I gave the scenario a bit of thought. 'If everything's sealed off, won't we all suffocate?'
Fran clicked her tongue in irritation. 'Eventually, if we stay here long enough, but our battery-powered radios will tell us when it's safe to go outside.'
'What if it never gets safe?'
Totally fed up with me, Fran snarled, 'Then we die, Kylie. We all die a horrible death.'
FOUR
I was waiting impatiently for Ariana to come back from her appointment in the Valley so I could discuss the developments in the Braithwaite case. Ariana was involved in a detailed security analysis for a furniture company's warehouse, and that would take most of the day, so I knew she might not even bother returning to the office. Still, I could hope.
Half an hour or so was spent writing a letter to Mum. I'd have much preferred to e-mail her, but Mum said reading on a computer screen was too impersonal. She wanted handwritten communications. Fair enough, but I knew she had an ulterior motive. Mum fancied herself a handwriting analyst, having just completed the course 'Handwriting: The Hidden Revealed' in an adult education course held at Wollegudgerie High on weekday evenings. She'd confided to me she'd been quite shocked at what she'd learned from the signatures of various apparently law-abiding guests staying at the pub.
I suspected Mum would be studying my writing for evidence I was holding out on her and not being entirely open about what was happening here in the States. Fair dinkum, I wasn't keeping anything back, but hell's bells, I was tempted at times.
She'd had made me promise to keep her totally up-to-date on my new career. I knew very well my mum was hoping I'd make a proper mess of private-eyeing, and lose interest in staying here in L.A. Pity about that, since I was absolutely determined to become a crash-hot private detective. Besides, there was Ariana Creeling.
Blond, blue-eyed, self-contained Ariana Creeling. I could visualize her down to the smallest detail, slim and supercool in her customary black. To be realistic, I'd probably never had a ghost of a chance with Ariana, being close to her total opposite, not just in looks but in personality and background.
The fact that I wasn't thin and had brown eyes, boring brown hair, and olive skin didn't really matter, I suppose. And maybe my coming from a little town in the Outback of Oz wasn't an insurmountable barrier. What did matter was my tendency to be impulsive, to open my mouth before my brain was in gear. No one would call me detached; quite a few would call me a galah.
I'd already pretty well blown it with Ariana by blurting out that I adored her, just when I'd promised myself the only way to behave was to be offhand and megacasual, and wait for the faint possibility she'd come my way.
Oh, I knew at heart it had never been likely she'd fall in love with me, but as my mum always says, nothing ventured, nothing gained. So I was venturing, in a tentative sort of way, and hoping against hope to gain something. A warm friendship would do. Crikey, I was kidding myself again. I wanted something much more incendiary from Ariana.
I dragged my thoughts back to my letter to Mum. I dutifully told her all about Oscar Braithwaite and his brush with death, even though I knew when she read it she'd drop everything and rush to the phone. I knew exactly how the call would go. Mum would emphasize that it was only a matter of time until violence came my way, and I might not be as lucky as Oscar. She'd pause for a moment to let that sink in, then she'd demand I come home to Wollegudgerie before I was run down, or shot, or carjacked. Unfortunately, every lurid news item about Los Angeles seemed to make the television news in Oz, so my mum was convinced I was pretty well in danger twenty-four seven.
I folded the pages carefully and slid them into an envelope addressed to Mum at The Wombat's Retreat, Wollegudgerie. No street address was needed, as everyone in my hometown knew the location of the only pub. I printed AIRMAIL and underlined it several times, ditto AUSTRALIA.
I'd never quite got over the way the posties here collected mail as well as delivered it. Everyone in the States seemed to think this unremarkable, but where I came from, if you tried this on, the postie would give you the hairy eyeball and point you in the direction of the nearest red postbox.
The mail was delivered to Kendall & Creeling around midday, so I'd missed the collection. Melodie always took any late letters and posted them on her way home, so I trotted up to the front desk to see if she'd finally returned from her audition.
She had. 'Did you see me in the Refulgent ad last night?' she asked the moment she saw me. 'It was on several times.'
This tooth-whitening commercial was Melodie's first real success in the acting business, so she was milking it for all it was worth.
'Didn't watch TV,' I said, taking the easy way out.
'Prime time,' Melodie announced with pride. 'Network television. Larry-my-agent says it's wonderful exposure.'
I'd heard Melodie refer to her agent this way so many times that in my head I always ran the words together.
'What does Larry-my-agent say about your movie voice-over?'
I was genuinely interested in a horrified sort of way, as Melodie was in the running to voice an Aussie character in an animated movie. Her attempt at an Australian accent would have any genuine Aussie howling with derision, but Melodie's voice coach kept assuring her it was spot on.
Suddenly aware that Melodie's body language had switched from elated to deepest gloom, I asked her sagging figure, 'There's a prob?'
She shook her head despondently, her long blond hair flying around photogenically. It just wasn't fair the way she looked good, no matter what.
'The studio hasn't green-lighted the movie yet.' A sigh. 'And I've worked so hard on the Aussie accent. Malcolm, my voice coach, says Aussie's a terrific challenge. One in a thousand have the ear, you know. It's like having perfect pitch, my voice coach says.'
I barely stopped myself from telling Melodie exactly what I thought of her voice coach, who clearly wouldn't recognize a genuine Australian accent if his life depended on it. Changing the subject to something safer, I said, 'What happened to all the boxes that were here before?'
'The disaster stuff? Fran moved it. She wanted me to help carry the boxes to the store room, but I couldn't'- she flashed her fingers in my direction-'because I've just had my nails done and the polish is hardly dry. Like the color? It's new. My manicurist says it's the latest thing.'
Melodie's nails were an odd sort of yellowish puce color. No way could I honestly admire them. Besides, technically she was my employee, and I was about to lower the boom. 'Melodie, you promised, if you could, to schedule your auditions at lunch or after work,' I said severely. 'And I don't recall time for manicures was included.'
Melodie blushed a little, but not much. 'I knew Lonnie was looking after the phone, so…'
To her obvious relief, Bob Verritt, tall and scarecrow-thin, chose this moment to angle his way through the front door. He was juggling two big rectangular shapes wrapped in brown paper. I didn't need to ask what they were, and neither did Melodie.
'More old-movie posters?' she said with a touch of scorn. The walls in Bob's office were covered with framed posters from the decades Bob enthusiastically referred to as the golden age of film.
Melodie showed a degree of interest. 'Did you say
'You've got the wrong movie,' said Bob, resting the weight of the frames on the front desk. His knowledge of film lore always impressed me. 'You're thinking of the early nineties film,
