Deadly Dues (27 page)

Gretchen was always in her own spiderweb world. She was so secretive about her personal life. It wasn't until the blowup with Geoff that I realized how much she got around. A therapist might be able to help her resolve the differences between her repressed youth and her current life style. I guess she was so involved in her own intrigues that she couldn't be bothered to keep tabs on the basics regarding her friends.

I called Geoff next. “Oh, damn. That's a bitch,” he said. “Poor Horatio.”

He offered to engineer a commando raid on Sherilyn's office, which was sweet but impractical, as Geoff was not known for his heroics. Geoff would spend more time on his wardrobe and a press release than on the actual rescue. I thanked him and said I would get back to him on it.

Bent was outraged. “Horatio! Horatio!” he screamed into the phone. “How do you spell his name? I'll write letters to the editor. I'll send out mass e-mails.”

“Whoa, Bent,” I said. “Don't do any of that. Just be my friend and listen.”

And he did. After I finished my saga of finding Horatio in Sherilyn's office, he mercifully did not offer any platitudes or clichés, as so many people do when they don't know what else to say. Instead he just said, surprisingly, “Lu, I'm so sorry.”

“Thank you, Bent.”

He understood my reluctance to call the police. We threw around thoughts on possible courses of action. His sister was a social worker, and if we pretended Horatio was a large, hairy child, she might intervene. His uncle Joe had once sat in a dentist's waiting room next to somebody who said he was with the Mob. Maybe we could see if Joe still had his name and number. I could ask Sylvia to go back to the office with me. This last idea was the best yet. My cell started to fade, so we signed off.

When I turned the phone off, I might not have had solutions, but at least I had been able to talk about the problem. That was why I was loyal to Bent. He could be surprisingly kind and sensitive in a crisis of the heart or spirit.

I drove home, my thoughts a blur.

After I had deadbolted the door behind me, I pulled off my jacket and called Mitzi. She listened quietly.

A long pause sat between us.

“Horatio is a hot dog,” she said. I rolled my eyes. She was in dollars-and-cents mode because she was his agent as well, and in the past few months had made more of a commission from him than from me. “But why would Sherilyn grab him? She doesn't have the sense or taste to see his potential.”

I loved Mitzi at that moment for appreciating my Horatio.

“She just wants him so she can get what she wants from me.”

“Which is what?”

I started to tell Mitzi about the key, then stopped.

“She thinks Stan is with me,” I wailed, to keep her off the subject. “As if I would ever let somebody that foul into my life. I would rather date a vacuum cleaner. Bagless.”

A long pause while Mitzi digested that, and I realized that I had just inadvertently insulted her, although she wouldn't know that I knew about her and Stan.

“Although, of course,” I added, “Stan must have had some appeal for some highly intelligent and desirable women.”

This mollified Mitzi, and I could feel the tension dissolve from the phone line.
Whew
.

“Have you seen my BlackBerry?”

“Didn't you get my message? You left it in my den.”

“What message?”

Of course she hadn't checked every one of her eight e-mail accounts, and, as her preference for the accounts changed according to whim, I had stupidly thought that my message might reach her.

“I can't live without it. Bring it tonight.”

“Where?”

“Hello? Arts for the Animals.”

How could I keep forgetting about this damned gala?

“Right,” I said, as I rummaged in my bag for a tissue and pulled out a handful of business cards I had accumulated in the past days. McDonald's, Wendy's, Dollar Store Discount, Heads Up Hair Salon, and Hal Shapiro, Dog Therapist.

I froze.

Dog Therapist.

“Mitzi, gotta go! Love you, bye!”

I clunked down the phone and called Hal Shapiro. I was so wired that it took two tries before I finally punched in the right number. The first person I called cursed at me in a language that didn't match any of the dialects in my repertoire. And the second call got me the recording of what sounded like a Reiki Rolfing Studio, judging from the background noise.

Finally, on the third try, “Hal Shapiro.”

“Hi, Hal. It's Lulu Malone. Remember me?”

There was a long pause. “Of course. Did you clean up okay?”

I let that go.

“Would you like to meet me, say, for a quick visit?”

“Okay.” He didn't sound wildly interested, and I couldn't blame him. I could tell he was being polite.

“How about in half an hour at Westside Industrial Park, where the film studios are located?”

Another pause.

“I'll be waiting in the parking lot by my Sunfire. I want you to meet my dog.”

“Hmmm.”

It was hard to identify this response, but it sounded like a blend of disinterest, boredom, disbelief and dread.
Surely not.
After all, I am Lulu Malone.

I gave him the address and ran to my car, carrying a bag of Horatio's favourite Bow Wow treats and a jar of garlic-stuffed olives.

Hal was lounged against his Camry in the parking lot when I arrived. He was wearing the same leather jacket, a white shirt, faded jeans and excellent boots. Odds were good that he had called me just to please his parents so that they could keep mine as killer bridge partners. I could almost see the tick-tock in his eyes, counting the moments until this obligatory date was done.

He pulled himself off his car when I lunged out of mine.

“Hi,” I said brightly. I did a mid-level dimple. “This way.”

I charged ahead of him, through the doors and past the goth girl, who did a double take at Shapiro.

I reached Sherilyn's office. She was scowling at a production budget, but I bet she was scowling at life. Some people do that. Scowl at life.

Horatio was still chained to the railing of her patio.

She started to say something to me, which I suspected was something along the lines of “What are you doing here, you four-letter, five-letter nuisance.” Instead, she froze and looked at Shapiro. And forced the pink demons into a seductive smile.

I heard Shapiro gasp behind me.
Another man topples over, succumbing to the pink puffed lips and cleavage routine. Why should I be surprised?

“You poor thing,” he said. He pulled open the patio door and knelt by Horatio.
Note to self: offer to have his jeans laundered.

“How are you, fella?” he whispered softly. I couldn't hear everything he said, but Horatio seemed to perk up a bit. And listened, just the way he did when our director, Marty, gave directions in the Bow Wow commercials. I was so accustomed to feeling sorry for myself that sometimes I forgot that Horatio had fallen out of the public eye as well. I don't know how much sheepdogs know about the power structure in the film and television business, but surely it must have hurt, being fussed over and then being ignored. I knew exactly how he must have felt. He had gone from being a celebrity pooch to being simply a big, overweight sheepdog. And now, thanks to Sherilyn, a really, really overweight sheepdog.

Sherilyn stared at Hal as he had his téte-à-téte with Horatio.

“Where did you find him?” she hissed. “Does he act? Does he talk?”

“Of course he talks,” I snapped. “He's talking to Horatio.”

“That doesn't count. I need to know how he is on camera. Maybe I could audition him.”

I knew where she was going with this, and I didn't respond. I was watching Hal and Horatio. Hal gently scratched Horatio's ear and kept whispering. My parents had set me up with a dog whisperer, bless them.

Hal kept his eyes on Horatio's, untied the rope from his collar, and beckoned me subtly with his right hand. I ripped open the bag of treats, hoping the noise wouldn't break the mood, and walked quickly to the patio.

I leaned over Hal's shoulder and crooned to Horatio in a soft, sweet rendition of the refrain that had made us famous.

“Doggie Doggie Bow Wow!”

Horatio's sweet eyes switched from Hal's to mine. I saw a glimmer of recognition.

“Doggie Doggie Bow Wow,” I sang. I sounded like a demented torch singer at low volume, but Horatio understood. I had passed the point of caring whether or not Hal thought I was a few notes off the normal scale.

I held out a low-cal gourmet Bow Wow treat for Horatio. He looked at it vaguely. A three-day diet of fudge had dimmed his memory of what it was to eat good, organic food. I shoved the bag of treats under my arm, wrenched open the jar of garlic-stuffed olives and waved it under his nose.

His ears moved slightly, and he moved forward. I poured five olives into the lid of the jar and he inhaled them.

As Horatio chewed sloppily, then reached for another, Hal whispered to me, “He's back.”

We waited a few moments, and about two olives and three health snacks later, we led Horatio from the patio into Sherilyn's office.

She had been watching us through slitted eyes and lips. Her hand had been on the phone, ready to call security (or so I assumed), but once Horatio came around, she took her hand off the phone. She had been playing the Possession Is Nine Tenths of the Law card, as well as assuming she could easily intimidate Lulu, and this time she had lost.

Hal took Horatio by the collar and headed down the hall. I paused at the door, frantically searching for some brilliant parting shot that would match the exit lines in my favourite films. Something film noir, edgy, witty. I couldn't even come up with a Dora Darling line.

I heard a horrible noise, like construction going on in the next lot. “What's that?”

“What?”

The noise stopped when she spoke, and I realized it had been the sound of her teeth grinding. If that was what I sounded like, I knew I would never get another gig or another date until I became more zen-like. Civilized women do not grind their teeth in the face of adversity. And unlike Sherilyn, I was civilized.

Looking at Sherilyn, I had a flash, a realization, that no matter what, I would rather be me, with all my flaws, than this unpleasant and shallow woman. She might have more money and more shoes, but being Lulu Malone, rather than this unseemly and malicious creature, was cause for gratitude, even celebration.

I felt a moment of pity for her. She was, after all, a totally unpleasant person, without friends or associates who valued her beyond her paycheques.

“Sherilyn,” I said, remembering the great scene in
Tootsie
, “seek therapy.”

I closed the door fast, and heard her portable phone hit the other side. There was a dent near the level of my ear on my side of the door. I decided that I should not lurk.
Feet, don't fail me now.
I wasted precious seconds trying to remember from which comedian I had stolen that thought, and decided on Flip Wilson.

I caught up to Hal and Horatio in the lobby, just as I heard Sherilyn shouting from her office.

“Dogs! I hate them!”

Or it could have been, “Dimples! I hate them!”

I didn't bother to run back and ask her to clarify.

Hal and I loped Horatio out the door and into the back seat of my car. I jumped into the driver's side, and Hal slammed my door, and swivelled into his Camry, damned fast for a guy who looked as if he would not be too rattled by anything.

A pink tornado of rage burst through the door as we roared toward the exit. Something thunked against my rear windshield. In the rearview mirror, I saw a Prada shoe bouncing into the air and rolling on the concrete. Prada. Wow. She was plenty mad.

The shoe thing was brilliant, although, I was sure, derivative. Nevertheless, I made a mental note to remember it if ever I were asked to play a meltdown scene. It was great.