Cold Blood Read online

  Lorraine went to her weightlifting class. She pushed herself to breaking-point, wanting to exhaust herself so she’d crash out and sleep when she got home. She blanked out Rosie’s doleful face. In truth, she was just as sad at the failure of the business, but unlike Rosie she knew she could not let it swamp her. If she had to move on, then she would do what had to be done. She knew she could not take responsibility for Rosie, it was tough enough taking it for herself, and if she was to survive then she had to put herself first, otherwise she’d go down. She had not been kidding when she had said she wanted a drink. She did. But she was not going to take one, well, not tonight. She knew by now that it never ended, the ‘thirst’ was never over. It was, and would continue to be, a constant battle for the rest of her life. Part of her wanted to fight it but sometimes, just sometimes, it seemed so pointless.

  Rosie was in floods of tears, sitting beside her dear friend Jake Valsack, who was patting her hand.

  ‘Well, maybe she’s right, Rosie. If it’s not working out on any front, more specifically financially, why flog a dead horse?’

  Rosie blew her nose. ‘She just came out with it, like she must have known a while back about this offer of a job. You see, she’s pregnant.’

  ‘What, Lorraine?’

  ‘NO! The goddamned store detective, the bitch!’

  Jake raised his thick, matted eyebrows. He was having a tough time following what Rosie was going on about, but surmised that Lorraine had a job and Rosie didn’t, and their so-called investigation business was kaput.

  ‘I mean, how could she do it, Jake? I decorated and painted the place, we got all that office furniture . . . I know it’s not much, but we got phone extensions put in, I got a word processor to pay off, a fax machine and a . . . It was me that got the desks, you know, and the furniture. It took us months to set up, how could she do this to me?’

  ‘She did it, Rosie, because you got no work offered, right? Am I right?’

  ‘That is not the point,’ she said stubbornly.

  Jake sneaked a look at his watch; the meeting was about to start. Rosie could carry on like this for a long time, he knew it of old, and no matter what he said she paid no attention, she just went round and round in circles.

  ‘What about that ex-captain, Rooney? I though you said he was gonna drum up work?’

  Rosie blew her nose. ‘Oh, him! He’s boozed out, his wife’s just died.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t know him, but how is he coping?’ Jake asked, trying to change the subject.

  Rosie continued as if there had been no interruption. ‘I mean, if you don’t stay with something, you know, really see it through . . . we got the office furniture and I schlepped all over yard sales for that . . .’

  Jake gripped her hand tighter. ‘Rosie, sweetheart, maybe Lorraine did just that, saw it through and came to the conclusion it wasn’t gonna work. It hasn’t worked.’

  ‘She never gave it a chance,’ Rosie snapped back.

  Jake sighed in frustration. He was in the chair this evening and he could see that the crowd of people arriving for the meeting was thinning out as they entered the hall. ‘Rosie, I got to go in now. Maybe talk this through after?’

  ‘I need to talk it through now, Jake.’

  He was trying to hold on to his temper. ‘Rosie, I have been talking it through with you for over an hour but you won’t face facts.’

  ‘Facts are, Jake, she just dumped me. We might have got overflow work from the other agencies.’

  ‘No, honey, facts are Lorraine’s talking sense. I mean, you think about this, you know her history, she was a drunk cop on duty, she got kicked out of her station, she shot a young kid, for chrissakes. You ever think that maybe, just maybe, none of the other agencies can take the risk of an ex-junkie, ex-alcoholic orderin’ their toilet paper, never mind taking on any overflow of cases? They know about her, so even if it’s tracin’ stolen vehicles—’

  ‘But we did a trace, we got three.’

  Jake rumpled his thinning hair; she was refusing to listen to him. ‘I got to go in, Rosie, like now, so come on, wipe your nose and let’s go in. You need a bit of stabilizing.’

  ‘I need a drink, Jake.’

  He closed his eyes. It was going to be a long, long night.

  They were just about to go back to square one when there was a tap on the window of his beat-up Pontiac. ‘Jake, it’s me, only I’ve welcomed everyone as I don’t think we’re going to get any more here tonight. Coffee is served and everyone’s waiting for you to take the chair.’

  The thin-faced woman in a rather expensive tailored suit stepped back from the car. Phyllis Collins didn’t even glance at Rosie, who was blowing her nose loudly.

  ‘Okay, Phyllis, I’m comin’ now.’ Jake stepped from the car, bent down to Rosie. ‘Let’s go, Rosie.’

  ‘No, I’m not coming in.’

  Jake gestured to Phyllis. ‘Do me a favour, Phyllis, she needs a bit of encouragement tonight. You’ve met, haven’t you?’

  Phyllis nodded and peered towards the passenger seat. ‘Good evening.’

  Rosie didn’t even acknowledge her as she delved into her bulging purse for a clean tissue. Jake raised his eyes to heaven and Phyllis gave him a reassuring smile.

  ‘You go in, I’ll stay with her. Go on, you can’t keep everyone waiting.’ Phyllis bent down to the car. ‘We’ve met a few times, I’m Phyllis Collins.’

  Rosie glared. She had no recollection of ever meeting the woman before and she had no intention of getting out of the car.

  ‘Jake can’t not go in, he’s chairing tonight. You mind if I sit with you?’

  Rosie shrugged, looking away, but she didn’t stop Phyllis from getting into the car. If nothing else, she was someone she could repeat the entire scenario to; she’d have spilled it all out to anyone, she was feeling so wretched.

  ‘My partner just dumped me.’

  ‘Oh, I am sorry, were you married long?’

  ‘My business partner. I’ve worked my butt off and tonight she just told me she had another job, just like that.’

  Phyllis nodded, her thin, plain face concerned. ‘Oh dear, no wonder you’re not feeling good.’

  Lorraine eased the wet iced cloth further over her sweating face. The heat in the sauna was so intense she could take only another few minutes. She was lying naked on the highest bench, two other women were flat out on the benches beneath her. No one spoke.

  Lorraine was wondering if Rosie was okay but she figured if Jake was with her she wouldn’t do anything stupid. She decided to clear out the change in her purse and get a bottle of alcohol-free cider to cheer her up. It looked like champagne and tasted like gnat’s piss, but Rosie loved it.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Lorraine murmured as she swung her legs down to the lower bench and then eased her body past one of the prone women who leaned up on her elbow to allow Lorraine to pass. She remained half-upright, staring at the tall woman as she left the sauna. She envied the beautiful, straight, muscular body and then became curious when she saw the patched scars across Lorraine’s arms, the small jagged razor lines and round burn marks.

  The same woman caught sight of Lorraine again in the changing room. Using a brush, she was blow-drying her fine silky blonde hair rather expertly.

  ‘I wish I could do that.’

  Lorraine turned, slightly puzzled, wondering if the woman was talking to her.

  ‘Save a fortune at the hairdresser’s. I can never do the back of my head.’

  Lorraine switched off the hair-dryer. ‘Oh, it just takes practice,’ she said politely, and concentrated on finishing her hair. When she walked out from the changing cubicle the nosy woman was talking confidentially to someone else, both their overweight bodies cushioned together in their white fitness club-issue towels.

  ‘She used to be a police lieutenant, drunk on duty, that was what I was told. She knows the gym instructor and he told me that . . .’

  Lorraine let her cubicle door bang hard and they whi
pped round like startled hamsters. She would have liked to tell them where she would like to ram the hairdryer but she didn’t. She said nothing. And all the tension her exercise and sauna had relaxed from her body was back. By the time she passed through reception she was wired and angry.

  Arthur, the gym instructor, gave her a friendly grin and called out, ‘Goodnight.’

  Lorraine kept on walking.

  Some friend he’d turned out to be. She decided she would not come back. She just knew she had better head directly for home instead of getting Rosie’s cider because that feeling of wanting a real drink was growing out of her control.

  Three bottles of Evian water downed between them, Phyllis and Rosie were sitting in a small café. Only it wasn’t Rosie spilling out her tales of woe, it was Phyllis, and she had Rosie’s rapt attention.

  ‘I suppose in some ways I stayed on because it was all so dreadful and I keep on saying to myself, “When it’s all over, I’ll leave.” But it’s not over, maybe it never will be. Sometimes it gets so bad with her I just don’t think I can take any more of it. She is so demanding, expecting me to be ready to drop whatever I am doing any time of day or night. If she wakes up at four in the morning, she can’t be bothered to use the intercom, she just screams my name. Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat because I think I’ve heard her shrieking for me, and other times, when she’s very sick because she’s taken so many pills to sleep, I just get rigid with fear and all I do is feel her pulse to see if she’s still breathing. It’s a wretched, terrible time for all concerned, a tragedy really . . .’

  Rosie took a big breath. ‘I used to see all her movies.’

  Phyllis poured the rest of the Evian into her glass.

  ‘“Used to” being the operative words. She hasn’t made a movie for maybe fifteen years.’

  Rosie leaned closer to Phyllis. ‘Why, why do you take it? Is it the salary? Oh, I’m sorry, that was rude, you don’t have to answer that, I’m sorry.’

  Phyllis pursed her lips, becoming defensive. ‘No, no, it’s not the salary, believe me, and lately we’ve not travelled the way we used to, she’s hardly left the house.’

  Rosie nodded. ‘Yeah, I guess it must be awful.’

  ‘It is, every time the phone rings. Not that she answers, just screams for me to do it, and so I get all tensed up, over and over again, hoping for news and afraid it will be bad, the worst . . . She was such a pretty girl.’ Phyllis started to sniffle, opening her purse to take out a small lace handkerchief. Rosie noticed it was a very expensive suede-lined purse, with a gold chain threaded with leather for a strap. ‘I’m so sorry to get like this, but I don’t have many friends, no one to really talk to. That’s why since I joined AA, it’s meant so much to me, you know. And Jake, he’s such a dear man, he’s been wonderful.’

  ‘Oh yeah, I know, he’s a godsend to me too. Would you like another glass of water, Phyllis? Or we could go on to something stronger, like apple juice?’

  Lorraine was waiting to apologize to Rosie when she heard heavy footsteps on the stairs leading up to the apartment.

  ‘Rosie?’

  Jake opened the screen door and then peered in. ‘Nope, it’s me. She’s not here then?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘I’ll drive around, see if I can find her. She took it hard about the business folding.’

  Lorraine lit a cigarette. ‘Yeah, well, I’m not out celebratin’ myself, Jake, but one of us has got to earn the rent.’

  ‘You’re right, you’re right. So stay put, I’ll drive around.’

  ‘Was she at the meeting?’ Lorraine asked with just a tinge of concern.

  ‘Outside it, I left her with Phyllis whatever her name is. I just hope the two of them aren’t out some place tying on a load. See ya.’

  Her heart sank when not long after Jake had left she heard a bellow from the street and then Rosie’s footfalls. The small apartment, which only had one bedroom, a tiny bathroom and a lounge with a kitchen crammed into a corner annexe, was on the second floor of an old house on Marengo Avenue. The apartment below was occupied by an ever-growing family of Hispanics. Luckily, they created much more noise themselves, their radio and TV sometimes turned up so loud you could hardly hear yourself speak; anyone else having to live beneath the thunder of Rosie’s footsteps would have had a nervous breakdown.

  ‘Hey! You won’t believe what I got to tell you.’ Rosie’s cheeks were flushed pink with the exertion of hurrying home. She gasped for breath.

  ‘Rosie, how much have you had?’

  ‘I’ve got more bottled water swilling around inside me than the main water tank.’ Rosie kicked off her shoes and chucked her coat aside, hurling her purse on to the sofa, and then, with her hands on her wide hips, she beamed from ear to ear. ‘I think we just got lucky.’

  ‘You want some coffee?’

  ‘No, sit down and listen, right now. Go on, siddown. Okay, now, you ever heard of a very famous movie star called Elizabeth Seal?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Rosie threw her hands up in the air. ‘Of course you have, The Maple Tree, you remember that one. And you gotta remember The Swamp and Mask of Vanessa, yes?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘For chrissakes, we saw it on cable. The movie star Elizabeth Seal is famous, you gotta know who I’m talking about, late seventies, eighties, she was . . . huge!’

  ‘Have you been drinking with her?’

  Rosie flopped down on the sofa bed, which creaked ominously. ‘Don’t be dumb, as if Elizabeth Seal would be out drinkin’ water with me in Joe’s Diner. She’s a big movie star! Maybe you heard of the name Caley? Elizabeth Caley? That’s her married name.’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Holy shit, I don’t believe you. Elizabeth and Robert Caley have been headlines, well, almost a year ago they were. Every paper ran their story, even the TV, it was headlines because of her bein’ so famous. Their daughter went missing, you listening? Their eighteen-year-old daughter, Anna Louise Caley, disappeared.’

  Lorraine was trying to recall their names but she still had a blank. Nothing new in that, there were big gaps of months, even years, when she hadn’t even recalled her own name, never mind anyone else’s.

  Rosie sipped the coffee. She was so excited she was sweating, her eyes bright like a child’s. ‘She disappeared without trace. They had the police involved, they had mystics, psychics, ’cos they had a big reward on offer. But they got no ransom note, no phone calls, no notes, nothin’. Like she just disappeared into thin air. Cops reckoned she might have been kidnapped and it went wrong and they killed her . . . They think she’s been bumped off and . . .’

  Half an hour later, Lorraine was sitting with her head in her hands, still unsure what Rosie was so excited about. ‘I mean, Rosie, if according to this Phyllis woman the Caleys have hired the top private investigation agencies, why come to us?’

  ‘Because nobody has found her yet and they’re still spending thousands. They’re mega rich, Lorraine, and they keep on shellin’ dough out.’

  Lorraine held up her hand. ‘Wait, wait, Rosie, please, just you hear me out now. If the . . . Caleys, yes? have already over the past . . . how long did you say?’

  ‘Eleven months or so, happened during Mardi Gras in New Orleans,’ Rosie said eagerly.

  ‘What? In New Orleans? Are you serious?’

  ‘Yeah, what you think, I’m makin’ all this up?’

  Lorraine sighed. ‘Rosie, if it went down in New Orleans they’re not likely to hire private dicks located in LA, are they?’

  ‘Yes, they already have, Phyllis told me. Cops were working on it here as well, they live here, right?’

  Lorraine raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘If they have paid out all this money and still got no result, what makes you think they would be willing to shell out some more, say, to us, which I presume is what all this hysteria is about?’

  ‘I’m not hysterical, for chrissakes.’

  ‘Okay, but facts are facts, Rosie. Why do you thin
k they’d be interested in taking on Page Investigations Agency, i.e. you and me? Just because you’re in AA with the family’s secretary is not what I would call a great introduction.’

  Rosie yelled, ‘I never fuckin’ mentioned you were a soak, I built you up, said you were one of the best. I even gave a good line about havin’ Rooney as part of our team, you know, him bein’ ex-Captain, that kind of thing. She was impressed, she was real impressed.’

  ‘She was?’

  The sarcasm was lost on Rosie. ‘Yeah, she was. I gave her our card and she said she was gonna talk to Mrs Caley.’

  ‘Oh, and when she’s talked, then what?’

  ‘Look, she’s trusted by them, worked for them for years, right? And she knows that Elizabeth Caley is desperate, like going nuts, because she just wants to know what happened to her daughter, and she’ll pay anythin’ to find out.’

  ‘And you gave them our card?’

  ‘Yes! An’ I’m not stupid, you know, ’cos first I was all upset, right? Like tellin’ her about my partner quitting, but soon as I smelled a big fish on the line I sort of made out the new job you got offered was some big murder investigation, not just actin’ as a store detective. I’m not dumb, I know how to spin a good yarn when I need to. I said you was in demand.’

  ‘So how long do we wait for her to get back?’

  The phone rang. Lorraine stubbed out her cigarette, nodding to it. ‘That’ll be Jake, you got him all wired up. He’s been looking for you so you answer it.’

  Rosie snatched up the phone. But it wasn’t Jake, it was Phyllis, and she wanted details of Page Investigations’ company background sent round as soon as possible for Mrs Caley. She replaced the receiver with a smirk.

  ‘See? She did talk to her, just like I