Randall #01 - The Best Revenge (30 page)

“Jonathan?” This turned everything upside down. “Jonathan got my bail money?”

She wanted to ask for details, but Angela’s attention shifted to Juan Carlos, who had just reappeared in the doorway.

So Jonathan arranged for her bail. And it was Jonathan, according to Glen, who found Jon-Don’s killer. How long had Plantagenet known these things, and why hadn’t he told her? Were there other things he hadn’t said about Jonathan?

With a new sense of urgency, she hurried outside to look for Plant again. But the area by the pool was deserted. The wet, misty air felt good after the stuffiness of the party. She almost relaxed until she realized that Plant might have left without her. The thought made her feel horribly alone. She didn’t want to go back into the party full of strangers. A small redwood gazebo stood at the far end of the pool. She headed toward it. At least she could rest her sore feet and compose herself before deciding what to do—and where to go. Franny needed his home back.

But as she got closer to the gazebo she saw it was occupied. She could see two shadowy figures embracing in the darkness. She started back to the house when she heard two men’s voices and a giggle. Turning around, she saw two heads, one reddish and one blond. At least Franny was having a good time tonight. The two men were locked in a passionate kiss in the shadow of the gazebo. She hesitated a moment, feeling a bit guilty about ruining Franny’s romantic moment, but she did need to find out where she was going to sleep tonight.

“Franny?” she called out toward the gazebo. “Hans?” She stood still a moment longer to let them compose themselves. “It’s just me. Camilla.”

“Camilla?” The voice was muffled.

Two men emerged from the gazebo. But the shorter, red-haired man wasn’t Franny. And the tall, blond man wasn’t Hans.

“Hello, Camilla,” said Glen, slicking down his cowlick.

“Wh—what are you doing out here in the rain, darling?” said a visibly shaken Plantagenet.

All Camilla could do was run to her car before anybody saw her cry.

Chapter 33—Chocolate Pudding Again

So Plantagenet and Glen were lovers. Franny hadn’t just been making bitchy remarks. Glen was the Guppie. How long had it been going on? Why had she been so stupid?

Camilla had no idea where she was driving except away—away from the faces of Plantagenet Smith and D. Glendower Jones—faces that said so much and made her feel so shut out and alone.

The misty rain made the freeway ahead glisten with sparkling lights—beautiful and seductive. Meaningless signs flew by. Finally, one caught her eye. For the San Diego Freeway.

San Diego
. She envisioned the comfort of her little apartment and quiet evenings sipping sherry with Violet. Violet’s pointless chatter would seem pleasant now. Her shabby Golden Hill studio would seem luxurious after jail and Franny’s tiny, over-decorated cottage.

Home. She was free now to go home. And home was in San Diego.

~

The old building looked the same, and as she walked down the dingy hallway, Camilla could almost imagine the last few months had been some awful dream. But when she put her key in the lock of the familiar door of apartment ten, it wouldn’t turn. Then she noticed the lock looked shiny and new. With rising panic, she realized she hadn’t even thought about paying rent for the last two months. Of course Mrs. Rodriguez would have rented the place to a new tenant. This was someone else’s home. Not hers.

She knocked on the door of Violet’s apartment. When there was no answer, she knocked again, as loudly as she could. Violet was a little deaf, and wouldn’t be expecting a visitor at this hour.

“Violet! It’s me—Camilla!” She knocked harder, banging against the old wooden door. As she came out of her freeway-driving trance, she thought about the fact that the pearl beaded bag she carried contained nothing but makeup and a driver’s license. It hadn’t occurred to her to bring money when she left Franny’s house this morning. She had no money for gas to get back to L.A.

She banged again. Nothing.

But a sudden stream of curses broke the silence. She turned to see a gray-haired man emerge from her old apartment. He wore red plaid pajamas and no teeth.

“Go home where you belong, Missy,” he growled. “She ain’t here.”

“Do you know when she’ll be back?”

“Nope. She’s been gone for weeks. Can’t say I’ve missed her. Been nice and quiet around here without her yakkity-yak. Now you go on home. Young girls shouldn’t be running around here dressed like that.”

“This is an emergency,” Camilla said. She started down the hall toward Mrs. Rodriguez’s door.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m going to ask Mrs. Rodriguez where Violet is.”

“Mrs. R. ain’t here neither. Gone to her nephew’s wedding.”

“Do you know anybody who might know where Violet’s gone?”

“Nope. Just the crippled guy. And he don’t live here.”

“Crippled guy?” Camilla realized how little she knew about Violet.

“Yeah. Younger guy. Tall. Walked with a cane. She called him Attila the Hun or something. Old lady don’t have all her marbles. Could be anywhere. You go on home now.”

The door closed in her face.

Attila the Hun. Walked with a cane. Could he have meant “Genghis Kahn?” As Camilla ran to her car through the rain—which had graduated from drizzle to downpour—her thoughts raced. Jonathan. Again.

Back in her car, she drove through falling sheets of rain, thinking of Jonathan on that other rainy night when she helped him get away from the muggers. He had been so sweet and normal then. Was it possible that he cared about her after all?

Taking a deep breath for courage, she turned the key in the ignition and started for Jonathan’s apartment.

~

It wasn’t until she was at the foot of the redwood stairs looking up at Jonathan’s lighted window that she remembered Plantagenet’s earlier remark about “a tough-bitch reporter” that Jonathan left Angela for. What if Jonathan had company?

But as the rain poured down, she decided to take the chance and climbed the stairs. When she reached the door, she listened for voices, but could hear nothing but the sound of the rain. Finally she knocked—louder than she meant to.

“Come on in. It’s not locked.”

She had to stifle a gasp as she opened the door. Her first thought was that she had blundered into the wrong apartment: instead of Jonathan’s monastic quarters, she had entered some nightmarish junk shop.

On a turquoise Naugahyde couch, which bisected the room, a man sat with his back to the door, watching an old TV set—painted fluorescent orange. His feet were propped on a low table made from a wooden industrial spool.

“Just leave it on the orange crate by the door, Jose,” he said without turning around. “There’s a fiver on the Melmac plate. Keep the change. I hope Juana gave me lean pastrami this time. Last night it was all fat.”

Camilla stood in the doorway, unable to speak. The man was definitely Jonathan. His cane rested on the arm of the couch and a bottle of Jack Daniels sat next to his foot on the spool table. What he was watching with such attention was a television newscast of her press conference. The television Camilla was all pink ruffles and curls and murmured inanities about “innocence”. Tossing her curls, the TV Camilla turned to kiss a beaming, tuxedoed Plantagenet. The kiss lasted a long time.

“Do you believe this is the biggest news story of the week?” Jonathan said, picking up the whiskey bottle. “You’d think that brat had just been elected president.”

His bitter tone made her draw a quick breath.

Jonathan turned at the sound.

“Good God!” he said. The bottle of Jack Daniels dropped to the floor.

She froze, feeling rainwater drip from the hem of her dress down her legs and into the painful pink pumps.

“Am I completely zonkered or is Camilla Randall standing in my living room in a transparent dress?” Jonathan said, apparently to the whiskey bottle, which he rescued from the floor.

“Yes. It’s me.” She was now terribly aware of how the soaked dress was clinging to her un-underclothed body.

Jonathan walked slowly toward her, wobbling on his cane.

“Amazing,” he said, after scrutinizing her for a moment. “On the tube that dress makes you look like you’re about to break into a chorus of ‘The Good Ship Lollipop’.”

“I’ve come to see if you know where I can find Violet Rushforth.” She tried to make her voice sound precise and calm. “A man at my old building said she hasn’t been at her apartment for weeks. Do you know where she is?”

“Violet Rushforth?” Jonathan said in a quiet voice. “Let me get this straight: every journalist in North America thinks you’re a combination of Joan of Arc, Princess Di, and Cinderella; there’s a star-studded bash in your honor going on in Beverly Hills; and you’re here looking for a crazy old lady?” He made a growling sound that might have been a chuckle. “Maybe you’re not the spoiled brat I thought you were.”

“Do you know where Violet is?” She tried to control her anger.

“New York,” he said. “That’s all she’d tell me when I took her to the airport. Probably looking for her mythical grandson. I assume she’ll call me when she gets home. I’ve got her car and the key to her apartment.”

“May I have it please?”

“What do you want the Edsel for? Didn’t Jimmy deliver your DeLorean?”

“I don’t want the key to Violet’s car. I need the key to Violet’s apartment, Mr. Kahn. Would you give it to me, please?” The word ‘please’ came out as a kind of squeak as emotion began to crack through her controlled facade.

“Sure.” He pulled a ring of keys from his jeans pocket. “Here. Take the keys to the Edsel, too. Damned antique is nothing but trouble. If it hadn’t broken down in the middle of nowhere last month, this ankle would be healed by now.” He tossed her the keys. “Hey, take your furniture, too. I can’t tell you how glad I’ll be to have this crap out of here. She insisted I take it when the landlady found a new tenant for your apartment. The woman can’t hear the word, ‘no’.”

Camilla took the apartment key and handed the others back.

“Thank you.” She turned to open the door.

“No way.” He leaned over her to push the door shut again. “You’re not going until you tell me the reason you’re here. I don’t buy the story about the old lady. Sorry.”

She gave him her stoniest look and tried not to react to the closeness of his body.

“I came here looking for a friend. Obviously I don’t have one here.”

“OK. OK,” he said. “I know I’m a little drunk. Let me make some coffee and sober up. Can I get you something? Coffee?”

She nodded.

“I’m sorry I didn’t make it to your party,” he said. “I was planning to go. Got my tux cleaned and everything.” He pointed to the dry cleaner’s bag draped over the back of the eagle-printed chair. “But then I wasn’t sure that old Lila would make it. Transmission is going, as well as just about everything else. It’s never been restored, you know. Everything’s original on that thing.”

“What happened to your Toyota?”

“Needs major brake work—which I can’t afford for a while.” He disappeared into the kitchen. “I hope you don’t take milk in your coffee. I used all the milk today making chocolate pudding.”

“Chocolate pudding? You like chocolate pudding, too?”

“Yeah. The cooked kind—that gets the chocolaty skin on top. When I was a kid, my Aunt Esther used to make it for me when I was down in the dumps. You want some?”

“I’d love it.” She sat down on her old couch, hoping she had sufficiently dripped dry. “So Angela invited you to the party tonight?” she said.

“No, not Angela.” Jonathan set two steaming mugs on the spool table. “Your friend Smith did. Angela’s not talking to me. I refused to give that elitist Juan Carlos an endorsement in the
Sentinel
. Sometimes she forgets the paper’s not hers anymore.”

“Plantagenet called you?” This was more than odd.

“Yeah. Surprised the hell out of me. I thought the guy hated my guts.” Jonathan sat next to her on the couch and handed her a bowl of pudding with Cool Whip on top.

“Maybe Plant knew how much I owe you. But I didn’t know—not until today.” She dug into the pudding wondering if Plant sensed these feelings she had whenever she was with Jonathan—the feelings that right now were making her tingle all over.

“You didn’t know—what? That I knew the FBI had been obstructing the investigation? Yeah. I knew that a whole month before your goddam lawyer would talk to me. He kept hanging up on me—thought I was some tabloid sleaze.”

“Of course, yes. I so grateful for that. And for my car. And especially—the rest. I thought you believed I was guilty, like everybody else. Even Plantagenet believed it for a while. But there you were, behind me the whole time, and I didn’t even know. I do owe you my thanks. Is that what you meant about why I’m here?”

Jonathan gave her a half-smile. “I wish I deserved that much credit, but I wasn’t exactly convinced of your innocence. In fact, I was pretty sure you helped Jon-Don O.D.”

A spoonful of pudding stuck in Camilla’s throat.

But Jonathan continued to smile. “What pissed me off was the way the FBI was covering up the facts to keep Teeter’s investigation going. But it never occurred to me that Parker had been fooling around with two blondes.”

“You really thought I killed Jon-Don?” She tried to swallow as her anger rose.

“Hey, the evidence was there.”

“You thought… I was a murderer?” She could hardly speak. “You thought I was a drug dealer? Then why did you put up my bail?”

He laughed as if she’d said something ridiculous.

“Bail? Hell, that wasn’t me. Remember, I’m the guy who can’t afford to get his beat-up old car fixed.”

“Then who did? Why won’t anybody tell me?”

“Because she swore us all to secrecy.”

“She? You mean Angela?”

“I mean Violet. I guess that old lady is better off than she seems.”

“Violet Rushforth put up my bail?”

Jonathan nodded as he set down his pudding.

“You had nothing to do with it?”

“No more than I could help. I thought she was nuts.”