Most Americans will tell you that the clashing forces during the Cold War were Communism and Capitalism. But I say the real clash was between Social Realism and pornography.

Which raises the question, Did Capitalism win the Cold War or did pornography? and is the war really over?
—Johnny Noir


“All scientific and philosophical ideas are alters to unknown gods.”
—William James

“I subscribe to the notion that mankind is superfluous except as an appendage to woman.
Man in unnecessary in every possible way. The male body is hypothetical. Woman on the other hand is real, tangible, a fact. Man is composed of ideas. Woman is composed of flesh. Man thinks, woman acts. Women generates life from within while it is the man’s sole responsibility to deposit a bit of germ plasma, generating life that would otherwise become extinct if not for the spreading of the deadly virus that is transformed by woman into something fruitful, that is life, that is woman. Woman transforms man and thus procreats. Man in his turn kills that life and creates nothing other than despair. Woman is the sum of mankind’s knowledge; the summit of that knowledge, for it is only through woman that man exists. Without her he does not exist.”
—Doctor John Drake, from Neurosexualpsychology and the Female Body


“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster. When you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

“At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.”
—TS Eliot, The Hollow Men


“It’s flattering that people want to know so much about me
and want to take the time to make up that many things about me.”
—Lindsay Lohan

PARIS HILTON SHOT DEAD ON RED CARPET

The flashbulbs didn’t fade; she lay bloodied from her stiff blonde head to her stiletto heels; lifeless limbs flung out at her sides, as pink in death as she had been in life, the spark extinguished by a single shot from among the crowd.
The guy had been waiting among the paparazzi and onlookers for the girl with the spray tan to appear from the Bentley radiant like a vision, as if God Himself had bequeathed the excited mob a true to life golden statue of its own. A Lifetime Achievement Award, for waiting.
In a flash the image was all over the Internet and making the front page of tabloids around the world. Kathy Hilton was beside herself and got in touch with one her friends high up in the administration, but the Feds wouldn’t touch it. That left it up to Nicky.
“You say there were two men.”
“One man slipped into the crowd, like I told you, but there had to be a second man, the man that fired. No one else was close enough to take a shot like that.”
“You know your guns do you?”
“Everyone in our family is a charter member of the NRA. Paris and I used to go with our father to the range and give us shooting lessons, but—Mister Brady, Paris carried a gun!” she yelped. “We both—did,” she added.
I looked at her and asked, “Do you have gun on you now?”
She stood back and raising her arms, said, “Do I look like I have a gun?”
She wore what looked like a purple satin sheet tied at the shoulder and her arms up that hike it above her waist. She didn’t have anything on except flesh, and she stayed that way so I could take a good look. She looked like she wanted me to frisk her but I passed.
“I’m surprised she didn’t have it with her,” she said, bringing the arms down, disappointed when I didn’t jump at the chance and she put her freshly waxed cooch away before she hurt somebody.
“It wouldn’t have done her any good anyway. Let’s talk about your sister’s murder over a meal. What say, on me? If I take the job, it’s on you.”
“Oh, Mr. Brady, you do have a way of making a girl smile.”
“Call me Duke, and cut out that girl stuff. You’re a grown woman and I intend to treat ya like one. You’re sister, she was older than you?”
“By two years but you’d think by two minutes. We practically twins, except we don’t look anything alike and Paris has enormous feet.”
Truth was they weren’t anything alike. Nicky had her head on her shoulders such as it was and her sister’s big feet’d never walk in stilettos again.
“Minutes count for something,” I said. “Your sister liked the limelight. You play your cards close to your chest. I mean, vest.”
She looked at her amply enhanced cleavage in the open trench coat and uttered stupidly, “But I’m not wearing a vest.”
“You’re not playin’ cards, either. It was a figure of speech. I’m takin’ you up on the job, Nicky. Not that I need the money, I just don’t wanna see ya get hurt. You debs get to me somehow, I don’t know how though. Karl Marx wouldn’t like it.”
“I love Karl Marx. He’s one of the Marx Brothers, right? I love them.”
“Sure ya do.”
I hit the office light and we were off.
In a house on a street in Westchester a boy and a girl were doin’ what a boy an’ a girl do. The boy was nervous and the girl wasn’t sure why.
“I’m such a slut,” she murmured in his ear. “I can’t believe I’m letting a guy half my age get into my pants, not that that’s so bad. I’m forty, you’re twenty, so it’s not like I’m robbing the cradle, exactly, or is it?”
“Shut the hell up, willya? I’m over the age of consent,” he said, fumbling with her bra straps. She helped as best she could.
“But you still live with your parents,” she said, slipping a bare arm free. “Your soon to be divorced parents, as you’re so fond of saying.”
He had a big tit in his mouth, but tried to talk anyway, saying, “ Look, my father’s already living somewhere with his twenty year old girlfriend. As soon as my parents’ divorce settlement is finalized they’ll officially go their separate ways and leave me with the house. I hope they kill each other.”
The guy had his reasons for staying in the room he grew up in, with its Spiderman and Britney Spears posters. Spiderman she understood, but Britney Spears was an odd choice of pin-up for a straight guy, not that she didn’t have what it takes but it was kind of like Madonna or Judy Garland or any of the other pop tarts of the moment that were little more than gay icons in the making.
I brought Nicky to a nice bar around the corner from my office for a drink. The place was old, and that made it a dump, but it was a nice dump. The bartender was friendly and served us a couple of Manhattans. We were sitting at a table when the waitress came by with menus. She pretended she didn’t recognize Nicky’s face from the tabloids, the place was dark enough for her to get away with it.
Once the waitress had taken our orders and left, I leaned in on the table and said, “I suppose there’s no point in asking if anyone wanted your sister dead.”

The girl thought about it for about all of a half a second. The bedroom door was shut and his grubby hands were down her skirt. Even if he were a closet case what else would a twenty-year-old man who still reads comic books do with a naked, horny forty-year-old woman in his room while his mother was downstairs washing his XL Flintstone pajamas? She’d do the same thing if the shoe were on the other foot. That is, if she were twenty and he were forty like his dad and, anyway…there she was, letting the kid get the upper hand. She decided to take a little initiative and grabbed his nuts to see for herself if this was a man in the body of a man or a boy in the body of a man, if you know what I mean. She was curious as hell, so she reached for it, in the most un-lady way and squeezed. She must have squeezed a little to hard because his eyes popped out of his head and he stumbled and landed on top of her. She’s being crushed and she’s got Spiderman looking over her shoulder.
“Would you turn down a blowjob?” she whispered.
He grinned, and said, “If a woman offered me a blowjob I’d have a hard time turning it down.”
Well, okay she thought, that’s a clear signal that this boy is ready to become a man and she pulled down his zipper and his little worm popped out. Tasty but she kind felt like a wide mouth bass about to take the bait. I guess he didn’t realize what was coming—um, no pun intended, unfortunately, because when she put her lips around it he froze and not in a good way.
His pecker that was only at half-mast to begin with shriveled up into a tiny knot and she looked up at him and say to him, “What the hell just happened?”
He was red in the face and his little balls were like tiny blue peanuts and his Willie was gone—I mean his little red poker had shrunk so small that she thought it went back up into his body. It was then that she thought, “Oh—my—god, this guy has never been with a woman—or anything. Maybe he didn’t know what he was doing, but she knew what she was doing. She couldn’t suck it because it was gone.
So she stood up, pulled her shirt down over her milky gobs and said, “Maybe I should go.”
And he was so embarrassed he was trembling and she stopped and took a good look at him, trying to read his face. He just put his head on her shoulder and started crying, crying, like a baby and she couldn’t resist patting him on the back and saying, “There-there. It’s all right. Some other time.”
And he lifted his head looking her in the face, saying with tears in his eyes, his face still red, “I’m sorry, that doesn’t happen when my mom does it.”
That’s when she heard shuffling outside the door and decided she’d better leave. I mean, for all that, she thought he was a great guy and she didn’t want to make his mom jealous.

I ordered a steak and ate like a starving man. Nicky was looking at the food on her plate like she was trying to decide whether to eat it or if it should eat her. I got the feeling she had been through this before. When the waitress came by I ordered another drink, straight whisky this time.
“Didn’t you like your Manhattan?” the cheerful coed in apron inquired.
“Manhattan’s are too sweet. It’s like dessert. Just bring me a double of Chivas.”
The girl’s teeth gleamed in the dim light, “Alright,” she said, smiling. “And you, miss?”
Nicky didn’t look up, muttered something about ‘calories’ and downed her drink then said, holding out the glass, “I’ll have another.”
“Alright,” the girl said, still pretending the well-known deb was just another lush, which in truth she was.
“Not happy with your steak, Nicky?” I asked once the girl had gone.
“There’s too much meat on it,” she said fretfully.
The same couldn’t be said of her. I took the plate and set in front of me and devoured it before the grease could congeal. The bones of the two steaks together still had more on them then she did. The waitress came back with our drinks and took the plates.
“Let’s get back to your sister,” said.
She looked puzzled.
“The dead one,” I clarified.
My feeling was not that Nicky was stupid, exactly, but that her brain had been sautéed in x, k and h for years along with a liberal sprinkling of coke and alcohol. I’m no hypocrite and admit having a thing for skinny rich girls, with no particular interest in how they got they way. Anorexia or heroin, it makes no difference to me.
“Our agent called me. She wanted me to take over Paris’ public appearances, but I’m too afraid. I don’t want the same thing to happen to me.”
“This agent of yours, what’s the name?” I asked, thinking I might be gettin’ somewhere.
“Maria Cohen. Do you know her?”
“No, but I’ll look her up.” I’d already concluded that Nicky Hilton was clueless, but she was smart enough to duck a bullet. I had to give her credit for that.
“Maria was beside herself—I mean, Paris makes a lot of money for her, made, I should say.”
I brushed that aside with the comment, “She’ll still make money. I’ve never known an agent that couldn’t make a buck off a cold corpse. I wouldn’t worry about her finances.”
“Well, she is a—you know—a Jew,” she whispered like she was saying something dirty.
“Uh-huh. Give me Maria’s office address and phone number. I’ll try to get a hold of her in the morning. Have you got a limo waiting?”
“Yes,” she said tentatively, digging through her Louise Vuitton for her address book. “But I don’t want to go home.” She looked up and handed me the whole book, saying, “Couldn’t we, um, hang out—somewhere?”
“You mean like a dance club? I don’t think that’s a good idea—in case the killer reads the gossip columns. I don’t want to tip my hand and let him know I’m on the case.”
“We don’t have to go to a club. We can go back to your place,” she said, her eyes watery and trying to look soulful, but they just looked empty.
“Forget it,” I said. “I’m a detective, not a babysitter or a bodyguard. Don’t you have any friends you can call to keep you company?”
“There’s Lindsay, but she’s not really my friend—I mean, she’s not really anybody’s friend.”
“Forget her then. Don’t you have other friends that really aren’t your friends?”
“Yes, but,” she stopped.
“Yes, but what?”
“You have my address book.”
I flipped through the pages and thought twice about handing it back to her. She’d be on the cell in minutes blabbing that she’d just hired Duke Brady to find her sister’s killer. I didn’t want that kind of attention, since the news would eventually leak out on its own, even the smiling waitress had a scoop that she was hard pressed to contain.
“Okay, then, I guess you’d better come home with me,” I said. “My wife will understand that I’m just keeping you under wraps for the time being.”
“Your—?” She sighed, “I should’ve known.”
“Why is that?” I said flashing the ring on my left finger.
“Whenever I meet a guy he’s usually fingering my pussy in the first five minutes, even the gay ones. I thought maybe you just needed an opportunity and here in this dark restaurant, I’ve been sitting here with my legs wide open under the table and you never once—”
“Oh, yeh. My wife is gonna love this,” I said, realizing that Olivia would know more about the Hilton sisters than I ever would care to. I waved the waitress over and she bounced to the table like a red rubber ball.
“Yes, sir? Would you like to see the dessert menu?”
“Just another drink and the check.”
“I’ll have another drink too,” Nicky said and swallowed the last of her last drink.
“A Manhattan?” the waitress confirmed.
Nicky was looking at the gold band on my finger, saying, “Make it the whole city.”
The girl chuckled and left with the empty glasses.
“Don’t worry, Nicky,” I said, trying to console her, “one day you’re prince will come.”
Twisting her lips like a busted inner tube, she said, “He came. I stupidly got married once and had to get it annulled and I’ve dated princes. They’re nothing special—a fleet of yachts and a two-inch penis. They come alright, and much too soon.”

Maria Cohen wasn’t only a Jew—she was a Russian Jew, and her name wasn’t originally Maria. She had adopted the name to better assimilate with American born Jews. I figured that out within the first five minutes of meeting her, when I first set eyes on her in fact, in fact the lithe peroxide blonde I met in the front office of the Cohen Talent Agency wasn’t Maria Cohen at all. It was her daughter, or something. This girl spoke like a finishing school dropout, shook my hand like her polish was still wet and ushered me into a huge affair of an office with a huge picture window that overlooked the street below. The building was a three-story profesional job but the window looked ready to be jumped out of.
“Is your mother around?” It seemed a logical question.
She was done swaying her hefty backside around the room, getting me a cup of coffee and one for herself and about to sit behind the desk in front of the window when her butt stopped just off the pilot seat and coming around, she propped on the edge where I could take inventory from the stiletto heels up to her big chest. Her big hair was blonde but she was no blonde. I caught that when she positioned herself and let me get a good look at the carpet beneath her miniskirt. She wasn’t wearing stockings or anything else. There was just the carpet and nothing between it and me except the air.
“What was that about my mother?” she asked coldly.
“I did a little research. Your mother started this outfit back when Yid Theater was still a hot ticket. That must make her close to a hundred now—if she is your mother, your grandmother maybe.”
“You’ve done your homework, Mister Brady.”
“Part of my job is to know who I’m dealing with.”
“Will that help you find Paris’ killer?”
“It might. They say the truth will set you free—some people it puts behind bars.”
“Are you Christian?”
“Just the opposite. What about yourself?”
“I was born under Communism,” she said, lifting her chest with a deep breath of bullshit.
“Democrats aren’t so bad,” I interupted. “You’re not from Russia, Eastern Europe or anywhere near there. Why don’t you ‘fes up? What have you got to hide? The Hilton girls trusted you—thought you’d protect their interests. Those girls are worth over a billion dollars. They don’t need you.”
“I am their agent, Mister Brady. I make sure people know their names.”
“Every traveling salesman knows their name—and some know them personally. Those girls get around and they’re not too particular about who they get around with.”
Her eyes lit up like hot coals and she jumped from the desk.
“I think you should leave, Mister Brady. I do not like the way this conversation is turning out.”
“Me neither,” I said, getting to my feet. “Maybe I’ll look up the real Maria Cohen—the one with the juice, and not spend my time with an imposter. Tell me, how’d you get control of the agency? Was the old lady senile or did you drug ‘er up?”
She couldn’t say anything and stood there trembling with anger. I took a final inventory, nodded my okay on her boobjob and went out. I figured it wouldn’t be long before I had unwelcome company.
I’d parked my Maserati hardtop in the garage across the street. Wouldn’tcha know when I went to pick it up, some Russky bruiser tried to give me a hard time about it.
“This ticket no good. You have buy new one,” he said like Joe Stalin.
“Sorry, pal, that’s not how it works here in the States. The ticket’s good.”
He didn’t look at it again, just said, “Ticket no good. Hundred dollar, you get car.”
Now I was a dissatisfied customer and showed my buzzer.
He laughed, “So what? I haf badge too. What that mean. Hundred dollar.”
“How’s this,” I said, pulled my forty-five and showed him the inside of the muzzle.
He went white and let the ticket flutter to the floor.
“What you do with that?”
“I put new assholes in assholes with it. Care to try me?”
He stepped aside and I got into the car, still holding the gun on him. I started the engine and waited for him to get back to the booth where he flipped the lever raising the barrier and I drove off. I had the feeling I’d see him again and he’d try to make it square. Lighting a smoke as I drove through midtown I thought it odd that the Hiltons’ agent would try to stonewall me. That made me think she was dirty, and that made me think she had something to do with Paris’ murder. I had Nicky holed up in my place for safekeeping. That’s where she’d stay until I got to the bottom of things.

The girl was on her therapist’s couch trying to explain her actions and not doing a very good of it.
“But it’s alright if he seduced me, right?”
“You think it’s alright to sleep with a twenty-year old boy who has severe emotional issues? The boy lives with his mother and has given you strong signs that their relationship is more than Platonic. Is that correct?”
“Yes, but—”
“I think you need to find a more emotionally compatible romantic interest, Sarah,” the shrink said, trying not to judge his misguided patient.
“But he’s twenty!” she cried out, trying to justify herself.
“And you’re forty. I understand that the difference in age should have no bearing, as is frequently the case these days. Older men and younger women regularly have normal, healthy relationships, and likewise as far as older women seeing younger men. I’m certain that part of the allure is that he sees you as an attractive, sexually vital woman.”
She nodded, adding, “Guys my age see me as a used up tramp.”
“That’s their mistake, Sarah. You certainly shouldn’t see yourself that way.”
Sarah let out a groan, because the fact was she did see herself that way. She was an out of work over the hill actress still trying to get bit parts as teenagers. Drake understood her dilemma. He’d seen the way women pushing fifty did their hair in pigtails and dressed as cheerleaders or did a embarrassing bump and grind in blonde wigs and miniskirts, stilettos and fishnets, three quarters-naked in show after show along the Great White Way. It wasn’t a pretty sight and these women were obviously sleeping with someone to get their parts, more than likely younger male producers who pandered to the women’s delusions of desirability in exchange for pussy they were being denied by the savvier, younger actresses.
Sarah Winooski was a long way from bumping and grinding. She was happy that a kid half her age thought her attractive and figured this was good as it was gonna get. Drake hoped he had made some headway with her, but could see from the look on her face that he hadn’t, so he simply renewed her Zanax and sent her on her way.
He hoped she wouldn’t find out the hard way that even young men get older and start to look for something a little more in their league, like a younger woman. He’d save it for the next session to explain that men tend to be far less mature than women of the same age, something that starts in infancy with little girls playing house and little boys playing war, and goes through puberty when boys start gettin’ into sports and girls get into boys. Old men being are little boys at heart while most young women are wise beyond their years.

“Your little houseguest made a mess—and guess who had to clean it up?”
“Uh—”
“She did. She may have grown up with maids but Fifi’s got the day off,” Olivia was ranting, but I could see she was proud of gettin’ to boss the poor little rich girl around.
She had made Nicky put on Fifi’s uniform and when I went into the bedroom she was picking up thongs and bras from the floor and had already made the bed. Fifi’s uniform was basically a negligee with white frills sewn on and Nicky sneezed every time she had to bend over and caught a draft. She was sneezing so hard the flimsy outfit was about to fall off.
“Say, why don’t you take a break? The maid lives here and she’ll be back on duty tomorrow.”
She had her arms full of Olivia’s drawers with tears in her eyes from sneezing.
“You mean I don’t have to—?” she sniffled.
“Olivia was just havin’ a little fun. You’re my guest, and my client. Get some clothes on and I’ll take you both out to dinner. Y’hungry?”
“Starved!” she breathed.
I was kind of glad Olivia had put her to work and made her work up an appetite. Maybe putting some food in her stomach would make her less lightheaded and I could get some solid information out of her instead of the scatterbrained dizziness I’d been gettin’.

“I’m sorry about your sister,” Olivia was saying by way of apologizing, “I saw her get popped—right before the Academy Awards, then they preempted the show to keep showing it over and over. Your folks must be heartbroken. In front of all those people and no one’s got a clue who pulled the trigger.”
Nicky was on the verge of tears and I ordered a round of cocktails.
“The shot came from a high-powered rifled,” I said, not really changing the subject. “It could have come from anywhere within a two hundred yard radius.”
Olivia gave me a mean squint, saying, “But you’re gonna find the rat what did it, aintcha? Yer gonna get the dirty rat what killed her sister.”
“Settle down, Cagney. We haven’t even agreed on a fee. The meter starts runnin’ when the first check clears, but that shouldn’t be a problem.” I let that go and turned to Nicky and said, “That agent of yours, how’d you meet her? She outright shady, as all agents are, I suppose, but she struck me as shadier than most, especially the Russian angle.”
“We met Maria through Lindsay. She’s her agent too.”
“Lindsay again. I’m gonna hafta meet this Lindsay one day. You said she’s not your friend—she’s not anybody’s friend, and you have no real friends to speak of yourself.”
“She’s a movie star. Lindsay Lohan. You mean you’ve never heard of her?”
Nicky eyes lit up with surprise.
“Duke, don’t be ignorant,” my wife said in a hushed scolding tone. “Everybody’s heard of Lindsay Lohan. She’s the next Liz Taylor, or somethin’.”
“Uh, yeh, well, is she in town, or do I have to fly out to lala land to get a face-to-face with ‘er?”
“Why do you want to meet her?” the girl asked.
I had to think that over. “Yeh, maybe yer right. If she’s as clueless as you, there’d be no point. I just thought I’d collect more dope on Cohen, but I’ll tell you this, in case you didn’t already know—the girl callin’ herself Maria Cohen is not Maria Cohen. She’s a ringer. I don’t know where the real one is or whether she’s dead or alive. I’m bettin’ she’s dead.”
“Oh, Duke!” she squealed. “How? Why?”
She stammered breathlessly until the waiter brought the tray of drinks and passed the m around. Olivia had her usual Pink Lady, Nicky seemed to have grown fond of Manhattans and I had a straight scotch. We drank until the glasses were empty and I put us all in for another round of the same.
Nicky leaned in on my shoulder, putting the question fervently, “Why would Lindsay Lohan be involved with someone like that?”
“I guess we’ll have to ask Lindsay.”
“You still have my address book. Her number is in there. I suppose you could call her cell.”
“I suppose I could, if I wanted to waste my time. I’ve got a better idea, I’ve got a friend in the publishing game—what if Paris had a tell-all biography just itchin’ to get out.”
“But Paris didn’t have any secrets. Her life was an open book—in fact, she already has a book.”
“Yeh, Duke. I read it. It’s great—fulla pictures the way a book ought’a be.”
“I don’t mean a real book, ya couple’a dopes. I mean to start a rumor; somethin’ that’ll get whoever’s interested out in the open.
What say, Nicky? We plant an item in the tabloids about Paris’ tell-all is about to hit the shelves and in it, she names her killer.”
“I can’t wait to read it!” she burbled, wide-eyed.
“Waiter!”

Sarah decided to walk because it was a nice night to walk and she needed to clear her head. The car reared up on her so fast she didn’t see it coming, but she kicked off her platforms and began running, instinctively out of sheer animal fright. The car was a limo, hopped up to speed like a racecar and there was no way she was going to outrun it. The car jumped the curb as Sarah ducked past a lamppost and the car’s fender smashed into the metal pole, knocking the pole over and the streetlamp atop of it went out. The street went dark and she was still running. She wasn’t going to get away and eventually she slowed down from sheer exhaustion. The car pulled to a stop and two big bruisers in dark suits climbed from the rear seat and caught up to her. She’d never seen them before and they grabbed her by naked ankles and dragged her unto the vehicle. The door shut and the banged up Lincoln cruised off the street, no one having seen or heard a thing.
Inside the limo was the one celebrity everybody seemed to be going out of their’ ways to avoid.
“Oh, my god! It’s Lindsay Lohan!” Sarah cried.
Without make-up Lohan looked like anything but a movie star, wraparound shades went across her splotchy face. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days. She wore a black leather catsuit molded to her body and stank of stinging BO. She had a cocaine moustache, the white grains mingling with hairs of an actual moustache, and liquor dribbling down her chin.
“So you know who I am, but who the fuck are you?”
Sarah still wasn’t sure she was seeing what she was seeing. The two bruisers sitting on either side lit cigars filling the car with smoke.
“Maria wants to have a talk with you. She doesn’t like private detective’s sniffing around trying to get up in her business. Do you know this guy Brady?”
“I don’t know anyone named Brady,” Sarah replied fretfully.
The goon on her left snickered meanly, “She don’t know ‘im.”
“Shut up,” the star ordered. “I believe her. I don’t know why. She just looks too dumb to lie when we could make her disappear.”
Sarah was already afraid but that last comment had her ready to piss with terror.
The goon on her left said with a thick Russian accent, “Why don’t we make her disappear? If she don’t know the guy what good is she? If we let her go, she’ll run to the johns and we’re fucked.”
“I don’t think she’ll go to the johns. Will you, sweety?”
Lohan was a terrible actress and Sarah couldn’t hold it in any longer. She knew they would never let her go, that she would end up facedown in landfill somewhere, destined to become a statistic.
Lohan had a pack of Sherman’s queen size Cigarettellos and was lighting one when her freckled nose twitched and she detected the distinct odor of urine. There we so many other smells going on that it didn’t add or take away from the general funk, which was bad enough. Reaching up Lohan pressed the button for the limo’s moon roof to slide open.
She took her shades off and glared into the face of the woman squirming between the large thugs. She waited until Sarah’s face regained its pallid color from the beet red it became while she sat there soaking the leather seat. The thugs contentedly puffed their cheroots and Lohan’s eyes darted from one to the other. Her eyes dropped to the space between Sarah’s legs as the puddle ran from between her thighs, raining onto the floor across her bare feet.
“Feel better?” Lohan said, offering the Sherman’s.
“Yes, thank you,” Sarah said, taking a cigarette, relieved but still tense and afraid.
“What the fuck,” said the goon on the right when he realized his pant leg was wet. “She pissed on me!”
Lohan chuckled, her teeth yellow and separated, and said, “I thought you liked that sort of thing, Ed. I hear you pay good money to have women piss on you.”
There wasn’t anything he could do anything he could do about it anyway as he tried to slide over away from the woman and the other thug just sat there, content to be wet in just the way Lindsay had said—that is, he kind of liked it. He even smiled and took a puff on his cigar, as if to tell the girl it was okay, she could piss on him any time.
Lohan reached over with a lighter and sparked up Sarah’s cigarette.
“Are you going to kill me?” Sarah asked timidly.
Lohan made a face, and said, “We’ll let Maria decide on that. I’m not gonna do anything and nobody’s gonna do anything to you while I’m around. I don’t need to be implicated in a murder. I have a career to worry about.”
“Why’d she hafta take a piss on me?” the goon complained.
“’Cause she’s scared out of her wits, ya dope,” Lohan informed him.
He seemed only slightly satisfied with that and sat there mumbling angrily.
Drake didn’t have any more patients and putting Sarah’s file into his briefcase, he prepared to leave the office. He was thinking about her situation, that of being an Oedipal rival. It was interesting enough to want to formulate a theory about it. He could incorporate fairy tales and other case histories and use it as a subject for his next lecture. All the same, he worried about the outcome for Sarah, about the fact that hers was a case of a female Peter Pan syndrome. As he flipped the lamp on his desk, his concerns became more grounded in reality and he took out his cell. She had left only moments ago and he wanted to make sure she got home safely, that is, didn’t stop in a bar and pick up some stranger to alleviate her sexual guilt.
The cell lit up and chimed the opening bars to Beethoven’s Ninth. Everyone in the backseat of the limo froze. The phone was clipped to her bra and her eyes widened in surprise, not knowing what would happen next. Sarah wore a flimsy peasant dress that was now soiled and torn and he grabbed at her chest, Lohan looking crossly at him as he pawed the woman’s sizeable breasts, the phone still emitting the insistent symphonic chords symphony.
When the goon got the phone at last, he looked at it like he’d never seen one before and Lohan stretched out her hand and said, “Give.”
He placed the unit in her palm and she glanced at the display screen and said aloud to no one in particular, “Dr. Drake.”
She pressed the button to connect to the caller and pushed the small unit beneath her bush of rusty red hair.
“This is Lindsay Lohan. Who’s this?”
Drake didn’t know to answer to that. He knew who Lindsay Lohan was from the tabloids and celebrity gossip shows that his watched religiously, but why would she be answering Sarah Winooski’s cell phone. Perhaps it was an unfunny joke and he let it pass.
“I’d like to speak to Sarah,” he said, not amused.
Lohan handed Sarah the phone.
“It’s your doctor,” she said, “Are ya sick?”
Sarah took the unit and put it to her ear, eyeing the thug to her right who was in a better mood now that he’d had a liberal grope of her mams.
“Doctor Drake?” Sarah said, voice trembling.
“Sarah, are you alright? Who was that woman?”
“That was…Lindsay Lohan,” she said, making eye contact with the star who smiled contently at the mention of her famous name.
“Lindsay—,” he saw saying, and caught himself.
Sarah was a barely working actress. Now she was hanging out with Lindsay Lohan. It didn’t add. “Did you meet her in a bar?” he pressed, considering how it might have come about.
“She—she’s giving me a ride,” Sarah explained, “I’m in her limo.”
“Giving you a—?”
“Tell ‘im we’re goin’ to meet Maria Cohen the famous talent agent. That this could be your big break,” Lohan whispered loudly enough for Drake to hear though that wasn’t her intention.
Sarah repeated the words by rote, “We’re going to meet Maria Cohen the famous talent agent. This could be my big break.”
This unsettled both of the thugs because killing her now was out of the question, at least fro the time being. Drake was the best shrink in the business and he knew instantly by the way Sarah had spoken that her life was in danger.
“Tell her to let you of the car,” he said, “I’ll come pick you up.”
“I can’t—,” she started and met Lohan’s eyes.
“What?” Lohan demanded angrily.
“He said let me out of the car.”
“Gimme that phone,” Lohan said, snatching it from her hand, “Look Drake. This is business. Don’t you want your girl to be a star?”
The cell went dead on his end and in a few seconds my phone vibrated in my pocket.
“Yeh?” I said, sitting at the table, Nicky and Olivia yapping it up about socialite nonsense.
“Duke, do you know the name Maria Cohen, a talent agent.”
“What about her?” I said, curious as hell. Drake always came through with the good and this promised to be a doozy.
“I just called one of my patients and she said Lindsay Lohan is taking her to see Cohen. It sounds fishy.”
“It’s fishy all right,” I said through my teeth.
“I think my patient is in trouble—I don’t know how or why,” he said, his voice rising in a panic.
“Don’t worry, doc. Leave the how and the why to me.”
“What—you sound like you know what’s going on all ready.”
“No, I don’t, but just by coincidence, I went to see Maria Cohen in her office just this morning, and I want to have a talk with Lindsay Lohan. You heard about the Paris Hilton murder?”
“Who hasn’t? It’s been all over the news.”
“Well, her sister Nicky has hired me to find the killer. Maria Cohen’s their agent.”
“Then Sarah Winooski’s definitely in trouble.”
“With a capital T.”
I fed him the address of Cohen’s office and told him to meet me there pronto.
“What if they’re not meeting at her office? It’s after business hours.”
“If I’m right, this ain’t that kind of business. Hang on,” I got Nicky’s attention and told her to give me Cohen’s home address. It was up in Westchester and I wrote on a napkin. “I’ll have her home address when I get there,” I said into the phone, tucked it back in my pocket and stood from the table.
“Where ya goin’, Duke?” Olivia asked, her eyes following me as I got up.
“Yes, what is it, Duke? Why do you need Maria’s home address?”
“That a good friend of mine. He says Lindsay Lohan’s in town. She’s on her way right now to meet with Maria Cohen, and I intend to crash to the meeting.”
The chuckleheads hauled Sarah out of the car and into the office building. Lohan had her shades on and stepped out, half hoping to be recognized by someone on the street. Sarah was struggling now because the piss was chafing her something awful and her legs were itchy with it. Her soaked thong seemed to have shrunk and she was uncomfortable like an infant wanting its diaper changed.
“Let me go! Let me go!” she grunted, trying to wrest her arms free from the hairy paws’ grip.
“Now she gets feisty. I bet this one’s a hot number in the sack,” the Russian was saying before Sarah twisted sideways and gave him a knee solidly to the yarbles.
He let out a wail and let go which she swung around and started clawing at the other guy’s face with her press-on nails like a handful of razors.
“You bitch,” the guy screamed as the Russian drew a straight razor from his pocket.
“Let her go!” Lohan ordered, coming inside and seeing the struggle the mugs were losing.
The Russian had the razor open, seeing red and growled, “She kicked me in the balls. Nobody gets away with that!”
“I said knock it off!” Lohan forcefully repeated.
The Russian put his blade away hesitantly and the other let go, as is forgetting the girl and took out a handkerchief to wipe the blood off his face.
“Fuckin’ bitch,” he groused.
“Serves you right. Why can’t you act like gentlemen? You’ll catch more flies with honey than you will with vinegar,” Lohan philosophized.
“Aw, who wants to catch flies?” the Russian queried.
Lohan ignored the knuckle dragger’s comment and continued towards the elevator.
“Come on, you two. Bring her upstairs to the office—and play nice or she might beat you up again.”
They took Sarah by the arm and brought her along. Waiting for the lift, Lohan put her arm around Sarah’s shoulder in a friendly consoling gesture, saying, “Don’t worry about these two. They ain’t sophisticated like us. We lesbians got to stick together.”
She meant ‘thespians’ but now Sarah was more worried than before.

The limo was parked out front when I drove up. I lit a cigarette and waited for Drake. He showed up a minute later in his silver Mercedes.
“Duke, have you seen any sign of Sarah?” he asked.
“No, but that must be the limo they were in,” I said, indicating the stretch idling in front of the office tower. “It’s got DPL plates.”
“You don’t say,” he said, curious and we crossed the street.
I went up to the driver’s window and tapped on the glass. The window rolled down and the driver looked up at me.
“Whadaya want?” he said in a surly grumble.
“My friend here wants t’talk to ya,” I said, pointing to drake, natty as hell in hand made tailored pinstripe.
The guy rolled up the window and ended the conversation. I stepped back from the car, took out my gun and shot out the right front tire. The rubber hissed and the dropped a few inches with a nasty flat. The engine revved, and seeing the moon roof open, I leapt to the hood and dropped down behind the tinted partition. I smashed it to pieces with the backend of the forty-five and held the gun on him. He went for the inside of his coat and I pressed the muzzle to his temple.
“Go for it and your brains’ll be this buggy’s new interior. Now get out—hands raised where we can see ‘em.”
He musta had a wife and kids ‘cause he did just what I said. Drake was waiting and took the gun from the guy’s pocket. I got out and searched his other pockets, finding his cell. I pushed ‘send’ and the call went through. “What is it, Dmitri?” the voice said, then, “Dmitri? Hello? Stop playin’ games. What the hell—” The call ended abruptly and I pocketed the guy’s phone.
“That was Cohen. She must be right upstairs,” I said.
“Was there a girl with them?” Drake put to the guy.
The mug clammed up and Drake put it to him differently, “Who was the woman is this car with you?” Drake’s voice was as calm and soothing as a spring breeze and the guy’s shoulders slumped heavily and stayed that way.
“Lindsay Lohan,” he said slowly like he’d been drugged.
“Come on, doc. We don’t have time to play footsy with this clown.”
“You’re right,” the doc said and then to the hypnotized driver, “Get back in the car and stay there.”
The guy did as he was told, sitting behind the wheel and staring ahead.
“You’ve got to teach me that sometime. Beats the hell outa breakin’ heads to get information,” I said.
“I thought you liked breakin’ heads,” the doc replied with an earnest grin.

“Have a seat, Miss Winooski,” Maria said once the crew was in her office. The two mugs stayed by the door while Lindsay Lohan sat behind Cohen’ s desk and lit a cigarettello.
“How do you know my name?” Sarah asked nervously.
She looked back at the apes and decided to sit down before they sat her down. Cohen looked at the goons’ faces, the one scratched to pieces like he’d been wrestling with a wildcat.
“What happened to them?” she asked Lohan, who laughed.
“She got the best of them in the lobby—had ‘em cryin’ like babies. Ain’t that right, boys?”
The mugs turned purple and didn’t say anything.
Cohen let out a chuckle. “So she did, did she? You’re a tough cookie, is that it? Figures Richie’d go for a gal with moxie.”
Richie was Sarah’s twenty-year-old boyfriend’s name and hearing it spoken by this bitch made her cringe.
“What do you know about Richie?”
Cohen laughed again, as mirthless as old paint, and said, “I’m asking the questions, missy. What do you know about Richie?”
“Ooh—,” Sarah gasped and the one mug perked up at the sound, and cautioned, “Watch out, Miss Cohen. She likes to piss herself.”
“Come again?”
“Poor things like an untrained puppy,” said Lohan, “she wet the car seat and got it all over Pete’s pants leg.”
We heard Cohen laugh out loud as we came into the front office. Drake had the driver’s gun and I had mine. I picked up a paperweight and threw it.
“That must be Dmitri. Go see what he wants,” Maria said and the mug named Pete turned and went out the door only to back up with his hands in the air.
“Pete, what is it?” Cohen called out.
“Visitors,” he said, not turning away from the gun pointed at him.
I reached out and took the gun from his pocket, and said, “Back up all the way to the window.” He kept going, his eyes darting to his buddy standing off to the side.
Drake came in behind me and I swung my rod around, keeping the Russian from going for his. I stepped over to him but when I went to search him, he swung on me and I put a bullet in his belly. He went down with a groan, bloodying the carpet and I searched him that way, gettin’ a .38 snubnose and his straight razor from his pockets. He had more toys: pepper spray, brass knuckles, and a short cudgel. “You’re fulla surprise, ain’tcha? You need all this to kidnap a woman? You must not be so tough.” I threw his paraphernalia to the floor in the middle of the room. “Anybody wanna go for a party favor is welcome to try,” I said.
I glanced at the woman trembling on the loveseat, the dark stain spreading beneath her.
“This your girl, Drake?”
Sarah wore a flimsy peasant dress that was now soiled and torn.
“Sarah, are you all right? Did they hurt you in any way?” he asked, going to her and bringing her to her bare feet.
“I’m all right—just frightened.”
“That’s perfectly natural,” he said, putting his jacket around her shoulders. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“Where the hell is Dmitri?” Cohen complained.
“He’s enjoyin’ a nap—with his eyes open,” I said, still holding the rod on them as I collected the hardware from the floor and pocketing it. “I wouldn’t ya to go an’ hurt yourselves,” I said as Drake led the girl out of the office.
“You sure the mug downstairs is still in that trance you put him in?” I said as we rode in the elevator.
“He may grow old and die there, unless I tell him otherwise,” he said.
I wagged my head in wonder, and said, “That sure is a neat trick.”
We got to the lobby and went out to the street, and sure enough the guy was still there, sitting behind the wheel of the limo, flat and all.
Drake took Sarah in his car while I hopped in mine.
I was glad the girls were home when I got there. They had changed out of their clothes into Victoria’s Secret and were in our bedroom. We had a fully stocked bar in the bedroom and Olivia had mixed up a pitcher of cocktails and they had been drinking quite a bit by the time I walked in and flopped down in the easy chair and loosened my tie.
Nicky poured me a tall one and brought it over.
She hadn’t any clothes of her own and Olivia had loaned her some designer wrap dress to wear to dinner. Now she wore a yellow stretch lace babydoll with nothing underneath and I wasn’t surprised that a girl built like a toothpick could have such big olives, because my wife had the same body type. Nicky stood there letting my eyes linger on her scarlet slit while I took a long pull from the glass and lowered it, still thirsty.
Olivia was wearing a sheer pink teddy, sitting cross-legged on the bed, long gams looking like a cloverleaf turnpike.
I leaned back and let my feet land on the ottoman. Nicky brought the pitcher back to the bar, then knelt in front of me and removed my heavy brogues.
“Did you see Lindsay?” she asked shyly, like she feared hearing the answer.
“Sure I did, but we didn’t have a chance to get acquainted,” I said, looking down at the unruly brunette mop. “She was with Cohen.”
“What did you talk about?” she continued.
“Not much. They had a couple of clowns with them and I had another matter to take care of right at that moment. I’m pretty sure we’ll meet again, since she seems to have an investment in the matter at hand. I don’t know what that is, but I have every intention of finding out and I like to make good on my intentions.”
Her eyes sparkled as she rose to her feet again and she went and grabbed the pitcher, came back and poured more alcohol into my glass.
Olivia held out her glass and Nicky filled that too, then she poured some into her own glass. We drank in silence for a few minutes until Olivia unfolded her legs, and stretching her arms over her head, slurred, “I think I’m drunk.”
Nicky was at the bar mixing another batch of cocktails, stirring the pitcher with a long swizzle stick, the plump backside wriggling and bouncing as she spun the stick
“Unless Lohan flies back to lala land,” I said, tipsily starting a sentence in the middle and letting it go nowhere.
Olivia crawled onto her hands and knees and pulled back the coverlet, climbing under it, and saying, “Yous can keep drinkin’ but turn out the light. I’m goin’ to bed.”
“Come on, Nicky,” I said. “We’ll go into the study. Bring the pitcher.”
I waited for Nicky to brush past me out of the room then hit the switch.
In the study, Nicky set the pitcher on the glass coffee table and stretched her long limbs out on the sofa. I sat at the bar and knocked a fag out of the pack and lit up. I took a swig of my drink and let the taste of it mingle with the smoke.
“Let’s get down to terms, Nicky. This looks to be a complicated case and it’s already messy. Lindsay Lohan is in on it and I’ll have to do more snooping around to find out exactly what Cohen’s deal is. I don’t think you’ll be keepin’ her as your agent.”
I said this without looking at her and she mewed like a kitten, rolling over on the sofa so she was lying on her stomach, the pert buns rising.
“How much are you charging me to investigate?” she asked.
“Let’s see, I’m investigating your sister’s murder. That’s ten million bucks right out. Thing is, I’m pretty sure I’ll uncover more dirt on the way to gettin’ my hands on the triggerman. If it’s a conspiracy, which it looks like so far, that’s another dime. Let’s add another million for every dirt-bag I have to put down along the way. Are you agreeable to that? Can you have the first check in my account in the morning?”
“Ten million dollars. Okay, and the rest?”
“We’ll play it as it flies. Plus I’ll need a million a day for expenses.”
She closed her eyes to see the figures dancing in her head, then opened them wide and looked at me with a glow on her face, and said, “I’ll call my father and tell him to wire the money to your bank. I have the utmost faith in your abilities. That’s why I came to you in the first place. I knew you’d charge me up the Wahoo but I also knew that it’d be worth every dollar.”
“Yeh,” I said, taking a drag of my butt. “I’m gonna take ya to the fuckin’ cleaners, but I can guarantee you’ll be clean when I’m done with ya.”
“Oh, Mister Brady,” she squealed and leapt from the prone position and into my lap. She threw her arms around my neck and started peckin’ my face like a chick on a pile’a bread crumbs. “You’re my knight in shining armor!”
“Settle down, and get off me. I’m still wearin’ my gun an’ it might go off.”
She climbed down slowly until she was just standin’ there like a Barbie doll waitin’ for me to play with her.
“We’d better hit the sack,” I said, smashin’ my butt into the tray on the bar. “Who knows what tomorrow has in store and I wanna get an early start. Dough’s dough but some of us still have to work for it.”
Her eyes crossed at the mention of the word ‘work’ and she teetered on the balls of her feet as if she were gonna faint at the very thought. I figured I’d give her a hand and scooped her long frame up in my arms and carried her through the dark halls of the townhouse to the guestroom. She weighed nothin’ and all the while she was bussing me on the face with her puffy collagen injected lips, her scrawny arm wringin’ my neck like a bony nooses.
The following morning the money was in my account and Lindsay Lohan was holding a press conference. I was in the kitchen on my second cup of coffee when the phone rang. It was Drake.
“What’s up, doc?”
“Duke, the girl we rescued last night, Sarah Winooski told me that Cohen mentioned the boy she’s been seeing. A fellow named Richard Starkweather. It seems they were trying to get information out of her about him. Sarah has no idea why. There could be a connection between this fellow and Paris Hilton’s murder if Cohen is involved.”
I thought for a second, then said, “Sure, doc, there sure could be. I’ll look up this Starkweather and see if he has anything he wants to get off his chest. Thanks for the tip.”
I threw a tie around my neck and was knotting it when I heard bare feet shuffling in from the direction of the guestroom. Dragging her feet Nicky came into the kitchen, her arms dangling limply at her sides. Somewhere in the course of the night, she’d lost the babydoll and was naked and pale as milk.
“Morning, Nicky. I checked with the bank. You must have called your father in the middle of the night.”
She nodded sluggishly and said, “I couldn’t sleep. I called him and told him your terms.
He agreed and wired the money first thing. But now I’m exhausted. I feel like I could sleep all day.”
“Old habits die hard,” I said. “I’m headin’ out to the office. You can sack in if ya want. Nobody’ll bother ya.”
“What about your wife?”
“Don’t worry about her. She’ll be countin’ z’s for hours.
I’ve got the morning paper. Says here Lohan’s holding a press conference. She’s makin’ a picture here in the city and it says there’s been complaints she’s holding up production.”
I had the Times open in front of me on the kitchen counter and she came over, resting her tired head on my shoulder.
“What else does it say?” she asked and let out a yawn.
“Says she’s always late to the set—when she shows up at all. She’s holding the press conference to let everbody know why. It’s gotta be a load of malarkey.”
Nicky nodded and nearly fell asleep on my arm.
“Let’s get you back to bed,” I said. “I’ve got a lead to follow up on, but I wanna check this out. Time to go to work.”
She was asleep on her feet and I picked her up same as before and brought her to her room. I put her gently on the bed and drew the cover over her. She mewed and rolled over on her side, clutching the pillow like a kid with a teddy bear.

Lohan wasn’t modest, meager as her talents were and she made a big show of arriving at the office of her agent dressed in a designer gown like she was on the red carpet. The press was waiting, of course, with cameras and microphones in hand to catch the vent for the international news wires and any other rag that would give her the time of day. Lohan milked her stardom like a sacred cow and didn’t matter that the milk was curdled. I saw that the place was surrounded by cop, most of whom knew who I was. I found the detective lieutenant in charge of the detail and asked to be let through to get a bird’s eye view.
“Since when are you a celebrity gawker?” he asked, bemused.
“You know me better than that, Ryan. I’m working the Hilton case.”
His face darkened and he creased his forehead, saying, “You think this Lohan dame is involved in that?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I want to find out.”
“Well, she’s over there gettin’ her picture taken. You wanna start needlin’ her about in front’a all these snoops?”
“S’good as time as any,” I said.
“I dunno. The mayor might not look too kindly on it. He thinks this is good PR for the city.”
“If you end up havin’ to haul her in, that’ll be good PR too. It’ll show that you bulls don’t take any bull. You gonna let a skinny witch like that get away with showing herself off like a queen when she knows something about who bumped off Paris Hilton?”
He scratched his head and mulled it over. I’d known Ryan for and since his pension was practically already in his pocket, he said, “Okay. I’ll let you get up close,” then, more privately, “Just mingle with the paparazzi and worm your way up front.”
“Gotcha.”
Lohan wasn’t saying much, just twirling and smiling in front of the flashbulbs in a sheer loosefitting top that let her big tits swing freely out in the open and lifted with the breeze she made to show off her bald twat and pimply tail. I wasn’t subtle either, pushing my way through the mob until she saw me headin’ her way and made a dash for the building.
The flashbulbs kept goin’ off like a lightning storm, snoops and photographers yellin’ her name and the closer I came the quicker she tried to get away. Fortunately I thought to bring along a pocketful of marbles and tossed a handful at her feet as her high heels stumbled across the pavement. She let out a high pitched shriek as she took a spread eagled header, her legs flying wide apart and showing the world her bald cooch. It wasn’t the first time her shaved clam was front and center and the paparazzi went crazy. She tried climbing to her knees, but the marbles were all over the place and she stepped on the train of her gown, tearing it at the waist like a cheap rag and she went down on her face.
Lifting on all fours with the split of her ass smiling for all the cameras, the tattoo above her right cheek reading ‘La Bella Vita’, and I intended to keep her that way. She hadn’t thought to put face powder there and the spotty cheeks didn’t make for a pretty sight.
No one tried to help her as she went down again starting to crawl and turning red. I put out my hand and she leapt into my arms. Her face collided with mine and made it look like we were sucking face for the cameras, our lips crashing together so hard it nearly knocked our teeth out.
You,” she sneered.
“Who’d ya expect? Richie Starkweather?” I said.
She tried to pull away but I held her close, spinning around so the press boys could another few hundred photos of her spotty rear. I don’t know what Ryan thought of al this, but he must have saw his pension flying out the window. Suddenly there were shrill whistles blowing as the bulls moved in to break up the melee of photographers fighting to get the clearest picture. Then above the screaming noise I heard several pops and I pulled her to the sidewalk and dragged her by the russet hair through the scuffle.
“Somebody’s setting off fireworks!” she cried.
“Somebody’s takin’ shots,” I corrected, “and guess who they’re shootin’ at.”
“Oh my god!” she screamed and grabbed hold of my waist as I was able to come up on my feet and burst through to the street.
I heard detective Ryan holler, “Brady!”
I was already at the curb, tossed Lohan over my shoulder and usin’ her flacid ass like a luggage handles, dashed to the two-seater, threw her in and dived behind the wheel, gunned the engine and tore out the wrong way down the closed off one way street, smashed through the police barrier at the corner and kept goin’.
She managed to squirm upright in the low bucket seat and sat there flushed with sweat. I glanced into rear-view mirror and saw the XK8 on my tail then took a look at her. She was beet red, her gown torn completely off which meant she was naked. Apparently this girl didn’t own underwear.
“What the hell happened back there?” she demanded.
“Maria thought enough was enough and it’d be better just to take you out than have you go on a jag an’ start blabbin’ everything you know.”
She was impressed that somebody thought she knew anything and sat back in the seat thinking it over. She seemed more relaxed than she had been.
Realizing I suppose that I had saved her life, she sidled closer and cooed, “Say, we can, um, be friends, can’t we?”
“Quiet,” I said, keeping my eye on the mirror and the red Jaguar XK8 that was gaining on me in midtown traffic. I reached into my jacket and took the automatic from its holster.
“We’re being followed and there’s no way to shake them. They’ll most likely try to pull beside us and finish what they tried to start back there. These guys don’t appear to be too shy with their lead.”
“What—what—,” she stammered in surprise. “You think they would kill us right here—in the middle of Manhattan traffic?”
“If they’ve got diplomatic plates like your friends had yesterday, they don’t care if it makes the six ‘o’clock news, as you can attest to by what just went down. They couldn’t be arrested if they strangled you with their bare hands in front of the President.”
Her body’s flush went from deep red to chalk white and she stiffened, with fingers like a talon.
“You can’t let them kill me!”
“Quiet I said. I saved your neck, didn’t I? I wouldn’t let ‘em kill ya—if ya agree to play ball with me.”
“She threw her back against the seat and folded her arms over her fake chest, huffing, “I knew it. You only want me for my body like everybody else.”
I watched the XK8 weave around the slow moving city bus and in between the dozens of yellow cabs as it drew closer.
“What else have you got?” I said and held the gun just below the driver side window.
I took a sharp turn onto a narrow cobblestone street and the XK8 skidded making the turn after me. I tried to read the plates but there were none. I figured they’d put them on after just to make it look good in case the cops did get nosy. A guy leaned out the passenger side and took a random shot, I guess thinking the narrow alley was a good place to get a straight aim. He might have been right but at the next corner I veered to the left and sped straightaway along the avenue. I started weavin’ like a drunk and the Jag had to slow down to keep from crashing but it sped up when I stepped on the gas and raised a cloud of dust. I took a sharp right at the next corner and when the Jag came onto the street I was waiting. I filed the front windshield with lead and the driver staggered out of the heap with his guts in his hands.
The gunman flung his door open and tried to shoot it out but I had moved to his left and came up behind him blasting him in the seat of his pants and he dropped, a cripple with a shattered lower back. I pounced and kicked his gun away and lifted him by his collar throwing him against the brick wall.
“Who sent ya?” I spat.
He muttered something in Russian and slid down the wall like a wet stain.
“Okay, that tells me who sent ya,” I said, more to myself, as he was a corpse.
I left him there, not caring about leaving a dead body lying on the sidewalk and went back to my car. It bugged me that these characters thought they could go about the business of murder without anybody blinking an eye.
Lindsay had gotten out of the car. I was glad of that because she stank and now I’d have to have the leather fumigated. I’d tally that up to expenses. It was a Maserati after all and it’d be an expensive job to get her heady funk out of it.
She was standing next to the car, unembarrassed by her nakedness, her dark brown hair a tangled nest of sweat and dust.
“What now, Mr. Private Eye?”
“We go see a friend of mine. You met him the other night. He’ll want to have a heart to heart with you about the company you’ve been keeping.”
Drake knew we’d be coming and was waiting in his office.
“Here she is, doc. Miss Lindsay Lohan—the movie star,” I said.
It came across as a joke; the sad part being that it wasn’t. This was what Hollywood had come down to promoting as talent, a woman who couldn’t sell tickets to her own execution. She’d tried that—it’d bombed.
“Won’t you sit down, Miss Lohan,” drake said politely, ushering her to his analysis couch. “I know you’re very busy.”
“She’s not busy, doc. If she weren’t here, she’d be runnin’ for her life—an’ not gettin’ very far. Siddown, Lindsay. Let’s get to it.”
Drake packed a pipe with aromatic tobacco and leaned back against his desk. The smoke from his pipe smelled so good I lit up a Lucky. Lindsay didn’t have her Shermans, didn’t have anything and looked at me pleadingly, her pupils dilated in eyes that were gray slits, her lashes crooked. I handed her a smoke and lit it for her. He didn’t bother to ask why she was naked and I didn’t offer an explanation, but he couldn’t help but mention her pungent odor.
“Duke, she smells like something gone bad,” he said.
“I know, doc. I’ll throw her in the shower later. Right now I just need her to answer some questions.”
She didn’t try to cover herself and we didn’t care. She wasn’t anything to look at in glad rags or out and Drake didn’t need to look at her, he only needed to talk to her.
“Lindsay, I want you to relax. I want to you tell me everything you know about the murder of Paris Hilton. I’m not the police so you have nothing to be afraid of. I’m only a psychiatrist that wants to help you help yourself. The more you can confess to me, the better you’ll feel. You’ll feel as if a load is lifting. You needn’t carry the burden of guilty knowledge around with you. Talk to me, Lindsay. Tell me everything you know,” he said, in a firm, quiet voice.
I wondered about that last bit. ‘Everything she knows’. This wasn’t gonna take long.
Her false eyelashes fluttered and one fell off as her head became heavy and lolled. She lie back using her big mound of hair as a pillow and her whole body twitched and trembled like a dog that’s dreamin’ of runnin’ through the fields.
“Lindsay, are you seeing something in your mind’s eye that you want to tell me about?” he said, the room fillin’ with tobacco smoke. “Lindsay?”
“Maria—has a list…names…Scarlett…Hilary…Naomi…Nicole…Paris…”
“These dames have last names or is it just a list of generic bimbos?” I said frustrated by the lack of specifics so far.
“Quiet, Duke,” he said, “We’ll find out right now. Were there last names on the list, Lindsay?”
“Johansson…Duff…Watts…Kidman…”
“Hollywood actresses?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what Maria was going to do with the list, Lindsay?”
She wagged her head and said, “Kill them all…make a big name as their agent…I would be the only one left…biggest movie star of all time…bigger than…Marilyn…otherwise I’d always be in their shadow…it was Britney’s idea…to get attention away from how fat she’s getting…the others are so skinny…like me…”
“Duke, this sounds like vast conspiracy in the very bowels of Hollywood. Who is this Britney?” he asked her.
“Spears,” she said, surly as if he should’ve known, but still in the hypnotic trance.
“Sounds like Britney Spears wanted to bump off all the good lookin’ babes so she and Lindsay here could have the spotlight to themselves, doc.”
“That’s what it sounds like to me too, but how could they think they could pull something like off?”
“Easy,” I said, goin’ to his desk and smashin’ my butt in the silver ashtray he had there. “They had one of the top agents in the business in on it with them. They could’ve bumped these gals off in their sleep but they wanted to make a spectacle of it—generate publicity. That couldn’t have been the whole list. Any two-bit wannabe with a karaoke machine could have outshone this one. Think models, singers, and actresses. This one’s a no talent piece’a dirt. Spears is card carryin’ trailer trash. They’d have to kill every woman in the world—and they’d have tried. The mugs I’ve been tanglin’ with have been driving with DPL plates an’ speakin’ what sounds like Russian.”
“Do you think it’s the Russian mafia?” he asked gravely.
“That or the Russian government—one in the same, but if it were the Reds, I’d have our feds breathin’ down my neck an’ they haven’t shown their faces.”
“So you think it’s the Russian mafia.”
“I don’t know what to think, doc, an’ I’m not gettin’ paid to think. I’m only gettin’ a few million to figure out who pulled the trigger on Paris Hilton. That’s not enough to make me want to put the kibosh on a Hollywood conspiracy,” I said and lit another smoke.
Drake took the burning stub from Lindsay’s fingers and snuffed it in the tray.
“Wake her up, doc. I’ve got to bring her home with me. The only way to protect someone this stupid is to treat ‘em like a house pet.”
“And what exactly is it that you’re protecting her from?”
“Her own stupidity. I ought’a get paid double.”
“I told Sarah that you wanted to talk to Richie and she gave me his address. She’s extremely grateful to you for saving her life, but keep in mind, the boy lives with his mother. You’ll have to tread lightly.”
“Look, Drake, if the guy’s the shooter, I may have to tread lightly all over his skull.”
“Yes, I know but I’m thinking more about Sarah. She’s in a fragile state right now and Richie’s guilt would devastate her.”
“Uh-huh. She seemed like a gal, doc,” I said, nodding, “She ought’a run with a better class’a people.”
“They’re both in the theater and unfortunately, being overly needy and love-starved goes with the territory.”
“So does being as dumb as a paper napkin, but okay, Drake. I’ll go easy on ‘im, but if he’s enrolled in the school of hard knocks, he’s about to go to the head of the class.”
“I understand perfectly. Here, I’ll wake her up,” he said and snapped his fingers.
Lohan sat up shaking her head like it had been underwater.
“What happened?” she promptly puzzled.
Drake relit his pipe and answered calmly, “You took a nap.”
She looked down at her bare body and then up at us.
“I knew you were like all the rest. Not that I care, but what did you two do to me while I was passed out? I just wanna know in case I have to see a doctor about it later.”
“We didn’t touch ya, ya tramp. Now get on yer feet. I’m takin’ ya home where I can keep an eye on ya.”
I had let Cohen live to fight another day but seeing the Russian slob take a slug in the belly left her with an uncontrollable bladder problem, compounded by the yeast infection she already had. She was squirming like crazy over lunch with her sister as they sat in an upscale bistro and had to get up every five minutes and run to the ladies room.
“Maria, what is the matter with you?” her sister, a journalist for The New York Times asked when the high powered agent returned to the table and sat, wriggling into her seat like she was trying to get comfortable in the electric chair.
“I’m upset over something—that happened in the office,” she said, not wanting to reveal anything too damning.
The sister, not her real sister but an adopted sibling, touched Maria’s fidgeting hands to calm her. They hadn’t seen one another in years and only recently got together again after Patricia moved to the city with a cush job at the paper of record.
“Come on, Maria. I know you too well. What’s go you so on edge?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Maria stated bluntly.
Patricia sat back and examined her sister’s face. Maria bit her lip, tapped her fingers on the table and watched the room with roving eyes.
“Okay, then. Let’s order lunch,” Pat said and Maria tried to relax, but there was no way.
She had made a phone call earlier in the day and learned that Lohan had escaped the attempt on her life. She was nervous. She didn’t know what would happen next.
Hilary and Haylie Duff were at the same bistro and when the teen queen saw Cohen she rushed agent’s table with her wide mouth open like the Grand Canyon with teeth.
“Maria!” Duff shouted.
Everyone in the restaurant turned and Maria nearly crawled under the table.
The guy was standing near the door. No one had seen him come in, in the midst of the celebrity sighting. He wore a black suit and sunglasses and black leather gloves. The Beretta slipped into his fingers like he was checking his watch and the shots fired so quickly no one saw where they came from. Duff’s eyes opened and glittered like bright stars before they went dark and she crumpled to the floor. Maria jumped to her feet. Haylie screamed and another shot cracked and Maria dived. Patricia tried to gauge where the bullets were coming from but the well-heeled crowd was already up and stampeding towards the restaurant’s back door. The guy slipped back onto the street and vanished. Patricia, on her hands and knees got on her cell and put in a call to the Times.
“Second sexy celebrity ex’ed—who’s next?” she said, relaying the headline that would come screaming from the front page of the paper’s evening edition.
Nicky and Lohan sat glaring at one another without saying anything. Neither had a stitch of clothing on. I poured a tall glass of whisky and Olivia turned up the volume on the sixty-inch flat screen to drown out the deafening silence.
“This just in—acclaimed teenage actress Hilary Duff and her sister have been gunned down and killed. The two young women were having lunch at Alfredo’s in SoHo when Hilary reportedly spotted talent agent Maria Cohen. The Duff sisters were hurrying to greet Cohen at the agent’s table when the slugs started to fly. Hilary was struck twice in the chest. Her sister was struck by a third shot, but the bullet was stopped by her double-D silicone breast implant and she is expected to survive. Hilary, whose implants were only a size C, died instantly.”
“So they got Hilary,” Lohan muttered.
“And Maria was there when they did it,” Nicky added, as if they had only one thought between them.
“Olivia, make sure these two don’t go anywhere. I’ve gotta go see a man about a murder.”
“Okay, Duke,” my wife said, parked atop a barstool.
“And you know what to do if they try anything.”
“Sure I do,” she said and patted the bar top, beneath was hidden her .32 Smith & Wesson.
I didn’t think there’d be any trouble, straightened my tie and left the wayward star and celebutante in my wife’s hands. Drake said Starkweather still lived with his mother so I did the math. If he was twenty, that made her forty-something, and she put up with a loser like that it didn’t make her a winner. I hopped in the Maserati and took off from the garage, almost hitting the paunchy blonde.
“Now who the hell is this?” I asked myself as she waved her arms to get me to stop, which I did because she was right in my way. I leaned my head out the window and yelled at her, “Step aside, butterball! You’re in a No Standing Zone!”
Instead of movin’ along, she ran up to the car in a panic.
“They’re after me! You’ve got to help me!” she panted.
I got from her bare feet that she’d kicked off her high heels. I’d seen it before and knew it was so she could run faster. Someone really was after her and when the metallic Midnight Blue Jaguar XK8 convertible came tearing around the block I knew for sure.
“Get in,” I said quickly and flung open the passenger side door.
She jumped in practically takin’ up both seats with her tubby ass. I didn’t have time to tell her to move over, steppin’ on the gas and plowin’ straight ahead. The Jag and I both stopped on a dime as I hit the automatic switch to open the sunroof, stood and drew, firing into its windshield. The tinted glass shattered to pieces and the driver’s head burst like a balloon full of blood. The person beside him ducked, so I fired into the grill popping the fuel line and rocking the car off its wheels with the fiery explosion.
The Jag burned into an ugly piece of black toast as I dropped back behind the wheel and poked the automatic between the perky twin peaks.
“Start talkin’ or start walkin’,” I said, singing her heaving chest with the .45’s hot muzzle.
“I’m Britney Spears!” she gasped, taken aback by my apparent willingness to waste her on the spot.
“Sure you are,” I said, not sure at all.
“I’ll prove it! You wanna see my tattoos?”
She must’ve been a contortionist besides whatever else she was because in a two-seater it couldn’t have been easy to turn her tail up like that and lift her leopard print miniskirt over cheeks the size of the Himalayas. The colorful ink looked like a two-page spread of the Sunday funnies and I got the idea.
“Okay, sit your fat ass back down. I believe ya,” I said, not knowin’ if I even did, but I wanted that funky stained hole out of my face in a hurry.
She squeezed back into the leather bucket and grinned at me with an evil glint in her glassy eyes. I hadn’t had time to air out the heap from the last hairy tail and the damned thing was smellin’ like a low rent cathouse. If this was Britney Spears, I had lucked out, after a fashion.
“Who was in that Jag?” I said, not takin’ the gun off her.
“I think it was my husband.”
“You think?”
The question sounded simple but the answer was more complicated than I could’ve imagined.
“We got divorced. Don’t you read the news?”
“You call that news?”
“I kicked his lazy ass to the curb a few months ago. My lawyer set it up so the bastard would only walk away with the sweaty-ass shirt on his back—not sweaty from work, mind you—sweaty from fucking some dirty skank.”
“What does that make you?”
“Still rich!” she crowed. “But since the stupid piece of shit is the father of my damned kids, if I fucking died the stupid asshole would still be able to get his goddamned hands on my fucking money. Gotta cig?”
“Here’s another question for ya, ya goddamned human sewer—do you know who the fuck I am?”
“Um—,” she said as she bit her lip and her hand slid across my lap. “No.”
“I’m the guy kickin’ your ass out’a this car.”
“What!” She reared back, maybe instinctively and tore the top of the flimsy dress off, her bulbous tits shakin’ like Jell-o. “You mean you don’t want some’a this? You know how much these mothafuckin’ tits are worth, mothafucka?”
“They’re depreciating fast, bitch. You’d better shove off before another Jag comes along. Next time I won’t be so gallant.”
“You would let them kill me!” she shrieked.
“That’s nothin’ compared to what you would let them do to you. Beat it, I said.”
“Now you know you didn’t say that—but if you want me to beat it—,” she purred, her mangy paws going for my zipper.
“Okay,” I said and tucked my gun away.
“Okay?” she cooed, lowering her head below the dash.
I hit the gas and sped full throttle, passin’ the smolderin’ remains of the Jag and took the corner with a screaming turn. I ducked aside as the dirty bottoms of her feet flew up and she was gone. I reached over and shut the passenger door and kept on goin’. I checked the rear-view mirror and saw her looking as at home as I’d ever seen anyone lying flat on their back in the gutter.
I was driving to Yonkers when the phone hummed in my pocket and I plugged it into the dash and put it on speaker. The display lit up and I saw that it was Olivia calling me from home.
“Yeh, babe, what goes on?” I said.
Her voice was urgent and high pitched, saying, “Duke! There’s bulls everywhere! I didn’t talk to ‘em ‘til Ryan showed.”
I knew it had something to do with the wrecked Jag and answered like I didn’t have a clue.
“What gives with that?”
“He says that they got a call from Britney Spears. She reported that you tried to rape her and killed her husband when he tried to come to her rescue.”
“Ryan knows that’s a lot of malarkey,” I said, keepin’ my eyes on the road as I approached the bridge.
“He knows it, but he says she’s gonna make a stink about it. It’s gonna hit the news tonight along with shooting of Hilary Duff. He thinks whoever’s behind it’s gonna try to get you mixed up in it. He knows about you and Lindsay Lohan.”
“Sure he does. I saw him just this morning. He knows I saved her neck.”
“But what’s all this about you and Britney Spears?”
“It’s a frame is what it is, but I can’t deal with that right now. I’ll clear it al up later, after I wrap up the whole mess.”
“Mess is right. I think the bulls are gonna hang around on the street until you show an’ then try to put the pinch on ya. You better figure a way to do it all on the QT. Ryan’s got your back but there’s only so much he can do with Spears squawkin’ to the press.”
“I getcha. Okay, I’ll try to lay low so they don’t go crazy snoopin’ around the townhouse. Are the girls okay?”
“Nicky’s worried about ya. She thinks it’s all her fault. Lindsay is terrified ‘cause she knows if she walks outa here, somebody’s gotta a slug with her name on it.”
“That’s the fact. Sounds like they’ve got their priorities straight. I’ll be in touch.”
“Okay, honey—now don’t go gettin’ locked up.”
“Don’t worry. It’ll all come out in the wash.”
“But—,” she was sayin’, worryin’ nonetheless.
I figured that’s what wives are for and told her again to sit tight and let me handle things my way. She knew that meant she’d better keep her head low. Smart girl, the missus.
The Starkweather place was a Tudor with a lot of acreage around it. It was barely minutes out of the city but you’da thought the place was on the frontier. Other similar houses faced away from it and on a low hill were pricier spreads with porticos and twin swimming pools.
I pulled into the driveway that abutted what appeared to be the laundry room that had its own door. That was where I went and knocked hard, lit a smoke and waited for someone to answer. I figured it’d be his mom since Drake had told me the set up.
It sounded like someone was folding laundry inside and when the sound stopped, feet shuffled towards the door. The door opened and a woman of about forty-five stood there wearing a flower print housedress, apron and pink fuzzy house slippers. Her hair was in rollers and her face was plain with a pallid complexion and no make-up except for the ruby red lipstick that was out of place with the rest of the drab get up. Her eyes adjusted to the sunset and a light came on over the door.
“Yes?” she said.
“Mrs. Starkweather?” I said.
“Yes?” she replied without altering her tone.
“Name’s Brady,” I said, and flashed my gold buzzer. “I’m a private eye. I’d like to have a word with your son.”
“Richie?” she replied, her voice strong but lilting and sonorous.
“That’s right. Is he here?”
“Yes, he’s in his room. But what’s this about? Has he done something?”
I shrugged and dropped the cigarette at my feet and crushed it.
“He’s an actor, right?”
She smirked and stepped aside to let me in. I guessed she had a sense of humor about that.
“He’s been going out to auditions, if that’s what you mean.”
She pulled a pack of Camels from her apron pocket and I lit her. She leaned back against the humming washing machine, raised her head as if reflecting and casually puffed.
“He’s been seeing a woman named Sarah Winooski and maybe keepin’ time with a big shot talent agent named Maria Cohen, so he may be on the way to doin’ rather well.”
She lowered her eyes to meet my gaze, the humor suddenly gone out of them.
“Woman?” she retorted sharply.
“You didn’t know about that?”
“No,” she replied flatly.
She dropped her cig to the cement floor of the laundry room and smashed it with the soft bottom of her slipper. She straightened her back and marched past me into the house. “Follow me, Mister Brady. We’ll find out about this Winooski woman together.”
I got that the guy was in Dutch but didn’t get why his mom would take it so hard that he had an active love life. Maybe I didn’t wanna get it. That kinda thing was Drake’s department.
“Richie!” she hollered up the dark stairs. She waited a minute or two but there was no answer.
“Maybe he’s not here,” I said, trying to lessen the maternal ire.
“Oh, he’s here,” she snarled.
Ryan had his hands full conducting multiple investigations, with the brass breathing down his neck. The commissioner had issued an official statement to the press stating that there would be no official statements to the press. That left the weary detective chasing his tail and wagging it at the same time. Duff’s life story was being told on entertainment news shows twenty-fours and replayed because there was actually so little life to tell about. The conspiracy to murder young female stars circulated as a rumor while being denied as truth, but the truth was—it was true. No one was offering answers, as those who had any weren’t talking for fear of their own lives.
City Hall’s press liaison was a twenty-year-old named Donna Andover. She was the mayor’s niece and when she came into Ryan’s office the salty bull was glad to see her. He had run out of hands to hold phones to his ears and ears to hold the phones to. He pointed to a battery of jangling receivers and she hopped on the edge of the desk and began helping him field calls, some from obvious cranks, others from the press, still others from worried parents of the city’s thousands of wannabe actresses, singers and models.
“City Hall,” she said, taking one call after another in lightning succession, “I’m sorry we can’t give a statement on an ongoing investigation—City Hall, the investigation is ongoing, you’ll be informed of any progress—City Hall, the police are pursuing every possible lead—City Hall, the police are doing everything they can—City Hall,” she continued in rapid fire vagaries.
Ryan watched the girl fidget and shift her body as she reached across the desk, snatched up one receiver, spit out the rote reply to the same question, press a flashing red button and repeat the same words in seemingly endless variations. He was exasperated but the sight of the perky yuppie bureaucrat’s figure brought a smile to his grizzled face and noticing, she deliberately hiked her short tweed skirt above her muscular thigh to give the old dog a rise.
Her stocking feet jumped out of her stilettos and she bolted upright and stuck for words for the first time, stuttered, “D—Duke Brady? Y—yes, he—,” she looked helplessly over to Ryan, who slammed the two phones he held into their cradles and jumped from his desk.
Grabbing the phone from her manicured fingers, he shouted into the receiver, “Brady?”
“Good to hear your voice too, Ryan,” I said. “We’ve got a problem on our hands.”
“No shit, Sherlock. What is it this time?”
“The guy I had pegged as the frontrunner for the shooter that bumped Paris Hilton bumped himself. I drove out to Yonkers to have a talk with him and his mother and I just found him swinging from his necktie in his bedroom.”
“Suicide?”
“That’s what it looks like, which makes me think it ain’t. The bedroom window’s wide open and there’s a typed note that says, ‘I shot Paris Hilton’. It’s signed by the guy and damn near notarized.
“Son of a—,” he wheezed. “Look Brady, give me the address and I’ll send Miller with a detail over there. You’d better clear out though. That stupid pop singer is still makin’ all kinds’a noise an’ they’d have to arrest ya just to make it look good.”
“Gotcha,” I said, and hung up the phone.
I turned to Starkweather’s distressed mother and said, “He’s sendin’ Captain Miller over. She’s a good egg what likes to get the job done. You’ll be in good hands.”
“I’d rather be in—your hands,” she purred, her eyelids heavy.
“We’ll see what we can do about that.” She put a cigarette in her lips and I lit her, then handed her my card. “Come by my office in the morning.”
She lifted the card from my fingers and paused worrisomely, saying, “What if whoever did this to Richie comes back?”
“The police will be here.”
She came closer and breathed on me, her lipstick cracking, and said huskily, “Will they watch over me?”
“I’ve known Miller for years. She’ll watch over ya like a mother cat watches over her kittens.”
That may’ve sounded good but given that her kid was dangling like mistletoe, she needed some extra assurance. She came closer, the breath hotter, cigarette smoke trailing from between her lips like smoke signals. I took her in my arms and held her. She felt good, warm and solid. Our lips met and she wasn’t a doting mother anymore, only a frightened woman that needed to be comforted. That was one of my specialties. I hadn’t practiced it in a while and it was good to know that I hadn’t grown rusty. She wasn’t rusty either, quivering like a teenager and her arms went around my neck and our tongues danced around like a couple’a ballroom dancers. She rose up on one foot and the fuzzy slipper dropped to the floor.
Police sirens were whining in the distance and I pushed her back on her heels, saying, “That’s the bulls. Things will get complicated if they find me here. I’ll go out the window.”
“Oh,” she sighed, patting her rollers. Her lipstick was smeared and housedress was drenched with sweat. I kissed her again and took the air into the darkness behind the house.
I had to go around to get to my car saw the headlights of the Jag go up. I climbed into my heap and started the engine. The Jag’s engine started at the same time and I thought, okay, so let the bulls arrest me. I hit the accelerator and tore from the driveway in reverse and didn’t slow down as the driver of the Jag hit the gas and tried to avoid my tail but I was in front of him now and he had to switch gears and moved in reverse. I spun my wheel and went right at him. The driver hit the brake and rolled down his window, but I was already standing up in my sunroof and fired into him at the first glint of the gun of his hand. I heard the guy scream and his foot fell on the accelerator like a lead weight and the car sped ahead blindly. He wasn’t steering and the XK8 swerved out of control, plowing into the neighbor’s Tudor across the road, smashing through the wall and stopping with a hiss of smoke.
Starkweather’s mother came running out of the house as I came from my car, holding two handfuls of forty-five. She ran beside me and we watched the neighbor’s lights go up. I told her to hang back while I went to inspect the damage. The neighbor was a young guy in a silk bathrobe and came out meet me. He looked tee’d off but when saw the guns in my hand, he went pale and decided to wait for an explanation. He also heard the sirens as they drew closer and that relieved him somewhat.
“You a detective?” he asked, not wanting to get blown away for being curious.
“Yeh,” I said. “She’ll vouch for me,” I added, throwing my chin over my shoulder.
He saw Starkweather’s mother standing in the road beside my car and nodded his approval.
“If Caroline says you’re okay, you must be.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. Let’s have a look at whose gonna make your insurance go up,” I said and together we went inside where the front end of the jag had destroyed his window and broke down his wall like a set of kid’s building blocks.
He’d switched on a table lamp on the other side of the room and watched my face grimace with recognition.
“You know him?”
“We met once before,” I said. The face of the jag’s driver was ripped apart by slugs and broken glass but it was the thug from Cohen’s office all right.
The squad cars screeched to a stop on the street and when the homeowner and I came back outside, Caroline Starkweather was surrounded by plainclothes detectives and uniformed bulls. Miller in her tailored men’s suit found me and put her hands on her big hips.
“My name’s Utrillo,” the neighbor said to the stout female dick.
“Good for you,” she said, and looked back at the trembling woman wearing one slipper standing in the street on one foot. “Duke, I’d ask you to spell all this out for me, but I’ve already got a headache. Ryan said you had a hanging stiff. Where’s that?”
“In the house across the street,” I said, “her house. It’s her son. He’s up in the bedroom.”
“You didn’t touch him?”
“Never laid a finger on him. You might get prints unless whoever did him wore gloves, but if you do, you might match ‘em to the stiff in the Jag.”
“Uh-huh,” she said cynically. “Ryan told me you were gonna be scarce by the time we got here, but I shoulda known you’d rack up another stiff for good measure.”
I didn’t answer and Caroline Starkweather hustled over and leaned close in on me.
“Caroline, this is captain detective Miller. She’ll take things from here.”
“Pleased to meet you,” the woman said like we were at a tea party.
“Pleasure, I’m sure,” Miller sneered.
She looked over at a bull that was standing by and said, “Get the statement,” meaning Utrillo’s. “You know the score, Brady. Beat it or I’ll hafta run ya in.”
“So I heard,” I said, figuring it a good time to call it a day.
When I got home, Olivia had dipped into her collection of Victoria’s Secret babydoll nighties again and come up with a red flyaway number with a satin bow for Lindsay to wear. She was wearing a pink halter number and Nicky had on pleated pink tricot. None of them were wearing the matching panties. They all needed a shave. The maid was back on duty, flouncing around in the black lace doily she called a uniform. I pulled off my tie at the entrance to the study as she brought me a drink.
“Oh, Monsieur Brady, I am so ‘appy that you are not injured—or dead, or in jail, or—,” she burbled.
“I get it, Fifi. It’s good to see you too. All of you—and I mean it.”
The three girls were huddled under the big screen watching the oversize face of Spears as she made a show of holding back nonexistent tears.
“What goes?” I said, taking my spot in the easy chair.
“Britney Spears is tellin’ Diane Sawyer about what you did to her and how you blasted k-fed.”
“What’d she say I did to her?” I asked, only mildly curious.
“Shh! She’s gettin’ to the part now,” said Nicky, rapt.
“He—he—tore my dress off and said if I didn’t—you know—put his thingy in my mouth he was going to kill me!”
“And did you put his—thingy—in your mouth?” the reporter asked as if she were talking about world peace.
“Well, duh! What was I supposed to do? He had a gun on me!”
“Oh, my,” the talking head gasped, “And where was k-fed?”
“He was coming to rescue me, but then—,” Spears stopped, trying to come up with an angle, since her story didn’t make any sense to begin with. “Um—when Duke Brady saw that—he, uh, he, er,” she stammered, and figured it best just to break down and bawl.
“There you have it,” sawyer said, facing the camera. “Two men dead and a pop princess traumatized by a man many call a vicious gun for hire. Duke Brady, private investigator.”
“Duke! That’s slander!” Nicky cried.
“I’ve been called worse. Don’t get your pubes in a knot. She’s not doing herself any favors. This will help me connect the dots between her and Maria Cohen.”
I took a swig of whisky and hoped I was right.
Starkweather’s murder made the late news as a possible suicide with the Jag reported as a separate story. Drake was home at his desk when the phone rang around midnight.
“Hello?”
“Doctor Drake, it’s Sarah Winooski. I just saw the news.”
She had tears in her voice and Drake set aside the textbook he was reading.
“What’s that, Sarah? I haven’t seen the news. I’ve been working—,” he thought it best not to tell her what he was working on.
“Richie’s dead. They say he hung himself,” she whined. “It’s all my fault!”
“There’s no reason to blame yourself, Sarah. Richie obviously had problems you knew nothing about,” he said, not talking about psychology. He meant the kind of people the guy was mixed up with. Miller had suppressed the note, which would have pointed to an obvious set up, wanting whoever had arranged the killing to think they had gotten away with it. That didn’t help Winooski’s state of mind any. All she knew was that the poor sap was dead.
“But Doctor Drake, Richie is dead because of me!”
“Blaming yourself won’t bring Richie back,” he tried, knowing how lame that sounded, and sighed, “Will you be alright? Alone, I mean, tonight?”
“Every time I close my eyes, I see his face—like he’s calling out to me,” she said with a snivel.
Sensing that she was on the verge of a breakdown, he decided he’d have to make an emergency house call. At the very least, he could hypnotize her into gettin’ a night’s sleep. At worst if she were too agitated to go under, he’d have to stay with her the whole night just to make sure she were alive, or something close to sane, when the sun came up in the morning.
“Make some coffee,” he said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“All right. I will,” she said softly and he dropped the receiver back into its cradle.
Not wanting to wake up his wife who was sound asleep with the news, he wrote a note and left it on his desk. He put his jacket on and quietly left the penthouse. He left the Mercedes in its spot in the garage and took the white beemer instead. He wanted to be as conspicuous as possible in case any questions came up as to his late-night visit to the woman’s apartment.
Being cautious in my own way, I put Lindsay up in a second guestroom and locked the door from the outside, in effect making her a prisoner.
“There’s a shower in there. Wash your ass!” I shouted through the door.
I’d worry about the possible kidnapping charges later.
Drake wasn’t the only on working at that hour on saving a life. Miller had taken the assignment of guarding the luxury hotel suite of Jennifer Lopez, in town for a premiere. Lopez had heard about Hilary Duff catching a couple slugs at the restaurant earlier and postponed her own meeting with Cohen set for the next day. Lopez was scared shitless, her entourage armed, and for good measure undercover Detectives were staking out the building. The Captain was conspicuous because she was the best looking broad of the bunch, and she tried to stay from the bunch, pretending not to notice the wheelbarrows of coke disappearing loudly up their bleeding, hemorrhaged noses. The high-end champagne flowed like water and tasted like it too. IDs were being checked and big bills exchanging hands for unspecified reasons. It was after midnight and the party was just gettin’ started. Miller strolled the halls checking the fire exits, the laughing, screaming drunks going from room to room. A big-breasted Latina came staggering along the corridor and she recognized the face, without make-up it was decidedly plain and the woman spotted the female dick through bleary uncomprehending eyes.
Miller stopped and waited for her to get closer. The woman wore a sequin halter dress with its straps undone, struggling to keep the flimsy material up and failing. The top sagged and slipped from her fingers and the breasts were on display.
“Can you help me with my dress?” the woman slurred and Miller looked around someone who’d actually be willing to put their’ hands on her. Seeing no one to fit the bill, Sophie decided what the hell, and said, “Sure.”
The woman slouched forward and fell into her arms, the weight almost too much and Sophie moved aside and let the gal land on her face on the hall carpet. The bullet hole in the woman’s back was neat, clean shot between the shoulder blades. Miller got on her radio and called to guys, “get the paramedics up the fortieth floor. I think we’ve got a stiff.”
She knelt beside the splayed figure and examined the wound. The blood had trickled down to the small of the back and filled the crack of the high round ass. The hole looked like to have been made by a twenty-two at close range.
“Dammit,” the detective cursed between her teeth. She had been assigned to guard JLo without ever having met her and now the popular celebrity was not only dead drunk, she was just plain dead. With that realization, Miller decided too that the party was over.
She got to her feet and began knocking on doors, banging on them when the noise drowned out the sound of her fist.
One door flew open and the guy in the dark shades shoved her aside and ran toward the fire exit.
“Stop! Police!” Sophie shouted, gettin’ her footing and drawing her weapon.
The guy hurled himself through the door tripping the alarm and the hall filled with the deafening ringing whine. “Stop!” Miller shouted, but the alarm was louder, so she took up the chase. The guy was making the steps by leaps and Sophie barely caught a glimpse of his dark suit as he bolted from landing to landing.
“Son of a bitch,” she muttered and when she was on the landing above, she felt the burning stab of her ankle twisting on the step and she went rolling down with the searing pain. She heard the footsteps of the perp as they kept going down the thirty odd flights and disappear in the distance.
She was on her radio again, this time with the distressed cry of, “officer down. Secure the lobby. Don’t let anybody out of the building.”
She knew she was pissing into the wind with the call and she hadn’t gotten a good look at the guy. She knew he had on a dark suit and cheaters and she couldn’t even be sure he was the shooter.
Drake sat at Sarah Winooski’s bedside as she sat up with a blanket pulled up over her bended knees. She was happy that he was there and tried to take her mind off Starkweather by prying the shrink with questions about psychology. Drake didn’t mind answering them as long as they kept her distracted.
“Tell me again what the difference is between Freud and Jung?” she said like a kid wanting to hear their favorite bedtime story for the thousandth time.
“Freud posited the system of the super ego, ego, id and unconscious,” he said, “While Jung countered with his ideas of the anima, ego, shadow and collective unconscious. Superficially the two systems are similar but whereas Freud put forth that the ego acts to appease the super ego in a recreation of the parental dynamic, in Jung’s system, the ego seeks its soul mate. The distinction is that of Freudian integration versus Jungian individuation,” he was explaining when he saw her eyelids flutter and her head loll to one side. “Sarah?”
“I’m listening,” she murmured, half asleep.
“That’s all right. Your eyelids are getting heavy. You’re going to sleep—your going into a deep restful sleep,” he stated calmly and a second later she was out like a light.
The owner of the hotel was on the premises and took it upon himself personally to stop the reporters from following the gurneys up in the elevator. Hotel security blocked every way of the place while the bulls started going from room to room. That was a chore would take all night into morning and then some. The paramedics found Miller in the stairwell still crumpled where she had fallen. Her ankle had swollen and her face was red. The medics helped her to her feet and she was led onto a floor adjacent to the landing and lie down on the rolling bed, in too much pain to think clearly.
The paramedic’s radio crackled and he took it in hand, listening.
“We found JLo up on forty. DOA,” Miller heard the guy on the other end of the radio say.
Wincing and rubbing her sore leg, she muttered in consternation, “That’s my ass.”
I woke up in the morning and wandered into the kitchen where Fifi was making breakfast. It was always pleasant to see her juggling her dumplings over the stove and she turned and gave me a big smile.
“Good morning, Monsieur Brady. What would you like for breakfast?”
I sat down at the table thinking it over. She came over with a mug and filled it with coffee, filling my face with buxom lace. Nicky trotted in, gave me a peck on the cheek and sat down. I looked up and met her big eyes while Fifi went or another cup and put coffee in it.
“Duke, I have to fly to Paris. They’re giving Paris a post-humorous Legion of Honor medal.”
“Why is that?”
“I guess because she’s not funny anymore.”
“That reminds me,” I said, standing.
I left the kitchen and went down the hall and up the stairs. I fished the key out of my pocket and unlocked the door. “Lindsay,” I called, “Come down and have some breakfast.”
“I thought you were going to let me starve,” she irately.
“You make it sound like you’d want me to. Nah. That’d just make you a harder target.”
The babydoll had found its way to the floor and she strutted from the room in the altogether and stopped in front of me, her arms folded over her surgically altered chest.
“Why did you save my life?” she complained.
“You’re a material witness—to what I don’t know yet,” I answered honestly.
“Oh,” she said, seemingly satisfied.
“Come on, let’s go eat.”
“Do you have a cigarette?” she said, hooking her arm under mine and letting me lead the way.
Olivia was in the kitchen holding the remote and flicking through the channels of the plasma mounted on the wall. She had switched into a pair of cotton pajamas and sat at the counter sipping coffee. She stopped when she came to the news and raised the volume. The reporter was standing under the chandeliered awning of the midtown hotel surrounded by flashbulbs going off like cluster bombs.
“—Today the world mourns the loss of style and beauty icon Jennifer Lopez. The internationally famous movie star and sex symbol was murdered under mysterious circumstances last night here in the Trump Plaza Hotel. The only lead the police have to go on being the brief glimpse of the possible gunman by hero detective Sophia Miller who was injured when she chased the suspect down the building’s fire well stairs. Officer Miller is currently recuperating with a twisted ankle. Police say JLo took a single bullet in the back at approximately one o’clock this morning while a wild party was underway in anticipation of the Hilary Duff film festival, which has since been cancelled. JLo and Duff star in a new movie together that was to have its premier at the festival in the wake of Duff’s own killing only a day ago, leaving Hollywood and indeed the world wondering, who is behind the sudden spate of shooting stars? First Paris Hilton, then a brazen attempt o the life of Lindsay Lohan, who has since disappeared from sight, then Hilary Duff and her sister and now JLo. The world wants to know, who will be next and why haven’t the police found any evidence pointing to a motive, the killer or killers?”
“Duke, isn’t there something you can do?” Olivia asked plaintively.
I had all their eyes on me and didn’t answer right away. Instead I opened a drawer and took out a pack of Luckies, stuck one in my jaw and handed one off to Lindsay. Then I stuck a kitchen match and lit us both and we puffed liked a couple of kids in a schoolyard.
“The bulls will be all over it now. That won’t make my job any easier. They know I’m on this case and they’ll try to put a tail on me. And once Miller’s back on her feet, she’ll more than likely have orders to get in my good graces so they can move in and make the pinch.”
“So what are you gonna do?” Lindsay asked, puckering up and blowin’ smoke into the air.
“Let ‘em.”
Fifi fried up a batch of eggs and served ‘em with bacon, oatmeal, and cold cereal for whoever wanted it, OJ and yogurt. We ate like we were starving simply because there was nothing better to do.
“Monsieur Brady, if it is all right, I would love to go with Mademoiselle Nicky to Paris. I ‘ave not seen my relatives there in a long time,” Fifi said, reaching past me to fill my coffee cup.
How could I argue with her double-C’s restin’ on my shoulder that way?
“Sure, Fifi. Take as much time off as you need. I’m sure your people will be glad to see ya.”
“Oh, Monsieur Brady! You are ze most wonderful man!” she exclaimed and bussed me on the cheek. In most cases, I would’ve said knock it off, but for the perky frog in sheer black satin and white lace fringe I was willing to make an exception.
Given recent events the high-powered agent was also layin’ low, but how low can ya go? Cohen was in the back office of a Westchester Jaguar dealer trying to explain how two brand new XK8’s had been totaled without a whimper. The Russian dealer was also worried about his brother in ICU with a bullet in his belly, not as worried, but worried nonetheless.
“Ed may not pull through. He wasn’t in such good shape to begin with. I don’t like people feedin’ slugs to my family an’ just walkin’ away like it’s okay—an’ what about my cars? Them things cost money, ya know—an’ you was supposed to make it so Hollywood’s gotta call us for the big names and us alone. You fucked the whole deal up,” he griped with no end in sight.
Cohen lit a cigarette and listened, waiting for her chance to interrupt the tirade.
When the guy took a breath, she jumped in with, “I didn’t fuck it up. Blame Lohan. She’s the one went soft. I was ready to play hardball all the way down the line as soon as that private dick came snooping around my office. We wanted to make sure that Winooski girl didn’t know too much and from I got, she didn’t know shit—and your boy botched the hit on Lindsay, not me. And the Duff sisters—what was with that? I didn’t see that comin’. Scared the shit out of me—I thought he was gunnin’ for me.”
The guy lit a cigar. They weren’t really talking to each other, just airing their mutual grief.
“You didn’t know it was comin’—like hell you didn’t. It was all part of the plan. She wouldn’t come on board with your agency, so she had to go—same with Lopez. You knew she was gonna turn your offer down flat. And what’s with Spears goin’ on television and blabbin’ al that about the guy tryin’ to get in her pants? How could he fit with her fat ass in there? I don’t like none of this one bit.”
“Me neither, but we can’t touch this Brady. He’s in good with the law and if we make a move on him, the whole operation blows up in our faces.”
“You mean like them Jags?”
“Yeh—say, what do you mean by that?”
“I mean those things don’t grow on trees. Somebody’s gotta pay for ‘em an’ they cost a bundle. I’m expectin’ reimbursement is what I mean.”
“You can ‘expect’ anything you want. You ain’t gettin’ it. If I start cuttin’ checks the IRS will wonder where the money’s comin’ from—an’ where it’s goin’. We’re screwed. That dick’s got us tied up in knots. You’re insured, aren’t you?”
The guy shook his head. “No, you’re screwed. Ya can’t get insurance on a stolen car. You’d better straighten this mess out or you’ll be tied up in knots all right, an’ that ain’t no figger of speech. You’ll be floatin’ down the Hudson facedown without a face. The boys want to see a return on their investment otherwise they’ll think we’re takin’ for a ride. Thems guys ain’t laughin’ boys. They play rough—rougher than your private eye.”
Now she shook her head and lit another cigarette.
“He plays pretty rough—ask Ed. An’ he musta put a spell on Dmitri. He ain’t said a word since that day. It’s like they erased his mind—what he had of one.”
“Get hold of that girl again and find out what she does know about Starkweather. If she knows any of his friends she may try to get in touch with them and they’ll give her enough bits and pieces to go to the cops. The cops ain’t dumb. They’ll put all the bits together and come up with somethin’ that’ll have ‘em itchin’ to knock that door down. This operation is too big to let it go up in smoke like a spent match. Ya hear me, Kristina? Everybody know you as Maria Cohen—you better make good on that stolen ID or like I said, you won’t have no identity. You won’t have nothin’, not even—,” he blustered.
She cut him off and got up, smashing her butt on the desk.
“I hear ya, I hear ya. I’ll be facedown in the Hudson. Don’t worry. I’ll get hold of Brady and make nice. He seemed like the kind of guy that’d jump at the chance to get a good look under a girl’s skirt.”
“You’d better give him a hell of a show,” he insisted.
She grinned and flipped up the hem of her crushed red leather miniskirt to show off the yellow garter and compact twenty-two it held in place above the wide fishnets.
“He’s gonna get the works. He’s gonna think he’s at the fucking circus—dancing bears and all.”
They both laughed, but it was painful.
She left the office and he watched her from the door as she walked through the showroom to her Sunset Yellow Lamborghini on the lot. As her wide pronounced ass swayed in the red leather he became even more upset that such quality tail might have to be buried where no one would ever be able to appreciate it.

I should’ve counted on Lindsay makin’ a break for it as soon as I turned my back on her. Olivia and Nicky were helping Fifi pack and havin’ a ball pickin’ through various skimpy glad rags to take on the trip. Fifi talked about growing up in the French countryside and the various members of her eccentric family, Nicky relating her several trips to Paris, Olivia soaking it all up, thinking she’d like to see the City of Lights some time soon. While the girls were havin’ a ball tryin’ on designer duds and shuckin’ ‘em to prance about the bedroom in the buff comparin’ their assets one against the other. Nicky marveled at the married woman’s size 0 waistline and Olivia complimented her on her natural looking tit job. They got in front of the wall-length mirror and turned around to see who had the roundest backside and it was a toss-up between Olivia’s handfuls of cantaloupes and Fifi’s working girl firmness. Nicky’s ass was a flabby but they excused her on account of her being a do-nothing socialite. Besides, she said with everything that was going on lately, she hadn’t had time to hit the gym. It was all for a laugh anyway and they were giggling and guffawing so hard they didn’t notice Lindsay as she tip toed past the room and snuck out of the townhouse.
Kim found Drake’s note on his desk and phoned his office. He was in session and excused himself to take the call.
“It’s much too complicated to explain right now,” he said, calming her. “I’ll tell you everything as soon as I get home.”
She was still bent out of shape but was sure he’d make it up to her when he came back to the penthouse that evening. Flowers and a fancy dinner were in order and Drake was always good for that kind of romantic mush.
Lindsay didn’t have any clothes to wear besides the babydoll nighty Olivia had loaned her so barefoot in the babydoll she stood on Fifth Avenue and hailed a cab. She didn’t have any money either, obviously, but the cabbie didn’t care. He had Lindsay Lohan naked in the back of his hack and that was worth something in itself. She spit the directions of her hotel and he sped away from the corner before the plainclothes dicks realized the girl wasn’t just another streetwalker.
“You know who that was?” the drowsy bull said to his partner.
“You think—?” the other guy responded, wiping the powered sugar from his jaw.
“Shit,” his partner exclaimed, threw the donut on the dash and hit the gas.
The other guy slapped the flashing cherry on the hood, flipped the switch and the siren whined as the sedan pulled from the curb in pursuit of the hack.
Lindsay didn’t want to get caught with her pants down, literally and told the cabbie to step on it. She leaned in to grill like she was in a confessional and whispered harshly, “If you can lose these bozos maybe you an’ me can ourselves a little fun.”
The car hit ninety and blazed through the red lights. The bulls were not happy with this development and radioed in that they were in pursuit of a yellow cab, the passenger possibly being the actress Lindsay Lohan. The call spread along the wire and squad cars revved up and came from all directions at top speed. The cabbie was gettin’ scared thinking about what would happen if they caught up to him and flushing the pedal to the floor, lifted the wheels off the tar and flew. Lohan was thrown back into the seat and let out a belly laugh. The cit whizzed by like someone was throwing it as the car careened through the air down the busy avenue. Tourists stopped on the sidewalk to watch the yellow cab streak by followed by the beige sedan as black and whites clustered and took up the chase like flies after a steaming pile of runaway shit.
I had taken the Maserati a few blocks uptown to gas it up and get an oil change. I was having a smoke while Ali vacuumed the interior when the squad cars raced by at dangerously high speeds, sirens screaming.
Ali ran beside me saying, “What the hell was that?”
“Not a fuckin’ parade, that’s for sure. How’s the baby?” I said, watching the spinning beacons light up the avenue as they plowed through standing traffic.
“She’s still kinda gamy. I’ll need more time to get the smell out, otherwise she’s all fed and ready to be burped,” he grinned.
“Thanks, Ali,” I said, flicking the butt and handed him a C-note.
“Thanks, Duke,” he was saying as I jumped in the heap, gunned the engine and took off after them.
I didn’t know where they were goin’ or who they were after so I turned up a side street figurin’ to get ahead of the chase. I didn’t have the luxury of stoppin’ traffic so I swerved around the busses and cabs to make my way along the clogged avenue. I was leavin’ the noisy squad cars behind and caught sight of the cab. I thought it best to let the cops do it their way and simply kept pace with the hack until it looked like it had nowhere else to go, its front end smoking and overheated and it skidded to a stop near the Biltmore Hotel. The rear door flew open and Lindsay got out running in her bare feet. The squad cars spun in tearing skids as they overtook the stalled hack and about two dozen bulls leapt to the street, surrounding the car with their guns drawn. Fleet of foot, Lindsay ran towards the hotel’s back entrance, hoping to escape unnoticed by the wound up bulls. I’d pulled into a spot in front of a hydrant and watched her as she dived through the revolving door into the hotel’s lobby and followed her. Inside, I followed my nose and stayed on her sweaty scent until I caught up with her going for the gilded spiral metal staircase.
I was stuck not knowin’ what to do next and waited until she reached the top where she hunched over panting and out of breath. Having no hand to play, I started up the stairs. She saw me and froze, gasping, “Duke!”
“Hello, Lindsay,” I said as I came beside her as she teetered and fell against me.
“Duke, I can’t do this anymore. I’m twentyone years old and the police are after me. I may end up going to jail like my father—but if I don’t keep running, Maria’s people will catch up to me and I’ll spend the rest of my life dead,” she owned up, shaking all over and afraid. “I feel like I’ll be running my whole life and that my career is over.”
I held her up in my arm and she looked up at me with wet puppy eyes, and asked, “Do you think I’ll ever make another movie?”
“I wouldn’t worry about it. You got away from the cops, didn’t you? You’re smarter than you think. As for Maria’s people, you can leave that to me. All I wanna know is who bumped off Paris Hilton. That’s what Nicky hired me to find out and that’s what I intend to do. You’re just in the way. That’s why I tried to keep you under wraps ‘cause it seems somebody wants you an’ every ingénue in Hollywood out of the way.
Maria’s talent agency is a front for a bigger operation. She may be ballsy but she’s not callin’ the shots. The way I see it, your only option is to play ball with me—you know what the other options are—like you said, you can go to the cops and be publicly disgraced, blackballed in Hollywood and never work again, and probably do hard time for your part in the conspiracy, or you can go back to Cohen and have her people deal with you their way, which may find your corpse in a landfill somewhere or maybe never found at all. You haven’t got much time to think about it. The cops have that cabbie in custody and they’ll be here soon. What say, movie star? Should we get a room, under assumed names of course, or—?”
“Oh, Duke!” she bawled, pressing her face into my chest and wailing, “I’ve been such a fool!”
“A room it is,” I said, not wanting to waste any more time on cheesy melodrama.

Drake had finished with his session and stepped out for a bite. He went to a restaurant where he was a regular customer and got his usual table. He sat and was handed a menu by the waiter, a new guy with a winsome smile and slicked back black hair.
“I’ll have the chicken cacciatore,” he said. “And a whisky sour.”
The guy took the menu from his hand and minced off.
The concierge saw the noted shrink at the table and brought over the Times for him to catch up on the day’s headlines.
“So good to see you, doctor. Have you been reading about your friend Duke Brady?”
“Why, er, no,” said Drake, taking the tabloid fro the guy’s hand. “Anything interesting?” the doc said in a friendly tone.
“Isn’t it always?” the guy smirked.
Drake glanced at the headline announcing the murder of Jennifer Lopez and scanned down the page until he came to the smaller article about Richie Starkweather’s ‘suicide’ and started reading:
“Well-known Private Eye Duke Brady called the police to the house in Flushing, Queens where the body of Richard Starkweather was found. Starkweather, a smalltime actor in commercials appears to have hung himself with a silk necktie in the house he shared with his mother Caroline Starkweather.”
He got to the part about Miller leading the investigation and caught that Sophie also featured in the Lopez story and folded the paper over to get the gist of that one, reading how the detective twisted her ankle in pursuit of the possible shooter.
Going back and forth between the two articles got him thinking about Sarah Winooski and how she could possibly figure into it. The waiter bringing him his whisky sour also brought along a tall blonde who stayed after the guy left. Drake sipped the drink and the girl took the opportunity sit down quickly at the table. Drake paused and set the glass down to take a good look at her. She wore wide rimmed shades and looked around the restaurant before taking them off to focus on his gaze.
“Can I help you, miss?” he said politely.
“Don’t you know who I am?” she whispered with a thick Aussie accent.
He sat back and took a second look at her, drawing a blank.
“I haven’t a clue,” he said, taking up his drink, waiting for her to keep talking.
“My name is Kidman.”
She leaned in and whispered more forcefully, “Nicole Kidman. You mean you’ve never heard of me?” She seemed genuinely dismayed.
The name registered vaguely at first, then he recalled how his wife had once enthused about how glamorous Nicole Kidman was, like an old-fashioned movie star.
“You’re the actress,” he said, swigging and setting the glass down.
She smiled, contented that she’d been recognized and folded her arms on the table and craned forward.
“And you’re the psychiatrist, Doctor John Drake.”
“That’s right,” he said, still waiting for pertinent information.
“I’d like to go into therapy with you. Is that at all possible? I know you must have a very busy schedule.”
Drake made over a thousand an hour and his schedule consisted mostly of lectures and consulting work for the various institutions and boards of directors he served on, but in regard to being a practicing psychiatrist he handled only a few patients on a personal and selective basis.
“What problems do you think I might be able to help you with?” he asked, thinking it over.
She appeared embarrassed to have to open up, but she’d started the conversation and now had to follow through or be blown off.
“I have very poor judgment when it comes to men,” she replied shyly.
“I see,” he said, relaxing into his therapeutic role. “Could it be that you trust too readily, fall in love too easily?” he suggested.
Her eyes widened, astonished at his near psychic insight.
“Why, yes!” she said with hushed excitement. “And I’m a sucker for a pretty face. Somehow I equate good looks with a good heart, but that seldom turns out to be the case.”
He took a business card from his breast pocket and slid it across the table to her.
“Why don’t you call my office? We’ll schedule a consultation to see if I’m the therapist for you. If not, perhaps I can recommend someone better suited.”
“Oh, but I want you!” she sputtered. “I’ve heard that you’re the best!”
“Um,” he lifted his drink, wanting another and let her go on.
“I read that you can really penetrate a person’s mind and uncover their hidden motives. I want you to uncover my deepest, darkest secrets—the things I don’t even know about.” Drake knew then that what this one didn’t know about could fill the New York Public Library.
My problem was that in New York City, I was not an unknown quantity so trying to get a room under an alias took a little finessing. I gathered the guy at the front desk, the head bellhop and the house dick in a huddle and tipped them that I was on a top-secret case that they had to keep on the QT. The manager of the place wasn’t to know a thing.
They nodded and I passed each of ‘em a slice of lettuce to make sure they stayed mum. Thusly assured that I’d be okay, since I didn’t mention the girl, the desk clerk entered the name ‘Jack Spade’ in the book and I was given the key to the room.
I hurried to where I’d left Lindsay waiting in the drafty stairwell where she must’ve caught a cold because while her freckled body was as deathly pale as it had always been, she was red in the face and her nose nearly purple.
“Come on. It’s all set,” I said, ushering her into the hallway.
She sneezed and almost blew her head off.
“Oh, Duke, I don’t feel well,” she groaned.
“I’ll call Olivia and tell her to bring you some clothes. Let’s go to our room. You can take a bath and curl up in a nice warm bed.”
“Why do you always want me to wash up?” she asked, as I was putting my jacket around her shoulders.
“‘Cause ya stink,” I answered truthfully.
I didn’t foresee any problems as long as I kept her out of sight and we found the room without attracting any more attention than a naked twentyone year old girl under a sheer nighty would attract in a big city hotel. Any random tourist would assume she was a well-paid working girl. In the room Lindsay dropped the lingerie from her shoulders and stood there in just her freckles. I pointed to the apartment sized can, lit a smoke and got on the horn.
“Olivia? Duke. I’m at the Biltmore with Lindsay. We got a room. Yeh. I need ya t’pick up some duds for her to wear an’ bring ‘em over. We’re in room 802. Yeh.”
I looked over and she was still there, red in the face and pouting.
“What’re ya waitin’ for? Hit the showers an’ get some rest. I’ll order up some grub.”
“You don’t like me, do you?”
“Okay,” I said into the phone. “I’ll see ya in a bit, an’ make it snappy. You know the play.” I hung up the phone and went over to the melancholy redhead.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“Nobody likes me.”
“You’re a movie star, ain’tcha? Somebody likes ya. Somebody likes ya fine.”
“But you don’t,” she whined.
“I’m not gettin’ paid to like ya. I’m not even gettin’ paid to keep ya alive, but I’m doin’ it anyway.”
“You only care about who murdered Paris Hilton,” she went on. “But what if I paid ya?” she said, rearing up with her disproportionately large chest.
“What’re you gonna pay me for?”
“I want you to be my friend! I want you to like me!”
I stamped my butt out on the tabletop and explained to her, for all the good it would do, “That’s not how you make friends, Lindsay. You’ve gotta earn friendship. You’ve gotta be somebody people can rely on. Friendship’s just another word for trust.”
“And you don’t trust me.”
“Not as far as I can throw this building.”
“You think I’m a hootch, don’t you?”
“What I think of you doesn’t add up to a hill of beans. Now are you gonna to go in there an’ wash your smelly ass or am I gonna hafta do it for ya?”
That brought a toothy grin to her face a mile wide and I picked her up in my arms and carried her into the bathroom. She was gonna get clean if I had to wallow knee deep in mud to get her that way.
She was still grinnin’ when I put her on her feet on the cold tile floor and turned on the water in the bathtub, letting it run until it was steaming hot. It occurred to me as I accounted for the soap and shampoo that if she were makin’ a beeline for the Biltmore, that meant she must’ve already had a room there. I let the thought pass as I picked her up again and plopped her ass into the hot bath. She stretched out and spread her legs, looking down woefully between her thighs.
“I need a wax job,” she commented.
I saw the budding stubble agreed, finding a razor and a bar of soap. I set the razor on the edge of the tub and dunking the soap in the water lathered it up by rubbing it in my paws.
“We’ll get to that last,” I said, taking one of her dirty feet and scrubbing the sole free of the accumulated street grime.
Spears stayed in town after her appearance on the prime time news show, but too embarrassed to show her face. She arrived at the Biltmore incognito and passing herself off as Lohan, gained access to the room registered in Lindsay’s name. She thought she’d be able to hide out there until her publicist could come up with a campaign to restore her reputation in the media. She had tried to reinvent herself as a sensuous chanteuse and the plan had backfired. She had instead come to be considered a useless tramp whose talent had been squandered and forgotten in a haze of drunken stupidity. No longer a virginal child-star, Britney Spears was an all too public example of crash-and-burn career suicide.
She went into the bedroom and put her purse down on bed took out the plastic baggie of green bud and pack of rolling papers. She rolled a joint and sparking it, puffed her troubles away. She shucked her skimpy mini-dress and going into the luxuriously appointed bathroom ran a hot bath. She had hopes of seeing her image eventually resurrected as that of a staunch survivor. She already had recording dates lined up with the industry’s top producers and for all of her recent foibles, she thought her fans would forgive her and keep buying her records and making the cash register ring. She stepped into the soothing bath, stretched out and shut her eyes. If only she had never met Federline, if only she had blown that private eye, if only—she was so lost in her stoned reveries that she didn’t hear the two sets of footsteps as they approached the tub.
The pistols blazed like fireworks on the Fourth of July, the bathwater turning red, and Britney’s troubles were over and she was an instant legend, all of her problems vanishing in a haze of gun smoke. She never saw the gunmen and they were too blinded by the steam and smoke to notice that the chubby fake blonde was not their intended victim.
The woman they had meant to blow away had managed to pull me into the tub with her and I came to the door soaked to the skin.
Olivia thrust the shopping bag into my dripping wet arms.
“Up to your old tricks, are ya?” she said, but there wasn’t any malice in her voice, just mild surprise and not much of that either.
“You know how it is,” I said, taking the bag into the bathroom where Lindsay was wringing her thick head of hair dry with a towel.
“Is that Olivia?” she asked glibly. “Did I get you in trouble?”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, “Here, she brought you some clothes.”
“Oh?” she said, lighting up.
Olivia came to the bathroom door and watched Lindsay take the jeans out of the bag. Olivia smirked as the girl struggled to slip the straight leg denim up over her out of shape calves.
“I hope I got the size right. Extra small,” the wife commented knowingly.
“They’re perfect,” Lindsay said with a grunt, struggling to get the things up around her waist and barely accomplishing that, unable then to zip them. “Just my size,” she wheezed, unable to breathe.
“I’m so happy,” the wife nearly snarled, and turning to me, asked, “What now, Mr. Private Eye? Got any more damsels in distress you want to come clean?”
“It’s not what it looks like,” I said, taking the pack of Luckies from my pocket and trying to light one. I couldn’t, of course, and threw the pack into the trashcan.
“Like I figured,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“You’re all wet.”
“I told ya—,” I started to say.
“It’s not what it looks like, Olivia. Duke was a perfect gentleman the whole time,” Lindsay put in, wanting to smooth things over with the irate Mrs. Brady.
“That’d be a first,” was my wife’s reply.
For the sake of my marriage, I thought it best to get Lindsay back to the townhouse, meaning I’d have to get the cops currently searching for her. That wasn’t going to be easy. We made it as far as the lobby when hundreds of them converged on the hotel.
“Son of a bitch,” I spit nastily.
“What’s happening, Duke?” she asked, gettin’ that there was more goin’ on than my furtive tryst with a brainless movie star.
“Looks like a fuckin’ cop convention. Somethin’ big musta went down. “Go back to the room,” I said, “Olivia, go with her.”
“Okay, Duke,” she said, and she and Lindsay quickly made themselves scarce while I went in search of the house dick to find out what al the commotion was about.
I found him at the front desk watching the uniforms corral the bustling tourists. He seemed glad to see me, as if he were waiting for someone to vent to.
“What goes with all the bulls?” I said, sidling up to him, not wanting to be noticed, as I’d originally intended.
“We had a report of gunshots from one of the honeymoon suites. Turns out the room was registered to Lindsay Lohan, you know, the actress.”
“Yeh, I know the name,” I said, innocent as a baby rat.
“I called the bulls and this is what they sent over,” he went on, indicating the virtual riot squad taking over the hotel, blocking the exits and linin’ people up so’s they could check IDs.
Knowin’ Lohan wasn’t in the room, my next question almost showed my hand, but I had to ask him somethin’, “Why? Who bought it? Somebody important?” I pressed.
“Turns out it was Britney Spears. I went up to the room where the shots were supposed to have come, and sure enough, there she was—laid out in the bathtub, plugged real nice. There were so many holes you could tear the place along the dotted line.”
“You found her?”
“Sure did, but soon as the cops showed, they told me to clear out, that they’d handle it from here on out. So, here I am, watchin’ from the sideline.”
That was the story and I moved to step off when my old pal Detective Lieutenant Ryan caught sight of me.
“Brady!”
“Son of a,” I muttered, pinched fair and square.
“I shoulda known you’d be mixed up in this somehow,” he griped, makin’ his way through the pack of uniforms.
“I don’t know anything about it, Ryan. I’m only a tourist here.”
“Sure ya are,” he huffed, waiting to hear my excuses.
“Sure. Me and the wife were out for a night on the town. Ain’t that right, Hanlan?” I said to the floor man.
He was irked enough at being pushed to the side so he went along, nodding emphatically to the red-faced bull.
“A night on the—,” Ryan started then stopped before he foul balled. “Lemme see your gun.”
I handed him the forty-five and he sniffed the barrel and checked the chamber. The gun hadn’t been fired and he handed it back to me.
“Okay,” he said, disgruntled. “I guess you’re in the clear this time. Where’s your wife?”
“Relaxin’ in a warm bath. I just came out to get a pack of smokes. You know my wife Olivia—do ya think I’d leave her all wet and naked for very long?”
“Beat it, Brady. I don’t wanna se your face for the rest of the night.
Britney Spears was settin’ you up to press rape charges an’ now we find her full’a holes. You ain’t the one did it an’ it’d just add up to a lot’a red tape an’ paperwork provin’ you ain’t,” he grumbled, adding for good measure, “You heard me, shamus. Take the air. Go back to your wife and scrub her back.”
“That’s mighty white’a ya, Ryan. Take it easy, Hanlan,” I said to the hotel’s man. “See, the bulls ain’t so bad, once ya get to know ‘em.”
Ryan growled like an angry bulldog and I moved gingerly away and out of sight.
I got back to the room and locked the door once I was inside. Olivia and Lindsay were hittin’ the mini bar and I could’a use a strong of slug something myself.
“Well?” the wife queried in urgent curiosity.
“Britney Spears bought it in one of the honeymoon suites.”
Lindsay nearly choked on her Bacardi, gasped and coughed, “Honeymoon suite?”
“Yeh. A room in your name,” I said. I picked up a nip bottle of J&B and downed it, then asked her, “Did you know Britney Spears was stayin’ in that room?”
‘No—,” she stammered. “No, but she knew about it. Maria Cohen booked the room through her agency.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, and concluded, “In all likelihood those slugs were meant for you.”
Lindsay broke out in an icy sweat and fainted to the floor. She’d probably need another bath.

Drake ate his cacciatore with Kidman sitting there, staring him down until he got a little self-conscious and asked her if she’d like some.
She shook her head and replied, “Food isn’t on my diet.”
“Food isn’t on your diet?” he repeated back at her, incredulously.
She giggled like a brainless twit and explained. ‘I have to tape a television interview and I don’t want to look bloated.”
“Oh,” he said, and went back to his meal.
Finishing up, all the while trying to ignore her starving eyes, he glanced at his watch.
“I have to get back to the office. It was certainly nice meeting you. My wife’s a fan of yours and I’ll tell her I ran into you. Like I said, call my office and we’ll see what we can arrange,” he said, leaving the table.
She leapt from the seat and he moved to go around her but she hooked his arm in hers and clung to him as he made for the door. He put his hand atop hers to remove it and felt her fingers clench in response.
He recognized this as a gesture of terror and letting it stay, pat her hand and asked quietly, “What are you afraid of?”
“My ex-husband,” she whispered. “He’s recently married this little girl and I’m sure she’s been brainwashed.”
Drake nodded to the concierge, who smiled at the sight of the prominent doctor and movie star leaving his joint arm in arm. It was good for business and when Drake and Kidman were outside, the doc took her aside to get the story.
“What do you mean she’s been brainwashed?”
“”He belongs to a dangerous cult,” she said breathily, then annoyed, asked, “Don’t you know anything? Don’t you know who Tom Cruise is? He’s a scientologist—do you know what that is?”
It hit Drake like a brick that she was in fear for her life. He did know about scientology and its celebrity members. He also knew about its notorious brainwashing techniques.
“I understand now,” Drake said.
“Do you?” she added adamantly. “Do you understand that he wants me dead? I’m writing my memoirs and he doesn’t want that. He knows I’ll tell the world everything—I’ll expose them for the gangsters they are!”
“That’s an interesting choice of words,” he said, seeing the white limo cruising up the street at an unusually slow pace.
“Extortion, intimidation—isn’t that what gangsters do?”
“It certainly is,” he said, and without taking his eyes off it asked, “Is that your limo?”
She spun, her golden locks flying across her face, and gasped, “It’s them! I know it is! They must have followed me.”
“We can’t stay here,” he said as the car approached and slowed.
“Where can we go to get away from them?”
“Back to my office. Let’s start walking.”
Now he was holding onto her as they left the doorway beside the restaurant, the car easing alongside them. “My office is the building up the street. When we get into the lobby, I’ll call the police,” he said, cradling her in his arm. She felt secure and protected by the hunky shrink and put her skinny arm around his waist and held on.
Detective’s Ryan and Joseph had the Biltmore under virtual lockdown, sending their men from room to room throughout the place. Uniforms were checking stairwells and supply closets, interviewing the housekeeping staff and bellhops and gettin’ a lot excited gibberish in any number of languages for their effort. PO sergeant Vikhram reported to Ryan that they were coming up empty as Ryan and Joseph oversaw the tossing of the suite.
“There was more than one shooter,” Ryan said, observing the number of bullet holes.
Spears lay in the tub now gone cold. She was blue and bloody as raw meat in a butcher shop window. No reporters were allowed near the scene, but one guy had slipped a CSI a few bucks to borrow his ID and was sneaking shots with a cell phone camera.
Joseph grew suspicious when he saw the guy poking around and grabbed him by the arm, twisting it behind his back.
“Hey! You’re hurting me!” the snoop hollered and that got him slammed to the floor with a knee in his back.
“How’s that?” the detective snarled, “Better?”
The guy winced as the bracelets gauged into his wrists.
“What the hell is that?” Ryan demanded.
Joseph handed the lieutenant the CSI badge and Ryan looked it over.
“Your name Sipowitz?” he asked the prostrate and handcuffed reporter.
“No—, it’s,” the guy grunted into the carpet.
“Shut up.” Ryan handed the ID to PO Vikhram and said, “Find this Sipowitz and haul him in. We’ll deal with this asshole.”
“He’s got a camera,” Joseph said, taking the miniature phone from the guy’s pocket.
He came beside Ryan and pressed the button to flash through the photos. There were several of Spears’ bloody waterlogged corpse, the room and closet interiors. One photo showed a guy in a dark suit and shades in the hotel’s kitchen to be making his way out the door into the back alley.
That was enough.
“Take over here,” Ryan ordered his partner and for good measure, hauled off and kicked the guy on the floor, audibly shattering a few of his ribs leaving him sputtering blood.
“I’ll look into this personally,” Ryan said and took off.
Joseph walked over the guy, literally, stepping on his ear as he passed into the bathroom where the CSIs were dusting the gold plated fixtures.
“Have we got anything yet? Fingerprints, calibers?”
“One guy held out a slug in the palm of his rubber gloved hand and said, “Looks like a .32, lieutenant. We’ll know for sure when get it to the lab.”
“Yeh,” the detective concurred, taking a gander at the corpse. “She wasn’t pretty before an’ she’s even uglier now. Somebody wanted this girl dead for good. She must’ve known something that could put somebody away.”
Ryan took a few blues with him as he made his way to the hotel’s kitchen. He drew his weapon and they did likewise. The kitchen was a labyrinth of utensil racks, prep counters, long cutting board tables, several ovens, grills, overflowing utility sinks, and dish racks. The cops spread out to converge the alley door that was blocked by the overflowing garbage cans and discarded food wrappers. Ryan shoved the fly ridden debris aside and kicked the door open. The narrow alley was wet and dirty, stinking of rotten chow. Sending his boys up the alley, he radioed squad cars to circle the building and close off both ends. He looked up the ancient fire escapes and saw that they went to the roofs of the adjacent building. The shooter was long gone, but they had the guy that had taken the photo and they’d sweat him until he was a puddle.
Miller was given an official leave of absence, but Sophie wasn’t the type to sit around, agitatedly stumbling through her studio apartment on her bum ankle. She took a scrap of paper from a drawer and a pencil, sat to take the weight off and tried sketching a picture of the man she’d seen in the hotel hallway that morning; the man she thought for sure had put the bullet into Jennifer Lopez.
A native New Yorker by way of Tel Aviv, Natalie Portman got off the plane at JFK knowing little if anything about the spate of star killings. She’d been filming in Spain and had only heard rumors about Paris Hilton being blown away on the red carpet. She thought it was a publicity stunt and didn’t worry her pretty little head over a thing like murder. The Rolls Royce Phantom was waiting for her on the runway and she climbed into it and was driven away. Inside the talent agent greeted her with a firm but feminine handshake. Portman lit a cigarette kicked off her open-toed high heels and reclined in the vibrating leather seat.
“How was Ibiza, darling? As beautiful as ever?”
“There was a bomb scare at the hotel,” Portman said with a grin, “but after the police rounded up all the Muslims it was more wonderful than ever.”
“I imagine you haven’t had to, er, follow the news,” Maria put forth cautiously.
“No. You know how it is when you’re on location. The rest of the world disappears.”
Cohen stuck a Dunhill between her painted lips and the thick muscled mug beside her lit it for her.
“Yes,” she hissed.
“So what has been going on? I heard a rumor,” Portman began as the car turned onto the highway towards Manhattan. “Something about Paris Hilton being hurt in an accident.”
“Paris is dead, Natalie,” Cohen coldly deadpanned. “She was shot dead on the red carpet.”
Portman went white. The tan she’d gotten from the Ibiza sun fading, the only color left on her face were the gigantic pimples glowing like mutant tropical fruit.
“Have the police—,” Portman started, shaking too hard to finish the sentence.
“The police don’t know a thing,” Cohen tossed off and opened a mirrored compact, passing it to the dazed actress. “Coke?”
Portman took the compact and inhaled its content. Maria had never seen anyone huff that much coke in one snort and snapped her finger for the mug to pass her over the hefty plastic baggie full from his jacket pocket. Taking the compact, Cohen dumped the coke onto it and gave it back to the Oscar contender who proceeded to inhale it without a second thought. Maria lit a cigarette and lifted the bottle of chilled champagne from the ice bucket, pouring a glassful and sipping, Natalie looking on thirstily.
Cohen then filled what appeared to be a water glass full of the sparkling hooch and gave it to her. Natalie poured it down her throat and held out the glass for more. Cohen smiled graciously and refilled the girl’s glass, givin’ the guy the nod to lift the baggie from her skirted lap and pour more coke onto the mirror. Natalie snorted the third pile of white of white powder and drank the champagne. This went on and on as the Rolls made a circuitous journey that took it nowhere near the hotel where Natalie’s mother, publicist and a gang of reporters and paparazzi were waiting for her, looking at their watches and wondering what could have become of her.
Drake and Nicole walked briskly up the street all the while followed by the slow moving white limo. They got to the lobby of the office building at last and Drake asked the security guard at the desk for the telephone.
“Sure, doc,” the guard replied, thinking nothing of it.
Drake pressed the digits that would connect him to the police as two bulky goons came from back of the limo and started into the vestibule of the private office tower.
The guard got that these two guys were up to no good and came from behind the desk before they got any further.
“Can I help you?” he said, gettin’ in their way so they had to stop and answer the question.
“We’re Miss Kidman’s bodyguards,” one guy said brutishly.
The guard realized who Drake was in the company of and turned to the doc on the phone at the desk.
“Doctor Drake,” he called when the other mug pulled a sap and slugged him from behind.
The guard went down and Drake knew he had no choice but to stand up to the bruisers. They ran forward, stepping over the fallen guard, who roused himself as they were reaching out to grab the frightened blonde. Drake met the guy closest with a blow to the midsection and the guy doubled over as the other one leapt to get at the girl. The doc went under him and came up, flipping the thug over onto his back. The mug landed hard and was winded, his cock-eyed in surprise. The guard got to his feet and drew his nine as Drake leveled a right cross into the second mug’s jaw and the guy’s head reeled.
The sap came out again and the guard yelled, “Stop right there!”
When the guy went to swing, the guard fired, shattering his wrist with the hollow point slug. The blood sprayed from the blasted bone and Drake sent an uppercut into the guy’s belly and a solid left to the jaw that sent him down. The first guy climbing to his feet, grabbed Nicole and she screamed. He got behind her and held her, twisting her arm behind her back and squeezing her throat in his big fingers.
“I’ll break her neck!” he hollered, looking willing and able to do it.
Her eyes widened in terror, her red mouth open in a must cry.
“What’ll I do, doc?” the guard asked, leveling his pistol.
“Drop it!” the guy commanded. “And you—,” meaning Drake, “hang that phone up!”
The cop on the other end of the line was saying, “Hello? Hello?” as Drake reached across the desk and gently placed the receiver into the conference phone’s cradle.
“I’m putting the phone down. Do you see?” the doc said, taking no chances with the girl’s life.
“I’m getting out of here and I’m taking her with me, y’hear?”
“We hear you loud and clear,” Drake said evenly, then purposefully intoned, “let her go.”
“Are you kiddin’,” the guy said between gritted teeth.
“Let her go,” Drake repeated louder.
The mug felt his body stiffen against his will and the hand holding her neck suddenly became leaden.
“I’ll kill her! I swear I will!” the mug warned.
“We believe you,” the doc said, making eye contact with the thug as if the girl were invisible.
“You—you—,” the mug babbled confused and when his grip loosened, Nicole’s eyes fluttered and with the sudden rush of breath she fainted, dropping limply to the floor.
The guy was shaking his head clear when the security guard squeezed off a single shot that caught him in the chest and threw him onto his back. Drake rushed to Nicole and scooped her in her arms. The guard held the pistol on the guy but he didn’t have to.
The mug was not gettin’ up, lying on the lobby floor shivering, his body numb with the excruciating pain. Drake brought Nicole to the chair behind the desk and picked up the receiver where the desk sergeant had been on hold the whole time.
“Who is this?” the cop demanded when he realized the line was open again.
“This is Doctor Drake. I need an ambulance. Two men have been shot,” the doc said. “And tell them when they get to the area to be on the lookout for a white limousine.”
He fed the cop the address and in minutes a team of detectives and paramedics were on the way.
Portman’s publicist shrugged, expecting no less from the A-list star while her mother was concerned because her daughter wasn’t a flake in that way. The girl was late and the paparazzi were gettin’ antsy. There wasn’t any way this wasn’t going to reflect on her image as a serious actress and not just another Hollywood bimbo. Her mom flicked on her cell and pressed to connect, hoping for a reasonable explanation. Natalie’s cell chimed but Natalie didn’t hear it. She was already dead and her corpse thrown out of the Rolls somewhere along the Westside Highway.
I left the room to find out what had become of Ryan, hoping to slip Lindsay past the blues holding down the doors. Ryan had sent bulls clamoring up the alleyway fire escapes and came back through the kitchen. He was too worried about the sling his ass would be in when the police commissioner learned that the perps had made a clean getaway to care about me. He was on the horn in the hotel manager’s office talking to the mayor’s niece in her official capacity, though he was trying to convince her to hand her uncle a load of malarkey, which was her specialty.
Detective Joseph had gotten what he wanted, a wet footprint from the bathroom floor matching tracks outside the room and enough bullets to gauge what kind of guns had been used in the killing. He left the Honeymoon Suite to find his partner and superior officer and I ran into him as he came down the spiral iron staircase. I don’t know if he was glad to see me. He had no reason to be, but I guess I was a friendly enough familiar face for him to break out in a crooked smile and say, “Well, if it ain’t the one an’ only. What puts you on this scene, Duke? Ya know what happened here?”
“I heard,” I said, suckin’ wind through my teeth. “I ran into your partner earlier. He says a dame got bumped, hard. Some celeb or other.”
“You ain’t good at playin’ dumb, Duke. You know it was Britney Spears, the pop singer. She caught about twenty slugs in’a tub in’a honeymoon Suite. S’at why you’re sniffin’ around? You on some interested party’s payroll?”
I shrugged diffidently and replied truthfully, “Nope. I was just passin’ by. Me an’ the wife were on sort of second honeymoon. Didn’t hear a thing about it until I ran into Ryan while I was lookin’ to get a pack’a smokes.”
He eyed me like a lizard eyein’ a fly, and said, “A pack’a smokes? How long you been married?”
“You were at the weddin’,” I said, rememberin’ him sloshed to the gills and tryin’ to pick up one of the bridesmaids with both hands.
“I sure was,” he concurred. “Swell affair it was too. Drake your best man and Bradshaw givin’ away the bride an’ all. But I ain’t here to reminisce. Where’s the little woman now?”
“In’a room, I said, thinkin’ up a way to beat it without makin’ him curious. “We’re all done with our reminiscing. I’ve got work to do back at the office an’ she’s gotta make dinner.”
“I thought you had a maid. Don’t she make dinner?”
“The maid just does the dessert. Olivia’s gotta do the rest an’ she wants’a try out a new recipe. What’re the chances of us gettin’ out’a dump?”
He squinted harder. I had a poker face and a handful’a jokers.
“You sure you ain’t involved with this Spears dame? I know you had a run-in with her. It was on the news—how you tried to rape her and killed her husband. She even did a big interview with Diane sawyer about it. What’s the story behind that?”
“You believe everything you see on television, Joseph? You know that was a load’a guff like everybody else. I wouldn’t touch a broad like that with your equipment. You’ve seen her.”
“I seen her all right. I seen her lookin’ like Swiss cheese somebody left out too long. She’s all blue an’ full’a holes.”
“I already told ya, me an’ the missus,” I said, seeming irate.
“I know, you was on a second honeymoon.”
“That’s right, an’ now we’re gonna take the air. The party over an’ this dump ain’t fun anymore.”
“That’s for sure. The Biltmore’s a funeral home now. Okay, go an’ getcher missus. I’ll let the blues at the front know to let yous pass.”
“Thanks, Joseph. Maybe I can return the favor sometime,” I said, turning on my heels to beat feet.
“Maybe you can at that!” he called over my shoulder. ‘Why don’t you scare up the gunner that whacked Britney Spears!”
“Maybe I will at that,” I called back and hopped up the stairs.
I got back to the room and told the tipsy two that we were check out.
“You mean the cops are just gonna let ya skate?” Olivia asked in disbelief.
I gave Lindsay the once over in her new duds. I hadn’t seen her fully dressed in so long I’d started to think she was wearing a cheetah skin suit.
“Sure. Why not? I told ‘em we were on a second honeymoon and you know bulls, they’re all romantics at heart.”
“What about her?” Olivia asked, flipping her head over to the movie star.
“Yeh,” I said, thinking. “I’ve got an idea.”
I left them in the room again and went into the hall. All I needed was a steamer and we’d be set. I wandered the hall until I ran into an old guy, a tourist who looked like he needed some answers about the commotion.
“What goes, pop?” I said, propping a Lucky in my jaw.
“The police were just at our door asking a lot of fool questions. Did they knock on your door too?”
“Sure, but I didn’t let ‘em in. Did you?”
“Let them in? What could I do? They’re the police,” he insisted.
“Yeh, but they’ve got no right to be hasslin’ honest citizens, have they?”
“No, no, I suppose not. But what’s going on?” he asked with all earnestness.
“A big star got bumped off in’a Honeymoon suite. The cops have taken over the hotel searchin’ for the killer.”
“My goodness! Are you serious?”
“As serious as the Grim Reaper. Me an’ the wife were just havin’ a second honeymoon, er, with our daughter—that is, our, eh, teenage daughter, but she ain’t registered. That’s why I didn’t answer the door when they came knockin’.”
“Not registered?”
‘That’s right. Problem is, we got her in easy enough, but now we’ve gotta get her out without the bulls bein’ the wiser.”
“How do you intend to do that?”
Here’s where my play became a comedy. I stepped in on him, taking out an aromatic and a C-note besides, saying, “You look like a square guy. What say I buy your steamer off ya to use to sneak her out? It’ll be sort of a gag between you an’ me, but it’s no gag to the bulls, see?”
I don’t know if he liked the idea, but he liked what he saw and eyes twitched as he looked around and his gnarled fingers snatched the cheroot wrapped in the green from my hand.
“I guess we can always get a new trunk,” he said confidently.
“Now ya can,” I said, and we winked on it.
I rolled the empty steamer back to the room and inside. Olivia looked at me like I’d lost my marbles but Lindsay was game. I guess she’s been in similar situations before because when I said, “Get in,” she jumped right inside, but the clothes Olivia had gotten her were too tight or too small and she had to climb right out again and shuck ‘em so she could fold up like a pretzel and I snapped it shut
“Can ya breathe?”
“A little,” the muffled voice squeaked.
“Good enough.”
“Duke, what if she suffocates?” Olivia protested.
“Let’s hope in her case, ‘airhead’ ain’t just a figure of speech, now help me get this thing rollin’ before it turns into a coffin.” That remark lit a fire under her and we pushed the trunk on its casters out of the room and to the elevator.
The girl weighed nothing and the box glided easily, Olivia fightin’ breakin’ a sweat out’a sheer nervousness. Joseph had been jake in passin’ along the order to let me an’ the missus go by. My only worry was that I was parked in front of a hydrant and I was hoping I hadn’t been towed. There were squad cars all over the street and with all that was goin’ on some joker had found the time to stick a ticket on my windshield, but otherwise the car was right where I’d left it.
When I made sure there were no bulls watching, I opened the trunk and Lindsay popped out in her freckled birthday suit. It wasn’t called a steamer trunk for nothin’ and it must’ve been plenty steamy because she’d sweat up a storm. She was drenched with a funky wet slick of it and I resigned that this dame was born to stink on ice. I unlocked the two-seater, Olivia and Lindsay havin’ to share the passenger seat with their arms and legs folded around each other like a square knot. By the time we pulled into the townhouse’s garage they were both bent out of shape.
Drake had taken Nicole up to his office. There he made her a cup of chamomile tea and gave her the most comfortable seat the house, namely the couch. She was still pale with fear as she sipped the hot beverage while he poured a stiff one from a bottle in his desk. He took a swig and waited for her mind to settle. She raised her bright blue eyes and batted one long false lash. She’d lost the other one and he smiled without malice at the incongruous picture. That made her smile, her lips spreading softly and she blew gently across the steamy cup and tried to sip again. He got that she wasn’t much.
“Too hot?”
“Yes,” she replied, in a girlish whisper.
“This will cool it off,” he said, reaching over dropping a dollop of scotch into her cup.
“Thank you,” she said, understanding that he understood.
She knew that he had hypnotized the guy downstairs and also got the he could have beaten the guy with his fist if he’d had to. Drake was no wilting egghead. He worked out and had a nice physique beneath his tailored suit, that and a black belt to go along with it. Drake had had his share of scuffles in his time and had come out on top in every case.
She liked the tea with its added potency and sipped faster, taking bigger swallowed.
“Nicole,” he said, his voice humming in her ear.
She looked up sheepishly, holding the cup in the slender fingers of both hands.
“Yes, doctor?”
“Those thugs were sent by the Scientologists, weren’t they?”
“Yes. I’m sure it was Tom,” she hurriedly added.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. You said your ex-husband, Tom, is it?”
“Yes,” she replied more slowly.
“You say he’s married a girl, a young girl, and brainwashed her. Now—he’s after you before you can expose him as a Svengali.”
“A what?”
“A Svengali is someone who does just what you say Tom’s done to this young girl. Svengali is a character from the nineteenth century novel Trilby,” he patiently explained. “That’s not relevant. It’s just a term. I don’t want to see you harmed in any way by these people,” he stated determinedly.
“Really?” she gasped, raising her head with stars in her eyes.
“Really,” he readily agreed, ‘However there’s no way I can verify what you’re saying—or the things you intend to include in your memoirs, without a thorough investigation, which I am in no position to conduct. I’m a doctor, not a detective.” Seeing the hurt look in her eyes, he considered his thoughts carefully before going any further.
“I’ll assume that your ex is in town, only because those two appeared to be intent on kidnapping you and it would be very poor judgment on their part to want to take you across state lines.”
“Why?” she said, her soft lips glistening with the simple question.
“Kidnapping is a federal charge crossing state lines could see them get the death penalty. I’m not saying those two had any thought of that, though they may have, but the person who sent them wouldn’t want that kind of notoriety in the event they failed, which they did.”
She bit her lip, lowered her eyes and raised them again quickly, saying, her voice never more than breezy whisper, “You—you saved my life.”
That was the last he wanted to hear coming from a doll like this. He’d pulled her fat out of the fire and now there was risk of her clinging like a barnacle. She was damaged-goods and he’d have to find a way to lose her. Therapy couldn’t help this broad anymore than the millions she made sleepwalking through two-hour commercials for popcorn.
The white limo turned west. It had to get out of the neighborhood before the cops showed and the mouthful of teeth in the backseat ordered the driver to cut through Central Park.
‘That guy was supposed to be a damned psychiatrist! Did you see the way he took on two guys at once?” the midget crowed.
He tried to prop his lifts on the seat across but his legs didn’t reach and instead he poured a stiff martini and swallowed it in one gulp. “That bitch,” he hissed.
The cops were looking for a white limo and the streets were full of ‘em. There was no way to stop ‘em all, but they tried. Pullin’ over one stretch after another as the cars passed through the intersection. Irate dignitaries carped and inquisitive but deferential celebs inquired as to the trouble. The cops didn’t even know what they were lookin’ for. They already had the two mugs in custody and the street operation was soon closed down for lack of specificity. Drake had been so focused on protecting the girl and the limo so close to the other cars at the curb that he hadn’t gotten a glimpse of the plate. He had a photographic memory and would’ve had it nailed if he had. Instead the limo kept going and turned onto the highway, picking up speed as it snaked through the racing rush hour traffic.
“Looks like Nicky and Fifi took off. That’s a relief in a way,” I said, yanking the tie from my neck as I headed to the bar.
“In a way?” Olivia said, kickin’ off her cork wedgies.
“Ah, the scrawny ditz kinda got tome. I tol’er that.”
“Oh, didya?” she said, beating me to the bottles and pouring jiggers of rum into the shaker. “How much are ya gettin’ for this job?”
“Only twenty mil, plus a mil a day in expenses and a mil for every dirt bag I ice. Not much at all, considerin’,” I reflected.
Shivering from exposure, Lindsay sneezed, her purple nose swollen and running, staggered to the loveseat and collapsed. She rolled over and hocked a lungful of ooze onto the carpet. That only made sense with the maid on vacation. The phlegm that came out of her face must’ve been half her bodyweight.
“She don’t look too good,” Olivia astutely observed, pouring a highball.
“She’s sick as a dog,” I said, takin’ up the barstool.

The white limo met up with the Rolls in a vacant lot surrounded by construction. The job was half finished and the lot was a vast pit where machinery came to die. This was the front behind the smaller fronts. This was where the real money came in. Cohen stepped from her car where wicked evening wind whipped off the Hudson. Her Lamborghini parked on the other side of the lot stood out like the sun, glinting brightly through the cloudy shadow of dusk. The limo’s engine idled, the fingers in leather gloves beckoning her. She came with her hand in her purse and finger on the trigger. The man inside the limo had cash. He had a briefcase by his side that was to pay her for her services. He had gotten what he wanted and was ready to move on. This man had a career that could not be stopped. He was a runt on the outside and a giant on the inside. You could see it when you looked into his mouth.
He came from the car, briefcase in hand. He had shades on now. He had a black leather jacket and black leather pants on. He was ready to go riding. His Harley was propped on its whammy bar about fifty feet away. He wasn’t gettin’ back into the limo. The stretch was too hot. He was going to ride up to his place in the country. That was where his wife and new baby were. It would be idyllic, a return to Eden, nothing new but idyllic all the same.
“Maria,” he said when she got near him.
“Maria is dead. I am Kristina,” she said, her accent full blown.
“What are you trying to pull?” he said like a movie star.
“This,” she said, pulling the .32 from her purse and firing quick three shots into his chest and stomach. He was wearing a vest. He rocked and fell back against the car. The driver, a security man from the Church, drew a bead on her and took her down with one shot. Maria-Kristina crumpled. Her red leather hit dirt as her fishnets folded from under her. Her plump Russian ass folded into the sand blown by the wind. She shook but she wasn’t cold. She crawled. She wanted to raise her pistol, but was really too weak to crawl. She was feeling heavy, her butt heaviest and her legs couldn’t carry her any longer.
Tom went for his bike and she flattened like a sniper on the ground, and fired, catching him in the seat of his leather pants. He stumbled and she fired again. The limo driver got out and ran to the money. He got it and tried running back. Maria’s goon stood behind the phantom taking aim. He fired once and the driver’s toupee flew off. Making it to the stretch, the guy slammed the bulletproof door and tore out.
Maria’s guy went to her. She was bleeding all over her, covered in gravel and fallow dirt. She was still the best looking dish in the operation and he felt something. He took the gun from her fingers and rose to his feet. He emptied both barrels into Cruise’s back, the vest doing nothing to stop the barrage. Cruise fell forward on his face and didn’t move. The guy carried Kristina back to the rolls and placed her inside, stretching her out so she was comfortable. He didn’t get behind the wheel. He climbed in with her and undid his tie and unbuttoned her blouse. He was raping a corpse but it didn’t matter. This was better in fact. Her final deathly gasps would be like multiple orgasms until she sighed her final breath. She was bloody like a war casualty, his mind going back to the time Afghanistan when he had found a young Afghan mother and her three dead children. The woman sobbed so she could keep her veil on. It was wet with blood, tears and sweat. She’d pissed herself and was lying in the dirt. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen. She was dying too. He’d lifted the trailing burkha from knobby malnourished body of the Afghan teenager as he was now lifting Kristina’s skirt. and held her down, though there was no resistance. The phony talent agent’s wounds weren’t as severe as that one of his memory and Kristina wasn’t dirty and diseased. That made it heaven. He kept her corpse in the vacant lot for hours. By around midnight she was starting to smell like burnt hamburger. He carried the used and disheveled corpse to the edge of the wharf, peered at her cracked dead eyes, and swollen bloated lips. Now Kristina was dirty. Not diseased, because he’d treated her like a queen. There’d been champagne and caviar in the limo, good cigars, good hooch, and good music. Kristina’ corpse had had the time of its life. This alleviated any potential guilt and he kissed her dead lips one last time. Her red leather skirt was back around her waist, smeared with his prints and her hair was al but pulled out of her head and stuffed in her mouth. She had a hairy hole on both ends now. He kissed this wretched corpse on the lips and on the exposed blistering pink nipples atop the dirty white tits, said a prayer and dropped her in the Hudson.
It was up to him to report to the bosses what had happened. It wasn’t supposed to go down that way.
Drake had more confidence in the cops than I’ll ever have and left the matter in their hands, leaving Nicole on his. He didn’t think he had a choice, in light of opening up to her than to hole her up in the penthouse. Kim would be surprised as hell, and so overjoyed she’s probably piss on herself. Nicole Kidman for dinner it was, and more than likely a sleepover.
“Doctor Drake, you’re so kind,” they said as they climbed into his Mercedes. “I hardly know you and—,” she lowered her head bashfully. “You hardly know me,” she said, and looked up brightly, “have you seen any of my movies?”
“No,” he replied, not sure whether her had or not.
He got behind the wheel and she snuggled up close to him. He expected this, but she wasn’t asking innocent questions any more, she had her arms around his neck and his head was being jerked to meet her lips.
“Nicole—,” he cried, not expecting this.
She had his face in her hands kissing it. He tried to push her off but she was too skinny and he missed. Her bony arms were like barbed wire and he was being pulled down on top of her. “Nicole—,” he struggled to get out.
“Take me now, John! Take me now!” she gasped loudly.
He crawled backwards and fell out on the driver’s side. He climbed back and grabbed hold of the cement pillar to bring himself to his feet.
“Son of a,” he panted.
He heard her breathing heavily and he knew she was on her feet. The sound of her breaths filled the garage, but he was able to discern the sound of safety catch coming off.
“I need you to love me, John,” her voice drawled icily. It was huskier than before, another person’s voice entirely. He raised his hands without turning around.
I poked the .45 in her back and snatched the Derringer from her hand. The hand was rock steady and she’d had a dead shot.
“It’s aright, doc,” I called. “I got your girlfriend’s gun.”
He spun in slow motion and would’ve shouted but it came out as a hoarse whisper, “Duke! When the hell did you get here?”
“I drove in a few minutes ago. I was havin’ a smoke an’ saw ya playin’ footsie. What’re ya gonna tell the wife?”
“Nothing, I hope. He grabbed his knees winded from the anxiety and blew to regulate his breaths. He stood up his full height, and said, pointing to the fragile frail, “This woman wanted to kill me.”
I parked her puny rod in my pocket. I hadn’t thought o bring any bracelets, so snatching the tie from my neck in a quick flip of her wrists, I her dainty paws tied cross behind her back.
“Its okay, doc. She won’t ya bite ya—any more.”
He came forward as if he were seeing a mirage and said, “Duke, do you know who this is?”
“What do I look like,” I sneered. “I came to get ya to make a house call.”
“This is Nicole Kidman!”
“She’s just another runaway to me. I’ve got Lindsay Lohan with a head cold throwin’ up all over my furniture.”
“Lindsay?” Nicole squealed.
“Oh, ya know ya?”
“We’ve only met on the red carpet, but I’d love to know how she’s taking, eh—,” she broke off.
“Paris’ murder? Why don’t you come over with Drake an’ ask her yourself. Ya mind, doc? Somebody’s been poppin’ these broads off like sittin’ ducks and I’d rather the two of were where I could keep an eye on ‘em.”
The doc couldn’t ague, but he wasn’t too happy about gettin’ a gun pulled on ‘im. Who is?
I shove d Nicole into Drake’s arms and she melted, cooing and fluttering her blessed out eyes. “Don’t worry, Doc, she’s all tied up like a Christmas package,” I said and lit another smoke as I headed back to my heap.
Drake hoisted Nicole over his shoulder and tossed her with her wrists still tied behind her back across the rear seat and climbed in under the wheel.
“Nicole, your behavior just then was highly inappropriate,” he said, not nearly as sternly as he meant to, and started the Mercedes engine.
“I’m sorry, doctor,” she mewed, lifting her head and pecking him on the cheek. He checked her face in the mirror. Her make-up was everywhere. The single lashes clinging to her sharp cheekbones, her lips smear up her nose and her blush dissolved, caked and congealed around her neck. Taking a good look he compared what he saw to the perky fresh-faced girl he’d met at the restaurant. This one had pimples and freckles, wrinkles and a sagging turkey neck. He shook his head and marveled at the wonder that was Hollywood magic.
Olivia had given Lindsay a blanket to wrap herself in and a cup of hot cocoa liberally doused with bourbon. It was good bourbon and the girl was feeling much better. When I came in with Drake and Kidman, she tried to cheer up but sneezed instead.
“See, doc. Its like I told ya. Think its pneumonia?”
“I won’t know until I examine her,” said Drake, dropping his black medical bag at the foot of the divan. Lindsay sat upright and he removed the blanket from her shoulders and piled it behind her, effectively leaving her naked. He had a stethoscope and put the cold metal cup to her chest. He listened to her heart as her saucer sized nipples hardened.
“Cough,” he said, listening.
She sneezed and blew snot all over him.
“Olivia, this is Nicole Kidman,” I said, introducing the popular movie star to the wife. “Nicole, this is my wife, Olivia.”
“How do, matinee. Can I get ya a drink’a somethin’?” Olivia said from behind the bar.
Nicole put her skinny tail on the stool and looked over the choices on the mirrored shelves behind Olivia big blonde head.
“I’m partial to Zinfandel rose,” Nicole said pleasantly.
“We ain’t got that,” Olivia replied. “What else ya partial to?”
“Have you a glass of champagne?”
“Ain’t we sophisticated? Ya know what, honey, I’ll mix ya a drink you’ll like.”
Olivia’s specialty was mixin’ random liquors in a tall glass and when she was done, she pushed the green concoction under Kidman’s pointy nose. Nicole sniffed the hooch like it was perfume.
“Mmmm…smells like lime.”
Olivia propped and elbow on the counter and leaned forward, saying, “It’s green, ain’t it? Yer supposed t’drink it, not wear it. Drink up—I’ve read you’re a bottomless pit once ya get started.”
Lindsay was green and shivered like she was dyin’a hypothermia.
“What with her, doc? Is she that bad off?” I said, genuinely concerned that she might croak in my joint.
“She’s not as bad as she looks. Have you a bedroom for her?”
“She was stayin’ in the room off the stairs, but I guess she can have Nicky’s room now. It’s allaway in’a back’a the house.”
“How’s the heat in there?” he asked, folding his hearin’ aid and sticking it back in his bag.
“Pretty damned toasty. She should be sweatin’ like the pig she is in no time.”
“Then let’s get her in there. She needs prolonged bed rest.”
He lifted her in his arms as she grabbed her blankie, and carrying her he followed me to the main guestroom.
Natalie never showed of course and her mother called the police yet again, Ryan and the mayor’s niece showing up shortly after in an unmarked car. The snoops as they walking briskly through the hotel lobby noticed the cop in his boxy gray suit and the curvy liaison. Otherwise ignored by the crowd of Portman’s waiting fans because they weren’t celebrities the two got to the front desk where the detective flashed his badge. They were told the room and walked away. Ryan’s badge coupled with the high rounded backside in the tight skirt now had everyone’s attention. Cameras started to flash and one smart snoop thought she’d make brownie points with her producer by gettin’ a quote or two.
She wrongly approached Ryan, ignoring the brunette whose job it was to play nice with the press. “Detective,” the blonde started, her cameraman trailing behind her.
“No comment,” he muttered.
Drake lay Lindsay down to rest on the canopy bed’s mattress and she was asleep in seconds reeking of bourbon and mucous.
“How’s Kim?” I said as he was pulling the blanket over the snoozing starlet.
“I should give her a call,” he said. “I was hoping to surprise her by bringing Nicole Kidman home for dinner.”
“Instead Nicole almost had you for dinner.”
“Yes, yes,” he said, “Strange. It’s a good thing you were there.”
“Nothin’ so strange about it,” I said, hitting the light as we left the room. “The gal turned out to be a fruitcake. Happens all’a time. Hasn’t a patient ever gotten a thing for ya?”
“Happens all’a time,” he smirked.
“I’ll bet it does,” I said, taking the Derringer from my pocket and weighing it in the palm of my hand. “I’ll just bet it does.”
“Funny, she had that the whole time yet she was in fear for her life.”
“It’s a Derringer, doc. One she’d gotten the one shot off, whoever it was she was afraid of would’a gotten it from her and shoved it down her throat.”
We came to the study and I put the gun back in my pocket and sat on the stool beside Nicole. I poured two shots hooch from the decanter on the bar and passed one of the shot to Drake. He swallowed it whole and I poured him another.
Nicole was sipping Olivia’s mysterious concoction as I put the question plainly, “So what are you so afraid of?”
Her eyes fixed on Drake in wonderment.
“You told him?”
“Duke is a private detective,” he said. “I told you there was only so much I could do. Duke can do more.”
“Its my husband—my ex-husband,” she started and her voice cracked.
“He wants you out of the way. Is that it?”
“Yes, did Doctor Drake tell you that?”
“No. I’ve dealt with Exes before. Whatever the details, the story always works out the same. Somebody wants somebody dead. Why in your case?” I said and swigged my drink.
“He’s brainwashed his new wife and he wants to kill me before I can expose him for what he is.”
“Which is?”
“He’s a svengali. Isn’t that right, John? And a scientologist—and the top male movie star in the world.”
“And you wanna expose him?”
“I have a memoir coming out and when the world finds out that he’s a rapist and a pedophile and a homosexual cross-dresser with ambitions on becoming President of the United States, why, his career will be over!”
“That’ll do it,” I said, pouring myself another drink.
“The Church of Scientology has been covering up for him for years. If they can kill me, and stop my book what’s to stop them from taking over the country?”
“What?”
“Nothing!”
Her story was as far out as the rings of Saturn.
I threw my drink down throat, and said, “You’ve got yourself a live one, Drake. It might be worth the while to keep her that way.”
He nodded and turned away, taking the cell from his pocket.
“Who’s he calling?” she said, about to panic.
“His wife. You disrupted his routine and he’s gotta make it square.”
“Oh.”
She spun on the stool and faced her empty glass, asking in an airy voice, “Olivia, may I have another drink? My nerves are as jumpy as a cat on a hot tin roof.”
“Sure, honey. Good ain’t they?” Olivia remarked, breaking out the limejuice and Tequila.
“Oh, yes. What do you call it?”
“A Night of the Iguana.”
Drake came back to the party with a distracted look on his face.
“Kim doesn’t answer the phone, Duke. I’d better be going to make sure everything’s all right.”
“Sure, doc. Think Lindsay’ll be okay?”
“It’s only a bad cold. She should be fine after not too long. Try to keep her covered up.”
“I’ll do my best, but it hasn’t been easy so far.”
“She seems like a girl’s who’s had plenty of experience on her back. Just keep her that way and she’ll be all right.”
“What about Virginia Woolf over there? Yer not leavin’ her here, are ya?”
“Oh, eh—,” he hedged and I could see it was takin’ a lot out of him.
“Go on. I’ll look after her. I’ve been thinkin’ about puttin’ up a velvet rope outside anyway.”
“Thanks, Duke, for taking her off my hands. I don’t know I would do if she tried a maneuver like earlier.”
“You’d break her in two—which would be all too easy. Don’t worry, John. She might come in handy for what I’m workin’ on.”
“So long, Olivia,” he called as I walked him out.
‘Later, doc!” she yelled back.
Nicole was drunk and when she jumped off the barstool to run after him, she fell on her face. I motioned to Olivia to leave her that way and pretty soon she was snoring into the carpet.
“You say this Maria Cohen was supposed to pick the girl up at the airport?” Ryan asked, dutifully scratching the details of the mother’s statement into his pad.
“Yes,” she replied, confirming the statement.
“And when she didn’t show up here at the hotel, you tried her cell and got no answer.”
“That’s right,” Portman’s mother said, wiping tears from her eyes.
Ryan, not the most sensitive of souls, tried anyway, “Don’t you worry. We’ll scare her up. If she’s anywhere between here and JFK,” he said, trailing off and giving the liaison a nod.
“Mrs. Portman, Natalie is a huge star. She couldn’t just vanish without someone noticing,” the girl said, trying to reassure her.
That was all they could do and Ryan left his card and he and the mayor’s niece booked before the anxious media personnel in the lobby decided to put up circus tents. They hurried to their car where Ryan hit the siren and with noise and hood cherry flashing zoomed away.
In the car, she turned to the stony dick and said off-handedly, “My uncle isn’t going to like this. How many stars does this make that came to a bad end in the last few days?”
“I lost count after one.”
“Jennifer Lopez was shot and killed in the Trump Plaza, Britney Spears murdered by gunmen in the Biltmore, and who else—oh, yes, Hilary duff and her sister in the middle of a crowded restaurant. Why do you think all of this happening all of a sudden? Why is someone so intent on shooting stars?”
“Don’t forget Anna Nicole Smith down in Florida. They still haven’t figured out how she bought it, and now we got Natalie Portman en route from JFK an’ never showin’ up.”
“And Lindsay Lohan barely surviving an attempt on her life. She was certainly lucky,” the girl said.
Ryan grimaced, making her question him about it, “Why the face? Are you a Lindsay Lohan fan?”
“I wouldn’t know Lohan from a handbag. I’m thinkin’ the only she’s alive is ‘cause Brady was on the scene.”
“Oh. Duke Brady, the detective?”
“That’s the one—then I run into him in the lobby of the Biltmore right after Spears got it.”
“Oh, really? And this was after she accused him of raping her and killing her husband.”
“Sure was. He said he was there on a second honeymoon.’
“And you believed him?”
“Of course not, but I checked his rod. It hadn’t been fired. ‘Sides, the way Spears bought it wasn’t his style. I’ve known Brady for a while. He’s not that kinda triggerman,” he resigned confidently.
“What kind is he?”
“He’s no back shooter. He plays square. He wouldn’t take down a defenseless girl lyin’ in’a tub.”
“Do you think he raped her?”
“From what I saw, she didn’t look any alive than she did dead. I don’t think so. He’s married now, if that means anything an’ ‘sides he can get laid any number’a ways any time’a the day he wants.”
“Oh,” she commented, her raising a pitch.
“Yeh. Maybe you ought’a meet ‘im. You could ask him a few questions about what all’s goin’ down. He knows somethin’ about it, I’m sure.”
She didn’t answer. She was thinking.
He picked up his radio and held it to his face, saying, “Ryan here. I want black and whites all over the Westside Highway from one end to the other. Check every pier. We’re lookin’ for a Natalie Portman, the famous actress. Height about five three; skinny with short black hair; last seen wearin’ a green miniskirt, red tank top and black patent leather stilettos. Copy.”
The dispatch crackled back at him, “Copy, Ryan. We’re on it.”
The mother’s call had come in earlier and repeatedly and the bulls were already busy scouring the tenderloin with a fine-toothed comb. With Ryan’s call, all they had to do was start all over again widening their net. They’d come up with something, even if it had nothing to do with her.
Miller called the commissioner from home, satisfied with her sketch and ready to make it public. He was glad to hear and told her to fax it over. She said she would and plugged in her home fax machine. A bullet came through her window and she hit the floor, her ankle screaming. She shimmied across the floor for her piece and waited for something else to happen. There was a knock at the door and she sat up. The knock came harder and she crawled behind her sofa and yelled, “Who’s there?”
A slug chewed into the lock and the door flew open with a kick from the other side. The guy came in looking around and saw no one. He knew she was somewhere in the studio apartment and he went for the most obvious place. She was waiting for him when he came around the sofa and blew him back with dum-dums. His chest and face opened and parted, brains and guts exploding in every direction. The leather jacket on his back shredded and she grabbed his fallen .357, feet came running and she hoisted herself to her feet, barely able to stand, leaned over the sofa and capped every guy she saw. Three niggers collapsed into dead heaps the pieces clenched in their cold death grips.
She was ready to take on an army, but there weren’t any more. She hobbled to the closet and pulled a box of slug from the shelf and reloaded her nine, the four bodies at her feet turned up and unmoving. The clip snapped in place and she pointed the Glock at the next sound, but there were niggers, unless you count the one, and she was damn near white.
Two girls stood in the doorway of the apartment, one a short rat faced blonde, the other the beady-eyed Negro with the pale complexion. Miller recognized them both from a million tabloid photos, movies, music videos and TV talk shows.
“You gotta be shittin’ me,” she hissed with pursed lips.
“You’re one mean bitch,” the blonde noted, “they never should’a fucked with you.”
“Get the fuck down on your faces—the both’a you,” Sophie demanded.
“But,” the black girl stammered, but Miller wasn’t having any more fun and games. She leveled the rod and both girls dropped first to their knees in the pool of sticky red and then flat, pushing the inert bodies out of the way to do it. “But I’m Beyonce Knowles and this Christina Agulera! The girl with face pressed to the blood-pooled floor.
“I know who you are. And I know who this is,” Miller growled, indicating Jay-Z’s corpse. “And this one,” she said, kicking the dead Fifty Cent, the first guy to come in. What was left of his tattoos gave him away and the grillwork from his mouth had stayed intact even as his head had smashed like an egg under a brick.
She didn’t know the other two guys and didn’t mention them. They were well-known rappers too, but that didn’t matter anymore. The girls turned to face one another as she went behind them and stepped down on each of their raised backsides, flattening their bellies into the thick paste of blood. Then kicking their legs apart, she knelt and pulled up their short ruffled skirts, checking for concealed weapons. Beyonce was wearing a tight girdle that rode deep into the deep crack of her big ass. Aguilera wore nothing, her pale ass sweaty and flat as a board. They had no weapons she could see.
“Keep your hands where I can see ‘em and start talkin’,” she demanded, never lowering her weapon and keeping it aimed where she could light up their assholes if need be.
“We only wanted to talk,” Beyonce said, straining as she involuntarily began pissing.
“Ever hear the phrase ‘say it with flowers’?”
“We know you were there when JLO got popped,” Aguilera explained, equally stressed as the yellow stream flowed from between her creamy thighs. “Jay-Z thought you did it. We tried to talk him out of it but he wouldn’t listen.”
“You should’ve tried harder.”
“Guesso,” Beyonce agreed.
‘Guesso,” said Miller.
“Can we get up now?” Aguilera asked, as if they were playacting.
“I’m thinkin’ not. You’re gonna stay right where you are while I call this in.”
“Damn girl, you’re hard,” Beyonce said with irate displeasure.
“Harder than your flabby ass, bitch,” the cool headed captain scoffed, picking up the phone.
The uniforms searching the piers walked around in wide circles until one rookie PO picked up on a trail of blood and followed it, talking into the radio on his shoulder, he informed his partner and every bull in the vicinity. Soon squad cars were hurrying to the spot. Leaving the cars flashers and lights spinning in silence, the squadron of bulls all walked along the same wharf to where the rookie stood, his flashlight illuminating a row of pylons about twenty yards out. The tide was receding and he had spotted what appeared to be an arm sticking out of the water. Every PO pulled a Maglight from his belt and they all lit up the spot together. The arm was attached to a bony back and the girl looked like she was hugging the algae laden wood. She wasn’t of course; she’d simply been washed against it by the outgoing tide. She was skinny with short black hair.
They’d found Natalie Portman. Her mother would be overjoyed.
Told by Miller that she had a couple’a big time pop stars in custody, Joseph and a few bulls headed quickly to her place. There they found the four bodies and the two women stuck to the floor.
“Miller, what the hell have you got goin’ on here?” Joseph wanted to know as soon as he saw the massacre.
“Why not ask them? They only wanted to talk.”
“Okay, you bimbos—talk,” he spat.
The bulls with the lieutenant were speechless. Miller hadn’t bothered lowering the skirts and double-checking for weapons of any kind, she torn the girdle from Knowle’s fat cheeks and flipped Aguilera over. She’d pulled on a pair of latex gloves and probed each woman thoroughly until they were juiced up and squealing with pleasure. They were ready to spill everything, havin’ spilled a good amount already.
“Cuff ‘em,” Joseph said to the gleeful bulls that lunged en masse for the job.
Aguilera was folded over and bent upside down, turned backward and nearly ripped in two, one bracelet catching her around the wrist while the other end of the short chain clipped onto her ankle. Beyonce had more meat on her so she had to be rolled over a few times before the steel rings found places they could lock onto.
Both women were forced onto their feet, losing their stilettos and wobbling back and forth on their fleshy heels and the balls of their toes. They were soaked with blood from their faces to their naked feet, mussed perms matted with it and the skimpy clothes dripping and patched with it. They were such disgusting, wretched messes that to get a good grip on ‘em but mostly to get their hairy paws all over them, the bulls had to tear the clothes completely off and roughly shoving them, marched them out of the disaster area that was Miller’s small apartment.
“Kim!” Drake hollered, going from room to room of the penthouse suite.
There was no answer and no sign of his better half. He found the note he had written the night before on his desk in his office along with another, typed on his own typewriter. The note said Kim wouldn’t be harmed if he gave them Kidman. Though the note had the distinctive impression of the keys of his electric Remington, the paper it was typed on bore unfamiliar watermark. Holding the sheet up to the desk lamp, he could make out the bizarre emblem that he knew to be the symbol of the Church of Scientology.
The white limo was a long way from the city. It had traveled over eighty miles to get where it was going. It hadn’t stopped for gas and was running on empty. The car’s suspension held up over the boulder-laden roads, winding into the hills and down into the valley. The earth turned green and the girl came running out of the house, her tangled bush of dark hair tossed by the wind. The driver emerged holding a gun in one gloved hand. In his other he held the briefcase. “Tom is dead,” he said.
She ran into his arms and kissed him, the way a girl would kiss her father, with deep tongue and he wrapped his gun hand around her waist. “It’s good to see you too, honey.”
“How?” she said, bringing him into the log cabin that was a palace of logs.
Everything in the house was made of wood stained with clear varnish. Made out with high ceiling chandeliers, bay windows and skylights. When the sun was shining there was light everywhere and at night the place disappeared into the darkness.
“Double cross. The Russian got the most of it.”
“Maria?”
“That wasn’t Maria Cohen. She called herself Kristina. She was a ringer. The real Maria’s most likely breathin’ dirt.”
“Maria Cohen’s dead?” she gasped, headed for the fridge. “Ya wanna beer?”
“The woman that was callin’ herself Maria. Yeh.”
She pulled two cans of Bud from the icebox and brought them over.
“Here,” she said, plopping beside him. They kissed and she passed him the beer.
“I, eh, notice you got the money,” she playfully arcing her head toward the case.
“I couldn’t leave it laying there, could I?”

Drake got a call through to the main administrative branch of the Church of Scientology. When the guy came on, he was a sniffling phony. “Who is speaking, please?”
“Doctor John Drake. I have questions for you.”
“I’ll transfer you to—,” the line went dead abruptly.
He tried again and got nothing. He decided to pay a visit to the main office of the Church of Scientology.
Being an adult I had no bedtime and me and were Olivia were makin’ out on the couch. The phone was somewhere in the dark until she rolled over and her ass lit up purple and pink.
‘That’s Drake,” I said, snatching the phone from her ass. “What’s up, doc?”
“Kim’s gone missing,” Drake said heatedly.
“Any ideas?” I considered, pulling my shirt on.
“Plenty. The note is Scientology stationary. I was going to go over there and bust some heads—in an official medical capacity.”
“I take it you need an assist in your surgery.”
“How ‘bout it?”
“Let’s burn the dump down,” I iterated, sitting up and taking Olivia’s out of my lap by her blonde mop.
‘You only live once,” Drake crowed, feelin’ like a cowboy riding to the rescue.
“Some people are about to find that out,” I said, pulling her off me. “I’ll meet ya in your garage. Need anything?”
“What have ya got?”
“I’m full’a fuckin’ surprises.”
I signed off and gave her a look. “What’s with the ‘me Jane’ routine? We got company, remember?”
“Company?” she said, her tits shaking. “You call that chippy company? You saved her neck and now you’re a regular knight in shining armor.”
“Quit it,” I said. She was drunk and talkin’ out of her head.
“You wanna dump me for Lindsay Lohan!” she bawled suddenly.
I was caught off guard with Lindsay standing in the room at a distance, just coming in. I buttoned my shirt, found my gun belt and pulled on my jacket. We’d had a nice time while the girls slept.
“Duke,” she moaned as I walked past.
“What is it?”
“Can I have a glass’a water?”
“Ask your housemother.”
I’d pay for that last line, but couldn’t think about it.
I’d rescued her myself once. Drake bein’ a prominent citizen of the sort that attracts nuts, Kim had gone missing before.
“I didn’t tell you over the phone—the note also said they won’t hurt Kim if I give them Nicole, but I thought better of that.”
“Smart,” I said.
We climbed into my heap because I was all gassed up. He handed me the note with his fingerprints and all.
“I guess the bulls don’t need to see this,” I said, eyein’ it. “This place is not nearby.”
“Duke, if they harm Kim in any way, I’ll nail their ass to the wall,” he snarled.
“Need a hammer?” I said, turning me wheel and passing him a .38.
“I’d rather take them apart brick by brick, until I get to the bottom of it.”
Spontaneously candle light vigils for Natalie Portman broke as soon as the sun receded. Central Park looked like a raging fire by full nightfall and people were making speeches and gettin’ on television. Ryan and Joseph took it upon themselves to stick with Natalie’s mother as she relentlessly threw herself at the media. He left the physical part to Joseph while tried to make the angles. Everything added up to nothing.
He was jolted out a daydream of the girl he’d been havin an affair with by Miller’s collar. He left the squad room to see what the fuss was about. Miller had a cigarette in her jaw and looked tired, her usual buzz muted by the excitement.
Ryan watched as the girls passed surrounded by hard bulls. The blonde’s roots were showin’ down to her ankles. She’d been dragged from end of the paddy wagon to another by about twelve cops. She’d be charged with resisting arrest. The black girl had cuts all over her face like she’d been duckin’ razorblades. Neither had clothes. They were and handcuffed and blatantly brutalized in every way possible. It was so routine he didn’t pick up on the significance.
Miller approached him and he inquired about the girls. “They’re puttin’ ‘em out young nowadays. Where’d ya pick ‘em up?”
“That’s Christina Aguilera and Beyonce Knowles. We got Jay-Z, Snoop Dog, and Fifty Cent in the morgue. It was my shot.”
“What language are you speakin’, Miller? You talkin’ about rap music?”
“That’s right. They shot their way into my apartment.”
“Who?”
“Jay-Z, the rapper. Fifty came in first. I blew him away with my magnum. He had one two and I picked it up and used it on Snoop Dog and Jay-Z. There’s another guy but he hasn’t been identified yet.”
“What’s that got to do with these two?”
He was curious now and walked with, following the naked bimbo sweating it up in wrist and ankle bracelets. This was why he took the job.
“They came in after their boyfriends joined the holy choir. Said they wanted to talk to me and the boys misunderstood. Somethin’ about the Lopez case.”
“The commissioner told he was waitin’ for a fax. Never came.”
“That was me too. I got a sketch worked up’a the guy’s face. Nobody’s seen it yet.”
“Was he black?” he posed.
‘No.”
“That means he wasn’t one of the guys you cranked.”
“Guess not.”
“Thanks, Miller. You just put us in the spotlight again.”
He walked faster to get ahead of her, to distance himself when the snoops started showerin’ her with frozen air kisses.
“But, Ryan, she said, chasing him, “This collar could break the Lopez case. With what these two know and my sketch, we get a pretty good idea of the perp.”
The girls were led into a dark room made of brick. A halogen lamp came on and there were two wooden chairs. Miller said, “Siddown,” in a harsh alien voice.
They sat down. Ryan would’ve stayed to watch the interrogation since Miller always stripped down to her sweaty skivvies while kickin’ the shit out of some mealy-mouthed dirt bag. The PO came and in and spoke into his ear. He took once last glance at Miller peelin’ off her shirt, which was already tight. Her hard pecs glistening with dripping sweat staining her sportsbra obscenely.
He stepped into the hall. The PO handed him the cell and got out of his way.
“Yeh, Joseph? Ya found what? Tom Cruise! How da ya know its him?”
He listened then said, “He had his wallet on ‘em,” to the PO. “Was he alone? No? I’ll be right there.”
He didn’t tell the PO about the naked blonde found beside Cruise’s body. He figured he’d let him see it for himself. “You drive,” he said and they took off west in a screaming squad car.
The liaison didn’t know about Miller’s workin’ over the two pop tarts until the morning. By then it was too late. They were now charged with attempted murder of a police officer. They were denied bail, locked up and never heard from again.
Katie Holmes nee’ Cruise liked to run through the field wit her baby, just learning to walk. The child would rise and fall above the grass line trying to catch its mother. She was always a few feet off, and a few feet more. The beige minivan emblazoned with the odd logo took the sharply curving road unsteadily. The diminutive Korean woman had one of the guys by the balls, squeezing so hard his face turned blue. He swung to hit her and she elbowed the second guy so hot coffee flew in his face. She went below them as they grappled with each other and crawled through the space between the van’s rows. The guys went after her, but she was up with the driver already and snatched the Club from beneath the dash. The driver swerved crazily as she brained him with it. The other two guys couldn’t stand up in the swaying cab and Kim jumped at the wheel bringing the van to a spinning stop that nearly flipped it. She climbed out the driver side window and ran. She was wearing a dirty silk chemise because she’d been heading to bed when the thugs silently entered the penthouse.
Sara saw the woman, a bright yellow terrified woman showed no fear, running in the flimsy pink garment. From a distance she looked like a doll and the child ran from the grass onto the road.
“Sara!” the child’s mother cried.
Thug with the sore nuts cleared his head and climbed behind the wheel. He hit the gas and wheeled the van around in the dirt. He pressed the accelerator and poured it on.
“Sara!” Katie screamed as the van barreled down on the oblivious tot.
Kim was yards of the tires squeal and ran at a sprinter’s pace, scooping the child n her arms as the van tore past, blowing them down, Kim landing on her back with the baby in her arms.
Sara! Sara!” the mother cried and wailed, running from the tall brush to her baby’s side. “Oh, Sara! My darling!” She took the baby from Kim’s arms allowing Kim to sit up.
Not forgetting her manners, the woman extended delicate workmanlike fingers to help the heroic Asian girl to her feet.
Kim was dizzy, frightened and confused. She’d been taken from behind and drugged. This was the first she was seeing of this place, but she’d seen the girl a million times.
“Oh, my god! You’re Katie Holmes!” she screeched.
“Kati! Katie!” the limo driver hollered, running across the field.
The main headquarters of the church was a stunted block of glass and steel, black all over. The parking lot was the length of a football field, littered overhead with surveillance cameras of all types. I didn’t park there. I rolled up on what appeared to be the front of the place and Drake and I got out of the car. Two pairs of double glass doors disappeared when they closed against the façade.
We held our own until a soulless looking couple came from inside. She was a picture perfect preppy blonde with a ponytail and a smile like it was painted on a balloon. He wore traditional preppy clothes. He didn’t look smart. He wasn’t even smartly dressed. We rushed them before the door closed.
Smart boy tried to play it wise, by saying, for her benefit I’m sure, “Hey! You can’t go in there without showing some credentials!”
“I’ve got credentials, son. Where are yours?” Drake said forcefully.
That stymied the guy and we ferreted inside, leaving them bewildered on the outside.
“Let’s find the head man,” I said.
“Say, you two! You can’t come in here! You have to be clears to be in this sector,” the security guard yelled from down the corridor.
“Duke, maybe if we play it cool, he’ll give us a pass,” Drake murmured.
“Not a chance,” I said. “This guy’s armed and dangerous.”
He went for the automatic on his belt but I got to mine first, and leveled it on him. “Drop it,” I commanded. “You wanna take a slug for this crowd or are you as brainless as they are?”
He dropped his rod and raised his hands slowly. “Say, I just work here, I don’t want no trouble,” he said in a hurry.
“Don’t worry, we didn’t come lookin’ for you. Where’s the big boss? The guy that runs this show?” I pressured.
He stopped looking at my gun and pointed to the ceiling. “You want the guy upstairs in the corner office. Ted Hubbard.”
“Thanks, pal. You’d better beat it. If I were, I’d start lookin’ for a new job.”
“This job’s only temporary.”
“Ain’t that the truth? Scram, I said. We’re gonna light this dump up.”
He ran for the twin doors and out. We heard his car tearing across the lot and away.
Since we had driven westward, daylight was slower in coming. The meeting was wrapping up and the honchos were leaving. Hubbard stayed behind with his personal secretary. After the last board member, she locked the windowless door and began unbuttoning her blouse. This crowd were mostly women with an average age of twenty-five in tailored pinstripes suits; gals who were buxom and curvy in short skirts and stockings. The only way to the second floor was by a single elevator. We had no choice but to wait for it not knowing who or what would emerge. The first one off was young, and well built. We stood off to the side and waited for the group head out the door. Instead they lingered and started talkin’ it up about Hubbard.
“Do you think he and Daphne?” the twenty-five year old asked suggestively.
Drake made the next play. The women were giggling like the girls they were beneath their power suits when he came into the open. The elevator was sliding closed and he lunged past them, shouting, “Hold it, please!”
One girl instinctively went for the button and slapped it, then realized he was a stranger from nowhere. She couldn’t stop him now and he was in the car and pressed the door open button. I came out then holding the gun on them. They froze like birds in mid-flight.
“Get back in’a elevator,” I ordered them. “Think I’m kiddin’? Who want to try me?”
The guy that was with them was a closet case and shouldn’t have been a problem, but these clown had something to prove to the babes. He got in front of them and tried to block my way.
“We’re not armed!” he declared.
“But I am,” I said and socked him in the belly with the steel in my hand. He doubled over spitting and I chopped the gun butt down on the back of his head cutting him and he bled like hell. I kicked him out of the way and the girls moved like a heard on clicking heels into the car. Drake had his rod out now, to keep the girls huddled together and quiet on the ride up and in the hall of the second floor.
“Where’s Hubbard?” I said and the group of them pointed to the solid oak door. “You,” I said to the first girl, “get him out here.”
“Um,” she hesitated, this was the girl who’d wondered about his relationship with Daphne. “Come here, I said sharply, taking her by the collar of her white blouse and yanking her to the door. I pounded with the gun and after a few seconds banged again.
“Who the—?” came the man’s voice from behind the door, his voice faint like he was across the room and it was the girl that came to the door.
“Who is it?” she called out, cracking with an effort.
I looked at the girl and she at the gun and strained to say her name, gettin’ it out at last, “Stephanie!”
“Duke, they can see us,” Drake said, pointing up to the red camera’s eye.
“So they can.” I raised the forty-five and shot out the camera, then blasted the sprinkler nozzle.
The hot slug burned away the paraffin and set off the system throughout the building. Water sprayed down over us and as the girls scrambled, some slipped and fell, others just got wet. They were squealing and screaming and behind the door, Daphne screamed too.
The door flew open and she ran, tripping over someone’s lost heel and went down. Hubbard ran to the door and I grabbed him as he came through. He turned to me in utter fear and surprise.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Where’s Kim Drake?” I demanded.
“I don’t know any—,” he tried to shake loose but I threw him into the pack of girls and fired over their heads.
“The girl you were gonna trade for Kidman. Nicole Kidman. Ring any bells?”
The girls collectively slumped to the slippery floor, their suits ruined and shrinking already. Their bras were visible beneath the soaking wet white blouses and all modesty left them as they peed themselves. Hubbard was at the fore of the group and I could tell he didn’t want to be there. His jacket flapped open and he reached for the Lorcan holstered to his back. The water was spitting in heavy spirals and I fired through the rainbow. His hand jerked as he tried for the weapon again and I fired twice more. I hit one of the girls and caught him in his shoulder with the third shot. The first shot having torn into his hand, he had no fingers to grip. His girlfriend made for his gun and I fired again, hitting one of the other girls in the drenched stocking leg.
“Kidman!” I yelled.
“Cruise place—,” he sputtered, goin’ down like he was dyin’. “What was’at?”
“The Cruise place!” his girl hollered at us. ‘Why don’t you leave us alone! Why are you trying to kill us?”
“Come ‘ere, you.” I held the gun on him and grabbed her by the hair.
I pulled her away from the others and she fell sloppily at my feet. “Yer gonna show us the way,” I growled.
With the sprinkler goin’, the fire alarm stared up and we had to break into the stairwell and take the flight down where I kicked open the door to the first floor and dragged the girl like a masher to the double doors. I smacked her face hard into the glass and shoved her so it opened with the force of her body’s impact. Drake was behind me with nobody behind him. Outside everyone had run or was still running to their cars in the vast parking lot. No one had gone near the Maserati and I pushed her along with one hand, my gun in the other. At the car I handed her off to Drake and power opened the doors. He threw her inside and climbed in. I got under the wheel, started the engine and hit the gas.
Kim was treated to Katie’s homemade mushroom barley soup and a corned beef sandwich.
“You saved my baby’s life! You can have anything you want!” Holmes encouraged.
“I just want to go home,” Kim said, between tablespoons of big chunks of mushroom and bites on the delicious sandwich.
“Arthur, when Kim is done eating, I want you to take her right home. I’m sure her husband is worried sick.”
“I’ll have to get gas,” he said, stroking a sliver of firewood with a pocketknife.
“Do you think you have enough?” Katie joked.
Arthur didn’t that that was funny. He didn’t want everybody and his brother to know he’s ripped off the Russian mafia and the church both. Arthur had been trusted enough by Hubbard to be made Cruise’s personal driver but when Arthur saw Katie it was love at first sight. From that moment Tom Cruise was a dead man in their eyes. They didn’t know how or when but they knew it would involve Nicole.
As it turned out, Nicole had nothin’ to do with it. Tom was hoping in fact, to get back in Kidman’s good graces by scaring her into coming back to him. She was scared. He’d accomplished that much, but she was also neurotic in a way that Scientology couldn’t begin to touch. She’d gone to the best shrink in the business instead. Now she was passed out on Night of the Iguanas and Tom had been blown away. She didn’t know that and thought the Scientologists were still after her, but after Drake’s treatment, they wanted nothing to do with her. Hubbard was wounded and was about as close to callin’ the cops as I was to handin’ out candy kisses in place of lead.
“We’ve got two sets of fresh tire prints in and out of that lot,” Joseph reported. “Three if you count the motorcycle.”
“What happened to that?” Ryan questioned.
“Somebody must’a walked off with it. It rode in but the treads show that didn’t leave under its own power. Somebody must’a stolen it after Cruise and the dame bought it.”
“If the bike belonged to Cruise it had to be high-end job. Try to track it down. Whoever swiped it maybe saw some of what went down, or all of it.”
Joseph made the metal note to get on that, and asked, “What’s Miller’s story?”
Ryan wiped his brow and replied, “That’s another mess. Some big name rappers tried to muscle her. They’re all in the morgue an’ we hadda put the girls that were with ‘em on ice as accessories. Miller squeezed ‘em but all they came out with was that they wanted to know if it was Miller blew down Jennifer Lopez. Stupid frails didn’t get that it was Miller guardin’ Lopez in the first place. But Sophie’s got her own angle. She made a sketch of the shooter to pass around.”
“Are we anywhere close to puttin’ any of this to rest?” Joseph asked finally.
“Nope,” Ryan put flatly.
“Where’s Brady?”
“I have no idea,” the captain lieutenant replied. “What about that Jane Doe we found with Cruise?” he asked, changing the subject.
“She’s got no ID, but somebody’s gotta know who she is. Donna’s puttin’ her picture out to the newspapers to see if anybody recognizes her. Maybe there’s a connection between Lopez and Cruise.”
“Maybe,” Ryan muttered, taking a cigar from his shirt pocket and lighting it. It was the same brand of cheap cigar he smoked all’a time. He wasn’t enjoying it but he thought the harsh cherry flavored smoke might distract him from his thoughts. It didn’t.
The liaison had been given the task of babysitting Portman’s mother. It was gettin’ late and Donna was starving. Portman’s mother was on the telephone in the hotel room setting up yet another press conference for the morning. Donna had helped her write a speech imploring the public to help the police find her daughter’s killer. Donna could fend off the press but she couldn’t stop the rags from printing whatever they wanted. The rumors conflicted and contradicted but each one was good for a salacious headline and a byline for some ambitious snoop. The blonde television reporter had gotten a deal for her own talk show on cable news and Patricia Cohen had launched a series in the Times on the cost of celebrity, starting with the infamous public murder of Paris Hilton, moving onto the mysterious one of Jennifer Lopez. She used the column to speculate wildly on the killers’ motives and decried a culture where such things were looked upon as entertainment. She of course was pulling down a fat salary for doing just that.
She was in her condo typing on her laptop with the television on. She was listening out for yet another star killing when the special announcement broke in.
“The body of actor Tom Cruise has been found shot to death under mysterious circumstances in a construction site on the upper Westside. Police have no clues as to the motive for the killing. However, the nude body of a woman was found near the actor’s body on the same site. The woman had been shot and her body ravaged. Police have yet to identify the dead woman but have released this photo.”
Patricia swung around in her seat as the photo came on screen. The ME having cleaned up the facial bruises and lacerations, she recognized the face as that of her sister. She got so excited and nervous that reaching for her coffee, she knocked the cup off the table and it shattered splashing coffee onto the polished hardwood floor. The newscaster was repeating herself adding bits about the other recent celeb murders, ending on a sad note about the finding of Natalie Portman’s body off the piers of the Hudson.
I pulled up to the house of logs and cut my engine. Drake shifted the girl’s weight on his lap and opened the car door. Her legs were like jelly and she keeled forward and landed on her face in the grass. I cam around and pulled her up by her shirt collar and tossed her onto her back across the front hood where she started to slide back down to the ground.
Drake went up to the house and knocked on the front door. The towering brunette answered the door looking like a freshly scrubbed angel with glistening wet hair. Her dimples were as deep as wells and her smile blinding, her eyes nearly invisible behind the thick black mascara.
“Hello,” she said, the smile wilting.
“My name is John Drake,” he barely got out when Kim came running.
“John!” She flung herself and threw her arms around him clutching his neck and he held her like a panda.
“You appear in good spirits,” he said, not resisting a grin.
She climbed down from his chest and put out her hand to the dumbfounded brunette.
“John, this is Katie Holmes.”
I threw the girl over onto her stomach and used my necktie to bind her wrists. From there I shoved her back in the car, ass up with her head beneath the dash. The position looked painful. She couldn’t move an inch.
I took a gander of the mansion made of giant Legos and walked up the path. No one had paid any attention to me with the gal in the driveway. Understandably, the doc and Mrs. Drake were both fighting back strong emotions, but when I came beside Drake, Kim said familiarly, “Hi, Duke.”
Kim was wearing a flesh colored teddy and yellow flip-flops. Holmes had on a vintage Victorian housedress that looked like a shapeless sheet lit up from inside by the tall, lithe body.
“Katie, this is my husband,” Kim said to her new friend. “This is our friend Duke Brady.”
Katie smiled forced and stiff this time. I wondered why.
“Can we come in,” I said, already moving forward.
“Well,” Katie hesitated.
I pushed past Drake and came into the house. Arthur the limo driver had been in the main room and came quickly to see what was going on.
“What goes here?” he griped.
“We came to pick up our friend.”
“How did you know she was here?” he barked in irritation.
“You ain’t tryin’ to hide her, are ya? Why shouldn’t we know?”
He didn’t know who I was and deferred because I could’a been anybody. I was obviously somebody with the know-how to find the secluded firetrap at all.
The three guys in the minivan didn’t want to get into it with Katie Holmes around because if she or the baby got hurt that’d be their ass. After losing their prisoner they drove on to a roadhouse where local rednecks and strippers swayed to country music. The guys ordered beers and sat in a booth. The one guy still had sore yarbles and the driver had a visibly throbbing knot on his head. The third guy had been less surprised than burned by the hot coffee and so became the voice of reason.
He’d phoned Hubbard on his cell and gotten no answer. Their options were to make a grab for the Asian girl again, which they unanimously ruled out for the time being, or wait for the church honcho to get in touch with them. They thanked their lucky starts that they were small change in the scheme of things and could probably lay low without drawing heat. That’s what they were hopin’.
A skinny stripper with tattoos came over to the booth, smiled with green teeth and said, “One’a you boys wanna lap dance?”
The guy closest to her handed her a dollar bill and said, “Sure, stretchin’ out his thighs to making room for her to sit.
She looked at the bill like it was confederate.
“You’ll need more than this, big boy. It’ll cost five.”
“Five?” he balked, straightening.
She had an angle though and bent down holding her bony knees, her boob job all over him. From there, she said, “Twenty’ll get ya full service.”
He was on his feet so fast he nearly knocked her down. She took him by the hand and walked him away from the table, the lovers disappearing behind a blue velvet curtain.
The other two guys had nothing better to do than wait, nurse their warm beers and watch the ugly strippers. Each stripper was uglier than the last and part of the fun was seein’ just how ugly they could get, the pastime so innocuous, their minds went blank like a couple’a zombies. The State Trooper that came into the roadhouse wasn’t lookin’ for a good time. He took his shades off so he could see in the dark and glared at the roomful of redneck yokels and truckers. The two guys in the booth staring straight ahead didn’t notice his tan all over until he was right next to the table.
“You boys Scientologists?” he asked. He’d been practicing sayin’ the word in his head so he didn’t say ‘Scientolologists’.
“What if we are?” the guy with the knot on his head reared up, used to be defensive in the face of such a question.
But this goober was the law and he didn’t like that.
“I’m just here to tell you that your headquarters is out’a business an’ that yo’ head man’s been shot.” He had merely intended to inform them of the fact, but given the knothead’s surly attitude, he decided to twist to the screw. “That your van out there?”
“Yeh,” knothead said, realizing his mistake.
“I want it out’a here. Like I said your organization done gone out’a business.”
The Trooper’s hand was slipping down to his weapon and they picked up the conversation was over.
‘We can’t go!” then guy with the sore nuts piped in.
“”Why not?” the Trooper replied.
“We’re waiting for a friend. He’s in the back room with one of the girls.”
“It’d better be his sister, ‘cause otherwise—,” the Trooper was beginning, ready to run them in.
The third guy, relieved as all hell, came up behind the uniform and slapped it on the shoulder. They didn’t even see the Trooper move, the guy’s face hitting the table so hard, the beer bottles jumped and his wrists were wrenched behind his back and cuffed. For good measure, the Trooper raised the guy’s head a little off the table and slammed it back down two or three times.
The guy was stupid with pain and blurted out, “We’re friends of Tom Cruise!”
That had the Trooper lookin’ forward to throwin’ the switch.
Katie made coffee while Drake sat with Kim and she described the three guys from the bus. I went outside for a smoke and in a minute Arthur came out there with me. He pointed to the Maserati and said, “That sure is a nice ride.”
“Sure is,” I said. “Cost me a pretty penny too.”
I passed him a smoke and he lit with his own match.
“Say, there’s somethin’ movin’ around in your front seat,” he said.
It was the girl’s upraised rump squirming in futility.
“Somethin’ we picked up on’a way,” I said, not givin’ it a second look.
Drake came out with Kim and said, “I think we’d better be going, Duke.”
“Sure,” I said.
I walked ahead to the car and hauled the girl from the seat onto the road. Her wrist still tied behind her back, she was too winded to scream and sat there her suit was a bundle of wrinkles and her ass out of it. Drake brought Kim over and we let her slide inside. He went around and got in. The boy and Katie Holmes watched us from the front step. We were a distance away and I flicked my cigarette. I ducked under the wheel and started up.
“Duke, what about that girl?” Kim asked, mildly concerned.
“She’s a friend’a theirs,” I said.
The three guys were brought in for questioning. They were under arrest and pretty close to charged. They’d admitted to knowing Tom Cruise, and that got them pulled in on suspicion. The trooper brought them in unexplainably banged up. Miller, back on duty, was headin’ up the graveyard shift. “Special Detective Squad. Miller.”
“Finn. State Trooper. Ithaca County. I got three up here claimin’ to be good friends with that Tom Cruise. Ain’t he the one you found?”
“Sure is. What do they look like?”
He looked at them. They looked like hell naturally.
“One’s pudgy, greasy like an Italian. The other two are skinny, anemic types. One’s got round rimmed glasses. Grey hair with bleached blonde tips. Preppies—Scientologists,” he added with emphasis.
“S’at right? Like Cruise.”
“Cruise was a scientolologist?”
“One of the biggest.”
“I’ll be damned. Think these guys know who bumped him?”
“Won’t know ‘til we get ‘em under the light. Can ya have ‘em shipped or should someone pick ‘em up?”
“I’ll deliver ‘em myself. See you by six AM. That’s Miller, ain’t it?”
“Captain Miller.”
“Oh—,” he groaned.
“But my friends call me Sophie.”
“Oh?”
Patricia called her editor before calling the police.
“I just saw my sister on TV,” she cried. “The woman that was killed with Tom Cruise! I’ve got to identify the body before I can get the story.”
She said roughly the same thing to the sergeant on dispatch, leaving the part out about the story because she wanted to get an inside look at the celebrity murders and the cops would give her short shrift if she came in as a reporter. She didn’t know it, but the city’s liaison was glad to hear about it when the call was patched through to her office upstairs.
She had an assistant who aspired to be just like her, copying her clothes and style. Donna didn’t mind. Eve was fresh out of school, ballsy and brainy, from a well-connected family. She was a little like a kid sister and Donna could be open with her.
Otherwise the liaison was working with Detective Ryan, who she didn’t want to open up to. Ryan kept his face to the bricks. He only saw cases, not hearts and flowers. Ryan was workin’ the Cruise case and now the Jane Doe tied in. It was Donna waiting when Patricia arrived at City Hall. They were wearing similar cashmere coats. Donna took Patricia’ arm and introduced herself.
“My name is Donna Andover. My uncle is the mayor and I’m the special liaison to the public.”
“How do you do, Donna? I’m Patricia. Maria Cohen was my sister. We were adopted. We were very close growing up, but I moved to New Zealand years ago. I’d been traveling the world when I got the offer to write for the Times. It was a chance to move back to the city and renew old acquaintances, so I got in touch with Maria when I got to town.” Patricia grimaced, recalling that day.
“What is it, Patricia?”
“That was the day—that was the day—Hilary Duff and her sister were blown away, right in front of us. Maria had been agitated. She said something had happened in her office. She didn’t want to talk about it, but she kept looking around. Like she was expecting someone. Those girls came by the table. They were so open and beautiful—Hilary and Haylie Duff, and the bullets stared flying, the one fell and then the other. It was horrible.”
“What did Maria do?”
“I don’t really know. I was under the table.”
“Did you see her after that?”
“Not since, or rather—”
“Yeh,” Donna said, patting her shoulder, leading her to the morgue where the ME pulled the stiff out of cold storage.
Donna looked on as Patricia fell back faint. The white coat put a chair beneath her ass and she collected herself.
“That’s not Maria!” she gasped.

Russian gangsters are not the forgiving kind. Four hundred million dollars had gone up in smoke and the guy was mad. His brother Ed had gotten out of the hospital but was in no shape to do anybody any damage. He had to make do with the knucklehead that gunned down Tom Cruise. He was ready to off the guy, but the moron knew where the money was, or knew who had it, and knew who killed Kristina. For all he knew he was an asshole. He’d let it all go down right in front of his eyes. He hadn’t stepped in until the last minute and raped the woman’s corpse. He didn’t mention that to the boss. The boss ordered him to get the money or he’d be a corpse. That wasn’t a joke. He didn’t want anybody raping him. After the guy left the boss’ office, the boss made the call that the guy was not to come back. The mug assembled a crew and they took off in three hot Metallic Midnight Blue skj’s. The only thing the guy had to go on was the white limo that had headed north. His plan was to simply drive until he found it and bump off the driver and whoever else was in it. That was where the money was, in the limo. Murder would simply be an inconvenience. His murder included. It was along last ride and finally the crew had enough. The guy that took the boss’ call got the Phantom’s chauffer to get out of the car. They were old pals and it wasn’t hard. The chauffer took the cigarette in gloved fingers. They were in the woods by one of the lakes upstate. It was cold.
They had driven for hours and these guys were hungry as wolves. The small army of hoods came out of their cars to watch. The pointman threaded the automatic through a hole in his jacket pocket and fired. His friend died with bullet holes in all sides of him. They dragged his corpse into the woods just off the road and left it. They were relieved that there was now more room in one car. They knew they were lookin’ for a white limo. The one Cruise had driven to the meet. They knew of Cruise’s acres in the hills. Thinking, how many white limos could there be in the hills they were surprised to find dozens, on the road or parked in front of the mansions of celebrities, politicians and run-of-the-mill socialites. These guys weren’t smart but they were smart enough to figure the limo’s driver would duck his ride, so they looked for a house with no limo parked outside. They found it. The sun had vanished and the house was disappearing. A light came up in Sara’s room as Katie prepared the child for bed. The Russians left their car at the end of the driveway, figurin’ to run for it after the fireworks. The driver was in the garage, counting the money. Hubbard wouldn’t miss it. Hubbard had billions, plus access to all church funds. He’d forgotten completely about the gangster for whom the payment was intended. The gangster had done his job and expected to be paid. This asshole had simply taken cheese from a rattrap not expectin’ the rats to come lookin’ for it. They were right outside.
Hubbard’s girl Daphne was passed out in the log house’s large den. He’d brought her inside after we’d pulled out. He untied and Katie gave her some soup. She awoke with a start, traumatized for the rest of her life, and got up to walk around. There was a pack of Camels on the lamp table and she lit one. She was no smoker but she got the hang of it quickly. She lit another. The gangsters were at the window where she thought she saw a shadow moving by. She stank of piss and peed again as she grabbed a fire poker. The gangsters were moving around to the back of the house. She ran from the room, shouting hoarsely with no voice.
Katie came down the stairs and saw her in a panic.
“Daphne, what’s wrong?”
“Mm-men! Men!” she stammered, waving the poker wildly.
“Men?”
Katie hollered toward the garage, “Arthur!”
He closed the suitcase he’d transferred the money to, locked it and secreted it away. He came out of the garage into her arms as she rushed him.
“What is it, Katie?”
“Daphne says there are men.”
“Men?”
If they were Scientologists he could handle them. If they were men he’d have trouble. Halfway to the city we got hungry and I pulled over beside a diner where Trooper’s patrol car was already parked. We went inside and sat at the counter. Kim frail and pale yellow shivered in the pale yellow teddy. Drake put his coat around her and she pulled it close. The gorilla in the net cap passed menus across the counter. The Trooper left his table and took the stool beside Drake.
“You’re not from around here, are ya?” he asked itchy.
“No,” said Drake, givin’ him a sideways glance.
“We had some trouble earlier. Couple’a gunmen cause a riot over at the Scientologist place. Ya know anything about it?”
Drake didn’t answer him, so overhearing, I said “What’s the story on it?”
He tilted his neck so we could each other and went on, saying, “Shot up the place. Two girls wounded and the headman’s on a respirator with a bullet in his belly. You two fellas look like the types that can yourselves.”
“So what if we are,” I said. “I’m Duke Brady. This here’s John Drake the psychiatrist.”
“Psychiatrist? Sorry, doc. I guess that ain’t your line’a work.”
‘Don’t apologize. We did it,” Drake said point-blank.
The uniform said laughing, “that’s a good one, doc.”
“He’s not kiddin’,” I put in. The guy shut up and listened. “They kidnapped Drake’s wife here. We had to go all the way out to the Cruise place to get her back.”
“Tom Cruise? The movie star?” he asked flabbergasted.
“That’s right,” I kept up, “You know where his place is? Up in the hills?”
“Sure, sure,” he yelped.
“If you go up there, you might find somebody who’ll corroborate our story.”
‘Like who?” he posed in wonder.
“Katie Holmes!” Kim gleefully responded.
“Well, I’ll be—,” his shoulder receiver crackled and he took the call. “Mitchell here.”
“We got shots fired at the Cruise place. Better check it out,” the dispatcher reported.
“Son of a bitch! Speak of the devil. Well, it was nice talkin’ to you boys. Pleased to meet ya, doc, gotta run,” he said hastily and tossed a buck on the counter. “So long, Solly. Got shots fired up at the cruise place!” he jumped form the stool and hurried for the door, murmuring loudly, “Speak of the devil.”
“Duke, the girl and the baby,” he said like he was askin’ a question.
I answered like he’d asked one, “Yeh?”
“We can’t sit here,” he sputtered.
“The Troopers are on their way there. What can we do?”
“Plenty,” he said, lifting the butt of the .38.
“Slow down, cowboy,” I vaguely implored. “I gave you that in case our necks were on the line.”
“Duke,” he leaned across Kim to whisper harshly in my face, “You shot at defenseless women, no, shot them—at close range with no prompting at all, just to get what you wanted. That girl is in serious trouble and you won’t go back to help her?”
“Let the Troopers handle it,” I said.
The lone Trooper responded to the call. Mitchell was a rookie and he drove onto the grounds with his lights flashing and his high beams on. Arthur couldn’t see what he was hooting at, so he’d turned up every light in the house, making himself a target. The Russians had ducked into the trees, not much for long range shooting. If they could get up close, they could cap him in style with a bullet in each hole in his head. Mitchell drove close to the house and slowed to a stop. He spoke into his car’s PA, “This is the State Troopers. Put your weapon down and come out with your hands in the air.”
The kid inside was actually glad to hear that and came to the front window. He peered onto the car as Mitchell rose from the vehicle. One of the Russians impatiently took a pot shot and the bull ducked back in the car. “This is Mitchell at the Cruise place. I need back up here. I’m under fire and I can’t see a damned thing. I don’t know how many there are of them but they could be anywhere.”
He sat in the car and waited, the Russian skulking through the brush to get closer. Arthur got away from the window and went back to the main switch. When he threw it the place became darker than the night surrounding it. It was a monument to pitch black and Katie was up in the baby’s room where he’d told her to go. She was holding Sara close to her breast and feeding her. Daphne had found the bar and was drinking heavily and quickly. The game room she was in went black when the switch was thrown and she grabbed the bottle of Johnny Walker Blue so she wouldn’t have to look for it in the dark. The Russians were at the garage door and felt along the contours of the logs for the back door. Arthur walked into the kitchen knowing the layout and saw the shapes filing past the window. He watched their shadows as they were thrown by moonlight across the floor shorten as they came closer. There was a guy at the pantry door trying to see in. Katie had decorated the frost window glass with lace curtains and it was impossible to see in. Arthur saw him though, and grabbing the knob of the door, flung it open and shot the guy in the face, lowering the gun for a fatal belly shot. The guy staggered backwards and the others came running. Arthur slammed the door, set the latch and locked the knob. An elbow crashed through the frosted pane, an arm then reaching inside groping for the latch. He picked up a fallen shard of glass and sliced the back of the hand. The guy screamed like a bear in heat. The Trooper leapt from the patrol car, gun in hand and rounded the house. The Russian were screaming Cyrillic curses and he dropped to one knee, aiming and firing, at the same time shouting, “Freeze!”
The Russians shot back. Mitchell went down hit. Arthur was terrified, but he’d gladly die for love and money, his Scientology training keeping his nerves steady. He fired through the window, trying to hit whatever he saw. There were moving shadows and they were shooting back, the window glass shattering around him. He stepped back and kept shooting. He had another peashooter in his belt and drew it firing with both hands as the first gun clicked hollow. There were more guns in the house and he had to get to them. The Russians had backed up but when the gunfire from the house ceased they surged forward. A couple of them had taken slugs but they’d bleed later. A burly shoulder smashed through the pantry door and they barreled into the house one after another.
Arthur had left the kitchen and was running to the game room, his footsteps the only sound besides their heavy breathing. Daphne had found her way behind the bar and with a blind selection from the top shelf sank to the floor behind it and drank from the bottle.
“We only want the money, scumbag!”
With Russian’s course bellowing, Sara started to cry.
“Duke, we have got to go back and make sure that girl is alright,” Drake insisted. “She looked out for Kim. I owe it to her for that, at the very least.”
“And what do we do with Kim in the meantime?” I asked flatly.
“What—,” he said, choking on his chivalry.
“Exactly. Look, we passed a motel on the way here. Why don’t I leave you two off there while I’ll go out the action?”
The gunshots were still echoing in the hills as I dropped Drake and his missus at the Falls Inn and drove on. Mitchell’s left leg was shattered and a bullet had grazed his temple. He was bleeding and delirious and I left him there in the grass. The gunmen were in the house. I saw the pantry door crashed in and went through it into the dark. The baby was screaming in gasping spurts and the Russians were somewhere in the big living room. They’d divided into two teams, one taking the wrought iron stairs to the house’s second story, the other staying behind to have it out with the limo driver. He’d gotten to the game room and loaded a shotgun. Daphne had passed out and was snoring like thunder. That tipped the mugs to where the boy was and they stumbled over furniture and themselves to get to the entrance of the room. They hoisted their rods but he fired first, the shotgun spitting out of the blackness like a volcano. I didn’t want to get in the way of that and went for the stairs.
The child’s wails and sobs were piercing and the four mugs made a racket running and falling over the bulky country furniture to get at it. There was a mug at the top of the stair and I fired on him. He fired back and I ducked to the side. His bullet careened off the iron banister sending sparks showering. Another blast from the shotgun lit up the lower halls and the guys groped their chests with burnt fingers. I didn’t move and the guy on the stair didn’t know which way to run until I heard his heavy footsteps traveling over my head. I took the stairs by twos and made it to the top. A door opened and a sound like a pack of growling mad dogs came from the room. The girl’s scream was faint, the baby’s cries louder. I didn’t think about my strategy as I bolted for the bedroom, got in the door and fired on them. I hit one guy in the back and he twisted like a modern dancer. The second slug tore open another’s guy’s face when it separated the back of his head. I had a gun in each hand and shot whatever wasn’t the girl or the baby. She cowered in a ball, the kid in her arms beneath her own frail frame in the voluminous Victorian nightdress. The white gown splattered with the blood as I fired one forty-five and then the other. Russian-raised on prison vodka and ice-cold borsht weren’t the sort to just lie down so I get closer and put the bullets in manually. I kicked their guns aside and had the last guy on the floor at the foot of the bed with blood pouring from his neck.
“Say your bosses name before ya meet the real boss!” I spat at him.
“Petre Jorgofsky,” the guy choked out and gagged on his own blood.
I put another slug in him just so he’d bleed evenly.
His boys were scattered corpses that looked asleep but not restfully.
With hot guns in my hand I picked the girl up in one arm as she held onto the baby and brought her out of the room. I put her on her feet and while I was reloading my guns, she lifted on her toes and kissed my cheek.
“Quit it. It ain’t over yet. Go somewhere safe while I check on your boyfriend,” I said and she scurried into the darkness.
The Russians that were left were wheezing from ducking the several shots the kid had taken at them and they were exhausted. I picked up a lamp and hurled it. It smashed in a burst of electricity into the wall and they started shooting at it. That told me where they were and I shot at them. They shot back and in a second the shotgun boomed, the report lighting up the hall where they hunkered against the wall. I put every slug I had into those mugs until my muzzles flamed and I had to throw away my guns. I dived to the side and listened in darkness. There was a slight scraping noise and a drunken yawn, footsteps walking and a soft click of a dimmer as the light rose by degrees until the hallway was illuminated. I waited a few more seconds and the footsteps were in the hall stepping over the debris.
“Who else is here?” Arthur called out hoarsely.
“Duke Brady,” I said from where I was.
“Come on out, Mr. Brady. I think we got ‘em all.”
I emerged and dusted myself off. My forty-fives were flung across the floor and I went and picked them up noting the bodies of the iced Russians, their cheap suits blown to shreds.
“Where’s Katie and the baby?” he asked innocently.
“I told her to hide ‘til all this was over. There’s a wounded State Trooper outside. You’d better call the law and tell them what happened—as far as you can remember. I’m sure your girl will back up whatever story you give ‘em and with a face like hers, they’ll probably believe every word of it. Get me? I’ve gotta pick up Drake and his missus. Think you’ll be all right here ‘til they come?”
“I—I don’t know,” he said hesitantly.
‘I heard ‘em say all they wanted was the money. From what I can see it’s your money now—if ya can keep it. I don’t wanna know anything about it. I just wanna know who this Peter Jerk off-sky is and what’s his connection to Scientology?”
The kid laughed even while he was cryin’, explaining, “Jorgofsky’s no Scientologist! He’s a gangster that Hubbard hired to take over Maria Cohen’s Talent Agency. Nicole Kidman was set to sign with her. Nicole had never met Cohen and Ted thought that way he could get his hands on Nicole’s memoirs and anything else she had that could discredit Tom and the church. So much for the best laid of mice and men, eh?”
“You got it half right.”
Gettin’ a loose grip on the bar, Daphne rose unsteadily to her feet and groaned. Her fingers slipped and she fell back down.
“I’ll leave ya to it, then,” I said.
The Trooper’s sirens were whining throughout the hills as I drove from the house. I stopped the car at the edge of the driveway and took the penlight from my glove box and threw the beam at the Jags to see the plates. There were no DPL plates but the plate holders all the name of same dealership. I saw the spinning red and white cherries drawing nearer and held the light on the shiny metallic heaps. The Trooper’s Skylark skidded to a stop and the Trooper popped his head out.
“What gives, buddy?”
“Back there,” I said, keeping my distance. “The place is a mess and there’s a kid inside. The gunmen came in these Jags.”
“Who the hell are you?” he wanted to know after all that.
“Name’s Brady,” I said. “Private cop from the city. I’m up here with a friend. We were in the diner with the Trooper when he got the call. He took a couple’a slugs around the back of the house.” Somethin’ in that must’a clicked ‘cause he didn’t ask anymore questions. He backed his car off the shoulder and sped around me. I got into my heap and headed for the Falls Inn.
Olivia had Nicole and Lindsay up all night playin’ pinochle for a thousand bucks a point, takin’ ‘em to the cleaners. I got in about five and crawled into bed wondering whey there were three naked bodies under the covers with me, and not giving a damn.
Arthur was brought in on gun charges. He hadn’t said a word, hoping the cops didn’t toss the place looking for the gangster’s stolen dough. Katie held onto him as the cops propped them like animals into a cage. A female cop approached Katie quietly and removed Sara from the weeping mother’s arms. Arthur was hurt, flying glass or a bullet had left the left side of his face bloody and his arm paralyzed. Flashing cameras greeted them at the doors of the Ithaca County courthouse. Arthur was limping and Katie was holding him up, Katie covered in his blood. A man leapt from the crowd and fired shots into Arthur’s chest, then disappeared as the mob went berserk. Katie was on top of Arthur, holding his head so he wouldn’t get trampled, keeping her head down and weeping uncontrollably. She had lost one man and now another, love destined to elude her. The too few bulls had the scene under control long after the guy had gotten away. His car had been gassed and waited at the pump only a few feet away. Arthur was dead and Katie was inconsolable.
Knowing no better the Ithaca troopers released Katie into the custody of a woman claiming to be Maria Cohen. Katie had never met Cohen and was glad to see someone that spoke her language. They had an appointment scheduled for later in the week for Katie to discuss reheating up her career so soon after giving birth. This Maria Cohen had a Rolls Royce Phantom too, and spoke with a vague Russian accent.
Miller shook hands with the Upstate Trooper as she directed a handful of blues to take custody of the three prisoners. That done the shapely captain escorted the country bull to Special Detective’s Squad Room. He was impressed by the name. The room was basically an unused schoolroom cluttered with beat down desks.
“Coffee?” she offered.
“Sure,” he said, doffing his Smokey’s brim.
She made sure he got a good look at what they were promotin’ to captain these days when she had to bend down to get the Half & Half from the small freezer.
The three guys were locked up without being asked any questions. No one took any interest in them at all until the news started to spread of the shooting to death on the courthouse steps of the man who killed Tom Cruise. Drake and Kim were making love in their own bed. She liked being rescued because he always treated her like a slave-girl afterwards, tossing her and hurting her. She simply went limp and let him do whatever he liked then rearing up suddenly would bite him and scratch him. This went on until dawn when he rolled out of bed and went to pee.
He came back to the bedroom wearing a fresh pair of silk pajama bottoms.
“How about I make some coffee?”
“Ohh, John—what wonderful lover you are,” she cooed, stretching her short sore limbs.
Coffee it was.
He flipped on the radio as he poured the grounds into the machine. There was usually either news, commercials or classical on the station but this time was only noise, broken into at last by an agitated voice reporting in stunned horror: “That man police were going to charge with the murder of actor Tom Cruise has been assassinated! Church of Scientology member and Tom Cruise’s limo driver Arthur Dinetto was being led up the courthouse steps in Ithaca County, New York, when a man appeared from nowhere and emptied what looked to be a forty-four caliber Magnum into Dinetto’s chest, Dinetto pronounced dead at the scene. By his side was Tom Cruise’s widow Katie Holmes, believed involved in an affair with the victim.” Drake listened for more details and there weren’t any. There was a plug for Diane Sawyer’s television interview with Katie Holmes that night.
The eight dead gangsters were swept under the rug for another news cycle and it occurred to him that we had given the guy a pass based solely on Katie’s seductive innocence. The Scientologists really had something in the way the manipulated a person’s psychology. He and I were made to feel right at home. It was like Kim had been visiting with friends. We’d bid them a fond farewell and took off for home. Just like that. What I’d walked into later was anything but like home, unless ya were raised in a war zone. That’s where the Russians came in. They’d been gunnin’ for Arthur not Katie. They wanted their money and they didn’t get it.
Kim shuffled into the kitchen where he sat reflecting. The coffeemaker brewed and the aroma filed the air. “John?” she said, knowing he was upset over something.
“Kim, that fellow today, the one at the house, he’s been killed. Shot dead on the courthouse steps just this morning.”
“Katie’s boyfriend?” she guessed.
“Yes.”
“Oh, John, he was such nice boy,” she complained.
“Duke followed that Trooper back to the place, but nothing like this was on the radar.”
He thought of Nicole and the importance she’d placed on her memoirs, considering the likelihood that something in them would point to the truth. He poured black coffee into two cups and he and Kim sat together listening for a repeat of the broadcast. At my place the lights stayed dark. I was stiff, worn out and flat on my back with Olivia on side’a me and Lindsay on the other. Lindsay shook with fever and pressed close into my chest, holding me round with nubby twitching fingers. Nicole had gotten up to pee and answered the phone.
“Hello?” she said babyishly.
“This is Drake. Who is this?”
“Good morning, John. This is Nicole.”
‘Nicole! You sound like you were asleep?” he said hurriedly.
“We all are. Nobody’s awake yet. Duke hasn’t been here long. He climbed into bed with us around four this morning. I was just going to pee. I have to go really bad.”
“Tell him to call me as soon as he can,” he said.
“All right,” she said drowsily and hung up.
“That was Nicole. Duke’s passed out. I suspect he’ll call much later in the day. In the meantime, we’ve got to do something to prove that Arthur didn’t kill Tom Cruise. And more importantly, find the real killer. That might unravel one more string in the celebrity murders, but we’ve got a long way to go.” He sipped his coffee and put together what he had; Katie and the limo driver, Cruise dead, Nicole on the run. The Scientologists wanted Nicole’s memoir and someone wanted Cruise dead. He reasoned that Nicole’s memoir would reveal the name of that person.
In our sleep I wrapped my arm around Lindsay when Olivia turned her back on me. Lindsay’s torso was cold like a Popsicle, her inflated boobs pressing in on me like airbags and I dreamed of the inside of the wooden house glowing with flashing shotgun blasts. I saw the flaming forty-fives and the faces of every dead gangster I had ever seen. There were plenty, then too many, and that became the face of every beautiful I had ever known to hoist a rod. That was another few dozen faces and I awoke with the shakes, Lindsay dropping from my arm waking her up too.
“What’s the matter, Duke?” said the soft husky voice.
“Who killed Paris Hilton?” I put to her, rolling over and pinning her arms.
“I don’t know!”
“Yes ya do. Even if ya don’t know who pulled the trigger, you know who was behind it,” I spat into her face.
She shook her head to get the spit out of her eyes, flailing her dark mass of red tentacles but couldn’t move the rest of her body. She was too weak and I’d startled her. My weight was pressing down on her and she went cold and pale and colder and paler.
“Maria,” she said, breathless.
“Maria. And who was Maria workin’ for?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll bet you don’t. She wouldn’t let you behind the front. She had you fooled too. You thought she was a real talent agent.”
Her eye crossed in bewilderment.
“Maria is a very important player in Hollywood,” she snarled, convinced that was the truth.
“Maria is dead,” I said. “The woman you met was an imposter.”
I didn’t know whether that were true, but it sounded right. I hadn’t heard the news and didn’t know any more than I did when I went to bed that morning.
I lifted myself up and stepped off the bed, grabbing Lindsay by the arm and yanking her to her feet making her wince.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s make some coffee.”
Nicole was sitting at the kitchen table spacing out when we came in.
“Mornin’, Nicole.”
“Good morning. Oh, Duke—John called early this morning. He said you should call him back as soon as possible. It seemed very important.”
“Thanks.”
I got on the horn. Drake answered momentarily.
“Duke, have you heard the news?”
“No, but I’ve been makin’ a littler of my own. What is it?”
“The fellow that was with Katie has been shot and killed and the police sound ready to scapegoat him for the murder of Tom Cruise. Cruise must have been killed while we were busy upstate. They’re making it out to be a Scientologist conspiracy, but I can’t believe the police have any proof of that.”
“Those guys he was havin’ it out with weren’t Scientologists. They were run-of-the-mill knuckleheads. They came in three Jags that were all from the same dealer. I’m gonna look into that. It’s outside’a your line, doc.”
“I’ll grant you that. But I’d like to have a talk with Nicole. I’m thinking her memoirs may provide a clue to the real killer.”
“Is’at right? Well, she’s right here.” I rested the receiver on my shoulder and said, “Say, Nicole, Drake wantsa have a talk with ya. Ya up for it?”
“Oh, yes,” she said jauntily, bouncing in her seat.
“It’s all set, doc. Come on over.”
I poured three cups of black coffee and sat down with the girls.
“What does John want to talk me about?”
“Your memoirs, but I’ll let him spell it out for ya. He’s on’a way over. You can get dressed—or not.”
Lindsay sipped from her cup and I caught her givin’ me the hairy eyeball. I wasn’t forgettin’ how she’d gotten wrapped up in this. She’d switch teams in the middle of the game and probably knew who the killer was and then some.
Restricted from leaving the county, Cohen installed Holmes in a brand new luxury hotel tower adjacent to the Mohawk Reservation casino, the chief of hotel security telling his men to keep their eyes peeled for weirdoes and the press. Nevertheless word spread through the place that Katie Holmes was staying in the penthouse suite. Cohen had her own men patrolling the upper floors and stairwells. Maria had arranged for Sara to be returned to her mother and the girl and the baby were doing fine. Katie’s family was being flown in and provided with accommodations on a separate floor. Diane Sawyer was on her way up from the city leaving other reporters hopeful that they’d be gettin’ a statement or even an interview from the young star.
The mayor’s liaison sat with Patricia having coffee in the private dining room of the old colonial inn close to City Hall. The place catered to an exclusive clientele and they were alone, given the hour.
The concierge brought a television in a rolling cart and plugged it in, saying, “They’ve murdered man that killed Tom Cruise.”
He flipped on the set and the screen crackled with static as the picture came clear.
The bottom of the screen identified the woman standing in the midst of the incessant flashbulbs in front of the flock of microphones as Maria Cohen. “Tom Cruise was a brilliant actor who was much loved and who will be greatly missed.” she was saying, adding that Katie Holmes was handling things as best she could, given the tragic nature of the circumstances.
“Is that your sister?” Donna asked.
Patricia stared at the screen in perplexed wonder, and replied, “No. I’ve never seen this woman before in my life.”
Donna took the cell from her purse and put in a call to the Ithaca County DA.
“We’ll soon get to the bottom of this,” she said determinedly.
Given the swift turn of events, the three Scientologists or whatever they were that the Trooper had turned over to Miller had to be brought back. With Joseph covering for Ryan done in and taking a day of leave, it was easy for Sophie to get the okay to accompany Trooper Barnes upstate with the prisoners.
The Ithaca DA’s staff was scrambling to make sure all of the sudden press didn’t reflect badly on the county and the call was patched through to the DA’s personal assistant.
“District Attorney Hammerstein’s office,” the Vassar educated China doll said curtly. “Rose Lee speaking.”
“Ms. Lee, This is Donna Andover, from the office of mayor Broomberg of New York City. I have Patricia Cohen with me. She’s the sister of Maria Cohen, the talent agent.”
“Oh, yes,” Lee said, perking up, “Ms. Cohen is speaking to the press on behalf of Katie Holmes and her family.”
“That just the thing,” Donna said gravely, “We’re looking at the press conference on television right now and Patricia says that the woman is not Maria Cohen.”
Lee was silent and Donna went on, “In fact, we have a Jane Doe in our morgue that was initially thought to be Maria Cohen, until Patricia arrived to identify the body. As it turns out, that woman was not Maria Cohen either.”
“But the woman claiming to be Maria Cohen showed us her credential. She even had a driver’s license with a photo.”
“Be that as it may, Ms. Lee, I’m sure you’re aware that criminals have very sophisticated means at their disposal.”
“I’ll say. She drove up in a yellow Lamborghini. She must have very sophisticated means. How can you be so sure that the woman with you is in fact Maria Cohen’s sister?” Lee smartly inducted.
That threw the ball back in the liaison’s court and she eyed Patricia who still mesmerized by the unfamiliar face on the screen.
“I see your point,” Donna said into the cell. “Let’s arrange a meeting between them. That should sort things out nicely.”
Inexperienced with political espionage, let alone crime, Lee was up for the play but would have to vet it past the DA. “I’ll bring the matter to the attention of the district attorney right away and get back to you. Will that be all right?”
Donna folded her slender legs and leaned in on her knees, saying, “No. That will not be all right. I’ll fly with Patricia up to Ithaca County. I want to see this matter resolved as soon as possible.”
Lee didn’t have a chance to respond. Andover ended the call and got to her feet.
“Patricia, we’re up there to confront this woman,” she said, pointing to the television.
Patricia with Pulitzers dancing in her head couldn’t hold back a wide grin.
“I know you’re reporter for the Times,” Donna said soberly, “Being in on this story could certainly make your career, but it could also put your life in danger. We don’t know whom we’re dealing with or how far they’ll go to protect their interests. Are you still game?”
Patricia rose to the challenge and stood up extending her hand.
“I’ll take that chance, not only for the story, but for the sake of my sister. This woman has a lot of questions to answer.”
“That she does, and the sooner we get up to Ithaca County, the sooner we can ask them.”
The Ithaca County DA was in his office when Rose knocked. He was on the phone and she went right in, closing the door behind her.
“Sir, she said, I’ve just received a call from the mayor’s Broomberg’s office in the city. His liaison thinks that this woman calling herself Maria Cohen is an imposter.”
He pressed the hold button and looked at her like he was lost in the woods, and asked, “Does she have proof?”
“She said she and Maria Cohen’s sister are watching the press conference and the sister said the woman is a phony.”
He pressed the flashing button and said into the line, “I’ll get back to you,” then hit the speed dial.
The press conference was wrapping up, the reporters and camera crews packing up and preparing to send their stories to their respective rags. Diane Sawyer would be arriving any minute and they’d be shunted to the sidelines, giving them a breather and time to hit the casino. Cohen was satisfied with the show and straightened the lapels of her Armani suit when Sheriff’s deputies wound through the distracted crowd and surrounded her.
The sheriff had his bracelets in his hand and a look like an undertaker on his face. He thrust her hands behind her back and the steel cuffs locked in place. Her mouth was open and she was bitchin’. The deputies weren’t listening to her but the press caught the commotion at the podium.
“Maria Cohen’s getting arrested!” one snoop shouted to the others, and the cameras swung into action, the hot lights coming up as she was led past her bodyguards who didn’t make a move other than to shield their faces from the cameras’ glare.

Drake rang the buzzer and I let him into the townhouse.
“Come on, Lindsay. Let’s make ourselves scarce while the doc and Nicole have their little chat.”
Lindsay looked confused so I helped her up from the chair, taking her by the arm to her room.
“You pick a fine to want to get with me,” she complained half-heartedly, facing me while inching backing towards the bed. She got onto it on her hands and knees showing off her spotted tail, wagging it at me before she reached beneath and started fingering her clit an’ spreadin’ the pale pink lips. The gash looked like chewed meat and needed a good washing, lighting up the room like a tuna scow.
“How do you want me?” she purred lasciviously.
“Surprisingly enough, alive,” I said, leaving her there and locking the door.
The latest Maria Cohen made the front page soon after, her mug shot displayed next to the photo of the last dead Maria Cohen beneath the gruesome banner headline,
WHERE IS THE BODY OF THE REAL MARIA COHEN?
Nobody seemed to have the answer to that.
Miller drove with Finn in a borrowed squad car behind the Ithaca County State Trooper van carrying the three prisoners. The DA wanted to make the case that there were good Scientologists and bad ones and that Cruise had gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd. The Church of Scientology owned a lot real estate in the area and the DA wasn’t quite ready to piss them off all that much. With Hubbard and a number of the others set to testify, he wanted to spare the county the expense of any lawsuits the organization might want to pursue. Local detectives were assigned to sniff around the Cruise place for evidence that would enable the DA to solidly rest his case.
Daphne had been released on her own recognizance once she’d sobered up in the tank. She walked into the daylight as several cruisers pulled to a stop and Cohen was dragged in handcuffs from the sheriff’s car. Mixing in with the small crowd of gawkers on the street, she watched as the deputies carried Cohen by both arms up the courthouse steps, the woman’s stocking feet flailing so wildly other deputies had to grab her roughly by the thighs and hold the kicking gams steady while another deputy cuffed her ankles. They were carrying her inside that way when carloads of reporters roared up seconds later. The reporters bolted from their cars mics in hand into the crowd for on the spot interviews, Daphne caught up in the rush.
The gunman unable to get a clean shot with the deputies close in on the hysterical woman and pocketing his rod, stayed close to the buildings and storefronts and tried to slither off. Daphne caught sight of him only because she was trying to get away too and seeing the guy with a clear path followed him. He rounded the corner and got to the Jag when she came around the same corner and he spotted her. He drew his piece and fired. She fainted and he thought he’d gotten her. She was dreaming when she heard the Jag’s engine come to life and speed away. She had gotten a good look at him and lay there on the pavement with his face and the gun alternating in her mind like a spinning pinwheel.
“Say, doc, Olivia’s still in bed, but she’s bound to wake up and wonder what the score is,” I said.
Drake was sitting at the kitchen table with Nicole holding her small hand like a palm reader while she looked on dreamily.
“What should I tell her?” he asked.
“Tell her I went to see a man about a Jag.”
Sawyer and her crew checked into the casino hotel. The hotel Indian rep Janet Ticklefeather greeted them at the desk, noting that Sawyer was larger, curvier and bustyer than she appeared to be on the tube. As of that morning she was also blonder. The fifty going on sixty-something looked like money wrapped in sex wrapped in money and put the other snoops in the shade.
Miller didn’t have Sawyer’s big paycheck, but Sawyer didn’t have Miller’s Glock-20 and two backup Colts.
“We’ve got ourselves a real mess up here.” Finn said, pulling into courthouse parking lot. “Those damned Scientolologists been nothin’ but trouble ever since they put down stakes here.”
“Why is that?” she said, coming from the squad car, slamming the door and looking to the van in the next spot over.
An NYPD bull got out of the van and waited for her and the Trooper before taking out the key to the van’s rear door.
“They act like they own the place and all us folks ‘round here is just visitin’,” Finn said as the dick unlocked the door and swung it open.
The three guys squinted in the light and stayed seated until a burly fist gripped the first guy and yanked him out. The other two guys had to follow because their ankles were shackled together. Hobbled by the chain between their legs they wobbled, too scared to stumble. The Trooper had put the fear of god in them the first trip and they didn’t want to see the Second Coming.
Daphne sat up and shook her head clear of its fog. The sidewalk was soft as an air mattress compared to the cot in the tank. She hadn’t any shoes on and her pinstriped suit was torn nearly in two and stained with blood, alcohol, sweat and urine. Her hair was ruffled and her stockings tattered into nonexistence. The gunman’s face flashed through her mind and crawling to her feet peed on herself again. This could become a bad habit she’d be dealing with the rest of her life unless she underwent extreme purification rundown and auditing.
The least she could do was tell the police but she had to think about how to go about that. She needed a drink, another problem that would be with her for life. She staggered along the street looking for a bar and came to a restaurant that was nearly deserted.
The waitress caught up with her before she could get inside the door.
“Can I help you, miss?” the girl said urgently.
“Have you got a bathroom?” Daphne asked nonchalantly. “And a bar?”
The girl looked her over. Daphne smelled like a garbage dump but underneath the tragic mess appeared to be respectable.
“Yes,” the girl said, after some thought. “Were you in an accident?” she asked curiously, walking the shaky Scientologist to the ladies room.
“Yes. Some men tried to kill me,” Daphne answered, somewhat truthfully.
Inside the courthouse Finn found his return with the prisoners and to an extent Cruise’s murder overshadowed by the arrest of the bogus Maria Cohen. He and Miller escorted the guys to the lockup, tossed them in, locked the cage and left to see what was going down.
He happened across a buddy of his and pressed him for the details. The guy had no time to explain as the media frenzy was full blown and every man was needed.
Ticklefeather brought Sawyer up to Katie’s suite of rooms, the girl having made herself over from innocent virginal mother into stylish Hollywood vixen. Katie’s mother ushered Diane and her man with a handheld into the suite.
“Katie can’t wait to tell you that’s happened to her, Diane,” the mother said familiarly, this being Sawyer’s second interview with the ingénue.
The girl at the Jag showroom greeted me with a warm handshake, like she’d known me all her life. She was built like a small tank with a cascade of shaggy blonde hair on her head. I looked around and from where I was standing didn’t see anything too impressive to start. “How can I get you behind the wheel of a Jaguar today?” she posited, the standard car dealer’s line.
“Friend of mine recommended this place. Said you were runnin’ a special on XK8’s.”
She didn’t know what to do with that and came back with, “Friend?”
“Maria Cohen. Ya know ‘er?”
She got all sweaty in her suit and pedaled to the office. The door closed and a man’s voice grew loud. I waited to see what their next move would be. The door opened and the guy stuck his head out to see who I was. He didn’t know me from Adam of course and withdrew. After a moment he appeared, straightening his tie so not to strangle himself with it.
“Maria sent you, did she?” he said. He didn’t try to shake my hand.
“That’s right,” I said.
“And where do you know Maria from?” he inquired agitatedly.
“She’s a big shot talent agent. I know her from the office.”
“Oh? Are you an agent?”
“Of a sort. I get paid to find things.”
“What kinda things?”
“All kindsa things. Say, what is this, twenty questions? I came here to get some shoppin’ done.”
He collected himself, maybe thinkin’ he was on the wrong trail. He waved his hand around the showroom and said, “Well, what is it you’re lookin’ for? We got the latest models, XKR’s, XK8’s, XJR’s, you name it.”
“I saw somethin’ I liked up in Ithaca County. An XJR as I recall, three of ‘em. Shiny metallic midnight blue.”
“Just a minute. I’ll be right back,” he said and footed it back to the office. I followed him this time.
I was at the door when he turned from the phone and hollered, “Hey! This is a private office!”
The girl was standing in the corner lookin’ like a whipped puppy and I pulled my rod.
He went for his and I shot him. He doubled over on the desk and died that way. I picked up the phone and listened.
“What the hell’s goin’ on there? Did you shoot the bastard? Don’t tell me the son of bitch knows Maria Cohen! You know damn well Cohen got the chopper! There ain’t no Maria Cohen! Get rid’a him!”
I hung up and pointed my gun at the girl, saying, “Tell me your boss’ name—I mean your boss’ boss and I won’t send you to heaven like I did your boyfriend.”
“Peiro,” she said, thinkin’ the Russian name would confuse me. But she couldn’t pull off the guy’s Siberian surname, “Jor—Jor—,” she stammered like she was cold.
“Jorgofsky?” I finished for her.
She nodded vigorously and I shoved the corpse off the desk and threw the drawers open. I found business cards with Jorgofsky’s name on ‘em, a stack of blank authorization forms and a ledger pad scribbled form top to bottom with names and numbers. I still had the gun in my hand and when the girl tried to skulk out of the room I raised it.
“Don’t be stupid,” I said. “You’re dead meat hangin’ around with this crowd.”
She turned cold, her back stiffening and she glared.
“You’re the one what’s dead meat, buddy,” she said. “You think Petre’s gonna let you walk out’a here alive?”
“That’s the kinda talk I wanna hear. But I don’t give a damn about Petre. All I wanna know is who killed Paris Hilton. A name would be good, a body would be better, but since I don’t count on gettin’ either one out’a you, I don’t see you’re havin’ any reason to live anymore.”
Still as a straight razor, she backed up for the door. I fired and the slug chewed through the crummy particleboard and ricocheted off one of the Jags.
“Wanna make a run for it?”
“You wouldn’t shoot a woman in the back,” jeered.
“You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’d do,” I said, through gritted teeth. “I might not, but your boys sure would. They’d blow you down in a hot second and spit on ya to cool ya off.”
The noise of the guys entering the showroom told me that the party was just gettin’ started. “Wanna run?” I said. “Go for it.”
She spun goin’ for the door and the slugs knocked her back on her high heels. I picked the mug’s rod from his pocket. The girl collapsed on her ass bleeding from the stomach. I wasn’t in a caring mood and there was no way out’a the room ‘cept through that door. I lifted the receiver and hit 911, leaving it off the hook and ducked behind the desk. The slugs came in a swarm. Usin’ the plastic desk chair as a shield I dived to the side and waited again. It was too early for the noise these guys didn’t mind makin’ but I didn’t expect the cavalry to ride in just yet and needed to figure out a way out’a the jam I’d walked into on purpose.
“Joey, you in there?” one of the compassionate souls called out.
I didn’t say anything. I moved over to the wall and saw the air tank they used to fill the tires next to the filing cabinet. I pressed my back to the wall and the heavy footsteps pounded in short sprint. Tough guy kicked the door open and almost broke my nose, but I fired hoping for the best and grabbed the knob to hold the door close up on me as the air pressurized cannister exploded. The force of the cold blast slammed the busted door into my face and nearly tore the door to pieces and me along with it. This time my nose was broken. I didn’t even feel it just listened as papers fluttered in the air and settled. The mugs in the showroom screamed and then their footsteps beat a retreat.
I didn’t move until sirens were wailing outside and then cautiously, holding the rods in my fists. The girl’s corpse was on its side and ripped to pieces, the first guy was playing in the choir invisible like a champ and the goon in the doorway was blown flat on his back, face full of bloody contusions of flesh and ripped metal. I wiped the blood from my face and lookin’ for a way out besides the main door realized the sirens were those of fire engines. I’d parked away from the place and staggered out groggily. I was lucky. The explosion had scared the rats away, and the hook and ladders’ blaring noisemakers stopping everything in their tracks.
Drake had Nicole in a trance. He’d made another pot of coffee and lit his pipe. He found an ashtray and a stray pack of Luckies; he asked her if she’d like a cigarette.
“Yes,” she said.
She told him everything she knew, every word of it, because he’d asked her to tell him ‘everything she knew’. It had only taken minutes. Then he had her recall things that had happened more recently. She gave him a flashback to just a few minutes ago. She was telling him in vivid detail what happened before he asked her the question. She had a memory like a Polaroid camera, a mind that made paint-by-numbers pictures of every face and event. Olivia smelled the smoke and fresh java and trundled out of bed in my pajamas.
She saw Drake in intense concentration and got that he was doin’ his act. She was quiet and tip toed around him to get to the coffee.
“It’s all right, Olivia,” he said clearly. ‘Nicole doesn’t remember anything. All she knows is gossip is fashion.”
He snapped his fingers and Nicole blinked. She looked at her hand as her long stiff fingers flexed.
He passed her a cigarette and lit her.
“Thank you,” she said serenely.
“Where’s Duke, doc?” Olivia said.
“He went to see a man about a Jag,” he said.
“A car?” she gasped.
“I don’t think he’s in the market for one. I got the impression he was going there to topple the market.”
“Ya don’t say? If that cheapskate brings home a new Jag, I’m takin’ it.”
I drove home the long way to clear my head and to make sure I wasn’t being followed.
I dragged myself in by nightfall, making it to the kitchen where I fell into a chair and lit a smoke still shaken. The kitchen was dark. I figured everybody was somewhere else. I heard kicking at the guest bedroom door. Lindsay wanted out and was crowin’ about it. I took the key from my pocket and made my way through the dark.
I flipped the light when I was at the door and unlocked it. She leapt out at me like a cat and I slammed her on the jaw with a left and knocked her out. I carried her to the den and lay her out on the divan. I mixed a couple’a drinks and sat with her until she roused.
“What do you think you’re doin’?” I said, handin’ her the highball. “You wanna end up like Paris?”
She sat up changing colors like a chameleon and said, “Duke, you’re hurt.”
She said it like it hurt her too and I looked into my glass, lifted it and swallowed.
“I’ll be all right,” I said.
She drew closer; tucking her legs beneath her ass and stroking my face like she wanted to draw blood.
“I was playin’ footsies with some’a Maria’s friends a while ago. They play rough.”
“But you play rougher?”
“Somethin’ like that,” I said and took another swill.
The next I knew she was in my arms, sweaty, hairy and cold to the touch, but she got warm and I liked the feeling. Olivia was out with Drake. They’d picked Kim up at his place and he’d taken ‘em all to a fancy bistro, Olivia and Kim ecstatic to be drinkin’ and chattin’ it up with Nicole Kidman the whole night. That left me home with Lindsay. She said she never used protection and I said that was okay, ‘cause I had plenty.
“These guys say Tom Cruise agreed to pay them to kidnap Nicole Kidman, but they didn’t get Nicole and they didn’t get paid,” the Ithaca County bull explained to Miller. “Instead they got their ass handed to them by the wrong girl, the one they did kidnap and that’s how they wound up at Freddie’s Roadhouse. That’s where Finn busted ‘em.”
“What do they know about Cruise’s murder?” she asked.
“They said we need to talk to Hubbard about that,” he said, parkin’ it to watch her pace.
She stopped when she saw him staring and cocked her hip, asking, “Who’s Hubbard?”
“Ted Hubbard, head of the Scientolologists. He’s officially in custody but he’s on a respirator over at County Medical.”
“Can he talk?” she asked, taking the cigarette from Finn’s mouth and putting it in her lips. She’d invited the Trooper to the briefing because the mugs were his collar and she wanted to make sure he got the credit. A promotion wouldn’t hurt his chances of gettin’ in her pants.
“He’s already talked. He said Cruise told him to put up the money an’ he did. He gave Cruise a half a mil but Cruise never showed for the payoff,” the bull said.
“He was dead already,” she pointed out.
“Yeh. That left the knuckleheads hangin’ with no place to go.”
“‘Cept for Freddie’s Roadhouse,” she said. “Let’s have another talk with Hubbard and find where he comes up with that kinda scratch,” she suggested.
“He lawyered up after Cohen was arrested. He won’t say anything more than he’s already said.”
“That’s too bad,” she resigned.
“But he gave Cruise the half a mil, where’d it go?” Finn spoke up questioning.
“Malloy and Schneider searched Cruise’s place earlier and came up with nothin’. There was a white limo park in the garage but it was clean. Maybe the dead guy took it,” the bull offered.
“They don’t take cash in hell,” Miller scoffed. “Come on, Finn. Somethin’ fishy around here,” she said and walked out.
Finn paused a moment not wanting to appear a lapdog. He stretched as he rose as if from a long nap. The bull watched him like guarddog but didn’t say anything, not wanting to get into it with the Trooper. Miller waited for him outside the squad room door and they walked to his cruiser in uncomfortable silence.
In the parking lot, she said, gettin’ into the car, “Sorry about that.”
He understood what she meant.
“You’re the captain,” he said. “Where to?”
“Freddie’s Roadhouse.”
“What’s there?” he wondered aloud.
“Half a mil,” she said.
Malloy and Schneider had discovered the suitcase and were livin’ it up. The chief of detectives knowing that expected a cut. Miller only had a hunch the detectives were dirty but was willing to play it. Finn found it odd at first that she’d want to see the low rent dive, but intuited her thinking, knowing the bulls had a long running racket.
“You think Malloy and Schneider skipped with the cash,” he said confidently.
“Won’t know ‘til we find out.”
“You know what a roadhouse is?” he asked just to be sure and starting the car.
She looked him in the eye and said blankly, “What do I look like?”
He was taken aback by the question and his lips spilled the words, “A hot, a hot babe, I mean—”
She smiled and replied, “That’s right. And I didn’t get that way overnight.”
He didn’t know what that meant. She really didn’t know either.
The nightlight barely lit the corner floor in a room at the Falls Inn, the gunman sitting on the edge of the bed worrying. He’d befriended the Inn’s chambermaid and she’d made herself at home, lying beside him topless in her panties. He was waiting for the call telling him what his next move should be. He hadn’t popped Cohen and Hubbard was set to talk. He’d made the call relaying that he’d failed to silence either; Hubbard surrounded by police guards and Cohen safe in county stir. The winnowy blonde on the street had spotted him but he was sure she was dead, certain his bullet had connected. It hadn’t.
Daphne had cleaned up some and was invited to eat on the house, explaining to the resturant’s manager and the waitress about the two gunmen that had terrorized Scientology headquarters and kidnapped her. She passed over being saved by Arthur and went on about as much of the shootout at the Cruise place as she could recall. She’d awakened in the tank in police custody and released.
She’d seen the deputies bringing the woman into the courthouse. She’d unknowingly run up behind the gunman and seen his face before he took a shot at her. She’d fainted and come to on the sidewalk. She’d staggered to the restaurant frightened and thirsty.
The waitress brought another round of drinks and Daphne wrapped her story, swallowing the whisky in a single gulp. She didn’t know how many men were out to kill her and didn’t see any reason why any of them would stop trying to.
“I’m afraid,” she said, her hand shaking the ice in her glass. “He knows I saw his face.”
“What happened to the men that attacked Tom Cruise’s place?” the waitress asked, excited at the story.
“I think Arthur killed—,” she said, recalling that she was dead drunk at the time.
“Arthur? You men that guy they say killed Tom Cruise?”
“Yes,” Daphne concurred.
The manager got up and brought the bottle to the table and filled her glass.
“If he killed Tom Cruise, who were the guys tryin’ to kill him?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “but I think the man I saw was one of them.”
That man lit a short brown cigar. He was growing impatient staring at the black rotary telephone on the bedside table.
“You’re not happy,” she said.
“No,” he answered gruffly.
“Relax. There’ s no law says you gotta be happy.”
The gunman turned to his mistress and taking her roughly made her cum. Then having nothing better to do he did it again. She was squirming and squealing when it occurred to her that she was set to work the late shift at the roadhouse.
“I gotta go,” she said hastily, crawling from beneath him and pulling her meager garments together.
She picked her denim cutoffs from the floor and slid them up over her skinny ass and pulled on her flannel shirt, tying its tails at the waist. He was all but asleep when she kissed him hard cutting herself on the wiry stubble. “I’ll be back ‘fore mornin’,” she whispered.
He was snoring when she shut the door, traipsing barefoot to her dusty jeep that was parked behind the Inn.
Freddie’s Roadhouse always welcomed Troopers and hot babes. One kept the peace and the other made the place. Miller and Finn walked in on a party. The girls were drunker than usual, dancing wildly without a stitch on for the cheers and howls of truckers and rednecks. Finn found Freddie tending bar, leaning in to get the proprietor’s ear over the noise while Miller scanned the bunch.
“Who’s payin’ for all this?” Finn asked sternly.
“Malloy and Schneider,” Freddie answered, not caring where the bills stuffing his till came from.
“Where are they now?” Finn put to him.
“In’a backroom havin’ a private party,” was Freddie’s truthful reply.
“That’s good, Fred.” The Trooper looked over at the till. There wasn’t enough room to hold all the fifties and hundreds and Finn nodded, saying, “You’d better grab that scratch and blow. I can’t say what’s about to go down.”
That was good enough for Freddie. He was scarce by the time Miller and Finn started towards the velvet curtain.
“Shouldn’t we have backup?” he said.
“For what?” she replied, parting the curtain.
The backroom was outfitted with a regulation sized pool table and a separate bar. There were doors along the wall to three private booths where the girls provided full service. Schneider was splayed on a ratty sofa with four naked women pawing and fawning over him. Two other girls were gyrating like errant columns of smoke and a third was doing lines of heroin on the bar. The pool table was littered with hundred dollar bills. Miller walked around the room while Finn stayed at the door. The girls saw her prowling and stopped dancing. The girls on the couch were oblivious.
“Say, honey, ya lookin’ for somethin’?” the newest, youngest girl posed.
The others knew better, seein’ Finn there. Miller flashed her gold star and went about her business. She opened one booth and a girl and a guy looked up startled. She shut the door. The next door revealed pretty much the same kind of action and finally, the last door flew open and a paunchy smelly bald man came barreling out. This was Malloy and he turned to Miller, seeing the high-breasted silhouette over his shoulder.
“Who the fuck are you?” he demanded drunkenly.
“Captain Miller, NYPD,” she said.
He walked over to the jukebox, reached behind it and ripped the cord from the socket. The music stopped dead.
“Captain Miller?” he bellowed. “Captain Miller from where?”
“Manhattan,” she said with no affect.
“Oh—,” he hiccupped and saw Finn across the room. “Finn, this your girlfriend? This Captain Miller?”
“This here’s the money from the Cruise place,” Finn said, by way of replying. “We know all about it. You’d better turn in what’s left of it, Malloy. It’s part of a bigger investigation.” Finn’s tone was even but firm.
Malloy looked to the pool table and shrugged.
“All right then,” he muttered and took a swing at Sophie.
She grabbed his flabby upper arm and pinching the nerve, threw him onto his face.
Schneider awoke abruptly and shoved the girls aside, going for his piece.
“Hold it, Al!” Finn advised, reaching for his own.
Schneider slouched to the couch with a childish look on his sloppy face.
Malloy climbed up holding onto the pool table, standing as best he could. He swung the pool cue at Sophie who ducked. She came up with an uppercut to his solar plexus and he went down again.
“You keep playin’ games, you’re gonna get hurt,” she warned him.
Finn walked over to the pile of money and said quietly, “You boys know what you gotta do. It’s nothin’ personal. Just get this cash over to the courthouse so it can be traced. After that, you always know where the key to the locker is.”
Schneider wiped his wet face and nodded. Malloy didn’t have anything to say.
Jorgofsky went into hiding after the explosion at the dealership attracted several media crews plastered the place all over the news. He’d seen his operation come undone in one fell swoop and thought none of it worth the expense. He was holed up in a Rye Beach bungalow. It was off-season and most of the houses along the beach were deserted. He had a Crisscraft docked on the water and thought he’d like to see Nova Scotia where he’d been looking to buy some real estate. As he was packing a bag and mulling things over the idea sounded better and better. He could change his name and start over again. The girl pulled up in a brand new Jaguar and the little Lapsa Alsa he had given her on her twentyfirst birthday jumped out and came in the house, the little dog running ahead of her. Her fur coat was too warm for the weather and she shucked it to the floor as soon as she came in.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” she demanded.
“I’m gettin’ out’a here,” he said. “I musta been crazy to think—,” he started.
“To think what?” she said, producing the silver-plated .25 calliber pistol he had also given her as a twentyfirst birthday present.
“That we could’a made you a star by bumpin’ off all real stars,” he answered, the little dog humping his leg. He kicked it away and continued to methodically put folded sairtsa and slacks into the open case.
“It almost worked,” she said, “But you’re men got sloppy.”
“Don’t blame my men,” he said defensively, ignoring the weapon aimed at him. “It was your idea to bump off Maria Cohen and replace her with a ringer. You’re the one said we should get mixed up with Cruise an’ look at what happened. Everything went up in smoke. You Hollywood types are bad news. So long, Mischa. I ain’t got time to sit on death row.”
The shot cracked and boomed, the slug singing past his ribs. The dog ran off and cowered as Jorgofsky grabbing the rod from his suitcase, blasted shot after shot. Mischa was bone thin and barely leaked as the lead tore through her. The gun fell from her hand and her body writhed in agony but only for a few seconds, until she hugged the wall and slid to the floor. To keep things quiet, the gangster put a bullet in the dog. He didn’t want to but the animal’s yappin’ was drivin’ him crazy. He was hurt but he’s had worse. He held his side to stanch the bleeding and kept packing.
“Oh, Duke, you’re the greatest lover ever,” Linds purred.
I didn’t turn the light on and focused my eyes on the glowin’ tip of the Lucky. I didn’t want to see her. The noises she’d made while I was nailin’ her were unearthly, like a vampire being impaled with a stake. Her mouth had devoured me whole like an Anaconda and I felt like I’d been swimming miles in a polluted swamp, not knowing what kind of creatures lived below the oily surface. She had legs like clubs and arms like stunted branches. Her flesh was doughy and I’d swear I could feel her internal organs through her skin. She had no fat on her body because it had been forcefully removed, leaving empty pockets of scar tissue like beaded change purses sewn under her skin. It was all I could do to keep from throwin’ up.
“Ya happy now?” I groused.
“Oh, Duke—,” she cooed, crawlin’ up my back.
The Venetian blinds were drawn and the room was pitch dark but the sun must’ve been comin’ up. She started kneading my shoulders with her clammy paws and it was soothing after all that. I relaxed my shoulders and wheeled around onto the bed, taking her in my arms and pushing her back into the pillows. She giggled and our lips met. She kissed like a claw hammer.
I raised my torso and she held me around the waist, parting her legs and wriggling her pelvis guided me inside her once again. “Oh, Duke—,” she swooned.
Olivia was tanked and garnering more attention than Kidman from the overwhelmed crowd of nightclubbing nighthawks at the trendy Chelsea wateringhole Bungalow 8. The Drakes had called it a night hours ago and the two tall blondes set out on their own. They both needed a break and I needed time alone with Lindsay. It was good timing and we had the whole night together. I used protection after all but by morning I was itching and hoping a simple shot would take care of it. Otherwise it wouldn’t have been worth it.
I left the room and came back with a bottle of scotch and two glasses. I sat on the edge of the bed and poured while she rolled out of the sack and hoisted the blinds open. Her naked silhouette reminded me of an understuffed scarecrow and I thought about all the corn that was at stake, and the sun through the slats made her tangled mane look like her head was on fire.
“Where’s Jorgofsky?” I said.
“Who?” she said, taking a cigarette from my pack and lighting it.
She sat next to me and I passed her a drink.
“Don’t play dumb with me. Maria’s Russian friend, don’t tell me ya don’t know ‘im. I know you’re lyin’. I didn’t fuck ya for nothin’. Tell the truth once in your stinkin’ life.”
She was quiet after that tirade. I guess she was thinking about her sore cooch. I’d pounded it for hours and she’d gotten a lot of tension out. She wasn’t stressed anymore and couldn’t work up any false emotions to counter with.
“Jorgofsky’s the man Maria said was bankrolling everything. She said he was a very important behind the scenes player. I thought she meant he was a producer.”
“He’s a gangster,” I said.
“Then why would Maria do business with him?” she queried, slurping her drink.
“You’ve never met Maria Cohen. She was dead before you got mixed up in all this. Jorgofsky had already stolen Maria’s identity and put a ringer in her place. That’s the woman you met. She wanted to know if Richie Starkweather had spilled anything about her to Sarah Winooski that would blow the act. Fortunately for Sarah, she didn’t know anything worth killing her for. But Starkweather apparently did. That’s why they killed him and dressed it up like a suicide. But they couldn’t kill everybody, no matter how hard they tried.”
“You mean Britney and the others?” she said, leaning close, taking my arm and holding it cozily.
“That’s what I mean—and then there’s the Scientologists up in Ithaca and the guy makin’ time with Tom Cruise’s widow. I got Jorgofsky’s name from the lips of a dying gunman, now I want it from you.”
“What do you want from me, Duke? I’ll give you—anything,” she said, opening her arms to show me the two big anythings.
“I wrecked Jorgofsky’s showroom in a way that was bound to attract attention. Where would he go to lay low?”
“I don’t know,” then she caught herself and decided to stop lying. “He and Maria—the fake Maria, right?”
“Right.”
“They lived in Westchester. I know that much. She had a house on Rye Beach. I don’t think anyone would be using it this time of year. That would be the perfect place for him to hide out. They have a boat there too. A nice one, I’ve been on it.”
“Then you’ve met Jorgofsky.”
“A couple of times. Him and his brother.”
“His brother?”
“You shot him in Maria’s office.”
“Oh, dat guy. That was Jorgofsky’s brother, eh? That musta really shook ‘im up. That’s probably why the operation fell apart like the Giants’ defense. Things were comin’ too close to home.”
I poured another drink and downed it. I smashed my butt in the tray, stood up and stretched. She was looking at me in the morning light, her eyes like giant gray saucers.
“What are you going to do now, Duke?”
“I’m headin’ out to Westchester and I want you to come with me. Things might get a little dangerous though.”
“I’m not afraid,” she said with a little growl, “They played me for a sucker! How dare they!”
“That’s the spirit. Come on. Let’s find you somethin’ to wear. It gets cold in Westchester. I wouldn’t want ya to catch yer death.”
The telephone was ringing as we left the townhouse and I didn’t go back to answer it. It was Drake calling to tell me that Nicole had been of no use to him. But that would be okay. Lindsay had been very useful to me.
Jorgofsky felt his eyesight goin’. He stumbled over to the girl’s contorted body. She was still beautiful and he wished there’d been a way to make it all right. She shouldn’t have pulled the gun on him. If she’d been more sympathetic he’d have taken her with him. He hand was sticky with blood as he moved his fingers heavily across her soft face to brush aside the blonde hair. He wanted one more look at her before he abandoned her for the rough waters. He was glad there was nobody there to see him cry, not even a dog.
His boys had left him flat or been killed. He was leaving his own brother in the lurch. He’d lost everything and had nothin’ to gain staying where he was. He’d fallen in love with Mischa Barton, a relative nobody thirty years his junior. He blamed all his troubles on Hollywood.

Lee waited by the limo with the Trooper that was first to answer Mitchell’s call for backup at the Cruise place. They smoked cigarettes and watched the NYPD chopper touch down on the pad. Andover and Patricia emerging a few minutes after the craft had settled and the whirligigs ceased rotating. Lee waved to them and they hurried over to the long black stretch.
“Rose Lee?” Andover inquired of the diminutive Asian.
“Yes,” Lee replied, and beckoning to the Trooper, said, “This is Trooper Smith. He’ll be our escort back to City Hall, or would you rather take some time to unwind. I know how a ride in one of those things can jangle a person’s nerves.”
Patricia came in, saying, “My nerves were already jangled.”
That lightened everyone up a bit and the Trooper opened the limo door, holding it while the women piled inside. He took note of the pert dimpled cheeks of the one and then the other, Lee’s a bit flatter than Andover’s, but Lee worked out so her buns were solid like bricks. Andover’s appeared soft by comparison but rounder and Patricia, the older of the three had a nice spread but nothing so picture perfect as the other two. Andover wore a white linen suit that gripped her shape life a fist while Patricia wore a sensible tweed ensemble with open-toed flats. Donna wore her requisite stilettos, as did Lee. He shut the door behind them and got behind the wheel.
“I’m beat, Finn,” Miller said. She’d been awake for hours and wasn’t as fresh as she might be.
They’d waited at Freddie’s Roadhouse for Schneider and Malloy to gather the stolen cash and watched the two dicks pack the suitcase with the loose bills. Practically holding the two bulls’ hand, they arrived at the courthouse together. Schneider and Malloy were unapologetic about being dirty, having had a little fun and overlooked being caught red handed just as Finn and Miller looked the other way as long as what was left of the half a mil wound up in the evidence locker. They’d locked it away and the two dicks called it a day and headed home.
Miller was standing with Finn on the courthouse steps. She thought she smelled rank but he wind blew around them he caught a whiff of something sweet and feminine and didn’t mind it at all. That was his problem, she reasoned, smelling it too.
“I need a bath. Where can I get a room around here?” she asked, taking the strong odor stoically.
“There’s the Falls Inn,” he said. “It’s right down the road from Freddie’s—or you can stay at my place,” he suggestively offered.
“Nah, that’s all right. Let me clean myself up so I feel human again. Then we’ll talk about ‘your place’. How’s that? I’m no nun but right now I feel like a lady wrestler.”
He smiled shyly and she leaned in and kissed his cheek. That was a sign that she might give him the green light and he should patient. The small peck sent electricity through him and he felt his skin bristle. He’d need a bath too, or a cold shower.
“I’ll drive you over there,” he offered.
“Sure,” she said, hoping now the tub at the place was big enough for two.
Lee was going on about the action at the Cruise place. He’d dropped the partition between the driver and passengers at her request so he could be included in the conversation.
“Trooper Smith made the arrest. Isn’t that right, Smith?” she said over her shoulder, sitting facing the women from New York.
“Sure is,” he said. The guy dropped the shotgun soon as he saw me. He didn’t want no more trouble. I guess he’d had enough. There were bodies everywhere. Ugly sons of bitches too, shot full’a holes.”
“Did he say what they were after?” Donna asked.
“Money. He said they wanted the money but I couldn’t worry about that just then. I was cuffin’ him when a girl comes staggering out’a nowhere drunk as hell. I sat ‘em both down and waited for the other units.
Katie Holmes didn’t show her face until the ambulance was outside. She came out with the baby and I packed the other two into the cruiser and brought ‘em in. The gal spent the night in the tank. I don’t what happened to her after that, and him—well, I guess you know what happened to him.”
There was silence after that.
“How many men were there?” Patricia piped up after that awkward moment.
“We counted eight.”
“He killed them all?” she pursued, impressed by the Jack the giant-killer angle.
“Well, there was another guy I saw in the driveway. He flashed a gold star at me and identified himself a private dick. I could really be bothered with him with either, especially after he told me Mitchell was down. Me and Mitch go back a ways,” he added, clarifying his on the spot decision.
“This private dick,” she continued, “did he identify himself by name?”
“Brady, I think it was.”
The phone collecting dust, there was no reason to hang around the shabby room. Tourists were coming and going and the guy was getting paranoid. The maid had shown up at Freddie’s after the dicks were busted and missed out on the big tippers. When she got back to the room at the inn her boyfriend was gone. She’d hoped he left her a tip and when she didn’t find one on the dresser she felt stiffed.
Finn’s cruiser pulled up to the front of the place and Miller got out. He got out too but she stopped him with a handshake. “I’ll see you later,” she said.
“Should I come by and pick you up?” he said.
“Should I try to get in touch with you at City Hall?”
“Why don’t you take my number?” he said, fishing his pockets for the cell. He pulled from his shirt pocket and read the number off. “Got that?”
“Why don’t you come inside and we can write it down,” she said offhandedly.
Things were lookin’ up, he thought. She had funked up the car with her sweet BO and he’d probably never get the scent out of his mind. That just made him want to bury his face in whichever part of her the smell was coming from, which was all of her.
The chambermaid was at the desk crowin’ about gettin’ left empty handed, yet again, and the guy was sayin’ that wasn’t none’a his business. She said she was makin’ his business, him and anybody within earshot and he said he was tired’a tellin’ her about entertainin’ the guests, when he pulled his finger across his throat for her to ixnay.
“What’s the problem here?” Finn said, coming behind them with Miller.
“No problem here, Finn,” the deskman said.
Finn let it go ‘cause he knew all about the maid. Miller stepped forward and the maid stepped back eyein’ the well-built cop.
“What can I do for you today?” the guy asked, his grin mechanical and mask like.
“First we need a pen, then I need a room,” Miller said, leaning in to take a gander at the open guest book.
“A pen? Sure,” the guy said, the smile becoming more at ease and natural as he enjoyed the musty odor emanating from her cleavage. Moving the pen from one side of the desk to the other, he said, “Room 12 just opened up. Hattie’ll show ya the way.”
The chambermaid raised a wan smile that didn’t last and walked ahead, switching her used tail in the sheared cutoffs. Miller liked the girl’s style, what there was of it and there wasn’t much, but she was obviously pissed about somethin’ and Miller flagged her hand behind her back waving Finn off. He stayed at the desk and the detective followed the girl to the room at the end of the hall.
“Here ya go,” Hattie said, opening the door with a key.
Miller stepped inside and sniffed the pungent odor the guy’s little cigars, the brown stubs still in the tray.
“Somethin’ botherin’ ya, sweetie?”
“What’s it to ya?” the girl answered churlishly.
“That depends,” Miller said, tapping the star on her belt.
The girl got polite but didn’t exactly know how to open up to a bull like this, one who was infinitely better looking than she was and could probably get any man she wanted. Hattie had been used cast off by a guy with no name and a face full’a smoke. It was embarrassin’, but the girl resigned nothin’ out of the ordinary and came inside with Sophie, shutting the door quietly with her back.
“Can we talk girl to girl?” the girl said in a urgent whisper.
“I’m all ears.”
‘Honey, you’re more than ears,” Hattie remarked and moved over to the bed, sat down and lit one of the guy’s discarded cigar stubs. “There was a guy here—I didn’t like ‘im one bit. From the moment I set eyes on ‘im, I said to myself, this guy looks like trouble.”
“He give ya a hard time?” asked Sophie, restin’ her but on the dresser’s edge.
Now came the hard part of tryin’ to tell the city wise dick about how she let the guy use her like a Kleenex. Hattie thought a second and decided to skip that part, instead choosing to focus on his antisocial character.
‘No, but, eh, he acted kinda fishy. He was waitin’ for a phone call, ya know. Sat here all night by the phone like it was gonna do somethin’ but it never rang. I guess he got tired’a waitin’ and took the air. Breezed without even leavin’ a tip, she added for good measure. That was what she really wanted to get off her sunken in chest anyway.
“Phone call, huh. Did he make any calls while he was here?”
“Yeh. He called whoever it was an’ tol’em he hadn’t been able to make a play. I guess they tol’im they’d call ‘im back.”
“And they never did.”
“I was right—I—the phone never rang. I hadda go work my second job. When I came back he’d cleared out.”
The girl’s story came together like somebody’d kicked a jigsaw puzzle and the pieces went all over but they still fit together.
“Be a sister an’ go get Finn for me, will ya, Hattie?” Sophie said, taking the girl’s spot when she left the bed. Hattie was glad to oblige.
Sophie picked up the receiver and slapped the base around until she got a local operator with an Appalachian accent. “This is the police. Patch me into the last number dialed from this phone.” The lady was cordial and easygoing and had the records of all calls made throughout the county at her fingertips. She picked up the line and connected it to the phone at the inn. Shortly the line rang.
I picked it up. “Yeh.”
“Brady?” she gasped, expectantly.
“Miller,” I said, not knowin’ who would call Cohen’s house.
“What the hell are you doin’ there? Where are you?”
“Westchester. I got a couple’a stiffs here. Fat guy, wasn’t too healthy to begin with, with a slug in’im. I got a hot blonde. She was hot, she’s fulla’ holes now. Tall, Big head, big boobs, all legs, looks like a kid carryin’ balloons. You get the picture.”
Finn came into the room. She held her hand up, stopping him in his tracks.
“I’m in Ithaca on police business.”
“Ya don’t say. Why’dya call?”
“I’m in a motel room in’a placed called,” she looked up at her new boyfriend, saying, “What’s the name’a this dump?”
“The Falls Inn,” he said, proudly.
“Falls Inn,” she said.
“Been there. What’a the rooms like?”
“Room—dark. They’re very dark.”
“Any news on your end? I’ve got plenty over here. I’m headin’ out.”
“Where do you think you’re goin’?” she said, like she was arrestin’ me.
“I told ya, I’m beatin’ it. Ryan an’ his boys are on’a way.”
“Who’s the stiff?” she said, catching up.
“Name’s Peter Jorgofsky. He’s a Russian kingpin. Got bowled over by his dame. He musta had a real ball ‘cause she’s a dish, lest I reiterate.”
“Don’t bother. I get the picture. It was a crime of passion.”
“Half anyway. I showed you my cards let’s have a look at yours,” I said, in a sharing mood, Lindsay in my arm like the case was over.
“I’m callin’ from this end ‘cause a guy with no name stayed in this room expectin’ a call from number your at. I think he was the same mug put a slug in Jennifer Lopez.”
“Ya don’t say? With this mug out’a the way it may be a good time to head up to Ithaca.”
‘To catch up with the mug on this end?”
“That’s the idea.”
“I’ll lead ya to him. You can beat him if ya want.”
“That’s the idea,” she said, hanging up.
“That was Duke Brady. He said some Russky kingpin just bought it. Him and his moll. Looks like that end’ at that end the case is a rap.”
“Who was he?” the Trooper asked.
“Guy name’a Jorgofsky. Sounds like the moneyman. The guy that was where I’m sittin’ is another matter. That’s his muscle, the guy that throws the lead. He’s killed one girl that I know of and considerin’ how many more there are, let’s see if we can tie him to the others.”
“Should be easy. This guy gets around. I’ve been hearing on the news about Britney Spears and Haylie Duff. There were some others.”
“Lots. How about a bite?”
“Sure,” he said.
She bit him.
I turned to Lindsay and said, “Let’s scram before the cops get here. I don’t want to have to explain myself again.” I didn’t need to tell her anything further. She didn’t care.
I didn’t know Sophie was givin’ me a break. She’d ground her investigation to a halt by spending all afternoon with the tinhorn. He was an Iraq War vet and she supported the troops.
I brought Lindsay outside where she wanted to stand in the wind from the sea with her toes in the sand. Death was all around us and I let her.
Olivia and Nicole got themselves a room and spurning all would-be suitors wound up making out in the king size bed. I had Lindsay and couldn’t let her go.
I drove to Ali’s garage and parked. He was happy to see me, and the barely dressed chippy made his day but he wouldn’t show it. He gave me a quick overhaul and gassed me up.
“You’re all set, Duke.”
“Thanks, Ali. I’ll see ya in a few days maybe.”
“Okay, Duke,” he said and waved good-bye. He’d never done that before.
“You make an impression on people,” I said as we drove off.
“That’s why I’m a star,” she said, playfully serious.
I didn’t tell Miller I’d tossed the place. With Lindsay daydreamin’ on the beach I went through every drawer and looked behind every picture. There were documents crammed everywhere signed and dated, notarized in Los Angeles county, New York County and Las Vegas and Mexico. I took those with me but what I wanted was something that would lead straight to the gunman. The closest thing was Jorgofsky’s brother Ed’s hospital bill. Edward Jorgorsky would know somethin’. I didn’t know what. I called the hospital from my cell. Lindsay had curled up in the seat and was watching the road go by.
The triage nurse acting as a receptionist answered the phone. I said I was a cop and asked what Edward Jorgorsky was in for.
She shuffled through her files and after a moment said dully, “Bullet wound.”
The road ahead was long and I said, “Lindsay, no matter how this turns out, they’ll go a lot easier on you if you’re on my side.”
“I’m on your side, Duke,” she said breathily.
“Stay there,” I said, “Stay there and don’t ever leave.”
“I won’t leave you, Duke,” she said, and snuggled up to my arm.
I jerked the wheel hard as the Jag that was comin’ right at me banked and swerved off the road. I was in the opposite lane and rode up onto the embankment and made sloppy u-turn as my tires spit gravel and came down with a roar.
The Jag slowed a little until the driver regained control. The XKR could go from zero to a hundred but he was cattycorner on the road and had to straighten his tires. I had him boxed in sideways and plowed his door in with the reinforced steel grill I’d had installed for just such an occasion. His left hand caught in the collapsing dash, he was stuck and bled like a busted hose.
“Get down,” I said, shoving her brown mop to the seat.
He raised the gun in his right hand and fired.
The windshield shattered above our heads and I pushed my guns through the broken pieces and fired back. He contorted spastically, with his arm stuck and his shoulder broken. The first slug caught him in the ear and the side of his head popped and gushed even more blood. It didn’t matter where the others slugs went. I ducked back down to where Lindsay lay huddled wincing with each volley and shoved back pushing my way out the car door and crouched behind it. There was nothing but broad bubbling strokes of red behind the Jag’s wheel, its windows shattered and the stuff poured out over the metallic blue paintjob. I got on my cell and called Ali in his garage then I went to my driver’s side and lifted Lindsay in my arms.
“Duke, you’re bleeding,” she said plaintively, poking her finger in the blood and snot running from my busted nose.
“I’ll be all right. Ali’s on his way with a tow, we’ll be all right,” I said, carrying her to the embankment where I set her down on a patch of scrub grass.
I took a broken cigarette from my pocket, lit it and sat down beside her. She musta been dizzy or crazy the way she plucked at the wild violets that grew there. I took a couple’a drags and passed it to her. She shook the hair from her bloodless face and took it. She inhaled deeply, her senses coming back to her after a minute.
“Is that man who shot Paris Hilton?” she asked me.
“Dunno,” I said honestly, “We won’t know that until the bulls match the slugs from his gun with the one that killed her. We may not know even then.”
She handed me back what was left of the cigarette and I pulled another from the pack. They were all broken.
“Duke, what did you mean when you said don’t ever leave?”
We kissed. She knew what I meant. It was plain English. I hoped she wasn’t that dumb.

Daphne walked into the Ithaca County courthouse with a story to tell. She couldn’t get the man’s face out of her mind. A deputy stopped her in the hall where she was wandering without direction.
“Can I help you, miss?”
“God, yes,” she sighed.
The waitress at the restaurant had given her some clothes to replace the pinstripe rags. The girl was shorter and stockier than Daphne so the clothes didn’t fit and she looked like an escapee from the roadhouse. That couldn’t have been the case because the deputies knew all the girls that worked there. He brought her into an office, sat her down and got her a cup of coffee. She thanked him and sipped, but she was really thankful at not being shot at, reeking of whisky and flinching at the slightest noise.
“Ma’am, is there something you wanted to report?” he asked evenly.
“Yes,” she said.
He had a mug of his own and put it down, taking up pen and pad. He waited a beat and followed up with, “And that might be?”
As if he mesmerized by the swirling black liquid in the cup, she said, “A man shot at me.”
He wrote that down then said, “Your name?”
She looked up with a start and said, “Daphne Merkin.”
He rested on his haunches at the edge of a low squat desktop.
“Okay, Daphne, tell me what the man looked like and where it happened.”
It was a block from here on Boulder Street. I followed him.”
“Why’d you do that?” he queried, jotting her words down in shorthand.
“To get away from the reporters. The deputies were bringing some woman into custody. It looked like she was having a heart attack and everyone stopped to stare. Then carloads of reporters with cameras and microphones showed up and rushed the crowd. I panicked. I saw him running and followed him. But when I turned the corner he was standing there, at a car he had waiting, I suppose and he took a shot at me.”
“You got a good look at him then?”
“I’ll never forget his face,” she finished.
“Uh-huh,” he said, glancing at his notes. “Let me go see if I can find a sketch artist. You’re sure you got a good look now?”
She nodded her head vigorously.
“Okay. You stay here. I’ll be right back.”
She lowered the cup, and implored, “Can’t I come with you?”
“Okay,” he said, seeing the shape she was in. “Come on.”
Miller called the courthouse from the room at the inn. She’d bathed and put on the same musty clothes. Her thong was crisp, caked with her incipient period and her bra was soiled and rank so she threw both of them out into the trash basket beneath the bed stand where the ball of crumpled paper was just what she was looking for. She pulled it out and started to read. She was engrossed immediately with the tabloid-circulated names: Scarlet Johansson, Claire Danes, Carmen Electra, Giselle Bunchen, Naomi Campbell, Naomi Watts, Rene Zelweigger and Charlize Therone. Reese Witherspoon must’ve been on another list. Lindsay Lohan’s name had been added, scribbled in pencil at the bottom. Miller didn’t know that the starlet and I were a thing. She’d find out.
“Wanna get somethin’ to eat, kid?” I said, as we pulled into town.
Ali had gone the tow one better and brought my canvas top convertible on his flatbed. He’d driven up while we were makin’ out in the scrub grass. He shook his head, tsk, tsk, but didn’t mean it. Ali liked to consider the contrast between the old world notions he didn’t follow anymore and the new fangled ways of the Wild West. He was a car man. He liked everything newer and faster. Some things were never knew and some girls were always gonna be fast.
“Hey, Duke,” he said.
I knew he was there across the highway and just let the time go by.
Eventually I pulled her up from her knees and holding her hand crossed the highway.
Ali’s truck was revved up cab with a corrugated chrome plate on which sat my convertible. He passed me the keys and climbed in the cab, shifting gears to lower the bed.
He came back as I was unlocking the door. Lindsay crawled into the two-seater and made herself comfortable. She folded up like a napkin and left plenty of room for me to maneuver. “What about that mess over ‘dere?” he said, tossing his thumb at the wrecks. My hardtop’s front-end was smashed, but not as bad the side of the Jag. One side had moved to the other with the unlucky mug caught in the middle. There was blood spilled all over one side of the highway the speed bump channeling the flow between the twin yellow lines. I hefted his rod from my jacket pocket to show Ali that all was not lost.
“Your paycheck, huh?” he said.
“Somebody’s gotta put food on’a table, but ya gotta kill it first.”
He nodded his assent to that and climbed back in the truck. He lowered his hoist and drove the truck around. He latched the hoist onto my tail and hauled the Maserati onto the bed where it lay like a convalescent on a gurney. He’d put it in traction at the shop and do what he could with it. It’d never be the same; a trade-in or maybe we’d give it to his kid as a high school graduation present. Shamira was pushing eighteen and outgrowing her veils.
I tore a Lucky in two and gave one end to Lindsay stuck the other in my jaw. I didn’t light them until Ali was back in the truck’s cab.
“Okay, Duke. She’s all gassed up. Ready to go,” he hollered from across the road.
He pulled away and I slipped under the wheel.
. I sparked a match and held it so she had to come close in to light the short ragged fag. She knew what I wanted and our lips met. I started the engine like her lips had turned over the ignition.
“That was terrible what happened back there,” she said, by way of conversation.
“It’ll be okay. I’ve got collision.”
Finn’s cruiser rolled up and Sophie met him outside.
“How do, cap’n,” he said, chipper as hell.
“How the hell are you, Finn,” She said back.
“The courthouse?”
“How ‘bout a clothing boutique,” she said.
He knew just the place.

The ADA was a black woman named Walker who’d grown up poor and gone on to become a political superstar in local circles. She knew the area and the Ivy League. It remained to be seen if she knew anything else.
Rose Lee introduced Walker to Andover and Cohen and they shook hands cordially. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Andover,” the ADA said. “Anything we can do to help mayor Broomberg.”
“This is about Maria Cohen.”
“The woman purporting to be Mara Cohen,” the suited Negress interjected.
Donna corrected her, saying, “And the Maria Cohen. She’s been missing for days. This is her sister Patricia.”
Those two shook hands and the woman straightened. She was a head taller than the two of them, two heads taller than Lee.
“Let’s take this up in my office,” she said.
The ADA’s palatial office was appointed with luxuries and amenities. She showed them plush overstuffed chairs and got behind her desk.
“The Maria Cohen,” she said, picking up the thought.
Donna folded her legs and unfolded them, too small boned to get comfortable in the big chair. “Patricia is a reporter for The New York Times,” she blurted out, then said, ‘But that’s neither here nor there. Patricia called the police to identify her sister’s body. Isn’t that right, Patricia?” she asked, giving her the floor.
Patricia became excited as she remembered that morning vividly.
“I was working on my laptop and the TV was behind me. I heard them announce that Maria’s body had been found alongside Tom Cruise’s.” She caught her breath and went on, “Maria and I had been shot at—we were having lunch and Hilary Duff and her sister came by our table. The shots came and we ducked. I went under the table. I haven’t seen or heard from Maria since that day.”
Walker listened intrigued without interrupting.
“Then on TV they’re saying they found Maria’s body! I nearly jumped out of my skin—but when they showed the photo of the woman that was killed it wasn’t Maria at all! I don’t know who that woman is!” Patricia concluded breathlessly.
The ADA sat back. She wiped her lip with her tongue. It was a big lip and a big tongue and she had a lot to chew over. “The women ion custody,” she began, “Claimed to be Maria Cohen. She’s still insisting on it.”
“She’s an imposter,” Patricia rightly defended.
“Let’s go have a talk with her, shall we? I think she’d appreciate the company. The deputies tell me she’s been going on like a madwoman.”
They walked the courthouse halls until crossing over to the incarceration part of the building the lights overhead became diffuse hanging lamps. The jails were ahead and a deputy on guard duty greeted them.
“How do, Taylor,” she said. “We’re here to see Maria Cohen.”
He unbolted enormous padlocked bars stepped aside. The women followed the ADA like they were on a jungle safari.
The deputy came behind them and moved ahead. He got to the cell first and barked between the bars, “Maria Cohen! Visitors!”
He moved away to let them see inside before they entered. Maria had gone mad. She sat in a twitching knot on the bed, her piercing eyes straight ahead as is she was seeing something where there was nothing. She was shackled and couldn’t move her limbs, her head turning like a lazy Susan at the sound.
“That’s not Maria Cohen?” the ADA asked, bemused.
“Certainly not!” Patricia insisted.
“Then we don’t need to see anymore. We’ll get a doctor in here and medicate her. Maybe she’ll talk under sedation.”
The four women walked away thinking about the plight of women and the mentally ill in society. This was something they all remembered from women’s studies.
Daphne was on her third cup of black coffee, more sober than she’d been in days. She felt wired but at ease with the courtroom sketch artist. The girl was a hippy, done up nicely with flowing hair and flowered scarves. Daphne described the man and the flower child dutifully drew the details. Daphne said, ‘Big nose.”
The girl said, “Like that?” sketching a black man’s nose.
“No not like that, it was bigger, like it was swollen, and red.”
“Big red nose,” the girl relayed back. She drew a nose like WC Fields’ and Daphne said “Yes!” like she’d scored a touchdown.
“Thin mouth, just a gash, like a brown, er,” she fished for a word.
“A vagina?” the girl said and Daphne agreed.
The girl had drawn a potato and a vagina and asked, “Did he have a hat on?”
“No,” said the brittle cultie.
“What shape was his head?”
“Round,” she said.
The sketch nearly complete looked like a smiley face with bad gas. The cruiser pulled into the lot and the Trooper and the detective hurried inside. The deputy loitering in the hall to give the women some space ushered Finn and his girlfriend aside.
“Girl in there says she saw a gunman,” he said quietly.
“Which gunman?” Sophie asked thoughtfully.
“How many of’em are there?” the deputy wondered.
“Let’s have talk with her,” the captain said, getting past the two uniforms. ‘What’s her name?” she asked, going in the door.
“Daphne Merkin,” the deputy called behind her.
“Miss Merkin?” Sophie said, bullish, “My name is Captain Sophia Miller. I’m with the NYPD. I understand from the deputy that you’ve seen a gunman. Do you recall what he looks like?”
“I just did,” Daphne said and the hippy came out of her shadow like a butterfly from a cocoon, holding up the sketch. With a pair of shades it was the same face Miller saw.
“Can you put shades on it?” Sophie asked and the girl did a quick smudge with a pencil.
“That’s the son of a bitch,” Sophie exclaimed. “That’s the guy that shot Jennifer Lopez. She turned and her chest collided with the deputy. She’d bought a lace up top that she wore under a leather jacket and when he looked down all he saw was tits and she said, without moving an inch, “Write this down. Medium height, stocky, he’s built solid. May be wearing shades and a dark suit.”
‘Yes,” Daphne cheered, “Dark suit! He was wearing a dark suit, and the car was a new Jaguar! I remember the hood ornament.”
“Good girl,” Sophie said, “get al that?” she said, deliberately bumping the guy with her tits. “Put it on the wire,’ she ordered.
“Yes, ma’am!” he was glad to oblige, when orders came like that.
“I’m gonna nail that son of a bitch,” she groused.
The deputy took the sketch to dispatched where he photocopied and sent it out, relaying the description verbally to the deputy manning the radio, big nose, flat mouth, round head, stocky build, a dark suit and driving a Jaguar. Apparently the guy was bald. Too bad the guy had already skipped and was being scraped off the highway by then. Lindsay and I came out of the diner and headed towards the courthouse. Sophie came running out of the courthouse followed by the Trooper and deputy. I knew it wasn’t what it looked like, stuck my fingers in my teeth and whistled. She stopped and looked over.
“Brady! Where’d you come from?”
I crossed the street with the girl and said, “Westchester.”
Sophie eyed her and her forehead started to sweat.
“This is Lindsay,” I said.
“I know,” she said without openin’ her mouth. “What’re you doin’ with her?”
“Ya really wanna know?”
“No,” she said curtly. “I’m lookin’ for a Jag,” she said.
“Funny, I just ran into one.”
“Where?”
“On Route Nine. I slammed into him. He didn’t look so good when I left.”
“I’ll bet he didn’t. You—you ran into ‘im?” she squinted at me like a cop lookin’ like Popeye.
“I ran the shit into him. I left his ass scattered, drinkin’ the water of life.”
She reeled back as her two boys came up behind her.
“You killed ‘im?”
‘It was him or us,” I said, nodding to the girl. “Did I mention this is Lindsay Lohan?” I said, emphasizing the petite frail at my side.
“Yeh, ya did,” Miller said and had to step back and reflect.
“She’s live ‘cause you’re protectin’ her.” She said airily.
“That’s right,” I said. “I told ya about Jorgofsky. The guy in’a Jag was his brother Edward. I put a slug in him once and didn’t finish ‘im off. This time I finished ‘im. Lindsay was there both times. The first time Maria Cohen’s office, the second not too long ago, but that gets us back to start.”
“Yeh,” Miller said, without a clue as to where to turn next. What’re you doin’ up here then?” she then pressed, her chest heaving.
“I came to see the mountains.”
The ADA had to talk to her boss about the nut passing herself for the corpse of someone who couldn’t be found. They were all named Maria Cohen and as far as anyone knew, the Maria Cohen Talent Agency was still in business. Scarlet Johansson had been partying for days with Justin Timberlake. His acting career was taking off and he thought he’d have a try at knockin’ Brad Pitt off his pedestal. His people had lined up the meeting months and he anticipated meeting the big shot agent. Johansson had other reps but she was always willing to listen to big numbers. She and Justin were talking about making a picture together. They’d co-produce it so it was done deal and surefire box office.
They’d been celebrating their future earnings with cocaine and cognac, a few close friends, rappers, DJs and lesser party girls who were naked in and out of the hot tubs. Even the rooms had rooms and Scarlet and Justin hid away to smoke a joint laced with coke as she worried about her complexion. He was happier still when her silk halter fell down and she giggled. Bullets were flyin’ and they didn’t hear a shot though the soundproof walls. Guns sprouted like apples in an orchard, Dr. Dre, Eminem, and P Diddy fending off the mobsters who were wearing black scarves over their faces. The mobsters had machine pistols and the homeboys had nines. It would’ve been a massacre on both sides but drug-addled rappers are notoriously bad shots and the gunmen were skilled professionals and with numerous calls comin’ in, the cops were gearing up to get busy. The door flew open onto the roomy closet where Justin and Scarlet were rolling around naked. He pretended to be ashamed and crawled from the floor to shut the door in the gunman’s face. Scarlet screamed like a dog whistle as slugs cut him to pieces. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she swooned hoping to be raped not killed. The slug came as a surprise.
Soon after a press conference was announced and speaking on behalf of the dead stars was none other than some looker claimin’ to be Maria Cohen. The press didn’t know why this woman seemed to be endlessly coming back from the grave, but they took it in their stride, saying she was ‘reinventing herself’, as a different person with the same name.
This Maria Cohen looked better than the last one. She had long straight blonde hair, straight white teeth and a clear complexion; She didn’t wear much make-up because she didn’t need it having a chiseled bone structure on her side. Questions of whether her cheeks were real or cosmetic had tongues waggin’ at parties all over town. She spoke with confidence about not lookin’ back, sayin’ the past was fun while it lasted but the future was gonna be a gas. The cops were interested in this woman but she was as inaccessible as she was unobtainable. Ryan and Joseph had no way to get near her, like she had connections and had been declared untouchable.
A new face on the party circuit was none other than my beloved wife, seen all over town in the company of Kidman, Naomi Watts and Courtney Love. The gossip rags were callin’ ‘em ‘The Blonde Musketeers’, and that was dandy. The four of them were out drinking and dancing every night; Nicole to forget her problems; Love from force of habit; Olivia because she could; and Watts because she was in love with Nicole and jealous of Olivia. It didn’t matter because they were regular carpet munchers who didn’t mind passing around the tuna platter.
Lindsay and I rented a room at the Falls Inn where she was disappointed to learn that all I wanted to do was clean my guns, which had been working overtime and needed some attention.
“Oh, Duke, this could be our honeymoon,” she whined, naked on the bed bouncin’ on her knees like a horny child.
“It could be our funerals if these jam in a clutch,” I said, clearing the chamber and cleaning the barrel of burnt gunpowder residue.
“You love those guns more than you love me.”
“Quit it or you’ll find out how much.”
The phone rang.
“Get that,” I said.
Since it gave her something to do, she bounded onto her back and snatched up the heavy black receiver. “Hello?” she said in a croaking singsong voice. “It’s Miller.”
“Hand it over,” I said, but she didn’t. Instead I had to come to her, leaning over while she held the receiver to my ear.
“Yeh?” I said. “Ya don’t say. All right.” I took my head back, and said, “Hang it up.”
She did.
“We’re goin’ out for drinks with Miller,” I said.
That cheered her up and she was all over me like a monkey. We were late.
The meeting was held in the backroom of Freddie’s Roadhouse with topless and bottomless waitresses who were bringin’ in ’a steady supply’a brews all on Freddie, who figured he could the whole thing off on his taxes. Miller spoke up, stating the reasons we were there.
“I’ve got bad news, more bad news. And still more bad news,” she announced grimly.
“So what else is new?” I chimed in.
“Nothin’—,” she said like a curse. “It’s always the same. A bunch’a guys wearin’ masks busted up a party in TriBeCa with machine guns. That’s run’a the mill I admit but the last person bought it was Scarlet Johansson. She took a bullet right between the eyes. That means somebody is still killin’ celebrities,” she looked over at me, and said, “the Jorgofsky brothers notwithstanding.”
“What’s the other bad news?”
She took a deep breath that was refreshing for everyone, and said, “There’s another Maria Cohen walkin’ aroun’ and nobody seems to care.”
“What else you got?” spoke up Schneider, not interested in this stuff in the least.
“It’s what you got,” she said, waggin’ her finger like a schoolteacher. “You got a Maria Cohen in your lockup that’s batty as a bedbug. Where did she come from and why is she drivin’ a goddamned Lamborghini.”
Nobody said anything, but we hoisted our beers and thought about it.
Olivia called Drake when she hit bottom. She had left Nicole for Love and heroin. Watts was happy but the light had gone out.
“Oh, doc, what am I gonna tell Duke?”
“Calm down, Olivia. I’m sure he’ll understand you’re going through a rough time,” he said consolingly.
“Oh, bullshit,” she replied. “How’m I gonna explain the girls and the drugs? I’m havin’ a good time,” she said, looking around the room of a vast Upper West Side skyscraper condo, every wall a floor-to-ceiling window with a panoramic view of the dark city.
There were naked bodies everywhere, draped across the meager furniture and sprawled out like rugs, half buried in the deep shag pile. Most of the bodies belonged to women, or something like women, and most were underage, or something like it.
The shag was white, the bodies every hue under the sun. She lit a joint waiting to hear his advice.
“Olivia, I don’t know what to tell you,” he said, at last. “You and Duke with have to discuss the matter between yourselves. If you feel your marriage is over, you’re not obligated—”
‘Whadda ya mean?” she said, turning red, “Oh, I get it. He’s already hooked up with that tramp Lindsay Lohan, ain’t he?” she demanded to know.
“Olivia, I haven’t spoken to Duke since—,” he tried to explain, but she wasn’t hearin’ it.
“I knew it! That rat! Step out on me, will he! I’ll take ‘im to the cleaners is what I’ll do!”
She didn’t notice when he hung up on her ranting as Courtney came traipsing, stumbling rather, over the prone bodies with a devious look on her blotchy face.
“Guess what I did?” she slurred, collapsing at the foot of the shapeless cushioned slab Olivia was curled up on.
“What?” Olivia asked dejectedly.
“I signed with Maria Cohen. She’s bringin’ the contract over tonight. I’m gonna be a big star like I always said I would be,” Love crowed. “Who’s my competition? A bunch’a emaciated corpses!” she cackled.
Olivia passed her the joint and they smoked with Love at her sweaty naked feet alternating hits on the jay with slathering my wife’s toes with her tongue, sucking and licking the grime between them. They’d been out dancing and Olivia’s size-elevens were rough with dry sweat. Love groaned getting into it and Olivia slid to the floor, pushing her toes in the drunken junky’s mouth. They wrapped their limbs around each another in a sixty-nine an’ blended into the pile.
Nicky and Fifi arrived back in the city with a special invite to the party but too jet lagged for fun an’ games Fifi inviting the heiress back to the townhouse to crash.
“Oh, maybe Duke will be home,” Nicky tiredly enthused.
They hailed a cab at JFK and told the guy to make it Fifth Avenue.
“Let’s blow this dump,” Olivia said, unable to cum. “Let’s head back to my place and have our own party.”
“What about my contract with Maria Cohen?” Courtney posed, concerned.
“They drop it off with the doorman,” Olivia reasoned. “You can look it over in’a mornin’ after you’ve had some coffee. You wouldn’t wanna sign a contract now anyways. You’re so wasted you’d sign your own death warrant if they put it in front’a ya.”
Courtney agreed and they searched for some kind of clothes, finding little more than scarves they wrapped around themselves and called skirts. Courtney filled her enormous Gucci handbag with drugs and they took off like a couple’a schoolgirls sneakin’ out’a class. Nicole was passed out in a three-way with Nicole Ritchie and Tara Reid as the two lanky blondes tip toed out the front door. They caught the swift ultramodern elevator and missed the gunmen that were on their way to the party. The elevator was rushing to the lobby when Courtney’s skin crawled at the sound of gunshots now far over their heads. She hugged Olivia like a plush toy, and said in a panic, “what was that?”
“Sounds like the party’s over,” Olivia remarked fretfully, getting a hold of her pal’s thick waist. “I sure wish Duke was here.”
Lindsay had joined the dancing waitresses while Sophie and I sat at the bar havin’ our beers.
“With all this action, I’m surprised the Feds ain’t joined in,” I said.
‘What the hellar the Feds supposed to do? Lead a sing-a-long? We got gangsters; Scientolologists; movie stars, and nuts—and the nuts have got the upper hand. The Feds ain’t gonna touch this case. This case is poison,” she spat.
I’d recharged my cell in the car and it vibrated in my pocket. I checked the number before answering.
“It’s Drake,” I said.
“More bad news.”
“Ah, the doc ain’t so bad. Maybe we could use is a little more brainpower,” I said, putting the cell to my ear. ‘What’s up, doc?”
“Duke, I have some bad news,” he said.
“No kiddin’.”
“Olivia’s threatened to leave you. She thinks you’re having an affair with Lindsay Lohan.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And—you are, aren’t you?”
“I wouldn’t lie to ya, doc. No.”
“You’re lying.”
“Just testin’. Hang on a second, Drake,” I said and cupped the cell in my palm. “Say, Sophie what about turnin’ drake lose on that nut in county? If she thinks she’s Maria Cohen, Drake the one bird that can set her straight.”
Miller brightened up at the idea, urging, “Lemme talk to ‘im.”
“Say, Drake, Miller’s gotta proposition for ya. Here ya go,” I said, passing her the little box of light and wires.
“Drake? Miller,” she said gruffly.
I turned from the bar and watched the girls shimmy in the blue light. The Trooper and the deputy were a couple’a stiffs sittin’ by themselves against the far wall like chaperones while Schneider and Malloy dirty danced with the girls, Lindsay up on the pool table butt naked and swinging her hair around. You’d think Finn and his boy were the married ones.
Miller tapped me on the shoulder and I spun back around.
“What’s the story, morning glory?”
“Drake’s up for it.”
“See, I tol’ya. He’s helped me out’a plenty’a jams with that mind bendin’a his. He’ll have that gal cluckin’ like a chicken. All we’ll need to do is collect the eggs.”
Olivia let herself and Courtney into the townhouse. The lights were off, Nicky and Fifi sacked out, Fifi in her bedroom on the first floor and Nicky in the main guestroom.
The next morning the Police Commissioner personally called Ryan and Joseph on the carpet. He wanted answers and they had bupkus and now with Miller absent without leave short staffed. Politicians were getting’ upset and that meant trouble. The man on the street thought it was a joke. That’s why he was on the street. Hollywood starlets were diminishing in growing numbers while to all appearances the killers were multiplying. There was an imbalance in the ratio and somethin’ hadda give.
Patricia was getting tired of the angle. She’d been blindsided by politicians into writin' a fluff piece about grief. She wanted real news. Neither of the women were her sister so she had no real investment in hanging around. Donna had her checked in at the casino hotel and she left Andover in a cab headed there. On the way she leaned forward and asked the driver where the action in town was.
Lindsay and I made our way through the casino with no one recognizing her. She was as nondescript as any teenager on a casino floor. No one gave her a second look, caught up in smoking bad hands. She had dyed her hair bright red and wore a short pleated skirt and red tube top. I was in my old suit. To the man on the desk I was her bodyguard as he recognized her instantly. “Katie Holmes is in the penthouse, Ms. Lohan,” he said pleasantly deferential.
We rode up in an express that went straight to the top.
The hotel’s house dick was an Indian. A woman claiming to be Katie Couric offered to blow him if he could get her past security. Not the straightest of arrows he agreed. He was pretty sure she wasn’t Katie Couric but a blowjob was a blowjob.
Holmes’ assistant met us at the elevator.
“Lindsay—! Oh, what happened to Pete?” she said, expecting the bruiser.
“Pete’s not with me anymore. This is Duke, my new man,” Lindsay replied.
“Oh,” the girl said and spun her stilettos. “Katie’s here.”
We followed her to the foliage-laden sundeck where Holmes and Sawyer were takin’ in the view from a couple’a lounge chairs.
“Lindsay—!” Katie squealed, soundin’ just like the other girl. She jumped up and they air kissed then Katie said, “You know Diane Sawyer.”
Sawyer rose and shook my girl’s hand, her eyes roving to me. “Have we met?” she asked me.
“No,” I said, not knowin’ whether we had or not.
“But I’ve seen your face,” she continued.
Lindsay solved the mystery by way of sayin’, “This is Duke Brady. The big shot private eye from New York.”
“Oh, yes. I’ve heard of you. You’re a big time racket buster. I suppose you think all these murders are part of some big conspiracy.”
“There’d better be, otherwise its open-season and there’s not a thing I can do about it.”
“I find it all fascinating. Do you think we could have a private chat?” she said, none too coyly. “Perhaps we can take a walk while the girls get reacquainted.”
“It’s all right, Duke,” Lindsay said, taking the leggy journalist place on the lounge chair when she got up.
Sawyer wrapped her arm under mine and tugged for me to walk. I didn’t want to leave Lindsay, but I guessed it’d be okay. You’d think I’d have learned. As soon as Sawyer and I were out of sight and with Katie’s mom babysitting Sara in another room in the big hotel, the girls snuck down to the casino for an impromptu photo-op.

Her system accustomed to far more potent narcotics than a little reefer and coke, Courtney was a habitual early riser. She bounded into the kitchen where Fifi was already making breakfast. The willowy blonde in only a man’s pajama top parked her bare ass on a stool at the kitchen counter to watch the shapely frog bend to lower the burner on which sausage and eggs sizzled in a frying pan. Fifi’s flouncing see-through uniform was always a sight for sore eyes and Courtney wolf whistled to let her know she was being watched.
“Bonjour,” said the maid, wriggling on towering black patent leather stilettos as she shook the frying pan wearing an oven mitt that covered more of her than the uniform making Courtney both hungry as horny.
“Do you always dress this way?” Courtney asked, as Fifi poured her a cup of black coffee.
“What way?” the maid innocently replied, and turned up the plasma set on the wall with the remote to distract Love from her nouvelle cuisine.
“Again, gunmen slaughtered over fifty people at a private party in an Upper West Side condo late last night. Among those murdered were Nicole Kidman, Nicole Ritchie, Emily Watts, Kate Hudson and Charlize Theron. As of yet Police have no leads to the gunmen’s identities or motive. The beauty, talent and charm of these actresses will be greatly missed.”
Olivia ambled in wearing the bottoms of the pajamas. They were too big and slipped past her hips. She sat down before they fell down.
“I didn’t know Kate Hudson was there,” Courtney muttered.
Fifi poured a cup’a joe for the lady’a the house and Olivia with her curly locks dangling over her face like a shaggy dog sipped, coming awake.
“Say what?”
“Kate Hudson was at that party last night. I didn’t see her, did you?”
“Was she the blonde?” Olivia asked, obliviously.
“Musta been. The news just said somebody came in and killed everybody. They’re all dead now.”
“That’s how that usually works. That musta been what we heard,” Olivia confirmed.
“Musta been. It’s a good thing we left when we did.”
Nicky appeared and Fifi started another omelet while Olivia and Courtney each had another cup’a coffee. Nicky now a blonde hadn’t bothered to put on anything and took a seat on the third stool at the counter. Fifi set three tall glasses and a pitcher of freshly OJ onto the counter, laid out three plates and silverware and served breakfast. The three blondes ate like animals while she daintily nibbled a baguette smeared with grape jelly.
The telephone rang and Fifi answered the cordless extension.
“‘Eloo? O-oh, Docteur Drake—yes, it is ‘orrible.” She handed the phone to Olivia, who spoke with a mouthful of eggs.
“What’s up, doc?”
“I’ve just heard on the news about Nicole. I wanted to make sure you were safe.”
“Aw, that’s sweet. Yeh, I’m all right. Me and Courtney were in the elevator leavin’ when the fireworks started. Weird, huh? Ya talk to Duke?” she with a glance at her companion.
“Yes. He’s in the thick of this case.”
“I know what he’s in the thick of,” she scowled.
“I’m heading up to Ithaca County to perform a psych eval. You’re welcome to come.”
“Is Kim comin’?”
“No.”
“Then I don’t think I’d better go either. I’ll just stay here and wait for the breadwinner to come home.”
“You sound like you’ve had a change of heart since we talked last.”
“Just missin’ out on bein’ murdered’ll do that.”
News spread around the world if only for the number and fame of the starlets massacred. Over in England Joss Stone dyed her baby blonde locks the muddy rainbow colors of an oil slick to dissuade any gunmen out for blondes. Kate Moss, Kylie Minogue and Sienna Miller went into hiding. In Miller’s case it was more of a publicity stunt that went unnoticed since no one cared whether she was alive or dead anyway, while on a country estate some miles outside of London depressed American expatriate Madonna loaded a vintage World War Two Luger and pressing the barrel to her temple blew her brains out after watching a BBC report on the killings in the States. To her children and their numerous nannies the single fatal shot made a sound like a breaking tree branch and no one hurried to discover the cause of it.
Katie Holmes’ assistant’s assistant informed the assistant who hurried to tell Katie and Lindsay. Both girls were on the casino floor with cameras flashing all around them and their names being shouted in riotous adulation.
Sawyer had slipped out of her loose fitting yoga pants and into the churning Jacuzzi. I lit a cigarette and watched her. I didn’t get in wither because I didn’t want my guns to take water. Her assistant ran through the suite looking for her and we heard the girl shouting her name.
“In here, Margo!” sawyer called back.
The girl lunged through the door out of breath with tears in her eyes, and panting and gasping said, “They’ve killed Nicole…and Charlize…and Emily…and…”
Sawyer rose out of the water, her face red from the heat. She hadn’t bothered to put on a bathing suit and dripping naked demanded a phone. The girl had one and Sawyer took it from her trembling hand and called her producer.
“Duke, isn’t there something you can do about all this?” she said to me, her sad eyes tearing up.
I flipped my cigarette into the Jacuzzi and went to look for Lindsay.
The joyful mob’s cheers became moaning and wailing as mood in the casino dampened and then darkened. The two were at the center of things and when the television monitors simultaneously switched to coverage of the crime scene suddenly everybody wanted a piece of them and not in a good way. The thought was that these two would be dead soon too and the crowd turned on them like vultures after fresh carrion. The Mohawk guards quickly moved in, shoving and punching their way past the tourists and paparazzi. The going wasn’t easy and some of the angry fans started to fight back. The burly Indians were outnumbered but not outgunned; jacking nines out of their holsters and firing randomly into the crush in a vicious act of crowed control that was really revenge for all the wrongs the white man had ever done to their people. People screams and tried to run, hemmed in by the rows of whirring slots, trapped against the ungainly roulette wheels and dice tables. Katie and Lindsay had only the small body of Katie’s assistant for protection and used the girl like a shield and tried to push through the nearly solid mass of thrashing arms and legs.
“Where are Katie and Lindsay?” I pressed Sawyer’s assistant.
She hiccupped choking back her sobs, wiped her eyes and said they’d gone down to the casino.
I hopped the express elevator and hit the lobby as the cruisers and ambulances were arriving with the usual ringing racket. The hotel’s lobby was in confusion and finding Lindsay was going to be next to impossible. She was hard to find alone in’a room. Feeling heroic the bulls rushed the place without a strategy and got embroiled in an Indian war, the Indians havin’ the home team advantage.
Miller was wonderin’ if she still had a job when she walked into the Ithaca County DA’s office. The ADA was there along with Andover, Lee and Patricia Cohen. The district attorney came from his desk to greet the captain and shook her hand with a dim-witted grin on his face, happy to meet the much talked about set of curves. Finn and his buddies were over at the casino and news of how bad things were goin’ there hadn’t reached the courthouse.
“Captain Miller, I’ve received a call from Doctor John Drake. He’s on his way. Is there anything he needs to know?”
“Like what?” she asked, not gettin’ him.
“Well,” he said and turned to the women sitting around in leather chairs, their stems crossed like judges at a dog show, “I’ve been told that the woman has had a nervous breakdown.”
“I’m not workin’ that angle,” Miller said impatiently. “I escorted Trooper Finn back to Ithaca with three prisoners that may be connected to the murder of Tom Cruise, bur I’ve recently heard that my main suspect bit the dust. A gangster and gunman named Edward Jorgofsky.”
“I see,” he said curtly, “Then I suppose you’ll be heading back to the city.”
“I suppose so,” she said.
“You know the public liaison from mayor Broomberg’s office,” he said, indicating Donna.
“Not well,” Sophie answered. “Ms. Andover works mostly with lieutenant captain Ryan.”
The phone on the desk buzzed like a timer and his secretary came on speaker, saying, “Mister Hammerstein, Troopers are engaged in a gun battle at the Mohawk casino. They’re outnumbered and the guests of the hotel are caught in the middle. There are several casualties but the paramedics can’t get near the place. The National Guard has been requested.”
“National Guard!” he cried out. “My god!”
He turned to Miller who kept her bearing though the pressure was building inside. “Captain Miller, what is happening?” he asked anxiously.
“Dunno, sir. It sounds like a bloodbath to me.”
“A bloodbath!” he exclaimed, at wit’s end.
Cruise’s murder had been great for tourism. Now the tourists were payin’ the price for their morbid curiosity. The Troopers retreated from the gunfire that had spilled out of the casino into the hotel lobby and took up positions in the parking lot waiting for the Mohawks to make the next move. It was an Iraqi War strategy and only promised more casualties. The Mohawks had high-powered rifles, god knows where they got them, and used the lobby’s furniture to barricade doors and windows. I’d gotten as far as the front desk and ducked into a back stairwell where I caught Katie Couric and the house dick in flagrante delicto. He appeared more proud than embarrassed but I wasn’t impressed.
“Didn’t you hear all that noise?” I said.
She lay on her stomach ass in the air and her skirt hiked past her waist and he extracted him wood from her ass and scrambled to his feet.
Pulling his pants up hastily and the leather holster onto his shoulder, he inquired dumbfounded, “What noise?”
“You’re boys are killin’ tourists like settlers. Tell them to stand down. Nobody’s shootin’ back at ‘em. Tell ‘em to hit the bars, tell ‘em to get drunk!”
“Ya don’t say?” he said, adjusting his belt, and to the parted cheeks on the floor, “Ya hear that, Miss Couric? Sounds like you’re missing a great story for the Evening News.”
She sure was, scooped yet again by Diane Sawyer.
He picked up his wind talker and squawked in their native tongue. It must’ve sounded like a good idea. His boys stood down.
The Troopers were at a loss with hundreds of lives at stake and the Guard wouldn’t be arriving for hours and with nobody on the till the casino’s several full shelves of the were ransacked. Pretty soon the Mohawks were staggering out with their hands over their heads and the EMTs were able to get inside to tend to the wounded and the slain.
Katie and Linds weren’t at the top of their game for nothin’, playin’ dead the whole time beneath a pile of bodies that were really dead. Once the gunfire abated I came out of the stairwell with Couric and the house dick to see Troopers throwin’ Indians onto their bellies outside the lobby windows. We walked through the glittering debris with paramedics hoisting overweight and stunned guests onto gurneys wheeling them into the open air. Lindsay took my arm and wrapped it around her small shoulder. When I looked down at her my crossed makin’ her look like two baby rats peekin’ out of a hole in her burgundy rat’s nest.
“Didn’t I tell ya don’t ever leave?” I said, feelin’ dizzy.
Traumatized, Katie stood alone in the midst of the scattered corpses and withering seniors that were caked with blood. With Lindsay under one arm I put my other arm around Katie and brought both girls out to the parking lot.
A female EMT helped them into a medical bus and treated their bruises while I stayed outside and lit a smoke. The cruiser rolled into the parking lot and Miller got out of it. The Indians were getting herded into county wagons and she saw me standing there like I was takin’ in the scenery.
“Duke,” she said, jiggling over in a trot. “I should’a known. Where were you when this melee broke out? You musta been someplace else ‘cause the buiding’s still standin’.”
“To be honest with ya, Sophie, I was thinkin’ about gettin’ into a little hot water.”
Lindsay climbed from the back of the bus and the EMT took my arm gently.
“Say,” I said.
“I told her about your nose,” said my girl.
“Let me have a look at that,” the paramedic said taking me inside where she examined the busted cartilage.
“What gives?” Sophie asked, puzzled by the appearance of Lindsay Lohan and Katie Holmes.
“Duke broke his nose,” Lindsay told her. “I want them to fix it.”
“You want—,” Miller started but quit. “Leave it to that guy to have a guardian angel right out’a Central Casting.”
“Say, Liv, your husband mind if I stay here with yous for a few days, will he? My kid’s in LA and I don’t wanna take a chance bein’ around her if somebody’s got a bullet with my name on it.”
“Sure.” Olivia said pleasantly, examining her chipped toenails. “I need a new pedicure.”
Love looked down at her own ragged talons. “Yeh, me too,” she said.
Kimora Lee was beside herself. No one wanted to shoot her—no one even tried. She’d walked the street for hours with her name emblazoned her big ass in diamonds and nobody even gave her a second look—well, some did, until they sure it wasn’t Rue Paul. Those that remained unsure simply ignored him/her to be polite.
“You’ve got to do something,” she whined to her husband Russell in a mannish nasal drone.
Thinking she had started it all, Sarah Winooski took up drinking despite her doctor’s orders. Drake had told her that when the medication she’d been prescribed mixed with alcohol it would make a psychotic cocktail of madness, euphoria, depression and amnesia. She threw off her clothes at wild soirees and danced the hootchy all night then sank to a deathly despair where she was anybody’s for the taking. She was a blonde so she could be famous. She could also be dead. She was lucky she wasn’t famous. Nobody was tryin’ to shoot her in the head. She sat at the bar one night drinking and forgetting, she ordered a highball just after ordering one and drank the two together. She took pills that blotted out her memories of seconds, days, and years ago. But she remembered Richie, what little there was to remember, and not much of that. It was the thought that he was mixed up with some pretty shady characters. Lindsay Lohan, for god’s sake. She was a thug in chic clothing, smoking cigars and barking orders. The thugs—she’d peed on both of them, Pete and Ed, they were named. The one guy was slightly Russian. She remembered it vividly as if it were happening all over again and peed.
That’s wasn’t all there was to it. She threw her drink into her throat and requested another, finishing the second in a gulp. Ed had been shot. Drake and I had broken up the party. She called Drake on her cell. He answered.
“Drake, here.”
“Doctor Drake—this is Sarah. I’m not in a good way. I don’t remember anything except what happened to me. I can’t forget it.” She was crying.
“That’s all right, Sarah. Where are you?”
“In a bar on Times Square,” she said, sobbing as the place began filling with sailors in white.
“I’ll come pick you up. I’m going on a trip upstate. You’re welcome to come along,” he said, unaware that Kim was listening on the extension.
Drake closed his briefcase and met his wife facing him sternly at the door of his office.
“Hello, Kim,” he said, hurrying. “I hope you don’t mind that I’m taking Sarah,” before she could protest.
She thought about it. She had been kidnapped and terrorized. She didn’t want to see that neck of the woods for a long time. She hung back as he kissed her as he went by.
“Be careful, John. There are murderers on the loose,” she said sweetly.
“I’ll be careful, darling,” he said, getting his car keys and coat.
Simmons got on the horn to a Saudi friend. This friend had connection around the world. He could call in a set of ops from anywhere from Israel to Iceland to Japan. Simmons wanted to find the guy that shot Paris Hilton, what started the round of killings. He was curious whether the guy was dead or alive. The Sheik didn’t know. Simmons spent a little more time talking about the state of American urban culture and got the guy to put a bounty for the killer. The guy now had a price his head. They didn’t know the guy had no head. Ed Jorgofky’s body was being held in the city morgue until his prints could be positively matched to those found at other shootings. There were a few bodies lying around waiting to be identified. Some were anonymous Johns and Janes Doe. Some were doin’ a song and dance at the time. This guy had no head and his brother had a heart attack. The Jorgofsky brothers had left everything in the hands of their sister.
Drake pulled up to the Times Square bar where Sarah ran into his Mercedes S550. He drove away quickly as the sailors gathered outside.
“What were you up to in there?”
“I was only teasing them,” she said obliquely.
“Never mind,” he said, seeing that the alcohol had overwhelmed her system.
She curled up beside and fell asleep. He turned on the radio and listened to the weather.
I was taken to the hospital with Lindsay and Katie in tow. They made like they were just taggin’ along but they were in fear of their lives. Men who are killers and men who simply kill are hard to tell apart. They needed to stick to the killer they knew. I was getting’ a nose job and would be out of action maybe, but you wouldn’t know it. The stimulant they pumped me full of had me goin’. I was awake when the gunman walked in. I rose from the chair and shot him through the white apron I was wearin’. He cried out and cried, rolled over and died right there in the doctor’s office.
“Now this is goin’ too far,” I said, tearing off the bloody apron.
“Duke, you can’t go!” Katie cried and Lindsay tried to stop me. I almost knocked her down when I heard running outside the door.
I kicked it open and it caught a bullet. It swung back and I ducked out and fired two shots into his back. He turned and fired back but I’d jumped back. There was no other sound after the ricochet. A minute passed and I poked my head out. The guy lay dead on his face in the white tile hall the blood poured out in squares.
“He’s dead,” I said. “Better call security.”
“No,” the lady shnozitian said, putting her little rubber soled foot down and told me to get back in’a chair.
She performed the surgery with the guys layin’ there. Afterwards, I gave them the once over. I had their wallets goin’ through them with Katie, the doc and Linds by my side and I unfolded the official documents. “These guys were diplomats,” I said.
I looked back at them, the one guy in the doc’s office had spread his bladder over her nice clean floor and the guy in the hall lay in a geometric mess. “That don’t add.”
“Duke, I’ll call the police.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “That won’t do anything. I have couple’a friends on the force. I’ll call them. This may be an international incident.”
“How is it that they came gunning for you?” she asked.
The doctor was lookin’ all’a time. I decided to dump the other two and step with her.
“Why don’t I explain in’a private room?” I suggested. “I think I need to recover from the surgery.”
“Of course,” she said, as if remembering her manners. “This way.”
She didn’t have a nurse or an assistant and had to help me herself. She was all in white like an angel, blonde with glasses and an out of date haircut. I pulled a few hundred out of my pocket and smashed it into Lindsay’s padded little paw.
“Here,” I said. “You and Katie go and grab a bite. I gotta call this in and, eh, the doc here’s gonna take one more look at me.”
Wondering what just happened, she said, “We’ll wait for you in the lobby,” adding under her harsh breath, “It’s only a nose job.”
I walked off with the doctor and we found a room. It was her office and she locked the door and pulled the shades. She had to stay below my waist so she wouldn’t bump into my nose. I straightened my tie and picked up the horn on her desk. “Get me the police,” I said. “Detective Ryan.”
She made sit down so she get into a better position. I grabbed a plastic chair and parked it with open legs. She was in between on her knees. Ryan came on.
“Ryan.”
“Ryan, Brady. I’ve got a problem for ya,”
“Oh, no you don’t.”
“Two guys just busted in on me while I was havin’ my nose done.”
“What was that?”
“I was gettin’ my nose fixed. I busted it. I’m at St. Mary’s hospital in Ithaca County. Like I was sayin’—” She came up for air and went down as I watched and I had to struggle to keep to my train of thought.
“Two guys busted in on you—,” he picked up, “And ya shot ‘em.”
“That’s right.”
“I’ll call the Ithaca dicks and have ‘em look into it,” he said gruffly.
“That ain’t all,” I said, bending his ear some more while she was bendin’ mine. “They had diplomatic passports and visas. I think they’re part of Jorgofsky mob.”
“Jorgofsky’s dead. You made sure’a that.”
“But all his boys ain’t dead. Somebody took over his mob. If they’ve switch to gunnin’ for me instead’a bimbos I’m gonna do somethin’ about it.”
“I don’t wanna know about it.”
“You mean that?”
“Yeh—and I’ll pass it down the wire.”
“At’a boy. Now I can take the gloves off.”
“You had ‘em on? What about that nose’a yours? I thought you said it was bent out’a shape.”
“Ya got that right.”
I came in the doctor’s mouth and she gargled with Listerine. She made me gargle with it too. We met Lindsay and Katie in the hospital lobby, missin’ the cops as they made there way in.
“Goodbye, Duke—and thank you,” the doctor said, givin’ me an antiseptic kiss.
Sarah mewed and woke up.
“Oh, Doctor Drake,” she said, startled by her own appearance.
“Are you all right, Sarah?” he couldn’t help but asking.
“Oh, yes—but I have a splitting headache.”
“How long have you been out partying?” he scolded lightly.
“A few days. I was looking for—looking for—,” she stammered.
“That man who shot Paris Hilton?” he conjectured.
“Yes! That man! That man I saw—I keep seeing his face! Oh, Doctor, I’m going crazy with guilt! I’m to blame for all this!”
“You’d have a hard getting a jury to believe you, I’m afraid.”
“But what about Richie and Maria Cohen—and Lindsay Lohan?”
“I’m going Ithaca to interview Maria Cohen. She’s seems to have suffered a massive nervous breakdown.”
“Are you serious,” she said aghast.
“I don’t joke about that sort of thing.” That was the truth. “What do you say to stopping to get a bite? There’s a place coming up.”
She was agreeable and hung over, with him was calling the shots and letting her think she had a say. He pulled into the diner’s lot and up alongside the bus-sized eatery. The hairnet sporting hairy knuckles and a moustache remembered him.
“Howya doin’, doc?” he said.
“Hello, Solly,” Drake replied, surprisin’ the guy and took a booth with the girl.
Solly brought over a set of menus personally, impressed by the kind’a tramps Drake apparently ran around with and said in a friendly way, “Say, doc, ya hear about what happened over at the casino?”
“Mohawk security too over the place, stared shootin’ people up.”
“That’s terrible,” Sarah cried out.
Solly allayed her by sayin’, “It turned out all right. They got into the liquor and gave up.”
“That was a stroke of luck,” Drake commented.
“Them Mohawks sure like their liquor. Whaddaya have?”
Drake glanced at the menu, said, “I’ll have a cheeseburger and coffee. How about you, Sarah?”
“A cheeseburger sounds divine,” she swooned.
“Two cheeseburgers it is. Thank you, Solly.”
“No problem-o,” said Solly, takin’ the boards and headin’ behind the counter.
Without Donna to act as a buffer with the mayor, Ryan was sunk. Cohen was giving a press conference saying that the police ought to be doing more to catch the man responsible for the string of high profile killings. She had Natalie’s Portman’s mother by her side and was now joined by Dina Lohan, Lindsay’s mother and co-manager and Lynn Spears.
“Why hasn’t anyone been caught?” Cohen decried, “Is it because the police want the killings to go on? To increase the city’s tourist trade?”
It didn’t matter to anyone that this wasn’t Cohen. Even people who’d met her didn’t care. Only the bulls cared, ‘cause they had corpse on’a slab cryin’ out that it was Maria Cohen, but Patricia ID had squashed that claim. There was also a woman in custody in Ithaca that claimed she was Maria Cohen but had gone insane. It was Ryan’s job to sort out the mess and he didn’t know where to start. Me being ass deep in it didn’t help any.
Pamela Anderson and Mariah Carey were walkin’ down the street together when a car pulled up and snatched them off the street. They were older than the others, but youthful and fresh enough to pose a threat. That was in Beverley Hills. The news came to New York that night. Courtney and Nicky were cross-legged, naked on the bedroom floor. Olivia was in bed luxuriating like a queen. Fifi had changed the sheets, sent out for roses, made dinner, selected the wine, served, and made the popcorn they all ate. Olivia smoked a joint bursting at the seam with Fifi teetering on seven-inch stilettos fluffing the big satin pillows in back of her head.
“Thank you, Fifi. Could you pass this over to Courtney for me,” she said, holding out the smokin’ doob.
Fifi took the puff in gingerly fingers and brought the jay to the waiting girl on the floor. Courtney’s fingers not so nimble, she dropped the burning doob into my carpet and fished for it while it started to smoke.
“Oh, fuck, not again,” she said, lifting the jay from the small brush fire. “Sorry, Liv, I think I burned your carpet.”
Olivia wasn’t paying attention, rolling another number. Nicky paid attention to the screen and Fifi went to make drinks as the news announcement appeared on the wide screen. The female commentator’s mouth as wide and shiny as a utility sink.
“This is Monica Morales. In the latest news on the strange goings on including murder involving some of the most beautiful women in Hollywood and Mariah Carey and Pamela Anderson have been kidnapped in broad daylight. Shortly after leaving a Rodeo Drive boutique, the two sterling ingénues were pulled into a 2008 Cadillac Escalade. Eyewitnesses say the women who had been shopping together all afternoon, didn’t have time to struggle. Barely cited by paparazzi when the dark colored vehicle possibly dark blue sped up alongside them and men dressed in black swept them off their feet and they were gone.” Morales began rattling off names as the screen showed footage of the abandoned corner and out of place snippets of Anderson and Carey on various other occasions.
“Say, Nicky, didn’t you hire Duke to bust up this racket?” Olivia hollered from the bed.
“I hired him to find out who killed my sister,” Nicky said, beginning to cry.
“Say, I didn’t meanta—,” Olivia apologized. “Let’s watch somethin’ else.”
The channels were all the same, except for the channel showing a tribute to Hilary Duff.
Drake tipped Solly a C-note and help Sarah from her seat. He pulled it back like guys that you read about. He was a gentleman straight out’a the books. She was smitten with her therapist but knew it could never be. Sarah had taken up smoking and took a pack from her purse.
“Drop it!” the voice screamed.
She froze and let the pack fall.
“Keep ‘em, up.”
Drake was startled and didn’t see anyone ‘til the op bopped him in the back of the head. A female stood before him, only the face framed by wiry black hair. There was nothing else.
He woke up tied to a wooden chair. Sarah wasn’t visible. The face now had a woman attached and she came into the room holding a drink, a mixed cocktail of strange mixed colors.
“So nice to meet you, Doctor Drake,” she said, the accent Russian.
“You—you know me?” he said groggily. He knew he’d been drugged, the slap on’a back merely a distraction.
“Where’s the girl?” he asked, his arms relaxed in the restraints.
“We have to ask her a few questions. Perhaps I’m being rude. I should offer you a drink.”
She got up and pursed her lips at him. Her lips were fiery red as was her sequin gown as were her ruby pumps. She was Russian to the marrow. He wondered what the hell was going on. He heard irate grumbling and female laughter. The woman spoke. The man fumed. He marched into the room.
“Doctor John Drake, my name is Commander Adonis Yuletide. I’m head of a special investigative unit looking into the connection between the deaths of female stars, mostly blondes, and the Saudis. We have intelligence that your girlfriend Miss Winooski has information vital to that end. I’m sorry we have to keep you like this.”
“Than why are you?”
“Because we know how dangerous you can be,” the commander said, turning to the Russian. “Watch him. Don’t let him play any tricks on you.”
“What kind of tricks could he play,” she said, looking over at Drake.
The guy left the room. She sipped her drink and made sure he was gone.
“Doctor Drake, I’m FBI undercover, Special Agent Bettina Bright. Commander Adonis is a rogue officer. His unit was special ops, assigned to monitor the activities of violent white supremacists but he was seduced by their ideology and joined them bringing his expertise at espionage and guerilla warfare with him. They plan to overthrow Hollywood and install a white woman as the queen of Hollywood.”
“That’s the most,” Drake blurted, when Adonis walked back in the room.
“Works like a charm,” he said, and two of his people came in, one a man, the other some other thing. They grabbed Bright by the wrists and she started to struggle like a fly caught in a web.
Adonis gave Drake a grin, squinting like man looking into the sun. “Now you know part of our plan. It won’t help any. That’s why I waited for that traitor to tell you as much as she did. There’s no way for you to stop us.”
“Why is that?” Drake seriously wanted to know.
“Because our plan is well on the way to completion. First it was Barbie, then Baywatch, then Bratz—we took over the female mind. We mad her our puppet and our sextoy. When we crown the queen of Hollywood, she will marry the President of the United States, and we have total control. Do you get it know? There is no way for anyone to stop us.”
“Be that as it may, what does that have to do with Sarah?”
“She knows too much!” Adonis said with a flourish.
“And now I know too much,” Drake insisted.
“Not nearly as much as you think you know,” Adonis brushed him off with.
Drake was in the dark. He was clueless why a group of white supremacists would go so far to take over the world, and was it the world. It sounded like the President’s bedroom. They were going through all of this trouble to install a whore as the greatest woman in the world. She would be a role model to billions around the world. There had to be way to stop this madness before it went any further. Drake stood to his feet. Adonis stepped back and drew a gun.
“What do you think you’re doing?” The commander demanded.
“You won’t use that gun,” Drake said and flipped on his head, crashing the chair’s four legs’ into the three of them. Adonis dropped his gun and Drake kicked him in the face. Bright tried to knee one guy in the balls, the guy had no balls. Drake swung back around and smashed the chair into Adonis and the other mug. They fell backwards and he hunkered his shoulders slackening the cords. He slipped out like Houdini and picked up the gun.
“Where’s the girl,” he demanded.
“I’ll take you to her,” said Bright.
“In a minute,” he said, “Hold this.” Passing her the gun, he picked up the cord and tied the wrists of Adonis and the others together with a knot that cut their circulation when they pulled with it.
“That will keep them busy. Take me to her,” he said, taking the gun.
He let Bright lead the way because he didn’t trust her. She took him through the corridors of a labyrinthine warren of bare walls. The girl was at the end of long hall. Brocaded doors were open and the setting was opulent, rococo motifs and ornamental fixtures lined the ceilings and textured walls. Sarah was tied to chair in the middle of the floor, in the middle of the large swatch of Persian rug. The shot cracked behind him and he fell. He turned on his knees and fired. Bright was gone. He heard her grunting as her stocking feet were running kicking off her ruby pumps. Drake awoke in the hospital, bandaged around his middle. Sarah was by his side, pleading with him, holding his hand and crying.
“Oh, don’t die! Doctor Drake! Pleas don’t die! You’re going to live! Oh, Please don’t die! Oh, please!”
He opened his eyes, the pain burning his side.
“Goddamnit. We almost had them,” he said.
She was so crazed she thought that was funny, she leapt up and kissed him round his face, trying to hold his head and hurting him.
“Please, Sarah. You’re killing me.”
‘Oh, but, doc, I thought that woman killed you. I untied myself after a while and called the hospital on your phone.”
“Did you call the police?”
“Uh, no.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Who knows what they would have done. We’ve got to go back there,” he insisted.
“Doctor Drake, we don’t even know where that was,” she said, nonplussed.
“We’ll find it. I’ve got to get a hold of Duke. He’ll be very interested in this new development.”
A female doctor walked in, her white coat crisp and sharp. She wore glasses and looked very studious. Her nametag read Dr. Peg and she approached him like he was an experiment.
She spoke to him but otherwise seemed to ignore him, “Doctor Drake?”
“Yes?” he said.
“My name is Dr. Pegasus. You’re in good shape for a man your age. I pulled a bullet out of you and you’re coming right along.”
“Thank you, Doctor Pegasus. I try.”
“Call me Peggy. We’re well acquainted.”
“What doe that mean?”
Impishly, her freckled face brightened beneath the red crew cut and sparkling, she said, “I had to see your, you know what, to make sure it didn’t get—,” she blushed.
“Shot off?” he finished for her.
Sarah gasped and nearly fainted. “Is it—?” she cautiously inquired.
“It’s all there,” Peggy said with a smile. It’s big too,” she said with a churlish wink.
Drake tried to sit up and couldn’t.
“Whoa, big boy,” Peggy said, placing her fingers gently to his chest. “Don’t get excited. You gotta heal before we can play tiddlywinks. Business before pleasure.”
“Of course, Doctor,” he said, takin’ it easy. “Sarah, please hand my phone.”
She pulled it from his jacket and passed it to him. He pressed speed dial and my phone rang. I was in a room at the Falls Inn with two naked girls who had the world at their feet. It was a small world. They had small feet. I didn’t mind them waving in my face as long as they didn’t mind, their sweaty backs made them muddy from the grimy bedcover. I reached for my pants and pulled the cell out of my pocket. I saw Drake’s number and switched on.
“Yeh?” I said.
“You sound busy.”
“I’m doin’ pushups.”
“Sit her down. I’ve got something astonishing to tell you.”
“I haven’t been astonished in a long time, doc, lay it on me.”
I adjusted the girls so they were sitting across from one another. I was in the middle and crawled backward off the bed. I pulled my smokes from my pants pocket and put the pants on.
“I may have found who the people are killing celebrities.”
“There are several,” I said, refreshing him.
“There is an organization, I didn’t get the name, that seems bent on imposing an all white dictatorship,” he said earnestly.
“Ya don’t say. Who’s pullin’ the strings?” I asked.
“I don’t’ know. I’ve only met a rogue commander named Adonis and a woman who said she was a Fed working undercover as part of the group. She freed me but then she shot me, perhaps to make our getaway look good. I think I winged her too,” he said exasperated by the telling.
“You say she shot you?”
“It’s only a flesh wound,” he said, the doctor snuggling up to him in reproach.
“He took a bullet!” the lusty doctor yelled at the phone. “It didn’t hit anything vital. He’s all man, this one,” she giggled loudly.
“Who the hell’s that?”
“My doctor.”
“Go, doc. Look I gotta couple’a hot movie stars over here that are gettin’ cold. Let’s hook up when yer doctor let’s ya out’a bed. Sounds like it may be a while.”
“I’m on my way to Ithaca County to perform the psych evaluation on Maria Cohen. I asked Sarah Winooski to join me as a traveling companion. She’s here with me now.”
“Her and the doctor?”
“It’s not what you think.”
“It’s not what I’m thinkin’.”
Lindsay wanted to blow me and I let her. I backed away from the bed and she got on her knees and started licking my balls. It felt good because they itched. She was the poison and the cure. Katie sat with her back againt the headboard and just watched, taking a cigarette from the pack. She was a married woman and fun had its limits.
“They grabbed us out of the parking lot of the diner we were in the night that Trooper got called to Tom Cruise’s place.”
“I remember, doc. Solly’s place. I’m not far from there. I’ll check it out.”
“Be careful,” he said. “More than one of them may be mad and the place is wired.”
“I’d leave the girls behind if I were you,” he said.
“Sure I will. All right, doc, we’ll talk soon.”
I ended the call and came in Lindsay’s mouth. It flooded past her lips and she choked on it, swallowing as much as she could. It had been a while and I had extra reserves. Cum filled her lungs like vases waiting for roses. The head barely fit in her cheeks and she wiped it on her jaw like her face was made of Kleenex, soft, white and three ply.
I zipped my fly and picked up my shirt. I buttoned while Lindsay stood up on the bed head to head with me tying the necktie around my throat.
“Linds, I’m gonna give you somethin’ you’ve needed for a long time.”
“Duke, you’ve already given me so much,” she cooed into my face.
We kissed and I produced a .32 from my pocket.
“Take this,” I said, “And lock the door. Don’t let anyone in here. Don’t shoot at me ‘cause I’ll shoot back.” I looked past her to the nominally responsible one, and said, “Ya hear that, Katie?”
She nodded, missing Tom Cruise her big hero. She had tears in her eyes again.
“Take care of her,” I said. “She’s good at not showin’ it, but your friends in the dumps.”
“I will. You be careful too.”
Yeh, not too careful.” I kissed her again and booked.
My car was parked in front of the bungalow and I jumped right in. I started up when a woman wearing a red sequin gown stumbled into my high beams one leg dragging in the dirt. She went down and tried to rise. I cut the engine and got out of the car hoisting my gun.
‘Hey, lady! Need a ride?” I shouted.
“F—,” she moaned, “FBI, special Agent Bright.”
She collapsed and I lifted her in my arms. I put her in the car beside me and got under the wheel. She brought her head up slowly. I had the gun on her but I didn’t need it.
“Bright,” I said. “Remember me? Brady?”
“Brady—Duke—”
“Let’s get you to the hospital.”
I started the car and pushed it.
Bright was admitted into the ER when I vouched for her. I found Drake’s doctor and she showed me to his room. “You a good friend’a his,” she asked, hooking her arm beneath mine. Drake was scribbling psychology notes and observations into a notepad. Sarah sat at the window having morbid daydreams at night.
“What’s up, Doc?”
“Duke,” he said, looking up. “What brings you here?”
“The woman you shot was FBI. I know her. Her team helped me crack a case years ago. Her name’s Bettina Bright, she’s a Special Agent. That’s all I know. Admittedly I found her left for road kill. She acted like somebody was chasin’ her but there was nobody that I saw. I didn’t look that hard. What’s this about white supremacists?”
“It sounds like they want to create an all woman army that will rule over men.”
“White women?”
“And white men I suppose. It doesn’t sound good no matter you frame it,” he concluded.
“No,” I said, “but it sounds like something some Russians would wanna get in on.”
“Russians?” he puzzled, “You mean the DPL plate son the limo that grabbed Sarah!” he brained.
“And a couple’a wanna be tough guys right here in this hospital.”
“That was you blow those guys down?” Peg responded.
“Yeh,” I said. “That’s where I got this great splint on my face.”
“I noticed. Looks like Guinevere’s work. She’s a cartilage specialist.”
“Give her my regards when you see her. Drake I’ve gotta head back to the inn. I left those girls there with a loaded .32.”
“Then they’re safe,” he opined.
“But I’m not.”
Katie had the upper body strength so she pulled the trigger. The guy climbin’ through the window winced and his knees buckled. He collapsed into the room and made like he wanted to get up and she shot him again. Hattie screamed from the open door.
Katie wheeled on her with the smoking pistol and Hattie screamed again, shouting, “I’m the maid! I’m the maid! Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”
She held towels in her arms and looked legit. “I thought you girls might want a bath. I brought,” she stopped as if stunned on delay, “Who’s that guy?” she said.
She passed the towels to Lindsay who shivered naked and went to corpse pulling the black ski mask from his rosy face. He was a handsome young blond man of about twenty. He didn’t look like a second story man but you never knew. She got on the horn and called the cops. Four cars filled with Deputies and Troopers rolled up in minutes.
Hattie was outside with the two naked girls. They had covered themselves with towels and headed inside when the cruisers lit up the area with their flashing, spinning beacons.
“Who was that?” Finn asked, catching the end of a pink tail as it scooted.
“Katie Holmes,” she said flatly.
“Katie Holmes? Tom Cruise’ wife?”
“You know another one,” she said blandly.
“What’s she doin’ here?”
“Falls Inn is a quality dump. Katie Holmes can stay here if she wants.”
“Save it for the tourists,” dismissing her pitch. “Come on, boys.”
She stalled long enough for the girls to dress, as it were and they’d exchanged the towels for the sheets before the Troopers barged in, ready to draw.
“Katie Holmes,” Finn declared, leading the posse. He saw the man’s body in its twisted final throw and knowing else to say, announced, “You’re under arrest.”
He motioned his men forward and she was cuffed. “That one too,” he said.
The sheet dropped from Lindsay’s body and the deputies stopped to stare in awe. She glowed white and ethereal like a red speckled ghost, she glittered like wet candy or a piece of jewelry carved from fine bone inlaid with minute precious stones. Her hair was flaming red having lost a shade of coloring. No one wanted to cuff her. They were afraid to touch her. I pulled up to the convention and saw the maid smoking a cigarette.
“What goes?” I said, lighting one up.
“They’re arresting Katie Holmes for shootin’ a guy,” she said.
“She never claimed to be a Girl Scout.”
I went inside pushing the deputies out of my way.
“Who the hell are you?” Finn said.
“Name’s Brady,” I said, and flipped my proof.
“Brady—you’re that shamus out at Cruise’s place that night.”
“That’s right,” I said. “What do you think you’re doin’?”
“Don’t you see that body right there? We got a call that she shot him.”
“So what? Looks like self defense to me.”
“You a lawyer now too?” he said, gettin’ antsy.
“You haul her in they’ll have you sweepin’ the jail.”
“You keep talkin’ like that, mister, I’m gonna haul you in with ‘em.”
“Let’s go, Sherlock. I’d like to have a word with your boss.”
“No reason to get hot, mister. I’m only doin’ my job.”
Miller’s borrowed cruiser screeched to a halt. She drew her gun and ran inside to where the Trooper and I were going toe to toe. She pushed between us and said to no one, “What goes here? Brady. Finn. What’s the situation here?”
“Dead body. Girl shot him.”
“Brady, what’s your story?” she said.
“I get back from takin’ a wounded Fed to St. Mary’s an’ when I get back these boneheads are arresting two little girls. This one says the guy climbed through the window.”
Miller spied over at the tow headed corpse and said, “Looks that way to me.”
“So she shot him—with the gun I left her. after I told her to do just that. The guy came in’a window, for god’s sake. You think he was bringin’ ‘em flowers, ya rube?”
“Hold on, Brady. Finn?” she snapped.
“The call came in that a man had been shot and that a girl had pulled the trigger. I figured we round ‘em up and sort it out later,” he explained.
“Nix,” she said. “Brady’s got a free hand long as I’m around. Orders. You got a beef with him, you got one with me.”
Finn backed off like she’d beat him with a rolled up newspaper.
“All right, Sophie, er, Captain Miller,” he slouched back, callin’ to his boys, “All right, let’s call the ME.”
The grays were millin’ around lookin’ for somethin’ to do. Sophie had our backs as I got the girls as dresses as they were able to get.
She put her head back and queried softly, “Who’s the stiff?”
“I have an idea,” I said.
“Can it wait until the morning? I’m on the rag and I’d rather send these clowns home.”
“Sure,” I said.
The call came early. It was Miller tellin’ me to head over to St, Mary’s hospital, that Drake would perform the evaluation there. By the time we rolled in Drake had already started. He came out of the rubber room, saying worrisomely, “She keep asking for someone named Peiro.”
“That’s her brother, I said. That’s Peter to you an’ me, Petre to the Russian mob. He’s a crime boss that met with an unfortunate demise—had a heart attack when a bullet would’ve done just fine.”
Lindsay peeked through the wire glass window at the straitjacketed nut. Drake lit his pipe in the hospital hallway and puffed.
“Her identity is shot,” Drake said. “Without Piero she doesn’t know who she is.”
“That’s not Maria Cohen,” Lindsay sneered at the window.
Sick as a dog, Courtney threw up everything that was in her system. Fifi dutifully cleaned it up and moved her to the bathroom where she got sicker. Withdrawal and addiction alternating in lightning spasms like living and dying with the flick of a switch.
She tried calling Olivia’s name, only getting out, “Liv!”
Olivia and Nicky came running, not that there was anything they could do.
Pam and Mariah were livin’ large on board the sheikh’s private plane.
“You are both such exquisite creatures it would pain me to see any harm come you to. I hope you do not mind?”
They were happy be eat his illegal caviar and drink his contraband hooch. They didn’t have a problem in the world. He thought they could give him a lead to the man who’d shot Paris Hilton but they were as drunk as they looked. He snapped on his cell and ordered his men to snatch Carmen Electra next. Aside from preserving a few choice specimens before the genus Hot Blonde became extinct, he had no intentions of ever letting these girls set foot in America again, though neither was a natural blonde.
They were to be treated like rare and purest gold. These were the breeders of the future Master race. This idea was very similar to the one held by the White army, the outfit Bettina had infiltrated posing as a turned Russian spy. The WA knew she had been caught but didn’t know her true identity and the man who had found her out was a dead cat burglar the troopers were scrambling to identify. Given Adonis’ formal security clearance there were no matches in the system and every check came up empty. Drake’s shot had caught Bright in the rear thigh and burned through a delicate part of her underside. She wasn’t talking but made a request for a pen and pad.
Carmen Electra disappeared on her way to film a television pilot. She didn’t show up at the studio and they called the cops, who didn’t have time to go out looking for her. Jessica Simpson was wither sister when the gunman appeared. Jessica ducked and Ashlee caught five slugs to the chest and face. The gunman was not happy. Jessica made her way on her hands and knees scurrying to the kitchen door and once up on her feet, bolted from the restaurant’s back door. She figured she was too pretty for them to give up so easily and put together a disguise in order to get out of lala land. She arrived home by taxi and rushed inside, hastily packing a back and chartering a private plane.
Kimora Lee was still jealous of the girls that had been killed and the others thusly thrown into the spotlight, she complained to her husband’s growing irritation. He had done what he could by putting a bounty on the killer’s head but there was nothing he could to stop her senseless whining and bitching. He put up with it in stoic silence until her mind flitted like a bird onto the idea of going shopping. That would definitely make her forget her woes, he thought and sent her off with his blessings.
She wanted someone to take a shot at her so unbeknownst to her husband she contacted the sheikh asking him if he could arrange it. As an old friend of her husband’s he readily agreed. Kimora Lee was shot dead in the midst of the Livingston mall painfully trying to get noticed. The shots fired and everybody dived, not knowing where the shots had come from or where they’d gone. She was standing outside of Urban Outfitters when the slugs threw her through the glass into the window display where her long legged, bloodied big boned body lay between mannequins dressed as beach bums.
We were in the cafeteria, me with my busted nose, Drake with his bullet hole, our respective doctors at our sides.
“The only thing we know for sure is that the woman in custody is not Maria Cohen,” he said.
“We know more than that, doc. We know she’s frontin’ for the same outfit as the first fake Cohen and that ties in with Jorgofsky and he’s Russian and there’s too many damned Russians runnin’ around, fake and otherwise,” I said with an extended breath. My nose was healing and I could breathe easier if not easy.
“Then there’s this new angel, this white supremacist group,” he said, almost by the way.
Still, I blew it off by sayin’, “I don’t buy that. Sounds like a bunch’a nuts.’
“What about Special Agent Bright? She wouldn’t be fooling around with a bunch of nuts, would she? And what about that man Katie shot dead at the inn? Miller checked his prints and nothing came up on file. Don’t tell me he was trying out a new hobby. I’m certain that it’s is the same man that called himself Commander Adonis.”
I was deciding there was nothing to do in Ithaca when my cell vibrated. It was Olivia calling from the townhouse landline.
“Duke, you’d better come home quick. We got trouble.”
“Death in the family?” I said.
“Courtney Love croaked in our bedroom bathroom.”
“Natural causes?” I wondered.
“As natural s he could get—she OD’d.”
“Great. What’d the bulls do to the joint?”
“Ryan came in with ‘em. Seein’s as it was Courtney Love and the coroner’s been waitin’ on her for so long it was determined not to be suspicious. Duke, you been away fro days now with that Lohan dame. When ya gonna come home?”
I ended the call and stood from the table.
“My wife’s in a million pieces and breakin’ up into a billion. Courtney Love OD’d in our bathroom. I gotta cut out. It’s been nice playin’ with yous but playtime’s over.”
I left the cafeteria and Lindsay caught up with me as I left the hospital headed for the parking lot.
“Duke! Duke! Where are you going?”
“Home,” I said. “Olivia’s just called with an emergency.”
“But what about me?” she pouted.
“Miller’ll take care’a ya and Drake’s still here. Stick close to them and you’ll be all right,” I said and climbed into my heap.
“But I won’t be all right. Somebody’s going to kill me,” she whined.
“You’re right,” I said. “Get in.”
Her face widened with a grin and she leapt in the car beside me. I gunned the engine and we took off.
The Arab’s plane set down on a runway in Dubai. Pam and Mariah well fed, scrubbed and tanned with new couture stepped off into the sun, the desert wind like hot needles. They threw on cheaters and descended to the tarmac. The sheikh stayed in the plane, completing a call. The driver held the door open and the girls climbed into the air-conditioned limo. With the heavy partying and their general confusion the girls hadn’t gotten the Arab’s name.
“Who was that guy?” Pam asked the driver, who appeared to be a white guy. He was, straight out’a Kansas.
“Sheikh la Lala,” he said.
“La la la?” Mariah said, starting to sing it.
The guy put some music on and they made a song out of it as he pulled off, the hotel rising out of a field of oilrigs and towering boom cranes.
“I’d like to speak to this agent Bright,” Drake told the director of St. Mary’s, a woman doctor named Meade.
“I think that would be for the best, but you’ll have to do it quickly.”
She hurried him from her office and they bypassed the loitering bulls. Miller tired of cooling her heels caught they were up to something and followed.
“Captain Miller,” he said, seeing she was on his heels. “I’m going to try to get through to agent Bright but Doctor Meade says I have to be quick about it. We haven’t got time for protocol.”
“Screw it, doc. The feds are due any minute and they’re bound to try to quash anything we come up with, so ya better get to it. I’ll cover for ya.”
“Thanks, Sophie,” he said.
He and Meade got to the ICU with her making sure the staff nurses were scarce. Bright lay drugged with an IV running up her backside. Drake felt a sympathetic pang in his own wound and pulled up a chair with Meade guarding the door.
“Agent Bright, can you hear me?” he said.
She nodded slightly.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Drake,” she said.
“That’s right. I want you to tell me more about the White Army, about Adonis, who he was working for.”
“White—Army,” she murmured, “Racist—fascist pervs—want to rule the world through—white woman, they think they can use a white woman to rule the planet.”
“Relax, Bright. Who thinks they can use white women? There must be someone behind it.”
“Coulter,” she said, exhausted with the effort.
“Coulter?”
“Ann Coulter,” Meade surmised, whispering from the door.
“Of course.”
“I didn’t know she had heroin, Duke,” Olivia explained over the wireless. “We was just smokin’ a few numbers, doin’ a few lines, you know normal stuff.”
“Don’t worry about it. Look, I’m bringin’ Lindsay home with me, so don’t get bent out’a shape. You an’ me gotta talk.”
“Doctor Drake, I hear footsteps,” Meade cautioned.
He rose from the bedside and brought her out to the hall as three missile-like figures rounded the corridor.
“You two! Stop right there.” The tall guy barked, flashing a wallet.
The woman came from his side and moved her hands over Drake’s sides, pulling the snub-nosed .38 from his pocket. He’d forgotten it was there and she pocketed it.
“Care to explain?” the guy a square shouldered blond, said. “Captain Miller said you were checking up on the agent. How is her condition?”
“She’s weak but getting stronger,” he said, the female agent crawlin’ up his back.
“Since when do MD’s carry .38’s?” she purred.
“In case you haven’t noticed, there’s been a rash of murders lately,” Drake retorted.
“It’s an epidemic,” the guy cracked.
“Chisel, we’ve got work to do. I don’t think the good doctor will give us anymore trouble,” the woman said, hot and close in his ear. “Will you, doctor?”
“No. In fact if it’s all right with you,” he tersely began.
“It’s not all right,” the guy said. “Get back in the room.”
He and the other goon pressed in on them and they had to backpedal into the ICU. The girl kept her chest close so Drake didn’t have much room.
“How much do you know about the White Army?” the guy asked abruptly.
Drake didn’t say anything and the guy moved in swinging. Drake caught him with an upper cut and followed with a right jab. The guy fell back and the other guy caught him. The girl raised her jacket and he elbowed her in the face, smearing her lipstick. She reeled cock-eyed and flipping her lapels he grabbed the .38 from her pocket.
The guy was getting his bearings when Drake caught the girl in a chokehold and held her with the gun to her head.
“Maybe it’s time for you to answer some questions, agent Chisel,” he said.
“I’ve got nothing to say to you,” Chisel sneered. “Go ahead and blow her brains out. That won’t stop ‘Operation: White Hand’,” Chisel taunted.
“Ya hear that, honey?” Drake said in the girl’s ear. “He’s willing to have you buy it.”
“He knows you won’t do it. You haven’t got the guts.”
“Don’t try me.”
“Go on, Drake, pull the trigger. A white man would—but you’re yellow!”
Chisel lunged and Drake holding the back of the girl’s hair used her skull like a battering ram and slammed it into the guy’s forehead knocking them both senseless. He shot the other guy before he could react. The guy didn’t know whether to reach for his piece or scratch, his arms spastic and he went down jerkily.
“Doctor Drake!” Meade cried. “You shot him!”
“No one calls me yellow,” he jeered. “Get Captain Miller while I search them. Perhaps I’ll find something that will tell us who they really are.”
Meade ran from the room. Bright groaned and Drake put the gun away, taking their guns and piling them in the same drawer he found a box of surgical tubing. Miller returned with Meade and the man and woman were sitting up on the floor like trained monkeys with their ankles tied and their wrists lashed behind their backs. The guy that Drake had shot was done for, curled on the floor like a worm in his soiled suit.
“Nice work, doc,” Miller said, impressed. “What were they after?”
“They’re part of the White Army.”
“The wha—?”
“The White Army—a white racist group that appears to be very well organized. Duke thinks it’s a joke, a group of crackpots, but I think differently. These people, Bright and Adonis have got me convinced otherwise. These people may very well be federal agents. Bright told me once that Adonis was a rogue officer.”
“That squares with why they’ve got nothing on him in the system,” Sophie said, but that means this White Army has got friends in high places.”
“Bright’s given us a name. Ann Coulter. Though I’m not clear what her role is.”
“Let’s light a fire under these birds and see if we can find out.”
“But what if they are federal agents?” Meade wondered aloud.
“What if they are?” Miller remarked with evident relish.

There were bulls all over my dump. I thought I was gonna be arrested but it wasn’t me they were lookin’ for. Ryan led Olivia out in handcuffs and I stopped ‘em in their tracks.
“What goes here?” I said.
Joseph came out’a the house with Fifi by the arm. The maid wasn’t cuffed but she looked scared with the big bull draggin’ her that way.
“Orders, Brady, straight from the commissioner. He thinks your wife knows somethin’,” Ryan said tersely.
“Like what?” I said, “She’s not in on this case. And what about Fifi there? What’s she supposed to know?”
“Like I said, I’m followin’ orders is all. I’d rather get you under the hot lights but you been out’a town.”
“Upstate with Miller. Why would you follow through with such a bonehead play? You know Olivia.”
“She’s been runnin’ with the wrong crowd,” he said.
“Ain’t we all?”
“Out’a the way, Brady. Let’s get this over with. You might wanna tag along.”
“Yeh,” I said, seein’ Nicky in the back of the patrol car as Ryan urged his boys to move along. Ryan notwithstanding, something seemed fishy about the setup.
I followed the line’a patrol cars as they wound into the big park where they were swallowed up by the mouth of the underground garage. I left my car in a shaded underpass and walked with Lindsay hanging back so as not to create a spectacle. Inside the park station the mayor, police commissioner and the latest Maria Cohen greeted the detectives and gave the prisoner the once over. Olivia had on her pajamas bottoms with a flyaway pink babydoll for a top.
“So this is the woman that killed Courtney Love?” Cohen started in.
“We don’t know that for sure,” the mayor reasoned. “What do you have to say for yourself, young lady?”
“I wanna lawyer,” Olivia spat fustily.
Cohen put on a smug expression like that was some kind’a confession. With no chance of makin’ anything stick the whole thing stank of politics but I wondered whose.
“You’d better get your wife a mouthpiece, Brady. There’s no tellin’ how this is gonna turn out,” Joseph suggested. With Olivia behind the eight ball my hands were tied.
Miller hadn’t notified any law, local or otherwise. She’d had a couple’a the crazy bruisers from the hospital’s psych ward carry the bound ringers to a quiet room where she could work them over in peace. They were thrown to the cold tile floor and the bruisers left. Drake came in and he watched her go to work.
“Think it’s funny goin’ around impersonating federal agents, do ya? Ya know feds wear special underwear with the FBI logo on it. Let’s see if ya got ‘em,” she said grabbing Chisel by the ankles and yanking him onto his back. She chucked his brogues and with a studied move had his belt unbuckled and whipped his pants down around his ankles.
“Nope,” she said seein’ the red Jockey’s. “What about you, honey?”
Miller rolled the woman onto her back and didn’t stop with showin’ her skivvies, jerking them away from her wide hips. The girl lay on her side her wrists cinched with the rubbing tubing, unable to stop Miller from havin’ a little grotesque fun. Drake noticed that the girl had a swastika tattooed on one her wan cheeks.
“Take a look at that, Sophie,” he said. Miller picked up on it and twisting the girl’s head by the chair forced her onto her face with her butt in the air.
“Yeh. There’s another one.” Sophie pushed the pencil skirt clean out’a sight and exposed the tattoo on the other cheek. “WA.”
“White Army. This is serious.”
“Sure it is. Care to open up about it, honey?” she said to the girl’s parted backside.
“You’ll never stop the white revolution,” the girl muttered into the floor tiles her head covered over with the disheveled blonde mane.
“What’s so white about it?” Sophie derided. “From where I’m standin’, it looks kinda rusty.”

Jessica’s charter landed in an airfield in New Jersey and she pulled the brim of the fedora down to conceal her puffy wide face. The pilot was experienced navy flier who climbed from the Cessna and gave the strapping blonde a hand out of the cockpit. She’d removed her platforms and her bare feet were sweaty from the cramped ride. Her miniskirt rumpled her mile long legs were cramped and he gave them an informal massage as she stretched them out to step onto the wing. The two of them almost fell but he caught her and propped her back onto the balls of her feet. He reached inside and pulled out the FENDI overnight bag she’d brought with her.
“Let’s get you to a safe place.” he said after she leapt to the tarmac and he’d joined her. She took the address book from her bag and flipped the pages. She thought she’d stay with the Olson Twins at their townhouse village. She put the bag over her shoulder and pressing a Blue tooth into her ear.
When Mary-Kate answered obviously drunk and disoriented, Jessica to find another place to crash. Claire Danes had been smart not to hook up with Courtney Love and the other party girls and sat in her apartment reading a novel. The news had frightened Danes so she didn’t mind doing what she did a lot of anyway. The cell chimed and she answered it warily, saying “hello?” trying poorly to disguise her voice.
“Claire? This is Jessica Simpson. Are you okay?”
Claire cleared her throat and took a sip of vodka and ginger ale.
“Hello, Jessica. No, I’m all right. Where are you?”
“Somewhere in Jersey, I think.” She looked at the pilot and he nodded assuring her. ‘Is it all right if I stay with you?”
“Um, for how long?” Danes asked, thinking how nice it was to be alone.
‘I don’t know. I think they killed my sister. I got out when the shooting started and haven’t looked back. I hope she’s okay but I doubt it.”
Danes’s mouth hung open aghast.
“Sure, Jess. You have the address, right?”
“Yes, I have it right here. I guess I’ll be there in a few hours.”
‘That’s fine. I’ll be expecting you then.”
The conversation ended, Claire put the phone down and turned on the television she barely ever watched. She had cable though and flipped the channel to CNN. There was news about the latest developments in the Hollywood blonde murders. Courtney Love had OD’d and another woman was arrested under suspicion of supplying the fatal dose. Rather being murdered outright Anderson, Carey and Electra had disappeared and thought to have been kidnapped. Pam and Mariah were in no hurry to tell anyone in America where they’d vanished to, being treated like royalty on the sheikh’s tab in Dubai. The litany of names seemed to be endless, starting with Paris Hilton and rounding off with Ashlee Simpson. Jessica Simpson had also vanished, from the restaurant where Ashlee had taken three slugs. Claire had to sit down and catch her breath, her heart beating so hard she thought she’d hemorrhage.
Lindsay squeezed past the wall of uniforms and pointing her finger sharply, cried out, “That’s not Maria Cohen!”
Thinking he’d been played, which he had, the mayor nodded to Joseph to take the woman into custody. Ryan cuffed her wrists behind her back gleefully and wrenched the bracelets so he dislocated her arm. Broomberg turned to me, saying, “I’m sorry, Mr. Brady. Some things need to be sorted out.”
“Apparently, but being falsely accused is nobody’s idea of a good time,” I said.
He waved for Ryan to unlock Olivia’s wrists and wagging her arms like a baby bird, she made a dash to me and threw her arms around my neck.
“But you understand there will be a police investigation,” the mayor said, shoring up the commissioner, since they’d both been suckered.
“You can take her home,” he said.
“What about Nicky Hilton and my maid?” I insisted.
“They can go too,” he resigned.
The thought of Olivia, Lindsay, Nicky and Fifi fitting in the single bucket seat was too much. Olivia and Lindsay had done it once before but was because one was big and the other was little, but the four of them wouldn’t be so comfortable. I asked to borrow a squad car and got one, taking the girls back to the townhouse where they started drinking, the maid included and stretched out getting over their ordeal. I brought the police car back to the Central Park Station’s garage and found my car where I’d left it. I lit a smoke and gave the car a cursory look over then went into the station and got hold of the bomb squad.
“Who do ya think put the fix in for ya?” Ryan asked, as we drank lukewarm coffee in the room used by the park station’s detective squad.
“Somebody who knew I was here. Somebody hooked up with the phony Maria Cohen,” I said.
“Yeh,” he pondered, “That was weird. She clammed up. Hasn’t said a word since, before ya couldn’t shut her up.”
“You boys’re losin’ yer touch.”
“Broomberg didn’t want to no part of it. Him and the commissioner took off right after you left.”
“That figures.”
“She played him for a sap. I’ll give ‘im credit, though, he ordered her held without bail. With these Hollywood murders goin’ on, right now she’s lookin’ like a likely candidate for the hot seat.”
“Think she’ll spill?”
“That or fry,’ he said confidently. I doubted it.
“She ain’t gonna fry,” I said. “She may burn, but she ain’t gonna fry.”
He got me, and said, “Yer thinkin’ somebody’s gonna come along an’ shut her up. I’d better put an extra man on her.”
“Yeh, that’ll help,” I said, swirling the grounds around at the bottom of the cup, thinkin’ the grounds had no more clue what was goin’ on than anybody else.
I got home late. The girls were drunk and had passed out, except for Lindsay who’d waited up for me. She’d put on make-up and dyed her hair blonde in a failed attempt at making herself over into a bombshell, but now she just looked like a painted whore instead of the rat-faced kid I’d gotten used to. We went to her room and made love and then I went to sleep in my own bed but I kept dreamin’ about cars exploding and woke up several times during the night. The last time I bolted upright, Olivia was stretched out next to me snoring loudly. I slept better knowin’ that the sounds of the explosions now came from the wide-open mouth of the naked blonde. I felt reassured too that maybe I didn’t have to lock Lindsay in her room anymore, but I’d locked her in anyway ‘cause ya never know.
Danes had only one bed and she offered to share it with Jessica, who was a little uneasy about sleepin’ with a woman. She had shared a bed with Ashlee but that was her sister and she hardly knew Claire. But tired from the erratic flight from the left coast she decided to hell with it and slipped into a pair of satin pajamas and crawled under the blanket. She wasn’t there long before Claire’s hands were all over her. She forced herself to imagine it was a guy fingering her but the hand was too soft and delicate for her to buy it. Jessica even came a couple of times but then she felt sick to her stomach and spent the rest of the night on the bathroom floor, throwing up and eventually falling asleep.
Claire woke her up the next morning looking embarrassed and red in the face.
Miller worked the two over until they were cryin’ like babies for their mother, but Sophie wasn’t the maternal type. She kept the lights up and when they were on the verge of passing out she threw hot coffee in their faces. The white revolution would have to wait.

Meade had given Sarah and Katie blankets and a private room decked out with lux accommodations. The room was reserved for board of directors’ family members and there was no problem. The girls had the run of the place and did very little running. They were exhausted but couldn’t sleep, too terrified at not knowing what was to come or who would die next. Deputies were posted outside the door in rotating shifts and the room had a full bar, wide screen and vibrating lounge chairs. They made popcorn and watched the news, which only scared them more.
“They’re not talkin’, doc,” Miller said, her sleeves rolled up past her elbows. She’d sweated the two all night and the sun was breaking through the slatted windows in St. Mary’s atrium.
“I don’t think they can talk. You’ve traumatized them so, they’ll have to be locked up.”
“Oh, they’ll be locked up. The brothers in Sing Sing’ll be havin’ that white power pansy’s tail for breakfast, lunch an’ dinner.”
“I’d like to have word alone with the girl.”
“Be my guest. She is a woman and you are a doctor. She may open up to you.”
“She’ll open up if I open her manually.”
“I tried that.”
“I know, with a combination of ice and hot coffee.”
“She chafes easy.”
With that Drake returned to the room. The woman had been forcefully stripped and the tubing on her wrists and ankles retied tighter. She’d sweat buckets and the rubber burned her fair skin like bacon. The man had passed out hours ago. Her eyes were wide and staring like an animal gone feral and he hoped he could still get through to her.
“Detective Miller tells me you’re a tough cookie,” he said, winning her over.
Her pulse rate dropped just because Miller wasn’t with him and he rolled up the metal stool and took a seat. “She says you really believe in your cause. That’s admirable these days, but I’d like to know what has you so convinced tat you’re on the right path.”
He put it to her in a way that made her recall the first time she’d encountered the White Army’s racist ideology and the fair haired boy that had convinced her that white in America were under siege by foreigners. The thoughts came into her head and out of her mouth as if by remote control. “Can’t you see it with your own eyes,” she began, her bloodshot eyes squinting as if she were reading from cue cards in her brain. “Every day there are more of them—blacks, Asians, spics, from every shithole in the world, from every diseased corner of the planet—Arabs, Jews, they act like they hate each other but it’s really us they hate.”
“Us, you mean Americans?” he asked calmly.
“I mean white people! They hate our culture, our values. They want to see everything we’ve worked so hard for, everything we’ve built with our own hands, the whole of Western civilization, torn down and made into a ghetto. They’re jealous. White men are geniuses and white women are the only truly beautiful women on the planet and these parasite mongrels want to shit all over us!
They want to make us just like them—they want to turn white women into whores and make white men into softheaded idiots who sit around watching sports, but when you look at sports all the athletes are niggers and foreigners. Even in colleges, the students are all foreigners, and now the professors are foreigners too.
They’re pushing white people out of the institutions we built and made great. They’re taking credit for the society we created, and destroying it! Can’t you see that? You’re a white man! How can you not see that they want enslave us and breed us out of existence by turning white women into sluts, whores, tramps, and drug addicts?” she foamed, her eyes burning with conviction.
“And the solution is to kill white women?” he offered.
“Before the mongrels can get their hands on them,” she hissed.
“And what does Ann Coulter have to do with all this?”
“She is the blonde prophetess who gives the White Army faith in its ultimate victory over the mongrels,” she said without hesitation.
The women had been so brainwashed that facts and even reality, meant little to her; Miller hadn’t been able to break her because she’d been programmed by professionals.
Still shaken Fifi served breakfast. Nobody said a word until Olivia piped up from across the table, “You’re not mad at me are ya, Duke?”
“Why should I be mad at ya? For actin’ like a brain dead party girl? Join the club.”
Jessica didn’t much to say to Claire either, sitting at a small breakfast table munching toast with strawberry jam, Jessica watching her like a hawk.
“I’m sorry about last night, Jess. It’s just that I’ve been cooped up in this apartment and having a beautiful woman’s warm body in bed with me was too much of a temptation to resist.” The apology didn’t make Jessica feel any better. She’d have been safer with the horny pilot and wondered if he was involved with anyone, maybe some crazy stripper biker bitch that would tear her a new asshole if she thought Jessica Simpson was after her scum bucket of a man.
“That’s all right, Claire,” Jessica said hesitantly, “I understand what it’s like to be lonely.”
The timer on the espresso maker sounded and Claire, brightening up left to make the coffee.
Sarah woke up to the sound of Katie crying.
“Katie, what’s the matter?” she said, sliding beside her on the bed.
“I miss my kids,” she sobbed.
Sarah started to cry too, she didn’t know why but she thought up a reason.
“They’re with your parents right? They’re safe with them. You wouldn’t want them to be in any danger, would you? With Tom dead, you wouldn’t want to lose them too.”
That didn’t help any, considering that Katie was hiding so they wouldn’t lose her.
After breakfast I brought Nicky into the study and shut the door.
She folded her legs beneath her on the divan and looked at me expectantly. I didn’t sit down, found the ashtray and lit up, pacing, trying to find words. Not one for makin’ speeches, I wanted to keep it simple but what I had to tell her wasn’t simple.
“Nicky, the man that shot your sister is dead. His name was Edward Jorgofsky. He was a gangster. I killed him myself and I’m pretty sure he was the triggerman.”
She smiled but I wasn’t done yet.
“But he has friends. I don’t know how many and you’re not payin’ me to kill ‘em all.” Her wistful smiled fade into confusion. I looked her in the eye and said, “My job for you is over.”
“But, Duke, people are still getting killed!”
“What else is new?”
“But you can’t quit!”
“Yes, I can. I’ll send your father the bill with an itemized body count.”
“Duke, no!”
She leapt from the couch and grabbed hold’a me, pulled into me and held me, sobbing. I could only hold her with one arm ‘cause I had a cigarette in my hand. The phone rang but I didn’t let her go. It stopped, meaning someone had answered it.
A few seconds later Fifi rapped softly, calling at the door, “Monsieur Brady. Docteur Drake, ‘e wishes to speak with you.”
“I’ll take it in here, Fifi.”
I parked it on the divan with Nicky cozying up beside me and picked up the phone.
“Yeh.”
“Duke, I have a name for you.”
‘I don’t like the sound’a this already.”
“Ann Coulter,” he said with finality.
“I’ll bite.”
“She’s a conservative commentator known for espousing right wing views.”
“Last I heard it was a free country, doc. She can espouse whatever kinda views she wants. And I should care why?”
“She may be the spiritual leader of the White Army, the racist group that took Sarah and I for a ride the other night. Miller and I have been interrogating two of their members, a man and a woman that came into St. Mary’s Hospital posing as federal agents. They wanted to find out if Bright had revealed anything. She had, the name Coulter, and when I questioned the woman, I was given the name again.”’
“Coulter, eh? And you think the White Army is gettin’ their marchin’ orders from her.”
“Ann Coulter is a beautiful blonde and a brilliant thinker. The only thing stopping her from seizing power is the fact that beautiful blondes are a dime a dozen. The only way for her to stand out is to thin the herd. The woman we caught spelled out some of their beliefs but I needn’t go into that.”
“No, and I’m not much for fairy tales besides. Doesn’t sound like you’ve got anything solid, doc. But thanks for the tip.”
“Not at all. I’m going to arrange a meeting with Coulter as soon I get back to the city. We have some things to discuss, among them the fact that I don’t appreciate being taken for rides.”
Ted Hubbard had been set to testify, but with nobody to testify against, he was released from the hospital where he’d nominally been in police custody. He felt like a weight had been lifted and had thoughts of starting a new cult, or simply revamping the old one with a new name and new BS to lure the suckers. Scientology was a well-established corporation but a cloud had come over with the death of Tom Cruise and the arrest of several members.
Walking from the hospital he rolled a few of the names he’d come up with around in his head, ‘Scientosophy’, or ‘Metapsychology’, or maybe even ‘Hubbardology,’ or ‘Tedism.’ He wasn’t sure which or any of them would get the job done, but he’d come up with something. The car horn bleated as he reached the curb and he thought a cab had been sent to pick him up. He dreaded having to face the suits that really ran things and was relieved when Daphne pulled up in front of him driving a rented Volvo. She waved with the familiar plastic smile on her face and climbed into the seat next to her, glad to see her.
“How have you been keeping yourself?” he asked stiffly, going for pleasant.
“With all that’s been going on, I’ve been keeping myself scarce,” she said.
“Smart girl,” he chided her.
She stamped the accelerator and the car sped off.
The van rolled from its spot in the parking lot and followed the Volvo, staying several lengths behind so as not to arouse Hubbard’s suspicion. Daphne was wired and in the van, Miller wore the headset tuning in the signal as the car wound through the densely wooded countryside.
“Where are we headed?’ he asked.
“I’d thought we’d get a room at the Falls Inn. You can tell me you plans,” she said as casually as she could.
“What’s that supposed t mean?” he said, reacting as if her were offended.
She looked him in the eye and said, “I thought we were, you know, a team.”
He relaxed into the seat and thinking it over, said, “Sure. Sure. We’re a team.”
She let out a small sigh glad he was agreeable to the idea. She’d recalled a man very similar in bearing to the gunman once being in Hubbard’s office at Scientology headquarters. She’d shared this with Miller who relayed it to the district attorney. Hammerstein finding this a way to change his name from mud politically had made Daphne the offer of either getting Hubbard to own up about it or getting charged with accessory to Tom Cruise’s murder herself. They’d given her the facts of the matter, in that Hubbard would more than likely throw her to the dogs if his own neck was on the line. She couldn’t argue because she knew that he would, so she didn’t argue and agreed to be coached by Andover and had the mini microphone taped to her chest by Miller.
There were so many guilty parties Miller felt like a kid in a candy store, eager to get something on somebody. She also wanted to fit the pieces she had together and see what kind of picture they made. She had the list of starlets, which was assuredly a hit list since some them were now dead, involvement by the Scientologists who were somehow connected to the Russian gangsters and then there was the White Army. Miller looked at all the pieces the way a kid looks at the sky and wonders why it’s blue.
I called Ali and asked him if he could swing by and take a look at my heap. I was worried that it was losin’ oil and thought I had a busted fuel line. I gave him the one about the bomb squad and the neat package they’d found pinned to my undercarriage. He said, tsk, tsk, the way he does and said he’d stop over and that Shamira was with him. I said I had a houseful of female gusts and that she was welcome to come inside while we looked over the baby. I didn’t say any names ‘cause they wouldn’ta meant anything to him.
Ali showed up in a blue VW bug. The lanky brown girl came from the blue orb in a flowing purple and blue paisley skirt. She wore sparkling sequin sandals on her long feet and had metallic bangles fitted with tiny mirrors and colored beads up and down both arms. Her hair was black as deep space and swung past her pert little ass, bouncing off the syncopated cheeks like an Arabian gelding’s tail. She bounded up to me and kissed my cheek. I hadn’t shaved in days and it must’ve felt like kissing a Bedouin.
“Go on inside,” I said, and me and her old man went to the garage.
I hoisted the garage door and he took a look at the softtop job sittin’ there. He walked around it noting the dings and scratches it’d collected. He shook his head like a horse doctor about to draw a revolver but stopped, his hair on end when the girl squealed from inside, the high whine lasting for what seemed like an eternity.
“What goes with that, Duke?”
“She’s probably run into Lindsay Lohan and Nicky Hilton,” I said.
“Who?”
“Forget it. What’s your prognosis?”
“You say you found a bomb?’ he said, getting’ that the girl had screamed with joy and not pain.
“Yeh. I had to leave ‘er parked outside the Central Park precinct. When I got back, somebody had left me a present.”
“Know who?”
“I’ve got an idea,” I said.
He crouched down and spied the pooling black juice on the ground underneath the chassis. “You’re all busted up,” he said. “You need a new heap pronto. This baby couldn’t outrun my grandmother.”
“Let’s take a ride over to Mike’s,” I said. “See what he’s got on the lot.”
“What about Shamy?” he asked, concerned.
“She’ll be all right. The girls’ll see that she stays entertained.”
He nodded solemnly and we left the garage, hopped in his bug and headed for Mike’s New and Used Jags.
Tending to Shamira would be Olivia’s penance for runnin’ with trash like Love, though it was the maid doin’ most of the tending. Fifi squeezed some lemons and mixed up a batch of lemonade, serving to the eighteen-year-old straight. The others looked thirstily at the frosty pitcher when she poured the tall glass full of icy cold yellow liquid. Shamira saw tasty refreshment; the others saw something that would go well mixed with vodka. Shamy didn’t blink at Fifi’s scanty uniform. She’d grown up on American television and thought all French maids looked that way. Hell, I thought so too.
The Volvo rolled around behind the inn, Daphne thinking Hubbard might be getting wise and ducking the car under the eaves in the rear. The van slowed as it passed the front of the place and Miller switched on the two-way to talk into the plug in Daphne’s ear. Hubbard hadn’t said anything damning on the ride over and Sophie thought the girl needed some prompting to get him to open up.
“Tell ‘im ya don’t want no secrets between ya’s,” Miller said, as romantic as ever.
“Ted,” Daphne said, switching her around body to face him. “I don’t want any secrets between us.”
“Of course not, Daph. When did we ever have secrets? Er, you wanna get a room?”
“Oh, sure,” she said, and got out of the car.
He came up slowly, looking around warily. He was paranoid for any number of good reasons: Russians, cops, his own people. “Let’s go inside,” he said.
“All right.”
Hattie the chambermaid was on duty and saw the two steal in through the back. She waited at the front desk for them to make themselves known to the man on the desk.
“A room, please,” said Daphne softly.
The guy looked up from his racing sheet and pushed the registration across the desk.
She wrote ‘Merkin’ then scratched it out, writing in ‘Hubbard’ and scratching that out too. Then she wrote in Mr. and Mrs. Smith and seemed satisfied. The deskman looked on like she was out of her mind while Hattie got ideas.
“Room twelve.” The guy said flatly, slapping the key on the desk. “Hattie’ll show ya the way,” he uttered by rote.
Hattie picked up the key and swung her tail for them to follow.
Once inside the room they waited for her to leave, but she didn’t. Instead she shut the door with her back and stood there. “I know who you are,” she said in an accusatory whisper.
Daphne broke into a sweat while Hubbard just became more paranoid.
“You’re Scientolologists. You had somethin’ to do with killin’ Tom Cruise, didn’t ya?” she spit through yellow teeth.
“What the hell is that bimbo doin’?” Miller asked sardonically. “She’s gonna blow the play.”
“Wait,” cautioned Donna. “Let’s hear her out. Maybe she knows something that will force Hubbard’s hand.”
“You hired that Russian guy. He was here. I met him—hell, I know him intimately. He’s the one pulled the trigger, ain’t he?”
Hubbard was speechless. Daphne had to sit down and collapsed onto the bed.
“Well, you don’t have thing to worry about. I ain’t tellin’ nobody—if you pay up. I know you freaks got deep pockets. I’ll be back later to straighten up the room, an’ I’m ‘spectin’ a very generous tip—an’ I ‘spect to keep gettin’ ‘em. Get me?”
She didn’t wait for a reply, slipping out the door, sniggering as she made her way down the hall.
“Goddamnit, Daphne,” he cursed bitterly. “If that woman knows about Jorgofsky, we’re through. She could put us away for murder. We’ve got to shut her up!”
“He said it!” Miller crowed. “Let’s move.”
She burst from the back of the van and charged into the Inn. The deskman saw the chesty cop and opened his eyes for once. She flashed her badge, saying, “Where’s room twelve?”
He pointed and she went ahead followed by two deputies who hoisted their rods. Outside the door, she did the same. The deputies stood to either side of the door and she raised a steel soled boot and crashed in the flimsy door, leveling her nine and shouting, “Ted Hubbard, you’re under arrest for the murder of Tom Cruise!”
Hubbard fainted. Daphne wanted too. Instead, she peed on herself.
“Go find that girl,” Miller ordered.
“That’s Hattie,” one deputy announced, and ran out the door.
Tucking her piece into its holster, Miller went to Daphne sitting on bed. The bedspread beneath her scrawny backside was soaked. “Let’s get that wire off before you get electrocuted,” Sophie said, with a glance to the guy sleeping on the floor. “We’ll save that honor for your boyfriend.”
Hearing that, Daphne nearly passed out too.
Claire Danes was a village regular. She’d made a few dogs but was nobody’s idea of a Hollywood star. Therefore, Jessica deemed it safe to hang around with her. Jess had her overnight bag filled with disguises and wearing a brunette pageboy wig and false uppers stood in front the bathroom mirror applying a dark brown cream that darkened her complexion to that of an Indian. She came out the bathroom looking like another person.
“Oh, my god!” Claire shrieked approvingly. “Jessica, that is amazing!”
“Call me Deeta.”
Claire and Jessica then went out to the Starbucks on the corner, because they needed air and to see how effective Jessica’s get up was. No one recognized either of them as they walked into the bright, crowded coffee hut and got in line. Puttin’ their heads together Jessica tried various versions of an East Indian accent into Claire’s ear. Amused as hell Claire giggled like a loon. Two wannabe actresses-cum-models sporting nose rings and conspicuously bad boob jobs got behind them in line, one Indian, the other Brazilian they looked at Jessica with open contempt and turned up their fake noses.
Jess decided to have a little fun and said to Claire dressed in grungy black, “If I get a nose job will I still be able to wear a nose ring?”
Claire, playing along said, “I don’t know, Deeta, but I hear that when you get liposuction you lose the ability to fart.”
“Oh, that would be terrible,” Jess said in her fake accent, “I fart all of the time. Tell me, where do the farts go if they cannot come out through the rear?”
“Your nose,” Claire said.
“Then I don’t think I will be getting a nose ring,” Jess answered, “I would feel like I had my head up my ass all day.”
Claire couldn’t help but laugh aloud drawing the attention of everyone and the models tripping over their platform heels marched out of the store.
Ryan was golden and he didn’t know why. He was up to his ass in paperwork when word of the mayor’s commendation came down. The arrest of Maria Cohen was making headlines due to the fact that it was Lindsay Lohan that fingered her. Reporters curious about Lindsay’s connection to Cohen thought it a good idea to camp out around my townhouse and started gathering like a flock of vultures across the street. I wasn’t home at the time. I was out buyin’ a car with Ali when the doorbell rang. Fifi spied the stiff blonde bouffant in the pastel suit in the fisheye and spoke into the intercom in French. That confused the hell out’a the snoop and she walked away, back to her mobile unit.
“Do we get the interview?” her cameraman asked her as she lifted a leg and climbed inside showin’ off her control top.
“My French isn’t that good,” she said, “But I think she said something about making crab cakes.”
“Crab cakes?”
Fifi had called her a crab in caked make-up.
Before Drake could set up a meeting with Coulter, he had to find her first. The doc bein’ who he was, that only took a few phone calls and he was put through to her secretary. Coulter had an office in the midtown office building of a right wing news organization. The operation was shady but made billions spreading bogus news stories and slandering political rivals. Coulter was the corporation’s token intellectual and welcomed the call from the noted psychiatrist and lecturer. Just breathin’ the same air as this guy could give her credibility that she barely deserved.
“Doctor John Drake,” she said as pleasant as a witch peddling poison apples, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I’d like to set up a meeting with you,” he said, right to the point.
She slid the five-inch black patent leather Bill Blass stilettos from her sweaty feet and reclined in her Executive ladder-back cushioned seat, throwing her long bony stems up and propping her heels atop the desk.
“We’ve never met,” she said.
“No,” he said.
“Have you read any of my book?” she asked, fishing for his angle.
“No.”
“Oh.” She chewed her lip and said after a moment, “I’ve read several of yours. I particularly enjoyed Neurosexualpsychology and the Female Body where you state that throughout human history man has projected an unconscious unified field theory of the cosmos onto the female body and that a woman’s body is the sole source of truth, all else being mere mythology. Have I stated your thesis correctly?” she concluded, going for impish and pretentious at the same time.
“Yes,” he complied, “Yes, you have. I wrote that book years ago.”
“Oh?” She adjusted her butt in the seat, thinking she’d gotten to him, “Do you still hold those views?”
“Yes I do. That’s, er, that’s why I wanted to meet you in person. I’ve been hearing a great deal about you—and, eh, your ideas. I thought perhaps we could collaborate on some things.”
“Some things—like what?”
“I’ve expanded on that thesis somewhat,” he explained, hooking her in, “It isn’t all women that contain the sum of mankind’s knowledge, but only white women.”
She almost came when he said that, and sat straight up groping for her appointment calendar, asking breathlessly, “Are you in the city, Doctor?”
“I’m out of town right now, on a business trip, but I’ll be back in New York shortly.”
“Let’s get together as soon as possible,” she urged.
“That was my purpose in calling. When are you available?”
“Call me as soon as you’re free. I’ll make myself available—to such an eminent mind as yourself.”
Likewise.”
After he’d hung up Coulter swooned like she’d just been fucked, but she didn’t know the half.
He left Meade’s office to go check on Sarah and Katie keeping each other company in the hospital’s VIP suite. Sarah met him like a kid glad to see her father, hugging him and then catching herself and stepping back.
He was glad for the affection, a little embarrassed but he understood, saying, “Sarah, I hate to say this but I have to go back to the city.”
She looked up puppy-eyed and he looked past her telling Katie, “Katie, I think you need to go to your family.”
Sitting wrapped in a fur comforter, Katie suddenly looked worried.
“What about,” she started, unable to finish as emotion clouded her thoughts.
“I’ll notify Captain Miller to arrange the security. She’ll see to it that you don’t come to any harm.”
Sarah dropped her head dropped slowly turned to Katie to say goodbye, but her eyes flashed wide through the tears and she wheeled back around to Drake.
“You said you have to go back to the city. What about me?”
He looked over at Katie who was wiping tears from her eyes.
“Katie, I’d like Sarah to stay on with you,” he stated. “Alone in the city she would most certainly be in danger and you two appear to have bonded.”
Knowing that Holmes’ stardust would rub off on her, both women became ecstatic and ran into one another’s arms in a sisterly embrace.
Hiding out in a Malibu beach house Keira Knightley had been growing increasingly depressed and when she heard about Madonna’s suicide from friends back in England, she stopped taking the medication that kept her mood swings in check. She’d gone into the garage and firing up the engine of her borrowed Porsche and got behind the wheel, inhaling exhaust until the world became a gray haze. She never heard her cell phone ringing. It was her publicist with the message from the studios that she was set to become the number one box office draw in the country. Jessica and Claire weren’t the only celebrities that went unmolested. Kate Winslet was in town and people were keeping a noticeable distance out of fear that a slug might come out of nowhere. That a lot of the scum responsible for the murders had been taken out also contributed to the relative peace. Cameron Diaz, Reese Witherspoon and Tori Spelling came out of hiding based solely on the fact that the victims had been beautiful and since they decidedly were not, it figured to be safe. This logic worked better than you’d think and soon the studios were soon gettin’ back in the swing of things with every mutt that came down the pike gettin’ a shot at a screen test. It may have been painful to watch, but the result was to combine make-up and special effects in new and interesting combinations and Laura Dern stood poised to become the next big superstar after years of a fallow career. Cate Blanchett didn’t have anything to worry about either.
Mike and Ali tried to talk me into a new XKR, the same kind I’d been usin’ for target practice, but I nixed the idea and went with a ’64 E-type that didn’t look like anything on the road. With Ali under the hood makin’ adjustments that would give an extra kick, I gave Mike the short version of what I’d been up to. He cursed the Russians and cut me a deal that brought tears to his eyes.
“What do Ruskies know about cars,” he complained. “What do they drive over there? Tanks?”
I cut him a check and climbed under the wheel. The leather smelled factory fresh and the vintage buggy purred. I thanked Mike and drove off the lot with Ali following me in his bug. I figured it would do until I put an order in for a new Maserati.
Kim was used to Drake bein’ away for days or weeks and used the time to stretch out and catch up on her movie mags, every rag in the business havin’ an angle on the sundry dead bimbos. The celebrity murders were good business for bottom feeders of all kinds since it seemed that as soon as one corpse grew cold there was another one hot to take its place, but it seemed things were coolin’ off rapidly which is how Ryan found himself pushed into the spotlight. Because of their cozy relationship with the bogus Maria Cohen, the mayor and the police commissioner didn’t want to answer any of the questions that would be thrown at them by the press. Andover was still up in Ithaca with Miller and there was nobody else close to the case available for comment.
Ryan was a stiff in front’a the cameras, a big, boxy guy with a square, weather beaten face that had all the distinction of a cinderblock. In fact, his head propped on his gray suit looked like a cinderblock on top of more cinderblocks. His partner Joseph beside him, a lanky brown suit as drab as mud, they came off as able representatives of the wheels of justice and had the assembled snoops dozin’ off, which is exactly what the brass wanted.
Unfortunately, it was exactly what Coulter didn’t want. With the story dying by degrees, it was gonna be hard to get anybody interested in ‘the last bimbo standing.’ Drake’s encounter with the White Army wasn't released to the press so she had no reason to think he was interested in anything other than her mind. She wanted to get him interested in other things but that would have to wait until she got to know him better.
Drake arrived home that evening to find Kim asleep on the sofa with STAR MAGAZINE draped open over her face. He lifted the worn pages and gave her a gentle kiss on the lips. She awoke with a start and bolted upright into his arms.
“John!”
“Hello darling. Miss me?”
“What you think? I was worried you and Duke,” she prattled, stopped and took a deep breath. “You look thin. You haven’t been eating.”
He patted his abs and his fingertips touched the edge of the bandage beneath his shirt. He winced and she became anxious. “John?”
“It’s all right,” he said, and crawled to the sofa beside her.
She quickly unbuttoned his shirt and her eyes flew wide as she gasped at the spot of blood leaking through the gauze.
“What happened to you?”
“I don’t want to alarm you,” he said, trying to grin.
“Too late. What happened?” she implored again.
“Someone took a shot at me but I think she was trying to miss.”
“She?”
“An undercover federal agent. Do we have to go into it right at this minute?”
The spot was spreading and she ran to the bathroom to soak a towel in piping hot water. He rose slowly and made his way into the bedroom where he lay back on the bed and she removed the bandage and applied the hot soak.
“Oh, John,” she fretted.
“I’ll be fine. The bullet just grazed me and I shot back. Unfortunately, I wasn’t as good a shot as she was and nearly killed her.”
“Where was Duke?”
“He wasn’t there.”
“Too bad. He would’ve shot first.”
“I’m sure he would have, and I would’ve been able to ask questions later, which I did.”
Curious as she was, she thought it better to let him rest, coming to reapply the hot cloth to the wound until the bleeding stanched and he was able to sleep soundly. He dreamt of an army of faceless blondes, each with a bullet hole in the center of the forehead, each one whiter than the last.
When we rolled up the townhouse, the paparazzi had taken the air except for what I supposed were a few die-hard Lindsay Lohan fans.
I whistled over to the patrolman and said, “Wouldja mind clearin’ out this riff-raff?”
“You heard the man,” he said, wavin’ his stick at ‘em. “Beat it!”
“What’s the matter, mister? Don’t you like white people?” one little girl said, and the giggled, running off up the street.
“What do ya suppose she meant by that?” he asked me.
“I think I know,” I said.
The girls were playing Scrabble when we came in and Ali told his daughter to pack it in ‘cause they were late for dinner. Ali had married a Hindu, his wife then converting to Buddhism to avoid conflict between the families.
I guess that made Shamira a Sado-Buddhist, and she protested weakly, “But, dad, this is Lindsay Lohan—the most famous woman alive!” She had that right.
Leaving the letters R-A-M-A-D-A, because she didn’t have an N, Shamy got up from the floor and walked around the room giving and getting delirious kisses from everyone. Olivia with an N, another one and an I, and the word became R-A-M-A-D-A-I-N-N, which made Nicky think that if that were okay, she could use her own name and spelled out H-I-L-T-O-N for a double word score.
I walked them through to the garage where we they got in the blue beetle, said goodbye again and drove off. I stayed in the garage to have a smoke and look over the new wheels, but what that kid on the street had said stayed with me.
On the ride home Shamira was tellin’ her father how she was thinkin’ of goin’ blonde like Olivia and Nicky, though Olivia’s was real and Nicky’s was out of a bottle, it didn’t matter; a blonde was a blonde and all blondes were glamorous and didn’t he agree? He didn’t of course, but he saw no reason to argue with what he was sure was passin’ flight of fancy. At least he hoped it’d pass before she got home and tried the line on his wife, who might not be as understanding as her old man, or maybe her mother would be too understanding and let the kid have her way at that.
I decided to take the new heap for a ride. I told myself it was to get a better feel for the way it handled, in the city, but I knew that wasn’t really it. I drove out of the garage and up the street in the direction the kids from earlier had gone. I stayed in low gear and cruised comfortably long the winding blocks off Fifth Venue, the neat townhouses in rows that hadn’t changed in two centuries as one generation of wealth moved in after another had died or moved on. There were cops on every corner looking bored at the scarcity of crime or anything. The neighborhood was quiet, the chic stores closed for the day and steel gated. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, like somebody had rolled up the sidewalk and tucked the whole place in for the night. The out-of-place graffiti caught my eye on the brick wall of an alley I passed in the less choice part of the neighborhood where maybe the trust funds weren’t so plump. I put the jag in reverse and flipping my flash beam from the car window saw the letters ‘WA’ in white spray paint. I moved into an empty spot and got to get a better look. The wall buttressed a sandstone townhouse condominium and I walked up the stoop to take a gander at the name on the lighted bell.
I saw the red flash of the active security camera above the door and name ‘Coulter’ on the lighted buzzer. I went back to my heap, leaned against the side and lit a smoke. A uniform was comin’ down the street at a stroll that I took for a private security man, not a city bull and flipped my butt into the gutter and drove off just as casual as I came. The guy saw my taillights leave the block but I hadn’t put my plates on yet so he couldn’t do any checking up on that score. I made a mental note of the name and address and would wait to hear from Drake to tell him how much the neighborhood had come down.
Hearing of Cohen’s arrest, Andover, Miller, and Patricia Cohen headed back to the city. Seein’ Ryan dumbstruck in the media glare made Donna feel a little guilty, as it was her job to deflect just such attention. Patricia baffled by the appearance of one Maria Cohen after another, wondered how soon it would be before the next one.
Drake was in his office early the next morning thinking over his strategy to get the goods on Coulter. He didn’t really have one. He’d slept fitfully and in pain, uneasy over recent events. With so many Hollywood starlets out of the way, out of the picture, as it were, other countries were getting’ their own star machines in gear, second string bathing beauties and beauty contest runners up being positioned as the next big thing. America was set to lose the blonde wars as Scandinavia had twelve teenagers ready to go. Latin Ameri