Jaine Austen 1 - This Pen for Hire (9 page)

T
he House of Wonton is a tiny joint on Fairfax Avenue, sandwiched between a Kosher butcher shop and a used-clothing store.

I showed up for dinner at 5
P.M
., while the sun was shining, and most civilized people were still digesting their lunch.

At first I thought the restaurant was empty. But then I saw Howard waving to me from a booth way in the back, next to the kitchen. Poor Howard. The restaurant was deserted, and they still gave him a crummy table. That’s the kind of guy he was.

I headed over to join him.

“Hi, Howard,” I smiled, sliding into a cracked vinyl banquette.

Howard looked paler and thinner than I remembered him. I guess an all-expenses-paid vacation in the county jail can do that to a guy. His cuticles were practically raw from where he’d been picking at them.

“It’s good to see you, Howard.”

“You, too.” He stared down at his paper placemat. The man clearly had a thing about making eye contact.

“So how’s it going?” I asked.

“Great. Just great. Well, not really. I got fired today.”

Oh, God. Poor guy. My guilt count skyrocketed.

“Really?”

“My lawyer says we can sue them, just as soon as he gets me off the hook for this murder thing.”

“Right.”

“Anyhow, I’m really very grateful that you came to visit me in jail. Like I said on the phone, you were the only one who did.”

“How about we order some drinks?” I needed one desperately.

“The meal comes with free tea.”

“How nice.” I smiled weakly. Howard was obviously not a drinker. Or a spender. I flagged down our waiter, a young Asian kid even skinnier than Howard, and ordered a Tsing Tao beer.

“The drinks are on me,” I insisted.

“Thanks,” Howard said, “but I’ll stick with tea.”

The waiter shuffled over with a lukewarm beer, which he poured into a piping-hot glass, straight from the dishwasher. As it turns out, that was the highlight of the meal. Howard ordered a Number Sixteen (a glutinous combination plate of chow mein, fried rice, and egg roll). I picked at my Special Ingredient Lo Mein, fairly certain that the special ingredient was rubber cement.

“Don’t you like your food?” Howard asked, as I pushed my lo mein around on the plate.

“Oh, no,” I said, forcing myself to swallow a mouthful. “It’s great.”

“Mom and I were just here the other night.”

Why did I get the feeling that I was eating their leftovers?

“I guess you and your mom are pretty close, huh?”

“Yeah. She’s my best friend. Aside from you, of course.”

Oh, God. That one just about broke the needle on my pity-o-meter.

Howard took a sip of tea and sighed deeply.

“I doubt I’ll ever get anybody to go out with me now.”

“Don’t say that, Howard. You’re a very nice guy.”

“Oh, come on. Dating was bad enough before. But now that I’ve got an arrest record, it’s a joke.”

“I’m sure there are plenty of women who’d love to go out with you.”

“Oh, yeah? I bet you wouldn’t date a guy like me.”

“Of course I would.”

“How about Saturday night?”

“What?”

Good Lord. Where did
that
come from?

“You said you’d go out with a guy like me,” he said, for once looking me straight in the eye. “So I’m asking you out.”

“I thought it was a hypothetical question,” I stammered. “I didn’t think you actually meant me. Specifically.”

“I knew it. I told Mom you wouldn’t want to go out with me. She told me I had to lower my sights and not keep trying to date unattainably beautiful women. So I thought of you.”

Great. In the market for a geek? Call Jaine.

“It’s not that I don’t want to go out with you, Howard. It’s just that…”

What? What could I possibly tell him to get rid of him?

“…I’m engaged to be married.”

“You’re engaged?”

“Yes,” I lied shamelessly.

“Oh.”

The look of disappointment on his face was palpable.

“But if I weren’t engaged, I’d go out with you. Honest.”

“You would?”

“Absolutely,” I said, trying with all my might to sound like I meant it.

Howard wanted to believe me, I could tell. He had the same hopeful look in his eyes that I get when the Clinique lady promises me a new lipstick will change my life.

“C’mon,” I said. “Let’s open our fortune cookies.”

Our fortune cookies, baked some time in the Ming Dynasty, had the consistency of dried mortar. I practically needed an ice pick to get mine open.

Howard smoothed out his fortune and read it to me. “You will meet a cute brunette. You will give her money. She is our cashier.”

Howard blinked. “That doesn’t make sense,” he said, looking around. “There’s no cashier here.”

“I think it’s a joke, Howard.”

“Oh. Right. Now I get it.” He smiled wanly. “So what’s your fortune?”

I rummaged through my cookie shards, but my fortune was missing.

Howard looked spooked. “That’s bad luck,” he said.

I felt a small frisson of fear pricking the hairs at the back of my neck. I told myself I was being crazy. Nothing bad was going to happen to me. Except possibly indigestion from that lousy lo mein.

“Howard, before we go, there’s something I want to ask you.”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

I reached into my purse and pulled out the bottle of body oil I’d bought earlier at the mall.

“Remember how you said you smelled perfume in Stacy’s apartment the night of the murder?”

“Yeah.”

“Is this what you smelled?”

I handed him the bottle. He opened it and sniffed.

“Yes, this is it.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded solemnly.

“I’ll never forget the scent, not as long as I live. What’s it called?”

“Jasmine.”

I drove home from the Chinese restaurant feeling just like Sherlock Holmes (without the pipe and silly hat, of course). How clever of me, I thought, to remember Jasmine’s perfume from my visit to the LA Sports Club. Chances are she’d been in Stacy’s apartment the night of the murder. Of course, it could have been someone else smelling of jasmine, but it seemed highly unlikely.

I was so busy congratulating myself on my brilliant powers of observation that at first I didn’t see the black BMW parked outside my duplex. By the time I did notice, it was lurching out from the curb in a cloud of carcinogens. Tires squealing and rubber burning, it disappeared down the street before I could get my brilliant powers of observation to observe the license-plate number.

Once again, I remembered what Elaine had said about a black BMW outside Bentley Gardens the night of the murder. I tried to tell myself that it was just a coincidence. There were a quatrillion black BMWs in the city of Los Angeles, 99.999 percent of them having nothing to do with Stacy’s murder. But something in my gut told me that the car I’d just seen was not one of the 99.999 percent.

I hurried up the path to my duplex, half expecting some thug to come leaping out of the azalea bushes. But there was no one in sight—not even Lance, whose apartment was dark.

I let myself into my duplex, and looked around the living room. No bad guys lurking behind the sofa. I searched the apartment for signs of a forced entry, but all the windows were locked. Everything was just the way I’d left it, including Prozac, who was nestled comfortably on my favorite cashmere sweater.

Feeling somewhat reassured, I went to the kitchen and poured myself an inch or five of chardonnay. I gulped it down, and was just beginning to relax, when I glanced down and saw a small white envelope on the living room floor. Someone had pushed it in under the front door. I stared at it for a while, hoping it would go away. Finally I walked over and picked it up, telling myself that it was probably a note from my landlord or Ed McMahon.

The envelope was blank. I opened it gingerly and took out a single sheet of white paper. Cut out in newspaper letters was the warning, “M.Y.O.B.” Unless those letters stood for
My Yak is Out on Bail
, I assumed it meant Mind Your Own Business. A love note, no doubt, from the murderer.

On second glance, I saw that the “B” was pasted onto the paper backwards.

Great. Just what I needed. A dyslexic murderer.

I decided to put the note in a Baggie, to preserve fingerprints, although I suspected that the only fingerprints I’d be preserving were my own. The murderer might have been dyslexic, but he or she was no dummy.

I was scrounging in the cupboard, looking for Baggies, when a piercing scream filled the air. It took me a minute before I realized it was just the phone. I guess it’s safe to say my nerves were a tad on edge.

I debated whether or not to let the machine get it, but at the last minute, I picked up.

“Hello?” I said, lowering my voice a decibel, trying to sound like either a guy or a lady with hormone problems.

“Jaine? Is that you?” It was Cameron. “Sounds like you have a cold.”

“Oh, Cameron. I’m so glad it’s you.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing. I’m just overreacting.”

“To what?”

“It’s nothing. Honest.”

“Not an acceptable answer. I want to hear about it over dinner.”

Yes! He wanted to see me again!

“Actually, I already ate.”

“But it’s not even seven o’clock.”

“I know. I had dinner with Howard Murdoch, a charter member of the Early Bird Dining Club.”

“Maybe we can go out for a drink.”

“To tell the truth, I’m starving. We ate at a ghastly Chinese restaurant where flies come to commit suicide. I hardly ate a thing.”

“I’ll pick you up in a half hour.”

I hung up, feeling a lot stronger. I found a Baggie and shoved the dyslexic warning note into the top drawer of my desk, along with a bunch of unpaid bills. I’d be damned if I was going to let it intimidate me.

Cameron took me to a French restaurant on the outskirts of Santa Monica, a cozy place with lace curtains on the windows and wonderful aromas wafting from the kitchen. The owner, a reedy Frenchman with an accent as thick as his leek-and-potato soup, was our waiter. His wife was the chef. And their teenage son was the busboy. It was all so damn sweet.

It was just like Cameron to find such a terrific place. Clearly, the man had great taste. I couldn’t help comparing him to my ex-husband, The Blob, whose favorite romantic restaurant had flocked velvet wallpaper and an autographed picture of Ernest Borgnine above the bar.

“So what’s happening with your investigation?” Cameron asked, after the owner sat us at a table by the window.

I told him about my trip to Andy’s office, my encounters with Devon and Elaine, and my discovery that Jasmine had been in Stacy’s apartment the night of the murder. Finally, I told him about the black BMW, and the warning note shoved under my door.

“I don’t like it,” he said, shaking his head. “That note sounds scary. Maybe you should give this detective stuff a rest.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t let Howard down. Do you know the poor guy lost his job today?”

“Why can’t you let the police handle it?”

“Because they’re convinced Howard killed Stacy.”

“How can you be so sure he didn’t?”

“I just know, that’s all.”

Cameron shook his head, disapproving. He didn’t actually say “tsk tsk,” but I know he was thinking it.

“You want my honest opinion, Jaine? I think you’re taking a foolish chance. Risking your own safety for someone you don’t really know.”

He was right, of course. Any sane person would have bowed out of this scenario long ago.

“I know it’s weird, but I guess the danger is a turn-on.”

“You want danger? Try bungee jumping.”

“Honestly, Cameron. For the first time in a long time, I feel energized. And alive.”

“Just so long as you stay alive. That’s all I’m worried about.” He took my hand in his. “This is a
murder
case. Which means you’re dealing with a
murderer
. In case you haven’t heard, those guys can be dangerous.”

When he took my hand, I felt my legs go mushy and my G spot spring into action. Of course, I couldn’t tell him that a big part of my newfound
joie de vivre
was having him in my life. So I played it cool and tried not to look as aroused as I felt.

We ate our yummy dinners (trout for me, lamb for him), washed down with a lovely burgundy. Eventually, the owners came out from the kitchen and started eating their meal at a table in the back of the restaurant. A Billie Holiday tape was playing softly in the background. If this had been a movie, I’d have been Gwyneth Paltrow and Cameron would have been Ben Affleck and by the time dessert rolled around, Ben would have been madly in love with me.

But it wasn’t a movie. It was real life. And by the time dessert rolled around, I was feeling the waist-band of my jeans digging into my gut.

Cameron insisted on paying for the meal. What with my checkbook balance hovering somewhere in the two-digit neighborhood, I didn’t put up much of a protest.

We headed out into the damp night air. I could feel my hair frizzing at the speed of light, but I didn’t care. I was
très
mellow from our bottle of burgundy. I hoisted myself up into Cameron’s Jeep, giggling, totally unconcerned about how big my fanny looked.

As Cameron made his way onto the freeway, I leaned my head back against the headrest, staring up at the stars through the open moon roof. I was enjoying my lovely wine buzz, humming the theme song to
The Brady Bunch
, when suddenly Cameron cried out, “Shit!”

I sat up with a jolt.

“Some idiot’s following us awfully close.”

I turned around and saw a car coming at us from behind. It looked for sure like it was going to ram into us.

“Damn it.” I could see Cameron’s knuckles, white against his skin, as he gripped the steering wheel.

Cameron tried to switch lanes, but the other car swerved out from behind us, cutting us off and trapping us in the left lane. I looked over to see if I could identify the face of the driver. My stomach sank. Whoever was behind the wheel was wearing a ski mask.