"Aren't you cute," she said, dismissively patting my cheek. A voice from her headset barked something about being low on peach schnapps. "If you'll excuse me I have to go see about some Fuzzy Gavels."
Now a top party planner around town, she'd been hired to throw the captain's landslide victory party for city attorney. Ducking a line upstairs, I had cornered her in some vacant, roped off area near a basement ladies' room at the musty old Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Belying her checkered past, marked by a brief stay in prison and a juicy, bestselling tell-all, she looked like Nancy Reagan and smelled like the perfume counter at Barney's. You could see why girls like me would approach her looking for certain high-level introductions -- but all I wanted from a world class phony like Sally Pembroke was a rare shred of truth."Please, if I could just have a minute." I trailed her down a deserted corridor flanking a mosaic-tiled underground pool built in the old days inside the creepy Hollywood landmark. Don't ask me how the refurbished mausoleum got so popular with the snooty, two-faced captain's newfound celebrity crowd -- just as it was way back when. Everybody knew it was haunted by the early starlets who jumped off the roof after some lug did them wrong.
"I was Rita Martin's roommate," I called after her. She stopped, looking me up and down in that blunt, unapologetic way normally reserved for some fat cat with the stones to picture me naked. "Cherry Culpepper," she said. "You were famous for a minute. Boy that must have been fun.""It's actually been kind of scary, what with her killer still on the loose." I told her that as far as I was concerned, the defense had been right about Dr. Hollister's innocence -- and I was conducting my own investigation. "What on earth would any of that have to do with me?" she asked, pausing in front of a mirror to fix her neon pink lipstick. "Did you know if you look at this long enough the ghost of Marilyn Monroe appears in your reflection?"
"Please don't freak me out," I said. "I'm in all kinds of danger. I have reason to believe you might be, too."
She opened her big, shiny mouth and laughed, loud enough to cause an echo. "What on earth are you talking about? I hadn't seen Rita for years before she was killed, poor thing. Let's just say we went in very different directions.""You introduced the two of them," I said.
"Who told you that?" She picked a piece of dead skin from her otherwise flawless lips. I wasn't about to give up Chloe Patrick, not without a price. Don't ask how I got so tough, standing there in a spooky stairwell negotiating an exchange of information with some high-faluting ex-con in a Chanel suit. "You hooked him up with all kinds of girls who were down on their luck. It must have been easy to view it as an act of charity, with or without fair warning."
"I'm not sure I like your tone, Missy. Why would some little clerk be questioning me about anything? I have the mayor upstairs. I have the entire district attorney's office and the director of the FBI." I looked around, my voice barely above a whisper. "You shouldn't be worrying why I'm asking questions. You should be worrying why nobody else did. What if the good guys are really the bad guys? What if Dr. Hollister was actually a victim deluded enough to think he had a buddy inside the department?"
She let that one sink in. "Are you wearing a wire?" I rolled my eyes, stepping out of my gown and heels before jumping into the pool in my panties. "Your turn." This was maybe the first time ever some little nobody dared picture her naked. The power was intoxicating."I like your moxie," she said. She listened to another panicked plea from her headset. "I wish I could help, really I do, but they're out of Fried Nightsticks and Marinara." She turned and sprinted up the stairs, calling back a final word of warning. "Be very careful, young lady. Nobody likes getting caught with their pants down, with or without a six-milion dollar ass. Although yours is very impressive," she added appreciatively.
So she knew I ended up with the missing diamonds. At least, I think that's what she was trying to say. I couldn't imagine a cheap little prick like Mo K would have traveled in her circles."Wait! Can you grab me a towel?" She wasn't gone a minute before the lights went dead. "Pemba? Hello?" I paddled furiously toward the edge. Through the darkness I saw a flickering flame, followed by a waft of smoke and a long, weary exhale -- as a Zippo lighter clanked shut. "Captain?"
