Jaine Austen 1 - This Pen for Hire (14 page)

T
he man in the baggy shorts whipped out a cell phone from one of his cargo pockets and called 911. The next thing I knew, Andy Bruckner’s assistant was being carted off to the hospital, and I was telling my story to a soft-spoken cop with liquid brown eyes and a sympathetic manner.

I told him how I’d gotten off the elevator, and how the BMW had come charging at me. Baggy Shorts corroborated my story.

“The guy was aiming right for her,” he said.

“And it wasn’t the first time.”

I told the cop how I’d been chased on the freeway, and about the M.Y.O.B. note I’d found on my living room floor. I told him that the driver of the BMW was Andy Bruckner’s assistant at CTA, and that Andy had been having an affair with Stacy.

Unlike Rea, this cop actually listened. As I talked, he nodded and took notes. At last, someone was taking me seriously.

When I was through talking, I turned and saw that Baggy Shorts was still at my side.

“You feel okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” I assured him.

“I’m only asking because I’m a doctor, and you look sort of shaken,” he said. “If you need me to be a witness in court, just give me a call.” He handed me his card.

“Thanks so much. You’ve been awfully nice.”

“No problem.”

Then he got into a Jaguar and drove off. I looked down at his card and saw that my would-be mugger was no ordinary doctor but Chief Cardiovascular Surgeon at UCLA Medical Center. So the next time you need an accurate first impression of someone, don’t come running to me.

By now, a tow truck had appeared on the scene, and the BMW was being carted away.

“Can I go now?” I asked the cop.

“Sure. But I’d like to stop by your place and get that note you told me about.”

The cop, whose name was Officer Fenton, followed me back to my apartment, which of course made me a nervous wreck. I don’t know about you, but I hate driving in front of a cop. I’m certain I’m going to forget to signal or not stop long enough at a stop sign, and that I’ll wind up running over a pedestrian that I didn’t see because I was too busy looking at the cop in the rearview mirror.

But I’m happy to say we made it back to my place without incident. Nary a pedestrian was harmed. As Officer Fenton walked me up the path to my apartment, I could see Lance peeking out from between his blinds. Apparently the man was surgically attached to his window treatments.

I ushered the cop into my apartment and fished out the M.Y.O.B. note from my desk drawer.

“Here it is,” I said, pointing out the “B” pasted on backwards. “I think whoever sent this is probably dyslexic.”

The cop nodded. “Makes sense to me.”

What a nice guy. Acres nicer than Rea.

He thanked me for my time, and I walked him to the door. As he headed down the path to his squad car, I saw that Lance had left his post at the window and was now standing in his open doorway, in full busybody mode. I quickly retreated back inside, hoping he hadn’t seen me.

No such luck. Seconds later he was knocking at my door.

“Jaine,” he called out. “Open up.”

I’m ashamed to say I spent the next few minutes hiding out in the bathroom until Lance finally gave up and went away.

When I was certain he was gone, I dead-bolted the front door and sank down onto the sofa, exhausted.

Prozac, the little angel, sensing how tired I was, leapt up on my stomach and began yowling for her midnight snack.

“For crying out loud, Prozac, don’t you ever lose your appetite?”

She shot me a look as if to say, “Look who’s talking.”

So I hauled myself up and headed for the kitchen.

“There. I hope you’re happy,” I said, scooping some gourmet fishguts into her bowl.

Then I staggered to my bedroom, where I fell asleep with my clothes on and slept soundly until 7
A.M
. when I was clobbered awake by the insistent ringing of my telephone.

I picked it up groggily.

“Officer Fenton here.”

Officer Fenton? Who the heck was Officer Fenton? Then I remembered. The cop with the Bambi eyes.

“Mr. Bruckner’s assistant regained consciousness a couple of hours ago. And I thought you might like to know that he’s confessed to everything.”

I sat up, suddenly wide awake.

“He admits he killed Stacy Lawrence?”

“No. But he does admit he’s been stalking you in the BMW. And that he’s the one who sent you the warning note. Incidentally, you were right. He is dyslexic.

“He says he was doing everything on orders from Andy Bruckner. He also says that Mr. Bruckner was not, as he claimed, working late the night of the murder. That, on the contrary, he left the office early that evening.”

“Sure doesn’t look good for Andy, does it?”

“You might want to check out the morning news on TV.”

“Thanks. I’ll do that.”

I hung up and flipped on the television. I zapped back and forth between the local morning news shows, which were filled with hard-hitting coverage of fender benders, smog alerts, and Liz Taylor’s latest hip replacement surgery. Finally, after sitting through about twenty minutes of Happy Anchor banter, I found it:

Live footage of the cops escorting Andy into police headquarters. According to the Miss-America-with-a-microphone reporter standing nearby, famed Hollywood agent Andy Bruckner was being arrested for the brutal murder of aerobics instructor Stacy Lawrence.

I watched as Andy cowered behind his $500-an-hour lawyer. He held up his hands to shield his face from the news cameras, and I could see that his Rolex was sharing space on his wrist with an LAPD handcuff.

Nearby, Detective Timothy Rea was talking to reporters, looking as smug as the day I’d first met him. He said he had good reason to believe that Andy Bruckner was responsible for the death of aerobics instructor Stacy Lawrence. I was waiting for him to give me some credit. (“Frankly, we couldn’t have solved the case without valuable input from talented freelance writer Jaine Austen.”) But all he said was, “No further comment at this time.”

Then—just as the camera cut back to the news-room and a live interview with Liz Taylor’s chiropractor—the phone rang. It was Cameron.

“Did you see the morning news?”

“I not only saw it, I’m responsible for it.”

“What?”

I gave him an update on last night’s adventures in the parking lot and all its ramifications.

He whistled softly.

“So Howard is innocent. We were right all along.”

“‘We’? What do you mean, ‘we’? For the longest time you thought he was guilty.”

“Okay, okay. So I came on the bandwagon a little late. Don’t I get any credit for being your reluctant Watson?”

“Of course you do,” I laughed.

“Seriously, this calls for a celebration. C’mon over to the shop about noon, and I’ll take you to lunch.”

“Sounds good.”

I wrote down the address of his antiques shop on La Brea Avenue, then padded into the kitchen to brew myself a fresh cup of instant coffee.

I should have been happy, right? After all, I’d helped solve a major murder case. But now that the police had arrested Andy, I wasn’t sure they had the right guy.

I know, I’m impossible. Here I’d been bitching and moaning about what a creep Andy was, so you’d think I’d be overjoyed at his arrest. But somehow it didn’t feel right to me. As much as I disliked the guy, I couldn’t picture him doing the actual killing. He was the kind of person who hired other people to do his dirty work for him.

Was it possible that his assistant Kevin was lying to the cops? Was he the one who bumped off Stacy? Was he a Hollywood barracuda willing to do
anything
to get ahead? Had Andy promised him a promotion? A corner office? A date with Calista Flockhart?

And what about Daryush? I kept thinking about that picture of him in bed with Stacy. He was the kind of guy who stuck his hands down garbage disposals all day. The kind of guy who didn’t mind dirty work. I wasn’t quite prepared to declare him innocent.

I told myself I was being ridiculous. Surely the LAPD knew what they were doing (if you don’t count Rodney King and the Ramparts scandal and the Watts riots). They were trained professionals, right? I’d gotten Howard off the hook, and that was all that mattered.

But then it hit me: Thanks to me, Andy was now
on
the hook. What if he was innocent, too? What if he got convicted on my testimony and spent the rest of his life in jail for a crime he didn’t commit? (Notice how I managed to hopscotch effortlessly from one guilt trip to the next in mere seconds. Impressive, isn’t it?)

I poured some Folgers Crystals into a cup of boiling water and watched them dissolve. If only everything in life were so easy.

I knew I had to stop fixating on this detective stuff and get back to my real job. Ever since the murder, I’d let my freelance writing gigs slide by the wayside. I had a pile of bills on my desk that were reproducing like rabbits. I needed to think up a clever promotional mailer and drum up some new business. Fast.

I grabbed a pad and sat down at my dining room table to think of ideas. After twenty minutes of brainstorming, the only thing on my pad was Prozac, napping.

My heart just wasn’t in it.

You don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to figure out what was happening in my tortured psyche. After all the excitement of the past few weeks, the thought of going back to my old life—churning out resumes and Toiletmasters brochures—was more than a tad depressing. Playing detective had been fun. A lot of fun.

And soon, I realized, the thrill would be gone.

I
spent the rest of the morning trying to think up ideas for my promotional mailer, but my mind kept drifting back to weightier matters, like what to wear for my lunch with Cameron.

Finally, I gave up and headed for the bathtub, where I soaked for a good twenty minutes. It felt divine. Whatever jangled nerves I had left over from my parking lot adventure the night before were now thoroughly unjangled.

When my muscles were the consistency of over-cooked pasta, I wrenched myself from the tub and toweled off. Then I blow-dried my hair and completed my toilette (or “toilet,” as The Blob used to say). My legs could have used a shave, but I didn’t bother. No one aside from Prozac and my podiatrist ever looked at them anyway.

Freshly de-frizzed and perfumed, I threw on a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and an Ann Taylor blazer. Then I tossed Prozac some gourmet mystery meat and headed off for my lunch date with Cameron.

I wasn’t two steps out my front door when I was accosted by Lance.

“I knocked on your door last night. How come you didn’t answer?”

“I was in the bathroom,” I said, which was technically the truth.

“Oh.” Lance had the grace to look somewhat embarrassed. But not for long.

“So what were you doing with that cop?” he asked, once again the Grand Inquisitor.

“Having passionate sex on the kitchen floor.”

Okay, I didn’t really say that. What I said was: “Just once, can’t you mind your own business?”

Okay, so I didn’t say that, either.

“It’s a long story, Lance. I’ll explain later.”

Then I beat a hasty retreat down the path to my Corolla and threw the car in gear before he could come running after me.

I headed down Olympic Boulevard toward La Brea Avenue, a once seedy but now trendy shopping area.

Cameron’s store was tucked into a small lot between a psychic and a vintage-clothing store.

As I walked inside, a buzzer sounded, the kind that lets the shopkeeper know he’s got a customer.

Cameron was busy waiting on a Malibu Beach-y woman with streaked hair and stylishly wrinkled linen slacks. He looked up and shot me a smile.

I smiled back and started browsing around, trying my best to look like a paying customer. I was impressed by what I saw. The space was spare and uncluttered; just a few choice pieces of furniture on display. Unlike many “antiques” stores that are really just a step or two above thrift shops, Cameron’s place seemed to be stocked with genuine antiques. (Not that I’d know a genuine antique if it came and sat on my lap, but the stuff looked real to me.)

The Malibu babe was looking at a three thousand dollar chest of drawers.

“I’m thinking of converting it into a hamper,” she told Cameron.

A $3,000 hamper! I’m telling you, the people in this town have
way
too much money.

Ms. Malibu seemed a lot more interested in Cameron than she was in the chest. She kept smiling at him in a cutesy way that made me want to grab her fashionably wrinkled linen slacks and give her a wedgie. On closer inspection, I saw that she’d obviously been under the knife a time or two. I was betting that those taut cheeks of hers were probably once her kneecaps. Cameron was friendly but not flirty. After a while, sensing she wasn’t getting anywhere with him, she said she’d think about the chest and wandered outside to her waiting Mercedes.

“I thought she’d never leave,” Cameron grinned.

“You think she’s a serious buyer?”

“Nah. Just killing time between her morning latte and lunch at Spago.”

“Your place is terrific,” I said. “Such beautiful stuff.”

“Wait’ll you see what I just got in.”

He led me past a curtain to the back of the store, where several pieces of furniture were in various stages of being refinished. He pointed with pride to an intricately carved mahogany bed in the center of the room.

“It’s an antique sleigh bed. Isn’t it a beauty?”

“Gorgeous,” I said, touching the carvings on the headboard.

“But we’re not here to talk antiques,” Cameron said, going over to a small refrigerator in the corner. “We’re here to celebrate.”

He reached into the fridge and took out a bottle of champagne.

I looked at the label and blinked in disbelief.

“Cristal?” I gasped.

For all you K mart shoppers out there, Cristal is a fancy-dancy champagne that costs about $160 a bottle. I happen to know this for a fact because I’ve walked past it many a time at my local wine store on my way to the Rotgut Chardonnay section.

“Nothing’s too good for my favorite detective,” Cameron grinned.

“But that stuff costs a fortune!”

“Don’t worry,” he assured me. “I can afford it. I made a big sale yesterday. For the first time in a long time, I’m actually able to afford champagne with a cork instead of a screw-top cap. If I could only open the darn thing.”

He struggled with the cork until it finally popped out with a whoosh of champagne spray. Quickly, he poured the froth into two coffee mugs.

“Forgive the mugs. I don’t usually drink on the job.”

He held his coffee mug aloft in a toast. “To Jaine Austen, Defender of the Innocent. Crimefighter Extraordinaire. And Patron Saint of Lost Causes.”

The champagne was wonderful. Like velvet with bubbles. I tried not to gulp it down like 7UP.

“I’m proud of you, kiddo,” Cameron said. “You stuck by Howard when lesser souls were ready to bail. Because of you, the real murderer will be brought to justice.”

I smiled uneasily.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Actually, Cameron, I’m not sure that Andy Bruckner is the murderer.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No. I’m not kidding. I don’t think he did it.”

“You know what your problem is? You can’t take Yes for an answer.”

“But—”

“Andy Bruckner is a slime. He was cheating on his wife. He had his assistant out terrorizing you. What makes you think he wouldn’t kill somebody?”

“That’s just it. He’s the kind of guy who has someone
else
do his dirty work. I don’t think he’d actually kill someone himself.”

“C’mon. He’s a Hollywood agent. Those guys make the Mafia look like choirboys.”

“But—”

“No more buts. I mean it. This is a celebration, and that’s what we’re going to do. Celebrate.”

And then Cameron did the most amazing thing.

He put down his mug and kissed me. For real. On the lips. Mouth open. A little tongue. A soft, sweet, gentle kiss that aroused the hell out of me.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for the longest time,” he said when we finally broke apart.

“You have?” I was beyond stunned. “I didn’t think you were interested in me that way.”

“And I didn’t think
you
were interested in
me
.”

“But I was,” I confessed.

“Remember that night when I drove you home from your class, and you bent over to the backseat to get your books? It was all I could do to keep my hands off you. You’ve got one terrific tush, you know that?”

Then he started kissing me again, and before I knew it, we were rolling around on that antique sleigh bed like two crazed teenagers.

No doubt about it. I had died and gone to heaven.

Then suddenly we heard the front door buzz open.

“Damn,” Cameron hissed. “A customer.”

He got up from the bed and peeked out from behind the curtain.

“It’s a decorator,” he whispered to me, “a really important client.”

“Hi, Marilyn,” he called out, tucking his shirt back in his slacks. “Be with you in a minute.”

“Cameron, honey,” a raspy cigarette voice called back. “Great news. I’m decorating a house in Bel Air. Six thousand square feet. From scratch. Money no object.”

He turned to me and shrugged helplessly.

“That’s okay,” I smiled, wanting to hurl that damn decorator off a cliff.

“This could take a while. Why don’t you come to my place tonight, and we’ll take up where we left off?”

I nodded, still numb with joy. But then I remembered.

“I can’t. I’ve got my Seniors Class tonight.”

“Then stop by after class.”

He took me in his arms and kissed me again, our bodies touching in all the right places.

“To be continued,” he whispered.

He let me out the back door of his shop, and I stumbled out into the alley, like a drunk on a bender. There was only one thing I knew for certain:

I was definitely going to have to shave my legs.

I made my way back to my Corolla, wondering if it was humanly possible to lose fifteen pounds in eight hours. (What this country needs is a chain of Same-Day Liposuction Centers.) Unable to come up with a miracle weight-loss plan, I decided to buy myself a new bra and panties. If my body couldn’t be fab, at least my underwear would.

I drove over to Bloomingdale’s in Century City and headed upstairs to the lingerie department. I waded through racks of panties that seemed to come in three sizes: Tiny, Tinier, and I’ve-Seen-More-Cotton-on-the-Top-of-an-Aspirin-Bottle.

Finally, hidden in a corner, I found the Realistic Sizes and picked up a sexy black-lace bra-and-panty set. I tried them on in the dressing room, hoping there were no jaded security guards watching me on a hidden camera and sniggering at my cellulite. I surveyed myself in the three-way mirror. If I sucked in my gut and squinted my eyes, I actually looked pretty good.

Given the fact that I had absolutely no new business coming in, I couldn’t afford to buy anything else. Which is why I immediately stopped off at Ann Taylor and bought myself a new blazer and silk blouse. And then, feeling guilty about having spent so much, I economized by
not
buying a $250 pair of shoes at Joan & David, and buying a $60 bottle of citrusy Calvin Klein cologne instead.

Telling myself this crazy spending spree simply had to stop, I drove over to a hair salon in Brentwood and got an $80 haircut, a $20 pedicure, and a $30 parking ticket. (I forgot to put money in the meter.)

But it was worth it. I walked out of that salon with a headful of smooth, glossy Maria Shriver hair.

Finally I managed to make it home without spending any more money. Carefully wrapping my hair in a towel, I stepped in the shower and sudsed myself with a loofah till my skin was glowing. Then I shaved my legs, plucked my eyebrows, and waxed my bikini zone. It was a regular Exfoliation Festival. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do about my cellulite except hope that Cameron liked to make love in the dark.

Yes, folks, I’d definitely decided to go to bed with the man. I’d had it with my monastic existence. Cameron had me tingling in places I didn’t know could tingle, and I was ready to swing from some chandeliers.

I slipped into my new duds, spritzed myself in a cloud of my new cologne, and presented myself to Prozac for inspection.

“How do I look?” I asked, pirouetting. She gazed up from where she was napping on the sofa, and yawned. That’s what I get for asking fashion advice from someone who has been known to walk around with dried pieces of you-know-what on her fanny.

I scooped her up in my arms and hugged her.

“Wish me luck, Pro.”

She sniffed at my perfume and nuzzled her furry head under my chin.

“If I wind up loving him half as much as I love you,” I whispered into her pink ear, “I’ll be a mighty lucky lady.”