In the dark it was hard to tell that my hands weren’t holding a gun. “On the ground, you two,” one of them yelled.
“I don’t think your plan is working,” CeeCee said. We both laid down in the middle of the street, and the uniforms came up behind us and handcuffed us and patted us down.
“You don’t understand,” I said. “We’re not part of that gang,” I said. “Do you know who she is?” I said, nodding my head toward CeeCee. “She’s probably going to get an Oscar nomination for her role in
CeeCee heard me. “Well, it’s not certain yet, but there is a lot of buzz going around about it,” she said.
I heard the two talking among themselves. One of them had heard of the movie, one hadn’t. The one who had gave details and the other one groaned. “Oh yeah, the vampire movie.”
Unfortunately being a celebrity was no guarantee of any special treatment these days. Once London Omni spent thirty days in jail, despite being a wealthy heiress and actress, all bets were off. CeeCee, sensing that they didn’t like vampire movies, brought up her reality show.
“Yeah, yeah,” one of them said as he helped her up. “
“I demand that you call my attorney immediately,” she said as the doors shut on either side of us.
She kept saying it, but with the Plexiglas panel between us and them, I don’t think they heard.
“How does my hair look?” she said to me. It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting her to say. The passing lights of Ventura Boulevard illuminate the backseat, and I caught a glimpse of her. Laying down in the street isn’t good for your appearance. CeeCee’s hair was always perfectly coiffed. Thanks to her newfound place in the spotlight, she never went anywhere without considering that she was going to be noticed. Right now she had a smudge on her cheek and the officer must have smushed her hair when he helped her into the car. Lucky for her, she’d chosen to wear black pants and a black loose top, which hid all the dirt marks from the street.
CeeCee read my silence. “That bad, huh?” She sighed a few more times. “And I was worried about being seen leaving a discount store with a case of toilet paper. You’ve seen what they do with celebrity mug shots. They post them on the Internet and put them on the news. They never die. Those awful photos keep showing up again and again.” CeeCee was trying to maneuver her shoulder to fix her hair. “I don’t suppose they’d let me put on some lipstick.”
There was both good and bad about the short ride to the police station. Good because we got out of that awful backseat. Bad because they handcuffed us to a bench.
CeeCee had given up on me handling things and she’d taken over. She kept up a rant about calling her attorney. “I’m not saying a word until my attorney is here,” she yelled every time anyone passed. Lucky for us, one of the officers who had seen her on the
By now it was late, but who knew how late. With my hands in handcuffs, I couldn’t even check my watch. I figured Mason must have arrived and pulled some strings because out of nowhere, they uncuffed us and handed us back our stuff.
Mason was just coming in as we came out into the lobby. He looked a little surprised when he saw us. “You’re out already?”
“Thanks to you, Mr. Super Attorney,” I said, rubbing my wrist and doing shoulder rolls.
“I wish I could take the credit. I just got here,” he said.
Worried that they’d made a mistake in letting us go, the three of us hustled out of there in a hurry. Only later did I find out that the gang of can and bottle thieves thought we were up to some kind of bigger crime, and the whole time they were dealing with the cops, they kept insisting they had nothing to do with us.
“Thank heavens, no mug shot,” CeeCee said as we walked outside. She realized she’d spoken too soon; a bevy of photographers were hanging by the door. When they saw Mason, they started shooting. I don’t think they even knew who they were shooting at first, assuming if they were with him, they had to be somebody. I was surprised to see Pierce Sheraton in the crowd. You would think that as the host of an entertainment show, he’d be above hanging outside the police station in the middle of the night, but what set him apart from the others was that he got down and dirty to get a story.
CeeCee immediately started finger combing her hair and trying to stay behind Mason. That is until she realized they weren’t after her. They had focused in on Mason and wanted to know if he was there because the starlet Valerie Vancouver had been picked up on her third DUI.
As soon as she thought she wasn’t in the spotlight, she wanted it, and CeeCee stepped from behind Mason and started talking to the photographers about her false arrest.
It was a lot nicer getting into Mason’s Mercedes than it had been the cop car. It smelled much better, too. CeeCee took the backseat and sighed as she slipped in. “It’s so good to be free again.” She leaned toward the front seat. “Molly, do you have any of those chocolate samples in your purse? I’m feeling a little weak from our ordeal.”
“Don’t worry, ladies, I have it under control.” The streets were as close to empty as they got in the Valley, and after a fast ride on the 101, he pulled into Du-par’s parking lot. “I always say the best thing to have when you get out of jail are pancakes.”
There was just one other table of customers in the landmark coffee shop. Their pancakes were legendary and came soaked in a puddle of melted butter.
Insisting she was just trying to keep herself from fainting at the memory of our evening, CeeCee polished off a short stack with barely a crumb left over. Personally, I was too unnerved to eat. I kept wiggling my hands to make sure they weren’t restrained. Mason thought it was all too funny.
He dropped CeeCee off at her place first. The lights were on at my house as he drove up. He pulled into the driveway and his headlights illuminated Barry’s taupe Tahoe parked in front of the garage.
Uh-oh. Not again.
CHAPTER 20
“I MISS ALL THE EXCITEMENT,” DINAH SAID AS WE walked into the bookstore cafe.
“I’m not sure that CeeCee would qualify it as excitement,” I said, thinking back on how she’d looked when we finally exited the police station.
There was a low din of conversations and the air had a strong enough scent of coffee. Just breathing it in made me more alert, which I sorely needed after everything that had happened the night before.
Bob started drinks for us—a red-eye for me and a cafe au lait for Dinah—while we found a table. Most of them were full. Interspersed with the people hovering over their computers, there were a few people actually talking to each other. I noticed that D.J. Florian was one of the computer hoverers. No doubt writing his blog. When we were situated, I opened my tote and took out the girl doll that had started the whole fiasco with the cops. The cops had taken both dolls, along with my purse, and then, since they weren’t bottles or cans hoisted from somebody’s trash, had given them back when we were released. I didn’t even want to consider what they must have thought about me carrying around a couple of dolls.
Lying across the table, she looked like a doll corpse, with her rosebud mouth and embroidered eyes staring vacantly at the ceiling.
“Okay, so what happened when you got home?” Dinah said. I’d told her everything up to finding Barry’s Tahoe parked in my driveway when Mason brought me home. I was glad when Bob brought over the drinks. I fortified myself with a sip of the strong coffee drink before I recounted what happened when I got home.
“My front door opened before I could get out of the car. Barry sure keeps in shape. He was across my lawn in a flash.” I took another long drink of coffee before continuing how Barry had reached the car just as I was opening the passenger door. To say he looked unhappy was an understatement. Why hadn’t I answered my cell phone? The phone got e-mails, did I ever look? What was my story this time?
I was the first to admit I didn’t have a very good record with my cell phone. Something always seemed to happen. I forgot to charge the battery and the phone was dead, or it somehow set itself to silent, or I just didn’t
