floor…”
“And?…”
“I gave him a good hard whack on the leg. That’s when I heard it.”
“Heard what, Bella?” Now Martine was curious, too.
“The slosh,” Bella replied. “You hear a slosh it means the man’s wearing a catheter bag. You don’t want nuttin’ to do with him.”
Esme smiled at her, a smile that lit up her entire face. “Bella, you are the coolest.”
“That’s me, all right, the queen of cool.” Bella stood there staring down the front of Esme’s halter top at her considerable cleavage. “So did you have your boobs done or what?” she asked her bluntly.
“No way. These are all mine. Want to feel them?”
“Not necessary.”
“That whole deal was just Crissie doing what she does,” Esme explained.
“Which is what exactly?” Martine demanded.
“She plants the denial before there’s ever a story.”
“So as to create the story?” asked Des.
Esme nodded. “That way she keeps the tabloids fed and off of our backs.”
“That woman is so crass,” Martine said. “Honestly, I can’t tell if she’s part of the solution or part of the problem.”
“None of it’s real, Mommy. It’s just some tabloid trash about tits.”
“Those are your tits they’re talking about. And I don’t care for it. Or Chrissie.”
“Yeah, I kind of sensed that,” Esme shot back. They had a definite mother-daughter thing going on. “But don’t blame me. Tito’s agent hired her. He had to. That’s how the business is-if we don’t give them something then they just make up stuff about how our marriage is in ruins or whatever. It’s not like we’re real people to them. We’re just characters in some twisted interactive soap opera. They shout things at Tito, you know. To bait him.”
“What things?” asked Des.
“They tell him I’m a slut. That I’m having sex with Ben Affleck or Derek Jeter or Justin Timberlake, anyone. They’re hoping he’ll lose it so they can sell a picture of him attacking them. They try to climb over the wall of our Malibu house. They follow us when we leave. It’s horrible. If the public knew what really went on, they’d freak. But since it’s the press they somehow think it’s all noble and decent.”
“Those people aren’t the press.” Bella sniffed.
“No, they totally are,” Esme insisted.
Des couldn’t disagree. She’d seen the tabloids in action when she’d worked murder investigations. “Do you two keep a bodyguard around?”
“Tito won’t live that way. He wants to keep it real, or at least try. He figures, how can you hold on to your street edge when you live like royalty?”
“You can’t,” Des concurred.
“Besides, Chrissie’s staying in the guesthouse while we’re here, so she keeps them at bay. And the road we’re on is private. The beach association has a gate, and they can’t get past that. Or at least they aren’t supposed to.”
“If they do, let me know,” Des said.
“I would, Des, except Tito’s deathly afraid of the police. He has so many childhood scars.” Esme let out a soft laugh. “But, hey, who doesn’t, right?”
Martine stiffened at this last comment, Des noticed.
“Everyone thinks they know us, but they don’t. Especially Tito. Nobody knows Tito.”
“So tell us something we don’t know about him,” Bella said.
“Seriously?” Esme tossed her head, running her hands through her mane of golden hair. “He’s the most deprived boy I’ve ever met, okay? Growing up, he went without so many things that the rest of us take for granted. Like pets-he’s never, ever had one. I mean, God, he’d never even had a Christmas tree until he met me. You should have seen the joy in his eyes when we decorated our very own tree last Christmas.” Recalling it, tears began to spill out of her own eyesright down her flawless cheeks. “All the things I took for granted growing up. A nice home, friends, parents who I believed I could trust
…”
Des felt that there was something deliberately pointy about the words Esme used to describe her parents. Crouched there beside her on the pavement, Martine definitely seemed ill at ease.
“Tito never knew any of those things. That’s why he’s so out there as an actor. It’s like he’s experiencing everything for the first time.”
Des thought she heard some small movements now in the forsythia bushes out behind the Dumpster. “We better get on that other trap,” she whispered, tiptoeing around to the other cage and grabbing on to the string attached to its door.
Esme joined her. “Here, let me,” she whispered, holding her hand out to Des.
That was when Des noticed the thin white lines on the inside of her wrist. Both wrists, in fact. On-screen, the makeup artists were able to cover them over. But up close and in person Des saw them instantly for what they were. Esme Crockett had tried to slit her wrists at some point in her past. Des found herself wondering what could possibly have driven someone so lovely, gifted, and privileged to want to end her life?
“Shhh, hear them…?” she whispered, clutching the string anxiously.
Des did hear the tiny mewings. And now she could see the two of them coming out of the brush together. They were mixed gray, no more than four or five weeks old.
“Aren’t they the sweetest?”
Des didn’t like the unsteady way they were moving.
“Hi, babies,” Esme cooed as they edged hungrily toward the baited cage, moving closer and closer. “Come get your breakfast… Come on, babies…”
Until they were inside the cage and Esme had yanked the door shut behind them.
“In the house!” Des called out, latching it shut.
Bella and Martine immediately joined them.
“I can’t wait for Tito to see them!” Esme cried excitedly, clapping her hands together with girlish delight. “We’re going to name them Spike and Mike.”
Martine stood there looking down at them in grim silence. So did Bella.
“What, don’t they look like a Spike and a Mike?” Esme asked.
What they looked like, all three rescuers knew only too well, was a pair of very, very sick little kitties. Their eyes were rheumy, their noses caked with pus, coats scabby and oozing with sores. Feline influenza, most likely. It was very common in the summer. If left untreated, it often led to pneumonia.
“They look awfully sick to me, honey,” Martine said gently. “I think we’d better take them to the vet.”
“What do you think, Des?” Esme asked.
“I don’t meant to be your dream killer, but I think you should prepare yourself for the worst.”
Esme let out a gasp of horror. “You mean he might put them to sleep?”
“They’re very sick, tattela.”
“It was real nice of you to alert us,” Des added. “You’ve done them a solid, because they’re so miserable.”
“Mommy, noooo!” Esme threw herself into Martine’s arms, weeping.
“We’ll get you another pair,” Martine promised, hugging her tightly.
“I don’t want another pair! I want Spike and Mike! They’re ours! We found them!” Now Esme released her mother, swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be such a baby. This is just so sad. And it’s not their fault.”
“Me, I’d like to take a baseball bat to whoever dumped them here,” Bella growled.
“We do everything we can, honey,” Martine said. “We get them neutered. We find homes for as many as we can. But the truth is that there are just too many kittens and not enough people to love them.”
“Now, if you’d like to adopt a couple of good, healthy ones,” Des offered brightly, “we can certainly help you out.”
