I have had little time, plenty of blog ideas – but the whole AI thing is tired, regardless of which way you come at it. If it ever makes it to the assistant stage, call me. I have some things to say about writing, but those are for my own good and can come up in a couple of book reviews. For now, though, they’re back. Yes, them. The voices in my head. The casts have assembled with a “We don’t care about your ‘commitments’.” And a reminder that ‘responsibilities’ are the biggest excuse for avoiding responsibilities. So, from the parking lots of volleyball practice to waiting in car dealerships, two novellas have sprouted. Yes. Shorties. Here they are. I have no idea where they’re headed, except the Cotton crew has shown me some stuff, but not how to get there from where they started… Voting is open on which one first.
MEYERS – A BEAUTIFUL CORPSE
I tipped the cab driver enough to turn off her meter, radio in for a breakfast break and forget she’d ever seen me before we left my parking garage. I gave her an address and simple instructions. She understood both our jobs and ten minutes later dropped me in a narrow, tree shrouded hired-help access alley in the part of Hollywood where they still had “Tradesmen Use Rear Entrance” signs. I hiked a hundred yards in the shade, clawed through a tall privacy wall of Eugenia and made my way to the pool where I found Huntley Bryston, young chauffeur and my occasional extra cool hand staring into the swimming pool. I followed his intense gaze into the morning sun sparkled water.
“Not much of a swimmer.” I waited a few before adding, with a touch of finality, “But she makes a beautiful Ophelia.”
“A beautiful who?”
“You need to brush up on your Shakespeare if you plan on working this end of L.A.” I walked to the edge of the pool, got a better look at the floater. Unlike most dead-poolers I’d encountered, she was face up. Twenty-five, if she was a day. Five-five or six if I had to guess and small framed. Cookie cutter actress material. I couldn’t tell if the blond hair was original equipment or not, but there was a lot of it. All fanned out over two feet around her head, undulating slowly with the rhythm of a hidden pump. Bright red lipstick and too much green eyeliner still in place. The rest of her swaddled in a gauzy, ankle length sea foam green evening gown with one rhinestone encrusted strap. I took the length of colorful, floral-patterned material floating loosely around her neck to be the sash missing from the rhinestone loops at her waist. A weapon of sudden convenience. I wondered; did she spin like a top when the perp yanked it loose?
“Who was she before the Ophelia act?”
“Adelaide. Addie.” He took off his chauffer’s hat, licked his upper lip. “Dubrev.” He held the hat to his chest honor guard fashion. “Mrs. Marlon Dubrev.”
I gave Huntley his moment of respect while I scanned the pool area for signs of a struggle. A purse, a dirty ashtray. A shoe. A broken glass. A chair or chaise out of place. Nada. It was as if someone had manicured everything from the back door to the shrubs that had closed seamlessly behind me. A pristine set for a beautiful corpse.
“I thought Dubrev was dead.”
“He oughta be, the way he…” Huntley smacked his palm with the cap, jammed it back on. “All I know is his career’s been in the shitter since before I was born.”
“I see,” said more to his tone than Dubrev’s career. “Called Purcell yet? The fuckedupness of dead Hollywood is his speciality.”
“Yours, too.” He cast his eyes toward the house. “No one answers the door, front or back.”
“That wasn’t an answer.” I didn’t get anything else. “Tell me why I had to be here without actually arriving?”
“Because you rode with me.”
“Because?”
“I was supposed to be taking her to meet you.”
“Clear as mud.”
“Look, if they find her purse, go through her things, what they’ll find is a lipstick, a, a handful of bills and your name and phone number on my card. In her handwriting.”
“So, you decided that we had an early appointment with Mrs. Dubrev, since she was dead, and you figured to be in deep shit for it? Didn’t want to talk to the cops by yourself?”
“Jesus, Mr. Meyers. Put it in lights, you know,” he looked up, gloved hands wide, palms out. “The Chauffer Did It.”
“Unlike TV cops, real cops need evidence. Not the first gullible breather on the scene they can cuff and charge with murder. You on the Dubrev payroll?”
“No.”
“Good. How many times you drive the lady?”
“Seven.”
“Frequently?”
“Once a week or so. Never the same day, though.”
“So there’s no pattern. Ever drive the old man?”
“Just her.”
“You two been—”
“NO. Hell no. She’s a sweet–”
“Was a sweet. Good for her. You kill her?”
“No. What the hell, Meyers?”
“Emotions run wild in Hollywood, and the young, attractive hired help gets top billing in young, attractive dead spouses of old has-beens. Touch anything, move anything?”
“Doorbell, door knocker. Gate handle when nobody showed at the front. But,” he showed me his hands, still in black calfskin driving gloves.
“Somebody reliable know where you were last night?”
“Yeah. You want it?”
“No. I want to hear it for the first time when you tell Purcell. Except for what time we got here, which was ten minutes ago.” I checked my watch. “Seven-thirty. Anything in your logbook make that a lie?”
“No sir. I, she… Didn’t want this one logged.”
“This was personal, somehow?”
“She’d call. I’d drive, she’d talk. Whatever came into her head, you know, like a little kid. She had some unreal pressure on her to be the next big thing, an ‘old school starlet’ she called it. Manufactured for that…” he pointed to the house, and again he choked on whatever he was going to say about Marlon Dubrev.
“Ever been in the house?”
“No.”
“Best news so far. Take the gloves off, leave some prints where you said you’d been and nowhere else.”
“Yeah, okay,” peeling the gloves. “Hey, yo,” panic rising in his voice. “Where you going?”
“Need to call the cops, Junior. You bounced me out before breakfast, and I’d like to be outta here by lunch.”
THE PONTATOWAK COUNTY CREW – ADVERSE POSSESSION
A Hot August Thursday, Late Afternoon
A grimy bear in filthy overalls rose from the crank of the fully extended scissor jack he’d used to raise a twenty-year-old Chevy pickup to a precarious lean on the shoulder of Oklahoma Rural Road 3651. He gave the truck a shove, watched it roll sideways down the scrub oak infested embankment until it crashed into a thick creosote fence post, fell back a half roll and stopped, bottom up in the dry drainage ditch.
“Forget somethin’?” A starched work shirt and creased jeans man, his expensive cowboy hat topping a carefully sculpted blonde mullet, flicked a still lit Marlboro butt down the hill after the pickup. “Yo, Scully,” louder, emphasized by tapping the edge of a brand-new white Dodge Ram dually’s bed. “I asked you a question.”
Scully saw the body Starched Man pointed out in time to stop his jack toss into the truck bed. He hiss-whistled shit through the gap in his front teeth, walked to the lowered tailgate, set the jack to one side and dragged nineteen-year-old Junior Swiftwater out by the ankles. He grunted when he lifted the boy, shuffled back down the thirty feet of gravel shoulder he’d covered with the jack, grunted again, deeper, and launched Junior down the hill after his truck.
“Almost a fuckup, Scully,” Starched man struck a match on the bed liner, lit a cigarette. “Gettin’ to be a habit a yours.”
“Shut up, Clint.”
“Kid should’ve been in the truck.”
“They’ll figger he done bounced out.”
“Hope the door’s open.”
“If it ain’t?”
“Then you’re a real fuckup.” Starched Clint opened the driver’s door of the truck, looked across the expanse of leather at Scully. “Was he breathin’ when you dumped him?”
“Maybe.”
“This shit right here, Scully? This is what goes through my mind when you tell me you need more money. I give you an opportunity for a bonus, an whatta you do?” Clint dropped their truck into gear, pulled out throwing gravel. “You fuck it up is what. Some days I don’t know if you’re tryin’ to fuck up or too goddamn stupid to follow instructions.”
“You should make nicer talk to people, Clint.”
“You should ‘make nicer’ effort to stop thinkin’ not fuckin’up is optional.”
“Shut up, Clint. Shut up, shut up, shut up.”
“Fuckup, Scully,” Clint turned Scully’s way, sneered. “Fuck up, fuck up, fuck up.”
Scully crushed a small pack of Flamin’ Hot Funyuns, dumped the red dust in his mouth, caught his reflection in the window. “Just. Shut. Up.” He smeared his orange spit-spray spots on the window with the heel of his hand. “Don’t say nothin else. Just shut up.”
***
The Following Monday
Bash opened his front door at 6:05 AM to Agent Candi Cotton, random tendrils of worked-loose hair blowing across her face, racoon circles under her eyes.
“Whoa…You OK? You look a little…”
“Disheveled,” her voice gravelly. “That’s the word you’re looking for.”
“I wouldn’t go disheveled. Rough. Scruffy. Bedragg—”
“Quit while you’re ahead. I need a favor.”
“Looks like you need sleep. And a shower.”
“Look who’s talking. When was the last time you shaved?”
“Friday. You?”
“Funny.” She pushed a 9×11 brown envelope into his chest, walked past him.
“This is what?”
“Junior Swiftwater.”
He bounced the envelope in his hand. “Kinda small for a Swiftwater.”
“Kill the comedy,” she dropped on his couch. “Junior’s in a North Dallas hospital, more dead than alive.”
“That’s news,” walking into the kitchen. “Coffee?”
“Please.”
“How can I help with Junior?”
“He had a single vehicle rollover on 3651. Supposedly.”
“Supposedly?”
“On-call Doc where they air lifted Junior is an overflow pathologist. Found the injuries inconsistent with the type of accident. I’ve seen Junior’s truck, the scene. It all stinks.”
“My job, should I decide to take it and not self-destruct?”
“How can you be so full of shit this early in the… No… Don’t answer that. Everything’s in there,” she yawned. “Have a look. Tell me what you think.”
“By when?” He set her cup of coffee on the end table.
“Couple days, you know…Sooner, maybe…”
“Any kind of road map in here tells me what we’re lookin’ for?”
“Not, you know… Give it a sniff test…” She stretched, arms up, grabbed her elbows, yawned again. “Take all the time you need, as long it’s no more’n… you know?” She rolled down into the couch.
“Yep.” He draped a worn, turtle patterned quilt over her, pulled off her boots. “I know.”
Not Very Deep Thoughts 