Immaculate Reception (9 page)

“Holly,” I said, perhaps a little too urgently.

“Mad,” she answered, equally urgent. We had reached our martini and daiquiri limits.

“No, really, Holly,” I tried again, and put my hand on her bare arm to get her attention.

“What?” she said, “Want to try my fig sauce?”

“Holly, when we were at the studio, Arlo's assistant Jody brought a note.”

“Yes, so?” she asked, trying to follow me.

“So, wasn't the note addressed to
Xavier
? Isn't that what Jody said? Think, Holly.”

“I didn't pay attention, Maddie. I…Wait a minute. Was that the note he gave to Brother Frank?”

“Yes!”

“What's this about?” Donald put down his fork and looked at Holly.

“Oh, Donald. It's about what happened last night, when this poor sweet Jesuit guy died. I didn't want to upset you on your big day.”

“You mean someone died at the studio last night?” Donald asked in alarm.

“Well, yes,” Holly said, looking at me. We had agreed not to discuss it with too many people, but I would have thought she'd surely have told Donald.

“That's weird,” Donald said. “I was on the lot last night and never heard a thing.”

“You were?” I asked, as we all three turned to stare at Donald.

“I got there late. I couldn't find anyone.”

“We were out back by the trailers,” Holly explained.

“Didn't you see Arlo roaming around?” I asked, curious that we hadn't gotten a message that Donald was looking for Holly.

“Nah. The soundstage was practically deserted. Only person I saw was some woman who had been in the audience for the show and come back to try to find her purse she left behind. She was just looking for it when I got there. I asked her where everyone was, but of course she didn't know anything. She said she'd been waiting outside by the audience entrance to the stage, hoping someone would let her in. And then some guy told her to just pull open the door, it wasn't locked.”

I looked up. “A man standing around one of the stage doors told her this?” I asked, thinking about the note and the meeting that never happened.

“Honest, Maddie, I don't know,” Donald said, becoming alarmed by the urgency in my voice. “The woman was around forty, but pretty, you know? Hispanic, I think. She just started complaining to me about waiting a long time to get back in, trying to be polite and not break rules, needing to find her purse…like that.”

“And the man she saw by the stage door?”

“She said he was very rude. Or mean. Something like that. And, oh yeah, she said he was bald. Like ‘The bald guy just yelled at me to open the door.' And, you know, I just said, ‘Well, that's strange, 'cause mostly the people who work at the studio are real nice.' You know, small talk.”

When Holly gets excited she pulls on her clothing, and now she was tugging her strapless scarf top up with both hands. “But what does it all mean?”

I'd been drinking too much to get my mind around all these new thoughts. A note had come for Xavier. Brother Frank took it and went to meet someone by the back door of the soundstage—someone who never showed up. Dottie got the great idea to give a Jesuit brother a bedroom tour. And now a menacing man was spotted near a different entrance to the soundstage.

I shook my head, but instead of clearing it, I felt dizzy. How did all this fit with the arrest of a gangbanger? I thought back to last night. I seemed to recall, dimly, seeing a young man with a shaved head in the audience, but my brain could no longer be relied on for clear memories.

My cell phone rang. I was lucky to hear it over all the chatter and clinking and music in the crowded restaurant.

“Maddie?”

“Yes?” Add the level of background noise to my martini-induced brain-haze and I was having a hard time putting a face to the female voice on the phone.

“It's me. I've got to see you right away. Where are you?”

“2424 PICO.” My voice was coming out a notch too loud. I made a mental note to speak more normally. “The restaurant,” I whispered.

“You got a table on a Friday!” The voice sounded impressed.

I racked my Belvedere-enhanced brain. She knew me by name. She had my private number. She was…

“Can you come up to the house?” she asked.

“Who is it?” Wes whispered.

“Someone,” I whispered back.

“I hear a man's voice,” the woman on the phone continued. That voice! I almost had it…“You're not cheatin' on old Arlo, are ya', honey?”

It was Dottie! Now what in heaven's name was she calling me about this late?

“Dottie,” I said loudly, as one is wont to do when one wants to make it perfectly clear she may be drunk on trendy vodka, but she certainly knows who she is talking to most of the time. “I am with Wes and Holly and Holly's friend, Donald Lake.”

“The young director?” Dottie asked, interested.

“Writer,” I said. “We're checking out his new movie,
Gasp!
”

“You always stay
tres courant
,” Dottie gushed. “I love meeting your friends. Don't forget to bring that nice young Donald Lake over to see me sometime or I won't forgive you. Hey, I know. How about now? We'll celebrate. I've got Dom, baby.”

I rode a giddy wave as I thought,
must keep Dottie away from Holly's Donald
.

Whether Dottie thought “networking” with Donald would be a great chance to enhance her career or her master bedroom, I couldn't tell.

“He's not your type, trust me.”

Dottie considered that for a moment. “
Oh
. Gay.”

I didn't think it necessary to correct her.

“Then you come over, Maddie. I need to talk to you now. It's super urgent, honey, or I wouldn't bother you.”

I chuckled over that one. “I don't have my car tonight. How 'bout next week?”

“Don't worry about transportation, silly. I'll have Carlos pick you up.” And before I could protest further I heard her muffled shout to Carlos to go on and get me, pronto.

We talked for another minute and when I disconnected, three pairs of eyes were staring at me. I looked at my dinner companions and sighed.

“Dottie Moss is sending Carlos here, now, to pick me up and take me to her house.”

“We're still going to drive around some more,” Holly complained. “And this time we're going to really sit down and watch the movie, Maddie,” she added, knowing exactly how to tempt me.

“Damn,” I complained. “I don't want to see Dottie tonight. I wish I'd told her that. When I drink just an itsy amount, sometimes I…I'm so…”

“Weak?” Wes offered.

“Easy to manipulate,” Holly said, matter-of-factly.

“Sweet-natured,” Donald suggested, in a vote of kindness.

“Screwed,” I finished.

“What's happening at Dottie's house this evening that's so damned important, I wonder?” Holly asked.

“She said she wants to talk about what really happened in her trailer last night when Brother Frank was murdered.”

All three of them stared at me.

“That is just so weird,” Donald said, shaking his head. “Of all people, why on earth would she think of talking to you, Madeline?”

All three of us stared at him.

“Maddie's got a rep,” Holly told him. “She's good at this stuff.”

“Stop that,” I chided, feeling like my head all of a sudden weighed ten thousand pounds.

“Old news,” I told them. As I put my sloshed head down upon my arms I instantly realized how good it might feel to fall asleep.

“Hot tea, here,” Wes called out to a passing waiter.

“English Breakfast,” Holly added.

“Better make that ‘to go,'” suggested Donald.

I looked up to see the bulldog form of Carlos Schwartz, wearing a tall Texan cowboy hat, sidle up to the table.

“Thanks for coming on such short notice, Maddie,” Carlos said, trying to hold my chair for me.

I stood up. My brain cleared a level. Holly and Wes and I hug when we say goodbye, so they stood up, too. Donald was family by now and did the same.

“Dottie will not be denied,” I said, grabbing my bag.

“You got that right,” Carlos agreed. “She respects you is the truth. I can talk 'til I'm blue in the face,” the stout
guy said as we walked towards the door, “but does she listen?”

“What exactly is the problem, Carlos?”

“You gotta convince her not to tell what she knows about that priest's murder to ‘Entertainment Tonight.'”

I
'd been to Miss Erica “Dottie” Moss's house several times before. She lived in a big spread-out ranch-style house on one of the few flat lots in Bel Air. It was designed in the fifties by an architect popular for producing western-themed dwellings of gigantic proportions.

The footprint of the house looked like a giant wagon wheel. You entered by a front door placed in the hub. The enormous hexagonal room made for a dramatic entry. Its ceiling vaulted upward over two stories to a wooden tower. Hallways ran off from the hexagon like six spokes, leading to separate bedroom wings, an office wing, and a kitchen/scullery/maids wing, as well as spokes that led to a Texas-size living room and dining room. Dottie called it The Ranch.

Carlos pulled Dottie's black Mercedes station wagon into her circular drive, the quiet now interrupted by a muffled pitter-patter as the luxury shock absorbers cushioned most of the jogging one would expect driving over the rough faux-cobblestones. The property was blazing with lights, showing off a lush landscape that had been designed within an inch of its life. There were paved walkways and rustic benches. There were about two dozen cement animals, many with ribbons around their necks. A humped bridge crossed a pond where the tall grass looked professionally freeform.

On the ten-minute drive up the canyon past million-
dollar bungalows, Carlos had made an adept attempt at small talk. He mentioned the syndication deal that was being negotiated for the reruns of Dottie's series, knowing that I might have an interest since Arlo is involved in the negotiations. He commented on how good it was to see me when I wasn't cooking. Carlos was a bull, but he couldn't have survived so well in this rarified Bel Air china shop if he hadn't learned a lesson or two in tap-dancing between the aisles.

He had been pitching for Dottie since they were kids together near Amarillo and his supporting role seemed to define him. Even after they divorced ten years ago, there had never been the slightest question of Dottie getting a new manager. They were a team. It struck me that they were a family business, of sorts. They were Dottie Moss.

Carlos hopped out of the Mercedes and bounded around to get my door before I'd unfastened the shoulder belt and grabbed my purse up from the floor. For a big guy, he could really move.

“Here we go,” he said, as he held my door open.

“Thanks.” As I stepped out into the bright glare that spotlighted the home's exterior, I smoothed the back of my long black knit dress, feeling suddenly like I was on stage.

Carlos unlocked the front door with his key and as we stepped across large Mexican terra cotta tiles into the entry, he tossed his cowboy hat onto a chair, exposing a hairline which had not only retreated, but long ago surrendered. His graying ponytail tried its best to compensate, but it just looked as if his hair was making a run for it and it was working its way down his back.

“D!” Carlos yelled out to the empty hall. He shrugged and turned to me. “I better go find her.”

He shifted that big gut of his over his jeans, unbuttoned the top button, and then flipped his keys onto the center table. The Gucci key ring skidded across the rustic wooden surface and then tinked as it hit crystal. A three-foot-tall Waterford vase anchored an arrangement of branches and
orchids, which extended another five feet higher under the vaulted tower.

As I waited, I checked out the dozens of photos, which hung on the walls. Dottie and Somebody Famous filled every frame.

When she had been a simple country singer, wearing thin silk jeans and skimpy fringed tops, her signature red hair had been big, real big. I smiled as I looked at shots from fifteen years earlier showing that big-haired Dottie hugging an equally big-haired Dolly Parton. As the years went by, Dottie Moss's hair got smaller and tamer, until she hit pay dirt doing an unexpectedly wonderful job in a hit comedy movie.
The Camera
made her crossover from Texas singer to Hollywood star complete.

She had played a country girl who goes to New York to be a fashion model. She winds up being made over by a millionaire and trying to fit into his high society life. That surprise blockbuster led to other film roles, although none ever matched
The Camera
for success. Eventually, Dottie did what most actresses in their thirties do as they see younger women getting the first look at the best movie scripts. She settled for a sitcom.

Carlos was behind all of these decisions as he tells everyone who will listen. Carlos knew it was time for Dottie to get out of Nashville. Carlos knew Dottie had to get the part in
The Camera
and he bombarded the producer's office for months until they gave her a screen test. Carlos knew it was time to look for a series. Carlos knew Dottie had to play a professional woman and he pushed hard to get her the lead role in “Woman's Work,” a show about a lady lawyer in Chicago.

And so a Hollywood career is propelled along—by an ex-husband with a knack for marketing and skin so thick that he can be told “no” a dozen times and still happily pick up the phone and speed-dial it for rejection number thirteen.

As I found a small photo showing Dottie standing in
front of Westminster Abbey smiling with Boy George, I heard her coming down one of the halls.

“Darlin'! Carlos got you here so darn fast, I hardly had time to change my clothes. Sorry about that,” she said. Dottie, in her white lace unitard, linked her arm in mine and steered me toward the living room.

I remembered the decor. Taxi yellow plaid criss-crossed over four big sofas and many assorted ottomans, benches, and wing chairs. The pine plank floor was covered here and there with white area rugs while the low tables, slapped with a coat of rustic green paint, held gargantuan arrangements of sunflowers and peonies. This lady alone must put her florist's kids through private school.

“Sit, kitten.” She waved me to a plaid sofa and walked with her natural grace to the bar. “Whatcha havin'?”

She selected a doubles glass of cut crystal, eyed it against the lamp light for spots, and then dropped a few ice cubes into it.

“Diet Coke.”

“That's your thing, isn't it? I remember. Well, how about drinkin' with me tonight? You like vodka?” Dottie held up a bottle.

“I'm falling asleep, Dottie.” Perhaps I'd have been a more gracious guest if I hadn't been ambushed into coming over. It was my own fault I gave in to her summons so easily. On a good day, it is hard for me to say no to people. On a night when I'm halfway to wasted, it's that much harder. And at any time of day or night, toast or stone cold sober, it is notoriously hard to say no to a celebrity. And then, of course, my curiosity was always getting the best of me.

“Okay, sugarbean,” she said, smiling like she was used to grouchy girlfriends, “I'll wake you up.”

Dottie gracefully carried a small silver tray from the bar to the green coffee table and sat beside me, with one slim leg tucked under her. She handed me the heavy glass of ice and Diet Coke and then lifted her own glass, filled with bourbon.

“Here's to us, hey?” She took a big gulp of bourbon and didn't flinch as it went down.

I set my drink on the tray. “Dottie, what's the story? Did you talk to the police last night?”

“When those sexy ol' policemen came to question me they were very polite. Kinda like their mamas had raised them proper.” She winked at me and took another long hit of bourbon. “But when all was said and done, I don't think those officers never asked me any questions. Now don't that beat all?”

“It does.” Again, I could only wonder why the investigation was so cursory. “What really happened last night?”

“When I stepped out of the shower? Oh, God, I know I'll go to hell for this.” She crossed herself with the hand that held the bourbon glass.

I waited.

“See, I was drippin' wet, and so I peeked into the bedroom, looking for a towel…”

I imagined the scene back in Dottie's luxury trailer as it must have been the night before and tried to recall the Bible story about the sacrificial goat. There was Brother Frank, taking a look around Dottie's room, studying momentos and photos while the star is in the shower. Just what had she planned to do to the man? A little ambush, perhaps, with the wet and naked star appearing from the bathroom sans robe and definitely sans modesty. I imagined the surprise with which Brother Frank would have had to deal with that amazing event.

“Dottie, what were you thinking?” I'd found celebrities usually don't mind us regular folks being shocked by their outrageous ways. They don't expect us to have their spunk.

She smiled apologetically. And then she giggled. She giggled until she cried. Wiping a tear from her cheek, she drained the last of the bourbon.

“Dottie?”

Waving the empty glass in a large circular gesture, she
said softly, “I've been goin' at the bourbon for a little while.”

I took the glass out of her hand and set it down on the tray. “Dottie, do you want to tell me what went on with Brother Frank?”

“How in the blazes was I supposed to know that cute young guy was a Catholic priest?” she whispered at me, aghast and subdued. “He didn't have on any collar. “He didn't look like no priest I'd ever met. He was just such a sweet guy. Kinda star-struck. I offered to show him around and he was so…like…respectful.” She looked up at me as if for agreement. “You know what I mean?”

She hit the heel of her hand against her temple once, twice, three times.

“Of course he was respectful,” she grimaced. “He was a goddamned
Catholic priest!
” She was getting louder and louder.

“Calm down, Dottie,” I said. “Look. How could you know, right?”

“How could I know?” she asked me, seizing on the point. “It wasn't like anyone told me or nothin'. Hell, he was just a fan, I thought. That guy he was supposed to meet never showed up, so I figured I'd take him into my dressing room and show him around. It's only natural that some chemistry is gonna develop. I mean, I'm a regular gal and he's a regular guy.”

“Well…” She was in such a state, I didn't want to be the one to remind her that Frank was actually more like a “regular guy” who had taken vows of celibacy.

“So I suggested we relax. Why not? I mean, we were getting along just fine.”

“And?”

“I was kind of surprised when he didn't pick up on it.”

Oh my goodness. Poor Brother Frank.

“I guess I was a moron, all right? But I swear, as Jesus is my witness, he never ever said nothing about being a Jesuit or whatever it is. What did I know? I figured he needed a little more time to figure out just how lucky he
was going to be. Let's face it, more than one man has been dazzled around me. Sometimes they just don't realize I'm a flesh and blood woman, like anyone else, know what I mean?”

I'm afraid I did.

“I mean, when it comes to civilians, some of them can get pretty scared when they are in the presence of a superstar. They kinda freeze. I've seen it plenty of times. Some guys can get so darn nervous they have trouble getting it up, even. So I figured this guy just needed a little time to, like, pull himself together.”

“What did you say to him?”

“I don't know. Something like, ‘You just get yourself comfortable, sugar lump, while I get fresh.' Nothing embarrassin' thank the Lord!”

I had never seen her embarrassed. This might be a first.

“So that was it,” she said, bouncing up a little unsteadily and walking back toward the bar. “Nothin' too bad, I don't think.” She refilled her glass.

“And you really heard nothing at all while you were in the shower?”

“Nothing, yeah.” It was taking most of her concentration to fill the glass without spilling any bourbon. I was getting more and more sober while Dottie Moss got aggressively less so.

“Well, now wait,” Dottie rambled on. “I heard arguing. But I really think the voices were coming from outside.”

“You heard arguing?” My patience was shot. “Dottie! Could it have been Brother Frank?”

“Well.” She put down her drink before it ever made it to her lips and thought. Then she looked up at me and asked, “Dollface, do you want another Diet Coke, or are you all set there?”

Her hostess gene kicked in just as we were getting somewhere. Hell and damnation.

“Dottie, think. What about the voices you heard arguing? Could it possibly have been Brother Frank arguing with someone?”

“Those trailers have pretty thin walls, you know? And of course I had on some music…” She thought hard. “Supertramp, I think.”

“Okay, Dottie. Go on.”

“And there were voices. I always seem to pick up on some conversation or other that's going on outside my windows. I complain. You should hear me complain to Arlo. But I mean! I'm an artist. I need to be concentratin' on my lines. I complain, but does it do any good?”

“No. Because you heard voices last night, didn't you. They were arguing, you said.”

“Damn right. Loud voices. I remember. I was singin' along to Supertrarnp and the shower was gone full blazes. I mean that's one perk I insisted on and I got. The shower in my unit is first class all the way. But then I heard a man kinda shouting. And then another man was talking. That much I do know. But whether they were inside or outside, I couldn't tell you.”

“Oh.”

“Don't get so down about it, precious. It couldn't have been inside the trailer. No one was there except Frank.”

Dottie was either too swacked to get the importance of what she was saying or she was in denial so deep she didn't have the nerve to face it.

“How long were you in the shower?”

“Just a few minutes.” Dottie came back to the sofa and sat down on the cushion beside me.

“And when you came out…” I prompted.