American.”
“So tell me something. Anything. As long as it’s not about your fetish for the big boys.”
Mary nodded. “That makes sense. Perfect sense. Okay, here’s what I know-”
The door burst open and slammed against the opposite wall.
“That’s enough!” Whitney Braggs said as he walked into the room accompanied by a tall, regal woman with a pinched face and frizzy hair.
“I am Joan Hessburg,” the woman said. She handed a card to Davies. “I am an attorney and Mary Cooper is my client,” the woman said. “Are you charging her with a crime, Detective?”
The Shark looked like a pile of horse manure had just been dropped at her feet.
“The cavalry led by Bob Barker,” Mary said. “I love it!”
“Motherfuckers kept us waiting for a half hour,” Braggs said, glaring at Davies.
Mary shook her head. The guy looked like a walking advertisement for Nautica but beat people up and had the mouth of a Navy construction worker. If it weren’t for his racial epitaphs, she could actually like him.
“Let’s go, Miss Cooper,” her new attorney said. She gave the Shark her card. “Contact me if you wish to further question my client.”
The Shark took the card and threw it on the floor, then headed for the door.
“Take her and get out,” the Shark said. “Good riddance.”
Mary called out to her, “Cute blouse!”
She turned to Braggs and her new attorney.
“You got here just in time,” Mary said. She nodded toward the departing Davies. “She was going to do a full cavity search on me. But here’s the awful part, she said she was going to have me do one on her afterward.”
Mary shook her head, and looked toward the mirror. “Sicko.”
Seventeen
Mary needed a drink, and she invited Braggs and the attorney. Of course, Ms. Hessberg begged off. Time is money was the unspoken excuse. She left Mary with a card and a lingering scent of Chanel. Or maybe J. Lo.
Mary had killed before. She’d shot an insane husband set on killing his ex-wife. She’d killed a drug dealer determined to kill her client’s son for some sort of supposed deal gone bad.
Each time, there was a delayed reaction. Initially, the justification was enough. Over time, however, it wasn’t easy. It was like a darkish cloud hanging over her for awhile. The immediate solution? Booze.
But Mary had to clean herself. So she had Braggs drive her home and sent him out for drinks. If the fucking guy was going to be around, he might as well be useful. By the time she had showered, Braggs showed back up with enough bottles of beer, booze and wine to satisfy a fraternity during Rush week.
She requested a double Jack Daniels on the rocks. Braggs quickly complied. Mary sat on the couch. She didn’t want to look out at the water, but she did.
“Have you ever had a lychee martini?” Braggs asked.
“If you live in L.A., you have to,” Mary said.
She heard him using a shaker and turned to see him pouring its contents into a martini glass. He came over and sat to her left, in a club chair facing the ocean.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked. The smooth voice had taken on the role of trusted confidante.
“No.”
“Okay.”
“Do you know who Noah Baxter is?” she said.
“Of course,” he said, and took a sip of his martini. Mary looked down at her drink. A bunch of ice. She held it out and shook it at Braggs. He hopped up and refreshed it, then brought it back to her.
“So?” she said.
“We all knew him,” Braggs said. “He was a stand-up, just like all of us. But he was the worst of the worst. He had a really, really dark sense of humor that never came across well with audiences. He shocked them instead of making them laugh. Not a good trait for a comedian.”
He drank from his martini and Mary drained half of her Jack on the rocks.
“He ended up writing for other comedians, who would take his stuff and lighten it up a little bit. It really wasn’t that bad, it just needed a little bit of…sanity.”
“Yeah, that’s the impression I had of him,” Mary said. Already her brain was going slightly numb. It felt good.
“But eventually, his stuff fell out of favor and as I recall, he had some personal problems. Drinking, drugs, or something.” Braggs waved his hand around as if a mosquito were bothering him.
“And then?” Mary said.
“And then he bought a one-way ticket to the Land of Hollywood Forgottens. It’s