“You stupid bitch!” she screamed. Another bullet ricocheted off the Dumpster. Jasmine and I instinctively ducked, trying to make ourselves as tiny as possible behind the Miata. Which, since it was designed for midgets, wasn’t nearly tiny enough.
“You are so mine now, ” Isabel screamed, her voice growing closer.
“Holy shit, ” Jasmine yelled. She scuttled around the car and dove behind the Dumpster.
Second good idea Jasmine had had that day.
I joined her, my knees scraping against the ketchup-stained asphalt as as another shot blasted off the metal side.
“You ruined everything, you dumb bitch! Snake won’t even talk to me because of you. I’m going to kill you!”
“Gee, you’re popular, ” Jasmine hissed, covering her head with both of her skinny arms.
“I’m not good with relationships. So sue me.”
Ping, ping. Two more bullets bounced off the Dumpster, adrenaline shooting through me with each one, as I heard Isabel pause to reload.
I ripped my purse off my shoulder, digging for my cell to call in the cavalry. But of course, with my hands shaking worse than the Northridge quake, that was easier said than done.
Ping, ping, ping.
“Jesus Christ, call nine-one-one, ” Jasmine shouted, rolling into a tight ball beside me. “This chick is crazy.”
No kidding. I dumped my purse upside down, spilling the contents onto the ground just as I heard the door of the McDonald’s open.
“Hey, what’s going on out here?” I heard the pimply kid ask, his voice cracking.
“None of your goddamned business, Pizza Face!”
Two more shots rang out, one of them followed by the sound of shattering glass and a car alarm wailing pitifully.
“My car!” Jasmine moaned beside me.
“Holly crap, call the cops!” the pimply kid screamed, ducking back into the restaurant.
I finally spied my cell phone. But considering the nearest cop car was probably a good twelve blocks away and Isabel was twelve feet away, I had a sinking feeling I knew which one would get here first. I’d already been held at gunpoint once by Isabel. Quite honestly, not an experience I was dying to repeat.
So, instead of reaching for my cell, I wrapped my fingers around the little silver canister sitting on the asphalt next to my tampons and lip gloss. Mrs. Rosenblatt’s special stash of pepper spray.
I pulled the top off, stuck my finger over the trigger, and took a deep, fortifying breath that smelled a little of stale French fries, then jumped out from behind the Dumpster.
Isabel was standing over Jasmine’s car, systematically shooting out all the windows. What was it with this chick and cars?
“Hey, Isabel!” I shouted.
She turned to face me, her eyes big, pupils the size of silver dollars. The girl seriously needed a double dose of Xanax.
I straight-armed the pepper spray in front of me, aiming it right at Isabel’s face, and pressed the button.
Which, I realized, would have been totally effective if I’d been standing the suggested four to six feet from my target. Unfortunately, Isabel was a good ten feet away. A fine stream of liquid shot out from my canister…and dribbled harmlessly down the Miata’s tires.
Uh-oh.
Isabel pointed the gun at me. “You stupid bitch, now you’re going to pay!”
I looked down at the useless canister in my hand. On pure instinct, I threw it in her direction.
If I’d actually tried out for the softball team in high school instead of just telling my mother I was going to tryouts and actually sneaking underneath the bleachers with Jason Pratt, I might have had something resembling aim, maybe even enough to pull a cool Lucy Liu move and knock the gun out of her hand. But considering Jason Pratt was the best kisser in all of ninth grade, not to mention the spitting image of Luke Perry circa 1991, my aim sucked.
The canister bounced on the ground, landing at Is-abel’s feet.
She laughed. “You are so girlie.”
Crap. Damn you and your magical tongue, Jason!
Only my curse at the French-kissing god of ninth grade was cut short as a hissing sound erupted from the canister. Both Isabel and I looked at each other. Then down. Just in time to see the canister explode, covering Isabel head to toe in cayenne-pepper water.
“Ahhh!” she screamed, dropping the gun and clawing at her eyes. “I’m on fire!”
Thank you, Mrs. Rosenblatt.
Sirens erupted in the background, the signal that Pimple Boy had, indeed, called the cops. Isabel pulled her hands away from her swollen eyes just long enough to scoop up her gun before bolting in the opposite direction.
“Don’t think I’m through with you, bitch!” she yelled, slipping into another no-doubt-stolen SUV at the end of the lot, this one a red MDX with fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror. I watched her wild hair flying out the window as she turned the corner, disappearing behind the Tip Top Dry Cleaners.
“Come on.” I grabbed Jasmine by the arm, hauling her skinny butt off the ground. “We have to go.”
Jasmine was shaking, and I wasn’t entirely sure I didn’t see a wet stain peeking through her Brazilians. “Is she gone?”
I nodded. “Uh-huh. And we have to be, too.” The only thing worse than being shot at by Isabel would be the wrath of Ramirez if he caught me here, sans babysitter.
I shoved Jasmine into the passenger seat, hopped behind the wheel, hastily brushing broken glass off the seat, and put the Miata into reverse, squealing out of the parking lot just as two cop cars, lights blazing, rounded the corner.
Jasmine looked pale in the seat beside me. So pale that her foundation stood out on her cheeks like poster paint. I wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t about to hurl.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Jasmine turned and did her best Evil Barbie, squinting her eyes and hissing through her teeth. “Okay? Okay! No, I’m not okay. I just got shot at!”
“Yeah, I know. I hate it when that happens.”
“I changed my mind, ” she said, pink slowly seeping back into her skin. “I so don’t want to be an Angel.”
We rode the rest of the way into Bel Air in silence, Jasmine periodically wincing and re-paling as wind ripped through her shot-out windows, me periodically looking in the rearview for SUVs driven by crack heads.
Luckily none appeared, and twenty minutes later we were sitting outside the gated home of Margo Walton.
I hit the intercom button and waited as a man’s deep voice buzzed over the speaker.
“Yes?”
“Hi, I’m Maddie Springer. I work with Margo.”
Nothing.
“I, uh, wanted to see if I could talk with her?”
I waited as he did the strong, silent routine again.
“Please?”
Finally: “Hang on a minute.”
He clicked off and I let the Miata idle, hoping Margo was in a chatty mood. I tried to peek around the wrought-iron gates, but all I could see from here was a winding, gravel-lined drive leading into a grove of strategically placed oak trees, planted, no doubt, specifically to keep nosy people like me guessing.
“How much do you think a place like this costs?” I asked.
Jasmine shrugged. “I dunno. Ten mil?”
I shook my head, marveling at the thought that a woman worth ten million dollars in prime California real estate would show up to work wearing plastic Crocs. I guess money can’t buy fashion sense.
Just when I was beginning to think the gatekeeper had forgotten about us, the intercom buzzed to life again. “All right, you can go on through.”
As if by magic the heavy iron gates in front of us slid back, allowing entry. I put the car in gear, tires crunching as we wound toward the center of the property. The drive was flanked by long expanses of green lawn, punctuated here and there by blooming flower beds and the occasional fountain with a naked Greek god spurting water from completely inappropriate body parts.
Finally the drive ended in a roundabout in front of an enormous plantation-style home. Immediately I thought of Gone With the Wind, but to my knowledge Bel Air wasn’t known for its historic cotton roots. Large white columns flanked the brick steps leading to an oversize wooden door. Ornate moldings covered the cornices, and a long white balcony stretched the entire length of the upper floors.
It was official: I lived in the crappiest place in all of L.A.
I parked the dwarfed Miata near the front steps and stared up at the building.
“How many B movies did you say she made?”
“At least fifty in the U.S. Maybe more overseas. I heard she even had a short stint as a German pop star in the late nineties.”
And here I thought I knew everything there was to know about my favorite TV stars.
“So…” Jasmine said, her eyes darting to the imposing front door. “You really think Margo might have done it? Killed two women?”
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
Jasmine’s throat bobbed up and down, a little of that pasty look returning to her cheeks. “Know what? Maybe I’ll just wait in the car.”
“Suit yourself.” I opened the door and hopped out, my heels crunching on the white gravel leading up to the steps. I rang the bell and heard elegant chimes echo throughout the home. Two beats later the door was opened by a young Asian woman in a gray uniform.
“Hi, I’m Maddie Springer?” I said. Only it sounded more like a question. I’ll admit, growing up around Beverly Hills, I wasn’t easily intimidated by wealth. But being faced with a real, live uniformed maid right of out a Merchant Ivory film was something I wasn’t accustomed to. I nervously tugged at my hooker outfit.
The woman was obviously a pro, and if she wondered why a woman in spandex and clashing pumps, driving a Miata that looked like it belonged to Bonnie and Clyde, was standing on her employer’s doorstep, she didn’t show it. Instead, she did a slight nod of her head and motioned for me to come in. “Please follow me, ” she said in softly accented English.
I did, as she led the way down a narrow hallway to her right. I was glad she had her back to me as we walked, because I was pretty sure I was staring with an intensity that bordered on rude as I took in Margo’s decor.
It was like I had walked into a Hollywood museum. Every square inch of wall space was occupied by large, framed movie posters, most of which had either the words sorority or slasher or both in the title. I recognized a younger version of Margo, minus the overzealous face-lift, gracing half of them. Most were films I didn’t recognize; some were even done in foreign languages-Japanese, German, Spanish.
As the maid led me into a large room at the back of the house, the feeling of being in a showplace increased when I noticed that everything was encased in plastic. And I mean everything. The sofas were wrapped in the kind of covering seen on my Irish Catholic grandmother’s virgin living room set she purchased at Sears in 1957. Plastic display cases took up every available surface, displaying things like vases, jewelry, teacups, and even a stuffed ferret. Along a black-lacquer mantel sat a collection of trophies-one of which I picked out as a Golden Globe. I took a step closer. Best Supporting Actress in a Drama, 1997. Ouch. Been a while since Margo had appeared on the big screen.
“Miss Margo will be right with you, ” the woman told me, then disappeared back the way she had come.
I took the opportunity to browse the museum. Of course, the first stop was the ferret. (What can I say? I’m curious like that.) A brass nameplate on the case said: MR. BOBO, FROM SORORITY STRANGLER 7. I looked at Mr. Bobo, permanently suspended in midleap inside his plastic tomb. Creepy.
I moved on to the next case, which held a huge pair of ruby-colored earrings. The case read: WORN BY MAGDALENA IN THE SLASHER COED RETURNS. The rest of the cases were similarly marked, all holding memorabilia, it seemed, from Margo’s various film efforts. I paused next to a case from The Campus Killer, which held a pair of black silk pumps embroidered with little emerald butterflies down the sides.
“Gorgeous, aren’t they?”
I snapped my head up to see that Margo had entered the room.
“I wore those as Eleanor Swift, sophomore at UCLA and the Campus Killer’s third victim.”
I nodded. “They’re beautiful.” Personally, I thought it was a shame they were stuck behind plastic. Shoes like those deserved to be worn. Fleetingly, I wondered what size they were…
“My death scene in that one was superbly written. The killer slit me across the throat right here.” She made a line from ear to ear with her forefinger. “God, I was cleaning fake dye out of my hair for a week, there was so much blood. Did you see that one?” Margo asked
I shook my head. “No, sorry. I must have missed it.”
Margo shrugged. “Oh, well, it was a straight-to-video. Great reviews in Sweden, though. Please sit, ” she said, indicating a low love seat.
I did, my spandex dress slipping awkwardly on the plastic surface.
Margo sat opposite me. She was dressed in a maroon skirt, black blouse, and sheer black stockings that swooshed together as she crossed one leg over the other. Though I was pleased to see a pair of classic black pumps on her feet and not the rubber Crocs.
“You wanted to talk to me?” she asked. She pulled a slim silver cigarette case from a drawer beside her and flipped it open.
“Yes, I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about the show.”
“Sure.” She offered the case to me. I shook my head and she shrugged again, pulling out a long, slim clove cigarette. “What do you want to know?”
“I suppose you saw Mia’s press conference this morning?”
Margo snorted. “Who didn’t? That woman is the biggest media whore I’ve ever seen. And I’ve been around, ” she added, gesturing to her treasure trove of B-movie credits. “I know whores.”
“I take it you’re not that fond of Mia?”
“Hell, no.” Margo punctuated this by stabbing the unlit cigarette in my direction. “She’s a first-rate bitch, that woman.”
“Because of the comment she made about your age the other day?”
Margo gave a sharp bark of laughter. “Oh, honey, we go back way farther than that.”
“How far?” I asked, leaning forward.
“I was the one who first discovered her.”
“Oh?”
Margo nodded. “She was doing this terrible Actor’s Playhouse production in North Hollywood. I was there with my second husband, Randolph Amsted, the director of Dorm Demons?” She paused, looking expectantly at me, as if I should know him.
I nodded, playing along.
“Anyway, the play was awful, but Mia…I could tell she had something. She was driven. She made the audience pay attention to her. I convinced Randolph to put her in his next picture. You know, just something small, like a bit part. He did, and she used that as the springboard to television. Of course, ” Margo added, a bitter note to her voice, “Magnolia Lane has been her big breakout.”
“I heard that Mia was originally cast in the role of Nurse Nan, ” I said watching her reaction.
Her blue eyes whipped around to me. “Who told you that?”
“Uh…” I shrugged noncommitally. “Not sure. I guess I just heard it…around.”
Margo narrowed her eyes at me, and for a second I feared I was going to get thrown out of the B-movie museum. But finally she just leaned back on her sofa with a little plastic burp. “I was the one who suggested her to the producers in the first place. She was supposed to be my supporting actress. But, being Mia, of course, she went behind my back and convinced them that she would be a better fit to play opposite Ricky.” Margo barked out a sharp laugh. “Please. I’ve had lovers half his age.”
I refrained from commenting on Margo’s math. Ricky didn’t look a day over thirty, and if Margo had fifteen-year-old fans, I was a rocket scientist.
“So, Mia got the role of Ashley and you got the supporting role?” I prodded.
Margo lit her cigarette, blowing a fine stream of smoke toward the ceiling. “At least on the small screen.” She looked at me, her eyes twinkling. “Did you know that FOX picked up the film rights? There was going to be a Magnolia Lane movie, starring yours truly.”
My heart leaped into my throat and my internal TV junkie did a happy squeal. “Really? Ohmigod-too cool!”
Margo smiled smugly. “Oh, yeah. ‘Cool, ’ all right. Even cooler? I was the executive producer. The movie was not only going to be my return to film, but also my revenge on that little tramp.” She took another long drag. “I was writing Mia out of the film.”
“Writing her out?” I asked. “But isn’t she the star of the show?”
Uh-oh. The second the words left my mouth, I regretted them. Margo froze, cigarette halfway to her lips, and gave me a death look.
“There are other inhabitants of Magnolia Lane, you know, ” she barked out. “Tina Rey and the electrician were the hot item in the ratings last season. And my lines have doubled since Blake went into that coma.”
“Right. Of course. Sorry.” Though I personally couldn’t imagine a Magnolia Lane without Mia. I mean, Blake in a coma and Nurse Nan hovering over him a story did not make. Where was the drama in that?
“Anyway, ” she went on, “that was going to be my revenge on the backstabbing bitch.”
“Was?” I asked, honing in on the word. “Did something change?”
Margo stood up, slashed her cigarette in the air. “Mia found out about film and pitched a royal fit! Suddenly the whole project’s on hold. And now with the letters and these murders, backers are talking about pulling out altogether. All because of that overrated prima donna.”
I waited while Margo took a long drag of her cigarette, exhaling vigorously before she sank down into the love seat opposite me, the plastic casing crackling beneath her frame. “I swear to God, if that wacko writing the letters offs Mia next, I’ll die a happy woman.”
I watched Margo’s nostrils flare in and out-thanks to the aggressive face-lift, the only part of her face that held any expression. The bad blood between the two actresses ran deep; that much was clear. Deep enough for Margo to kill two innocent victims just to get to Mia? I wasn’t sure. But if the treasure trove of artifacts filling her home was any indication, Margo took her films seriously. Mia’s sabotaging her comeback to the big screen just might be enough to put Margo over the edge.
I was about to ask Margo how well she had known Veronika when the maid came into the room again.
“Excuse me, miss, ” she said softly, addressing me.
I turned. “Yes?”
“There’s a woman out front. She told me to say”-the maid blushed-“to get your ‘fanny’ outside. She’s on the night shift tonight and if you don’t hurry the”-she paused again-“ ‘heck’ up she’ll take off without you.”
Any other time, I would have sent a return message that Porn Star Barbie could go to “heck.” But unfortunately she was my only ride.
I rose, painfully peeling my exposed thighs off the plastic couch, and thanked Margo for seeing me.
“Anytime, honey, ” she said, blowing smoke out through her nostrils. “My door is always open for a bitch session about Mia.”
Jasmine drove through the evening traffic back toward West Hills, having composed herself enough by now that instead of her seeming freaked, the set of her bony jaw just made her look pissed off. She was silent, no doubt using all her brainpower to mentally add up how much it was going to cost to have her baby fixed. I took the opportunity to check my voice mail. Just one message. I keyed in my PIN number and got an earful of Ramirez’s growl.
“I’m at your place, Maddie. I couldn’t help noticing that neither you nor my officer is here. Where the hell are you, Maddie?” he asked, his voice growing louder with each word. “I got a call about a woman shooting at a blonde in a McDonald’s parking lot. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?” Then the slam of his receiver hanging up echoed through my ears as the message clicked over.
Needless to say, I didn’t call him back.
I looked out the window. The sky was turning dusky pink and blue as the sun sank behind the hills. It was clear that I couldn’t go home tonight without risking a) a pissed-off cop with a pair of handcuffs, or b) a pissed-off crack head with a gun. Ditto Ramirez’s place. Despite his invitation this morning, I had a feeling he wouldn’t be all smiles and sunshine at seeing me right now.
I hit speed dial and called Dana’s number.
No answer on her cell, and Daisy Duke informed me that she hadn’t been home all day. Great.
I looked across the console at Jasmine. If I bribed her with a front-page mention, I could probably spend the night in her den of iniquity, but the idea of strangers touching their tab A while watching me sleep was creepier than a stuffed ferret.
Which left me with only one place to go.
I bit my lip.
“Hey, Jasmine, do you think you could drop me off someplace?”
She gave an exasperated sigh and looked at her dash clock. “If it’s on the way. Where?”
I took a deep breath, hoping the slime didn’t rub off as I gave Jasmine Felix’s address in the Hollywood Hills.