Randall #02 - Ghost Writers in the Sky (23 page)

Rick put a finger over my lips. “You can tell me later. Don’t you want to hear the keynote address by your friend the Oscar-winning screenwriter? I hoped you’d sit with me. I’m so sorry I missed your talk. Business with Luci.”
            “Right. Business,” I said. “That involved a new leather blazer…”

He shook his head. “Don’t worry about Luci. Come on.” He walked me toward the elevator. When he pushed the call button, the doors opened immediately. Marva had kept her word and sent it back up. He pulled me inside the tiny elevator and closed the door.

“
You and Luci have been awfully cozy—are you sure she’s just your agent.”

 “
Luci is nothing to me. And she’s no longer my agent.” He was close enough that I could smell the leather of his jacket, and the warm scent of his Old Spice.

“
She isn’t? But your book…”

“
Is trash. It sucks. Learning to write takes years. At least I know that now, so maybe this conference wasn’t a total waste of my time. Gabriella and Toby set me up. At least Toby did. I don’t know if Gaby was in on the scam or not. I’m sure she didn’t kill anybody. But Toby and Luci were definitely pulling some sort of con. And Gaby defended them—even when I told her I suspected Luci was a fraud.”

“
Is that what you were fighting about—just before my talk?”

“
Yeah. I’m so sorry I missed it. But I had to follow up on my hunch about Luci.”

He leaned over me and pressed the button for the ground floor.

“
So you and Luci aren’t…anymore?” I looked up at his velvety dark eyes. His face was only inches from mine.
            “Never were.”

His mouth hovered over mine.

“
Never?”

“
Nope.”

I could feel the elevator descending as he kissed me. I felt weightless—suspended in mid-air, mid-moment, mid-emotion. I didn’t know what to think. Or feel. Except that I wanted the kiss to last forever.

When I reached the Ponderosa Lounge, Rick by my side, I was surprised to see the stage empty and the remaining conference-goers gathered in ominously muttering clumps.

But a moment later, Plantagenet rushed down the aisle and leapt up to the stage. Silas followed at a more dignified pace. Conversation fell to an uneasy rumble as people moved to seat themselves in the rows of folding chairs.

As we sat in the front row, I was intensely aware of Gabriella’s absence. The whole place seemed creepy and wrong: like a body without a head.

I felt Rick’s arm slide around the back of my chair, and was grateful for the warmth and solidity of his body, although I wished I could stop thinking about that snaky scar on his arm. And how easily he and Miguel had chatted together in Spanish.

Rick’s body went rigid as Luci appeared.

“
There you are, dear!” Luci said to me, theatrically ignoring Rick. I tried not to be obvious about studying the flowerpot handbag. Marva may have told the truth. The satin petals of the roses looked a bit too orange.

Luci plunked herself into the chair on my other side. “Camilla, dear, you need to talk to that funny little man at the front desk. Not the intense young man who’s always scribbling—the old Hobbity one: Alberto. He says he’s been looking for you everywhere.”

I hoped Alberto was going to assign me a new room—a place to organize my thoughts after all this chaos.

I hugged my tote bag, wondering what sense I could make of the letters inside—or of Marva. If anything about Marva did make sense. She did seem to dislike Luci. That was in her favor.

“
What have you got in there, notes for your memoir?” Luci said, her eyes wide and fake-girly hands waving. “Or do you want to write it as a
roman à clef
? I’d love to see whatever you’ve got.”

I looked over at Rick for moral support, but he was chatting with somebody in the row behind, apparently avoiding any eye contact with Luci.

I was going to have to do this by myself. “I am sorry, Ms. Silverberg. I thought I’d made myself clear. I am not writing a memoir, or a novel, or anything else. Just a weekly column.”

I started to stuff the folder back in my tote when it came to me. Donna’s book. I could give it to Luci right now, which was what Donna wanted in the first place. I could relax in my new room instead of trying to find Donna and I would know I’d made one of Toby’s wrongs right.

Something needed to go right for somebody this weekend.

I turned to Luci with a smile. “A young woman named Donna Carillos has written a novel that I’m sure is much steamier than any narrative I could write, and I have it right here…”

But I couldn’t continue with my little mission of mercy because the audience went suddenly quiet.

Plant stepped to the lectern and began to speak on his chosen topic— “Prospecting for stories: how to mine history books for blockbuster plots.”

I was impressed. He talked about how he’d put together the stories of Calamity Jane and Oscar Wilde after discovering they’d been in San Francisco at the same time, and how he’d invented a whole new storyline for them both, using real historical details.

He also made the writers who had stayed on feel like heroes. He said his own and Gabriella’s arrests were simply “routine police procedure,” and assured them he expected Gabriella to be released “any minute now.”

“
Camilla, dear,” Luci whispered in my ear. “Plantagenet is so gorgeous. I hope you’ll include a few chapters about your, um, romantic history with him.”

I tried to silence her with raised eyebrow, but she was unstoppable.

“
And if you’ve got any stories about Jonathan with him—or other guys, I can get even more for your book.”

“
I am not writing any books!” I whispered back at her.

“
That’s fine, dear. I can get you a ghost.” Luci whispered back, leaning close to my ear. “A ghost who makes deadlines better than poor old Toby. All I want is a true story about life with Jonathan Kahn. It couldn’t have been easy for you, dear, with his, um, unusual tastes...” She eyed my sandals. “Ten thousand dollars will buy some very nice shoes.” She patted my knee. “And I’d hate to see you lose your little home…” She reached for my bag.

Her hand collided with the buckle and broke off one of her talons. She looked at me with thinly disguised fury.

“
I’m sorry I ruined your manicure, but here…” I handed her Donna’s folder. “I believe this could be a real blockbuster.”

This seemed to calm her for the moment. In fact, the manuscript must have begun pretty well, to judge from her sharp intake of breath after she opened the folder.

But a moment later she was at it again. She leaned close to my ear and murmured.

“
My, my my. You’re more of a businesswoman than I thought. Any more where this came from?”

“
Talk to Donna Carillos.” I kept my eyes on the stage.

Plant enchanted the audience with the story of Mrs. Boggs Bailey’s literary discovery in the chifforobe of the Ronald Reagan suite. Storyteller that he was, he entertained them with tales of the Rancho ghosts and suggested the book and letters might have been lying around the Hacienda for a hundred years—resurfacing with some sort of “supernatural” aid at Gabriella’s time of need.

At his mention of the ghosts, there arose an “Oh, pu-leeze” from the back row. I turned and saw the alpha smugster lounging on his chair like a high school bad-boy, flanked by his cohorts. He smirked at me and rolled his eyes.

As I tried to avoid acknowledging his rudeness, I caught sight of a tall figure behind him, leaning by the back doors: Walker Montgomery, glowering at us all.

I turned back as Plant introduced Silas, who read a passage from the note that seemed to have been written to Calamity Jane by Oscar Wilde after their first meeting in San Francisco in March of 1882— 

“
Please accept my thanks for your rescue of my poor person as the admiring hordes knocked me from the sidewalk in the Chinese District yesterday. You are right, I suppose, in saying that in this city, everyone ends up in the gutter sooner or later. However, though we may all be in the gutter, Miss Canary, some of us are looking at the stars.”

I recognized that line. It was the “high falutin’” quote from Ernesto’s title for Miguel’s story. The exact quote: “We
may
all be in the gutter” —the words Ernesto had originally read. It didn’t say “we
are
all” as Toby had insisted was the correct quote. Could Toby have been wrong?  He had been so arrogant in his certainty—even to the fact that the line came from the third act of
Lady Windemere’s Fan.
Was it possible that Ernesto did not get his quote from
Lady Windemere’s Fan
, but from this letter?

This could mean Ernesto had seen the letter. Maybe even got killed for it

“
If it’s authentic, this material could fetch as much as fifty thousand dollars,” Silas said. “Maybe more.”

The audience made suitable “Antiques Roadshow” sounds as they moved toward the stage to get a closer look.

Plant opened up questions to the floor.

The Englishman called out, “Where did this tomfoolery really come from? Don’t give us any more hogwash about ghosts.” His cell phone rang in his pocket. He flipped it open. “No. I’m not doing anything…”

“
Well then—thanks so much…” Plant said, trying to wind things up as the Brit babbled on, apparently convinced that, since he wasn’t paying attention to us, we couldn’t hear him.

There was a reason the Manners Doctor did not like cell phones.

“
Dude!” The head smugster lolled back in his chair. “You don’t honestly believe Oscar would have screwed a dog like Calamity Jane, do you? Martha Jane Canary was pure Gainsburger. Even Bill Hickok had to get liquored up to do her.”

 “
Have you ever seen a picture of the real James Butler Hickok?” said Plant, with a “can we dish” smile. “Talk about the kennel club. Reality is always such a disappointment. But to answer both questions—who cares? I don’t know if this is tomfoolery or not. I’m not claiming the existence of ghosts, or that Calamity Jane looked like Gwyneth Paltrow—and certainly not the authenticity of this material. That’s not the point. The point is selling fiction. Which is almost impossible without buzz. And let’s face it, controversy creates buzz. These things, forgeries or not, are cool for me, since they surfaced the week before my film comes out in DVD. So everybody, go out and buy yourself one.” He waved it around like a flag of surrender.

It was time to wrap things up. Without Gaby, the audience wasn’t picking up on its cues. Hands waved. People shouted clueless questions.

I stood and clapped loudly. But before Plant and Silas could descend from the stage, the Englishman and most of the smugsters got them cornered. The volume of the Brit’s aristocratic speech escalated as the smugsters’ California slang rose even higher.

“
Looks like Plant could use a little help,” Rick said, taking off in their direction.

I turned to pick up my tote bag, expecting another barrage of nonsense from Luci. But the chair next to me was empty. Luci was gone. Fine. She wouldn’t be missed.

I wondered how soon she’d discover her flowerpot bag was bogus—and the photo was gone. I had to be grateful to Marva for that. Major crisis averted.

Although I still didn’t have a clue about how those strange letters related to Marva—or Luci or Toby. I wondered if Marva had figured out I’d salvaged a few. As soon as Plant was free of his fans, I’d get him to look at them. I wondered which letters I’d managed to save. I opened my bag.

But it was empty. The letters were gone.

I searched my tote bag three times before I had to admit to myself that I must have shoved the gay cowboy letters into Donna’s folder after my tug of war with Marva.

And that meant I had delivered them into the hands of Luci Silverberg—Satan in support hose herself. Luci was probably already off drafting her extortion letter.

I had to find her before she did any damage with them. I hated to think what I’d just let loose.

I found a service door along a side wall—the most likely way to make an exit from the Ponderosa Lounge without being noticed. The door opened on a narrow passageway, lit only by a bare bulb. It probably led to the kitchen. I thought I heard Luci’s mincing footsteps ahead. I hoped those stiff new cowboy boots would slow her down.

Following the passage, I looked for something familiar, but as I climbed several stairs, then descended some more, I realized I was lost again. My mind went to creepy places as I thought about last night’s ghostly intruder into my cabin.

I still hadn’t figured that out.

Could it have been Marva?