Moment in Time II
Chapter 25
P.I. Caramba
Dollface had caught a brand new murder, an actress who went my the moniker of Anahita Menendez. My day was duller than day old dishwater. It was 11 in the morning. My phone was quieter than a dead church mouse. My head hurt after hitting the sauce like there was no tomorrow. For all I knew, there was no tomorrow. I was about to pour a smile in my coffee, have a little hair of the dog that bit me when she walked in. She was a Latin beauty and hotter than a jalapeňo. Her name was Sofia Del Cordova. Somehow she was entangled in the Menendez affair, and she had come to procure my services on Dollface's recommendation. Later I would have to show Dollface my gratitude.
Hoping to get my own angle on the case, I questioned Sofia about Menendez, but far from grief stricken, she had a more material loss. Menendez had borrowed Sofia's purse, a diamond encrusted accessory owned not by Sofia, but by designer to the stars, Arthur Radcliffe. If the item was not returned by five P.M. on the morrow, Sofia would be on the hook for a cool half mil. I was her last hope against a future of financial disaster.
I picked up the trail at the opera house, a destination high brow enough for the white gloved Menendez. The place was as empty as a pauper's pockets except for a table stocker named Ronnie. A fan of my many bestsellers and of the steamy good looks of Menendez, he was eager to share what he knew. He knew plenty. If Menendez was an opera fan, her timing and direction were off. She had arrived minutes before the finale and headed not to the performance but to the room where men dare not go - except for this man.
My trail led straight to Dollface, who had found the palace of porcelain and was engaged in pumping Pam, the attendant. Pam was primed to spill events not related to female primping and powdering. Menedez had met with a mysterious middle eastern femme fatale who'd passed her a USB drive. That drive was was in the high priced purse that would be my payoff. Pam couldn't put a name the dame, but believed the woman to be a regular patron of the joint. The helpful attendant would connect Dollface with a manager who might be able to pin the face to a name from her list of the high, mighty, and cultured, but I had no such entree. And as enticing as uncovering the identity of the mysterious messenger might be, it would bring me no closer to closing the file on my own case.
I returned to Ronnie, my previous fountain of information. Ronnie wanted me to throw in more than a few pennies, but spilled that Menendez had been picked up by a white limo, purse still in hand. Then the hammer fell. Ronnie remarked on the smoking hot detective he'd also set on the limo's trail. Dollface was ahead of me again.
I met with Sofia to give her the rundown on what I'd uncovered. She seemed unimpressed by my worn shoe leather and demanded that she be further clued in that evening. Night came too fast and I was no closer to a solution when Dollface knocked on my office door seeking my services, and not in a professional capacity. We were just diving below the surface of matters when Sofia appeared, breathing fire. After Dollface and I had been skewered over the flames, Sofia tried to toss me from the case.
It wasn't going to happen. Richard Castle is no quitter and as hard as Sofia would try to shake me loose, I wasn't going anywhere. That purse was out there and this private dick would hunt it down. Grabbing my laptop, I strutted my stuff for her, uncovering the telltale VIN number that would lead me to the limo and the purse. I was back in the game. I just needed a trace on the number - if I could get Dollface to cooperate.
Dollface was awake and waiting when I arrived at our love nest. I was hoping that her welcome would extend to the little favor I needed, but it was not on her agenda. Dollface's response was a cold as the sheets on my side of the bed.
It was a long lonely night, but in the light of morning I thought of another card to play. A perfect impersonation of Detective Ryan to a clueless clerk at the DMV bought me my ticket to limoland. That's when my luck turned from bad to worse. I didn't find the purse, but a deadly driver found me.
My knife wielding captor wanted answers and I had none. My life with Dollface was passing before my eyes when she burst through the door with her boys Ryan and Esposito. I was free. Ryan and Esposito also freed me from my Knicks floor seats as their ransom for the save.
They had a would be killer, but I still had no purse. It wasn't in the limo; there was only one place left. I returned to Ronnie at the opera house. Under my skillful questioning he revealed that he hadn't actually put his peepers on Menendez entering the limo with the purse. For another contribution to his retirement fund, he let loose that his last view of her had been at the curb. My keen eyes scoped out the only possible hiding place, in a nearby burst of green. The expensive accessory was finally in my hands.
I called Sofia with news of my success and returned to my office to await her arrival. But I couldn't just end the case with the retrieval of the expensive clutch. The USB drive called out begging to share its secrets. I was helpless to resist. As I made haste to transfer the digital data to my laptop, the purse crashed to the hard surface of my desk, shaking loose one of it's shiny baubles. Curious, I examined the jewel, testing it against the surface of my magnifying glass. It left no scratch. Whatever the bag had been encrusted with, they were not diamonds. Sofia had pulled a number on me.
No sooner did I wrap my head around that realization than she came through my door. She wanted the USB drive and she had a gun to ensure she got it. Using all my P.I. skills, I managed to wrest it from her grasp.
I delivered Sofia to Dollface and the boys on a silver platter, despite Esposito's disparagement of my efforts. Unknown to me, the gun had been a prop Sofia had snagged from the set, a fact he sneeringly threw in my ruggedly handsome face. Despite the threat of my imminent demise, I'd boldly made the collar.
Interrogation revealed that the USB drive was the key, a hundred million dollar key, to a business deal due to go south by Sofia's five P.M. deadline, if she didn't use it. It also revealed that my client, though devious, was not deadly. She was not Sofia's killer, but the hundred million dollar deal was the lead we needed to lay bare who was.
It all traced back to Spanish soaps, the story being as soapy as they come. Ana Menendez and Sofia Del Cordova had made a deal with our mystery woman, Layla Nazif, to expand the reach of their feminine power with the first Latin American, all female driven network. Unfortunately for the future filmic moguls, the owner of Santos Desperadas had bugged Sofia's trailer and discovered the plan. Realizing that the loss of his top stars to another network would spell his financial ruin, he sought to kill the deal by killing Ana. Dollface and the boys delivered him to a ruin more permanent.
Dollface and I blew the precinct like peas in a pod. As the sun set over the mean streets of the naked city, I could feel my luck was about to change. The killer was caught, my case was closed, and hanging on my arm was the dame of my dreams. Now I just had to collect my fee from Sofia - and my personal payoff from Dollface.