Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 2 - Stellium in Scorpio (20 page)

"Joey,"
he muttered. And suddenly I remembered him. He was the young kid who had served
as our guide, leading us to Rose Ross the first night we'd arrived and had gone
to the theater to meet her. He was Desert Greeter Joey! And it appeared he'd
been giving folks a hell of a hello in his new role as boy prostitute. He was a
small-boned boy, blond, rumpled hair, a little too boney. Feminine hands. Nice
eyes. Just a boy.

"Okay,
Joey, you went to that guy's room for what reason?" I said.

"To
entertain. I'm an entertainer," he said.

Callie
put her arm on mine to signal that she didn't want me to be too rough on him,
but I ignored her.

"You
do a lot of entertaining with your pants off?" I asked, and he blushed,
letting me know that whatever sexual activity he was participating in, he
hadn't been at it that long.

"No,"
he said. "I work backstage at a couple of shows. This one here too. When I
get to be eighteen I can go into the review."

That's
good," Callie said. "You'll be very good at it."

"So
blow jobs for old guys... is that just to pay the rent?" I asked. Callie
winced and Joey looked at the floor.

"Lot
of guys do it," he said.

"What
guys are those?" I asked.

"The
guys in the shows," he replied.

I
asked the kid how he'd found out this form of extracurricular activity was even
an option. He said the older guys put him onto it. When I tried to find out
more, all he knew was that he came to the hotel and hung around in the lobby
and sometimes one of the staff would come up and tell him if he wanted to make
some money he should go to a particular room. I realized I wasn't going to get
much more out of him, and Callie was squirming. She asked what year, time, and
day he was born. She said she wanted to do his astrological chart. He replied
that he didn't know. He grew up with a relative and had no idea where he was
born. She looked at him for a moment and then asked if she could place her hand
on his hand. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

Suddenly
she smiled. "Before you are eighteen, you are going to meet someone who is
going to help you change the direction of your life. He will give you the
things you have lacked. You will find love." She opened her eyes and
smiled at him. He smiled slightly, briefly. I opened the door for him and he
left.

"That
kid's not old enough to be working anywhere. At least not the kind of work he
can tell his mother about," I said. "He may be wearing a name tag,
but he's lying about having a job here."

I
lifted Elmo's front paws up on the edge of the bed, then grabbed his hind legs
and gave him an alley-oop into the middle of the bed. He was tired of the hard
floor and was very appreciative of a day in bed. He gave a deep shuddering sigh
and collapsed in a heap. I kissed the top of his head and told him we'd be back
in a little while. I rang the theater asking for Sophia Pappagallo, but the man
who answered said she was out and they weren't allowed to give me her cell
phone number. I rang Rose Ross, got her answering machine, and left a message
for her to call but didn't say why—suspicious now of someone's overhearing and
diverting her messages.

∗ ∗ ∗ ∗

The
theater lobby looked like a morgue. The theater entrance was draped in black,
and a large display of personal and show-biz items honored the life of one of
its longtime performers. There were Joanie pictures resting on easels draped
with flowers, tributes posted on the walls, and young gay men passing by to
read what others had written. It was mourning Las Vegas-style for Joanie Burr.

"As
long as we're depressed, I think we should go down to the morgue and have a
look at Joanie," I said, and Callie wrinkled her nose in protest.

"Why?
We know she's dead." Callie was trying to squirm out of going.

"Yes,
but she slipped and fell. That's the part that's bothering me. Performers as
trained and athletic as Joanie Burr don't fall on their own patios and
die."

My
cell phone rang. It was Barrett asking if I could make a meeting late in the
day in L.A. with Jeremy Jocowitz.

"We've
done this, Barrett," I said, irritated.

Barrett
spoke so loudly that Callie could almost hear her, so I tilted the receiver to
let Callie lean in and listen.

"Look,
I was wrong. I was reaching for anything to pitch him and keep him interested
in your work, and frankly, without you here, I couldn't remember what all you
were working on. Excuse me for that, but I only work with about fifty writers.
The fact that I'm pitching my balls off for you should say something, I would
think. Do you know how many women would give their right tit for me to be
pitching them to Jeremy Jocowitz?" I glanced over at Callie, who shrugged
and rolled her eyes as if to say, "big deal."

"Whatever,"
I said.

"Whatever?
What-the-fuck-ever? Is that what you're saying to me? Well, dear," her
tone was suddenly acrimonious, "I have Jeremy lined up at four this
afternoon in my office to hear you pitch whatever in hell turns you on. How
about that? Whatever in hell turns you on! Why? Because he likes you, and he
likes your talent, and he's just begging for some story that he can relate to.
Do you think you can handle that? Do you want me to cancel?"

"I'm
still in Vegas. I would have to leave now—"

"Yeah,
and quit balling the blonde for a brief moment to get back to your
career..."

I
pulled the phone away so that Callie couldn't hear any more. "One more
remark like that and you can stick your meetings up—"

"Okay,
okay, okay, sorry!" There was a long pause while both of us breathed.

I
looked at Callie, covered the phone, and mouthed, "I'm not going unless
you go with me. We can drive back right after the meeting... round trip eight
hours, plus a two-hour meeting."

Callie
paused, then nodded.

"Okay,
Barrett, but move the meeting to two, because I'm turning around and driving
back. I have work here."

"See
you at two," she said, and hung up.

"He
must really like your work," Callie said.

"If
Barrett's just fucking with me, I'm going to kill her," I said.

"I
don't think she is. We'll have to pack everything and take it. I don't trust
leaving anything here. Especially you, Elmo," she teased as if we'd even
consider it.

"I'll
buy him an In-N-Out Burger on the road," I said, marveling at a franchise
that could get a name like In-N-Out approved at a board meeting. "What
about Rose?" I asked Callie.

"We'll
only be gone for the day. Maybe we'll come up with something while we're
driving. We certainly haven't thought of much while we've been here."

I
loved road trips with Callie. She was the all-time best navigator and copilot.
I could ask for things, extend my hand, and they were there miraculously:
tissues, gum, water, more hot coffee, a doggie bone for Elmo.

"We
love traveling with you," I said, after she'd handed me my third cup of
coffee.

"You
are the most needy driver I've ever met." She smiled sweetly.

"What?
Am I annoying you? I'm sorry. I thought the fact that I am steering us safely
through the desert at eighty miles an hour, shoulders tense, eyes glued to the
road, senses alert to protect you, would be worth your having to hand me a few
things," I said.

She
slid her hand between my legs, and I jumped and took my foot off the gas.
"Don't be doing that if you don't want to spend the night upside down in a
sand dune," I warned, and she leaned over and began nuzzling me in a
sensual crawl of kisses that spread from the base of my shoulder up my neck and
behind my ear. I whined about her timing. "You are intentionally doing
this when I can't do anything about it."

"No,
I'm getting you ready for your pitch. Do you even know what you're going to
pitch?"

"I'm
going to pitch him a lesbian love story. One of the women is preparing to enter
monastic life, and the other is married to an abusive husband, and they fall in
love. It's a true story. In fact, I've always wanted to do it, but I just
thought it was a bit ahead of its time for the general viewing audience."

"Oh
boy!" Callie laughed. "If you thought he was ordering gin and tonics
during your royal love story, he'll be sending out for a case of vodka by the
time this is over."

We
both got the giggles and couldn't stop. The idea of pitching the lesbian love
story to Jeremy was almost a lark and not a pitch, maybe just a way of letting
off steam, doing one's career duty, but not. Getting back at him for his short
attention span. It didn't matter. We didn't really care. We just wanted to be
together on a cool fall day, laughing and driving and singing along with a song
about there being gold in a bank in Beverly Hills in someone else's name. And
why that was something to sing about was beyond me.

As
we came to a small desert town, I could smell burgers in the air. Elmo woofed
loudly, signaling me to pull off and head for the drive-through. I ordered four
hamburgers: two with everything but onions and two with meat and bread only.
When we pulled through and the cute gay girl handed me the first plain burger,
I unwrapped it, tore it in half, and put it on the sack for Elmo to eat in the
backseat. He ate it while the lady at the drive-through window watched.

"He
loves your burgers," I said, "and he's eaten every burger ever made.
These are his favorites." Elmo woofed loudly, and I gave him the second
one. He gulped it, looked up at the window, and belched for the girl. She
laughed and we drove on.

"What
does In-N-Out Burger really mean?" I asked Callie. "Is it the burgers
that go in and out, or the people who eat the burgers who go in and out, or is
it the cars that go in and out, or is it some more esoteric message..."

"Do
you want me to drive? I think you could use a nap."

Watching
Elmo devour his drive-through lunch must have reminded Callie of the hotel's
food. "I don't think we should eat any of the food that comes through room
service," she said. "Buffet's okay because they can't poison
everyone, but no more room service in light of what's going on."

I
couldn't disagree and wondered why I hadn't thought of it. I told her as long
as we were on the topic, I wanted to go over what we knew about the case and
focus on what we needed to know. I recapped for Callie that she'd gotten a call
from Rose Ross's dad saying a man had warned him his daughter was going to die.
Rose then called her dad and told him she was on a ghoul pool list and that was
the last frightening straw. He called Callie for help. We came riding to the
rescue, located the damsel in distress, and she seemed to think everybody
overreacted. Silly her for upsetting people! She said all this in front of
Joanie Burr. Later she tracked us down outside the hotel and admitted she
thought the money left for the ghost wasn't just a superstition but had
something to do with a boy porn ring. In fact, she thought Joanie was going to
talk to the police about it, but before Joanie got the chance, she conveniently
slipped and fell and died. We learned Bruce Singleton was about to come over to
the hotel to run the
Boy Review
and then he accidentally drowned in the
desert. Coincidentally, he was on the ghoul pool list.

As I
paused to collect my thoughts, Callie interjected that we shouldn't forget
about the ring. The ring on the dead man in the tub— the dead man who turned
out to be Bruce Singleton with a white mark on his pinkie finger where the ring
used to be...or where some ring used to be. Then there was the newspaper
article left in our room about a boy who twenty years ago was killed in the
hotel. Not to mention someone tried to kill me with his car, knife her, print a
hit list on my palm, and then Elliot tried to smash us with a flying dummy.

"It's
obvious that someone or several people are trying to protect the boy ring at
any cost," Callie said. "But why would you warn people they were in
danger of being murdered by putting them on a ghoul pool death and dying
list?"

"Maybe
not all of them are in danger. They don't all die. Maybe it's a warning to a
select few, to keep them in line."

We
both drove in silence for several minutes, trying to piece things together.

We
pulled into my Valley house, turned the alarm off, and made Elmo comfortable.
He drank some water and plopped into his giant wicker basket with the padded
mattress as if to say hotels were hell. I picked the mail up off the entryway
floor where it lay scattered, having been deposited through the slot in the
door while I was gone. I also retrieved the phone messages from my answering
machine. Mary Beth's voice seemed exceedingly loud as she said, "Teague, I
hope you're back and that you didn't get married! I've missed you. This is Mary
Beth—" I hit Erase so fast that my finger hurt from jamming it into the
button.

"Who
is Mary Beth?"

"Salesperson,"
I lied.

"What
did she say about getting married?"