“What does from time to time mean?”
“Complicated cases.”
She chuckled. “Someone thinks I’m crazy?”
“More like fascinating. I agree.”
She closed her eyes, sank back against downy cushions. “So you’re not on their payroll.”
“That’s the point,” I said.
“What exactly do you do for them?”
“Get paid for deep psychological insight.”
“What’s your insight about me?”
“That we can learn to play nice.”
She whistled silently. “You’re a playful fella?”
I said, “I can be.”
One eye opened. Her right index finger traced the outline of the ring on her left hand. Round-cut diamond, huge, white, lots of fire.
“Nice.”
“D Flawless,” she said. “I think the cut brings out its best qualities, don’t you?”
She took my hand, placed it on the rock. Her skin was cool, soft. She’d used some kind of cover-up for age spots and the blemishes floated like water lilies in a deep vat of milk.
I said, “I think everything about you works quite nicely.”
She drew away. “Sonny, I’ve been bullshat by the best. Don’t even try.”
“Aw shucks,” I said.
I angled the laptop toward her.
She said, “If you’ve got a game, name it. If you’re going to waste my time by making me sit through the crap I did when I was too young and too stupid to know any better, I’m cutting this little chat short.”
She sprang to her feet. “In fact, if you don’t get your ass in gear right now, I’m going up to my room and fetching my Glock. I’m sure you know what that is, seeing as you’re a police groupie.”
“Lightweight, well made,” I said. “Model 19?”
“A 22 and I know how to use it. You may be cuter than most girls can stand—you may know how to play dress-up—what is that, Brioni—no, Zegna, I know the stitching, Mark bought them like candy. But to me you’re a punk and you’ll stay a punk and that’s how
I said, “That sounds like one of your movies. So does the crack about someone thinking you’re crazy. Wasn’t that what Mona tried in
“Piece of crap,” she said. “That review was too kind.”
“I think you’re being too hard on yourself.”
She said, “Oh, Jesus, you’re an idiot.”
But she stayed there, eyes fixed on the screen.
Once an actress.
Text gave way to a slide show.
Leona as Olna in a white dress. Malevolently lovely face wrapped in a matching scarf. Graceful fingers clutching the stem of a Martini glass.
Olive and pearl onion bobbing in a crystalline bath.
Olna wearing that same outfit plus oversized sunglasses.
Olna, bare-shouldered and strategically draped by a bedsheet, smoking a cigarette in an ivory holder. The barest suggestion of teeth between glossed lips. Heavy-lashed eyelids drooped in postcoital torpor.
Next to her, the “inevitably wooden” Stuart Bretton lay staring up at nothing. Muscular arms pumped. Squarely handsome, wavy-haired visage blank as dirt.
Olna pointing a gun.
Close-up on the weapon: double-barreled derringer. Side-by-side barrels. Stubby, nasty-looking weapon, the snout barely long enough to extend past her gloved hands.
Close-up on Stu Bretton’s face. Caricature of surprise.
Close-up on Stu Bretton’s beefcake physique, facedown on the bed, a bloody blotch between his shoulder blades.
Close-up on Olna Fremont’s face. Surprised.
Long shot of cops, uniformed and plainclothed and armed.
Olna. Beautiful, peaceful. The bullet hole centering her smooth, white forehead the period on a final sentence.
I said, “Life imitates art but only to a point. They let you keep your face.”
Leona reached for the laptop.
I drew it out of reach, continued to give her a full view of the last scene she’d ever filmed.
She said, “Why the hell shouldn’t I go get my Glock?”
“I’m sure if you tried, you’d score a hit. Where’d you learn? Kansas?”
She smiled. “Rural life can be wonderful. And daddies love little girls eager to learn. Did you know gophers explode like little meatballs?” She rose to her feet, tussled my hair again. Took the time for a harder yank and studied my reaction.
When I moved to stay her hand, she pulled out of reach, flipped her hand like a geisha fan, and slapped my face.
Smiling as if she’d pulled off a first-take masterpiece performance, she glided toward the door. “Unless you’ve got a death wish, you’ll be gone when I return.”
I said, “Unless you’ve got a death wish, you’ll cool it with the D-list acting and pay attention.”
She came toward me, fists at chest level, poised to strike.
“Bad idea, Leona. Family’s the glue that holds society together.”
She stopped short but kept her arms up. “What the hell is
“It means you’ve done at least one thing well. Those boys of yours get along great. Be a shame to change that.”
One arm dropped, then the other. She gazed around her roomful of treasures.
Sat back down.
said nothing for a while. Allowed her thoughts to take over.
Whatever drifted through her mind clouded her eyes. She sat trance-like. For a moment I thought she’d dissociate. She shook herself clear. “If you have something to say, spit it out.”
“One thing we can agree upon, Leona. The cops aren’t geniuses. Truth is, they’re pretty limited intellectually. So sometimes when a case gets interesting, I go off on my own and discover things that elude them.” I shrugged. “Sometimes my discoveries turn out profitable.”
“Ah, the inevitable,” she said. “You’re a whore but a high-priced one. Okay, let’s get down to business: What do you think you might know and how much are you fantasizing you can get for it?”
“A whore?” I said. “I’d like to think of it as freelance investing.”
“Think what you want. Spread your legs and let’s get it over with.”
I let her stew some more. When her neck tendons grew rigid, I said, “One thing I learned from this case is that life really does imitate art. If you can call what you used to do art. The first time we met you I found you interesting, so I did a little research. Learned about that fall you took from a horse five years ago. All that pain and the prescription drug problem it got you into.”
“It happens. Big deal.”
