way to learn effects, see, is by doing it, inventing
as you go, or finding someone who’ll take you on as an apprentice.”

“You’re saying that in all of southern California there’s no college course for special effects?”

“Ancient theory—
nothing
hands-on. Nothing that keeps up with technology.”

“I take it your mother doesn’t approve of your career choice.”

Sarina rolled her eyes theatrically. “Totally unthrilled would be an understatement. She wants me to learn something
sensible
, become a computer scientist or a bone doctor, or like my aunt, God forbid, a
lawyer.”

Dixie winced: during her own college years, law was considered a worthy profession.

“All mothers want something better for their kids than they had themselves,” she reasoned, not sure it was true, and certainly not speaking from experience. Her own mother had scarcely acknowledged having a child. “What does your dad say?” John Page would know the industry as well as anyone.

Sarina whirled from the door, sprinted to the corner, and scanned the side of the building.

“He says the only way to work in film today,” she called over her shoulder, “is by landing a job the industry can’t get along without.” She marched past Dixie to scan the other side of the building. “Writer, director—someone who won’t be history”—Sarina turned back and raised both hands to finger-quote—“‘after the bloom of youth is off her cheeks.’”

Dixie recalled seeing part of a new TV series with John Page playing second banana to a virile young hunk. She’d wondered at the time how the veteran actor felt relinquishing his leading-man position. Having started out doing stunts, he might sympathize with his daughter’s career choice. Only it wasn’t John Page who’d hired Dixie.

“What, specifically, do you plan to accomplish here?”

Sarina thumbed the doorbell. “Find out more about the
industry? Get a dialogue going with a genius on his way to glorification? Learn some shortcuts?”

Hands shoved sullenly into her poncho’s deep pockets, the girl stared at the closed door. Dixie could feel her frustration.

“Look,” Sarina continued, “I may be only sixteen—practically seventeen—but I know what I’m good at and what I’m not good at. When Mother comes at me with this doctor, lawyer noise, asking why I don’t choose a
sensible
profession, I want to say that as far as I’m concerned, I was DNA’d for film when she popped me out of the womb. I might
fake it
by learning to mouth words like a lawyer, but I will never have it
here.”
She thumped her chest.

Dixie studied the kid’s intense gray eyes. There was quite a lot she apparently wanted to tell her mother but didn’t. Or couldn’t. The girl reminded Dixie of herself at sixteen-going-on-thirty-five. Dixie hadn’t been a whiz kid from a fancy school, but she’d spouted off just as volubly, just as emphatically, about law and justice, good and evil. Although her rose-colored glasses had long since scummed over, she still considered the laws that govern a nation important. Surely they were more important than strobes, explosions, and fake blood.

“Sarina, your mother has walked the walk. She knows how hard it is to make a name in Hollywood. I’m sure she only wants you to have the best future she can provide.”