Alex Ames - Calendar Moonstone 02 - Brilliant Actors (16 page)

It was about four o’clock in the morning when I slid soundlessly through the backyard window into Mundy’s bedroom. I wore my black raider outfit with black jeans, a thin black turtleneck, black leather gloves, and I had just taken off a black ski mask that covered my face. It was very quiet in the apartment, and I wondered whether Mundy had fallen asleep. We had a standing arrangement that he provided my alibi when I did local jobs, just like tonight. He claimed the boyfriend role, we tried to be seen by neighbors when we arrived together at his apartment, and after some domestic noises, I silently left him alone. Mundy then had the unpleasant task of simulating certain partnership noises that next wall neighbors could identify and tell the police about later. In the morning, we made sure that I was seen leaving Mundy’s place.
 

Worked like a charm, just like tonight. I had just spent four hours raiding Jeannie Anthony’s place. I’d climbed up the building foundation structure from the beach, listened for noises, found none, climbed up to the roof, and made my way into the hall through a daylight window on the ceiling. I disabled the alarm—very easy if the insurance company representative personally provides you with the keycode—and then made my way through the rooms. Jeannie Anthony, judging from the contents of her home, led a boring life. The house had probably been decorated by some celebrity interior designer and lacked a certain personal touch from a girl inhabitant in her mid-twenties. All I found were some photos of family and friends, shoeboxes with memorabilia, stacks of TV scripts, and plenty of expensive shoes and clothing along with a small gun and lots of jewelry of different values and design. But nothing spectacular and nothing hot or suspicious.
 

Another thing that irritated me was the lack of personal writing—no diaries, no letters, and no personal notebooks. Her laptop, booted-up with my handy utility USB stick, contained only standard applications. The browser history revealed that she used Hotmail and conveniently the password was stored in the browser cache. Her email inbox contained mostly mail from management and a few actor friends but not too much personal correspondence. A look into the out-folder of the mail application showed me why: Jeannie Anthony was dyslexic. She had terrible grammar and spelling, which was the reason for the lack of motivation with the written word. She tried to overplay it with those typical cyber-abbreviations like CU and a consequent e. e. cummings’ typing style, but as soon as her prose had to provide content, her shortcomings showed. As if to compensate her poor writing skills, her cellphone bill was sky high. She had been nice enough this afternoon, and I felt a little sorry for her. Jeannie probably had to study her texts much harder than her fellow actors, and so far she had done a good job in succeeding despite her problems.
 

I wrapped my trip up quickly, left the way I had come, and was back on the highway within twenty minutes.

Standing in Mundy’s bedroom, I strained my ears. Still no sound. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and I couldn’t make out his shape on the bed. I gave a low whistle and heard his startled yelp from an armchair in the corner of the bedroom.
 

“Cal! You scared me to death!” Mundy cried, out of breath.

“Sorry, I didn’t see you; you didn’t see me,” I said as I grabbed the additional set of blankets and moved into his living room to catch two hours of sleep before the night was over for me.
 

“How did you do that? I watched the window to catch you climbing in. You are like an invisible cat. How did it go?” Mundy was bubbling like a glass of champagne.

“Swan Collins has no enemies who would like to steal her diamonds, and Pretty McAllister, whom I met at Jeannie Anthony’s home this afternoon, is coked up and pretty stupid—sorry, I had to made that crack—because she managed to let someone take off her necklace when she wasn’t at her sensuous best. And both of them are silly acting duckies, basically,” I summed up the legal part of the day while I was bedding myself on the couch. “That’s about it. The worst part is, under all that arrogance, aggressiveness, and stardom, I wasn’t able to tell whether they didn’t care, mistrusted me, or simply lied to me in order to hide something.”

“Sounds like a lovely bunch of ladies,” Mundy remarked, sitting on his coffee table.

“Swan Collins wasn’t too bad. She kept her distance, and she gives the impression of a lady, in the best aristocratic sense. Pretty McAllister is a spoiled star, playing her part in real life, too, and she surely doesn’t care about some rented jewels for the Oscar ceremony. Insurance will cover it. Come to think of it, Swan wasn’t too devastated either.”

“Maybe they simply have a different relationship to valuable things, being stars and earning eight figures per movie and all,” Mundy said, yawning. “Just like you with your diamonds in your workshop. I always get a heart attack when you step out to fetch a coffee from Starbucks around the corner and leave them lying on the workbench. But for you, it is simply ‘material.’”

“Swan showed me a Picasso drawing she had hanging in her hallway. It is a beautiful drawing; you may recognize it from art books. She has it on the wall of her home because she likes it there, probably likes to look at it in passing. And the same is true for the Acura and the Metro Imperial, the two stolen diamonds from her collection. She had them in her jewelry box, and every time she put on a ring or a necklace she could marvel at them while dressing up. Because they were simply there.”

“Did you find anything on your night trip?” he asked.

“
Nada
. After Jeannie left for the East Coast and the maid retired to her bungalow, I was able to search the house and her few personal belongings, including her PC.” I left out the dyslexia; it had nothing to do with the case.

“And what will be your next step out of jail?” Mundy asked.

I yawned loudly. “The most edgy part will be the investigation of Mr. Gordon Webber. He lives in downtown LA in an apartment. Fowler emailed me some background information. I’ll forward it to you in the morning.” I sighed, and the sigh turned into a full-fledged yawn. “Phil Krueger is another one. Nicole will arrange an interview. If both activities show no results, I will have to concentrate on my pizza-baking friend Rip Delaware. He had the opportunity to get close to Pretty while sharing a line of coke with her or a fuck or whatever, and he had every chance to slip it into my purse.”

“But did he have the skills to open the safe in Swan Collins’ bedroom?” Mundy considered, already on his way to his bedroom.

“I will ask him when I see him,” I said, pushing that unlikely event out of my memory in order not to ruin my chance to stay out of jail.

Then I arranged my blanket, turned around, and fell asleep immediately.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Rip On The Beach

“Did you have the skills to open the safe in Swan Collins’ bedroom?” I asked Rip.

He gave a light chuckle, and the facial muscles he had to use to produce the laugh made his sexy dimple on his chin even more prominent. “Are you always that direct?” Rip asked. “I mean, when it comes to other things.”

Unfortunately, I had nothing with me to slug him because I was in my jogging pants and top on Redondo Beach’s waterfront equipped with an emergency quarter, my door key on a lanyard around my neck, and a piece of tissue stuck under the waistband.

“It was you who slipped me the necklace and got me in trouble in the first place.” I scowled at him, looking left and right for someone who might help me to make a citizen’s arrest. But of course, eight o’clock in the morning was a bad time for herds of tourists, police patrols, or white knights.

Rip held up his hands. “Whoa, my little lady—”

“I am not little, and I am not a lady—and most of all, I am not yours!” I stomped a foot.

“You should relax. You can’t just assume because I charmed you last Monday night that I was mean enough to hide the necklace in your purse. Why would I do that?” Rip cocked his head, trying to show his playfulness.

“Because it was your ticket out of the party without being searched, and you were the only one who managed that!” I pointed a finger at him. He took my hand and kissed it lightly, and I was surprised that my instincts did not parry with a kick to his groin.

“Calendar, I am honored that you have such confidence in my skills. You were a splendid companion for that last part, but you must think higher of me,” Rip said easily.
 

“You can’t convince me otherwise, scumbag.”

Rip smiled a very nice smile and rolled his eyes. “Oh, you of little faith. Okay, what can I offer in my defense?” He made an exaggerated face as if he were thinking hard. “Oh, I know, that could be good. Take this: how did I know that I needed Pretty McAllister’s ugly necklace to get you arrested?”
 

“What do you mean, how did you know?” I asked, not getting his intention.

He took my hand again. If he hadn’t had such a nice, warm touch and hadn’t been so attractive, I would not have let him, of course. “Okay, for the slow among us: let us assume that I was able to steal the diamonds from Miss Collins. Why didn’t I play it safe, just like any other cat burglar, and invent a sudden migraine attack so I could leave the party right away in order to minimize the risk of being caught? Oh no, I had to risk even more by lifting the necklace from Pretty before I could go looking for an alibi.”

“Maybe you are a cock that likes to strut around with the success dangling in his pockets, mocking all the other suckers at the party. ‘Look here, I stole them, and you don’t know it yet. Read it in tomorrow’s papers.’” I mocked his strut.

Rip laughed aloud. “Very good, we could make an actress out of you. But consider this, how did I know that I had to lift Pretty’s necklace? Was I warned that the police were going to raid the party? I decided to steal the diamonds, strut around with them in my pocket, meet you, flirt a little, and then have great sex with you after the party at your place. Or a plan similar to that one. How would I have known beforehand that a raid was going to take place?”

“Maybe you are so clever that you bought some kind of insurance before you opened Swan’s safe?”

Rip laughed again and shook his head several times.
 

What an utterly ridiculous sight we gave. Hand in hand, walking along the beach like a pair of lovers.

And to top it off, Rip stopped, took my other hand, and faced me. “Calendar, I really enjoyed that evening with you. You are a beautiful girl with strange resources, as I experienced firsthand when you reworked that necklace for your purpose on the fly. But don’t you think that you are wrong when it comes to me? Just because they forgot to search me doesn’t make me a burglar who got away.”

“But you got away. From your fake-name pizza job and the party. You gave the police the wrong address and haven’t been seen since. They are still looking for you, believe me.”

“Maybe I am a shy guy?” Rip offered as he smiled and walked on.

“Why are you here, Rip Delaware, or whatever your real name is?” I asked him, not following. Rip walked on a few yards and then turned around.

“To meet again with a fascinating girl and see how she is doing.” He continued walking away from me.

“If you give me your number, you could see me even more,” I shouted after him, not really expecting an answer.
 

If I had any chance to stop him from leaving, the time was now. The beach was quite narrow at this strip, and there were some other joggers and an occasional car on the upper level road. I started to run after him and stupidly gave myself away by shouting, “Stop, you bastard!”

Rip simply started to run, too, and we jogged about thirty yards apart through the heavy sand, slowing us down. Rip reached the road first, and of course he had his exit planned: a taxi was waiting with a running motor on the other side of the street. Rip ran across the street, smoothly opened and closed the door, and the taxi rolled off. He probably had every step prearranged, telling the driver something like, “I have to call it quits with my girlfriend and need you for a getaway before she rips my head off. Here’s fifty. Keep the motor running.”

I stood at the curbside of the road, looking after the cab and trying to memorize the license plate, breathing heavily after the sprint. Then I looked left and right in vain, hoping to find another taxi, but this was LA after all and not New York City.

But I noticed another thing. About one-hundred yards further up the road, I could make out a parked police cruiser with a trouper holding binoculars in his hands, looking in my direction. He had probably seen our little scene.
 

I turned back to finish my morning run. What else could I do?

And I wondered what the policeman had made out of it.

What I had heard, I didn’t like—for several reasons, and every single one a good one. First, I didn’t like him making references to “any other cat burglar” as if he somehow knew that I was a cat burglar. Well, from a twisted point of view, I was. He had been there when I had been caught supposedly doing just that. Second, he referred to Pretty McAllister’s necklace as “ugly,” a description that no sane amateur nor professional would have chosen for a necklace that came from one of the most acclaimed jewelry designers in the world and cost a big bundle. Rip had somehow managed to unbalance me with his unspoken hints that he had the upper hand for now and appeared to be one step ahead of me—and he would probably stay there for some time until I got wiser or better. Another thought struck me. In our conversation, he never openly admitted any involvement in the stealing of the jewels at Swan’s party. Denying tactics? Or some sort of truth? Some outlook for the quest to clear my good name.