Trophies, p.44
Trophies, page 44
“Bullshit. Yer just mad ya got the short straw,” Pepper chuckled.
“This is good spot,” said Maya, elbowing Pepper in the ribs and indicating a security camera in a tree that was aimed at them. “Claire, is that diamond on ground in front of your shoe?”
“Where?” asked Claire, bending over and looking.
“Down there. Oh! You knock it down in grass!”
Claire bent all the way over, eagerly combing the lawn in front of her toes and completely unaware of the fact that she was mooning the security camera.
Pepper stifled a snort.
“Now they come quick,” Maya assured her.
Once Marion had made sure she wasn’t treading on a machete, she slowly straightened up through the pittosporum bushes and joined Patti and Vlad, who were peeking in her kitchen window. The honed white marble countertops, prep islands, and chopping blocks she was used to seeing overloaded with Roger’s creations were now forlornly bare, save for a few inventory lists.
Patti pointed at two empty wine bottles in the sink and grinned. “Good sign!” she whispered. “Let’s go wait at the door.”
Vlad grabbed her by the belt, “Wait. They could have used for cooking.”
“My wine?” asked Marion indignantly.
“And her staff?” asked Patti incredulously.
“You must be joking,” said Marion.
At that moment, as if to prove her right, Roger came lumbering into the kitchen swilling the rest of his glass, followed by Jeff, who was dangling his empty one between his fingertips. Neither man looked particularly pleased, but both looked blotto.
“I told you she doesn’t keep the Tiffany demitasse in the dining-room breakfront,” whined Jeff, checking the inventory list. “It’s down there in an unmarked crate or mixed up…somewhere.”
“Who gives a fuck besides the lawyer-of-the-living-dead?” growled Roger, disappearing into the staff dining room. “Making me stay here like a stock boy! Merde.” He returned with a full bottle of wine, set his glass down heavily, and refilled it. “Marion always used the Limoges, even on the boat. Richard didn’t even think about china this trip…because…because he doesn’t…have her taste!” Roger swiped at his eye with the back of his hand before consuming the contents of his glass.
“Aw. He misses you,” whispered Patti.
“He misses the boat and the bikinis,” whispered Marion as they watched Jeff stoop down behind an island.
“Let’s just keep going. Little help?” he asked.
Roger scowled and bent toward him, and together they hefted a crate into view then lifted the lid.
Jeff counted dishes while Roger refilled his glass for him. “Two, four, seven, eight, ten, fourteen—no, wait…ten, twelve…”
“We go to the door,” whispered Vlad before moving away.
Marion tried to follow, but Patti wasn’t budging.
“Is that the Villeroy and Bosch you use between the Oscars and spring? Because I’d like to borrow it for this dinner I’m doing for the planning commission…”
Marion gave her a shove.
Vlad silently cracked the kitchen door a hair and they all watched Jeff scribble down a dubious total on the inventory list. Roger regarded the crate and rubbed his back.
“Leave it for Charlie in the morning,” he said. “Let’s finish with light stuff tonight.”
“Hokay,” said Jeff, slurping at his newly refilled glass before shuffling after Roger toward a door at the base of the tower staircase. “That new wine’s good.”
“Like you would know,” said Roger, opening the door and revealing the continuation of the tower stairs, leading down to the basement.
As they descended, Vlad and Marion slipped into the kitchen and out to the foyer and started creeping up the grand staircase.
Patti scampered the other way, up the tower staircase (after grabbing a dish out of the crate).
When Maya saw Gary and Carter charging across the lawn in her direction, she tapped Claire on the back. “Oh, look. Is not diamond. Just piece of glass.”
“Mrs. Papadopoulos? Mrs. Hanson?” said Gary, slowing to a very shocked walk.
“Maya. Don’t-make-me-feel-old. And this is other end of Claire,” Maya purred.
Pepper immediately started surveying the back lawn. “Well, they could walk the floor an’ the tent back here, but they’d have ta crane in the set.”
“What are you doing here?” asked Gary. He caught Carter smiling at Claire and elbowed him.
“And how’d you get in?” Carter asked, suddenly all business.
“We’re location-scoutin’,” Pepper replied, letting her jacket fall open and allowing her cleavage to do the rest. “I know it’s late, but it’s the only time we could all get together. We need a place ta hold a fashion show fer charity.”
“A fashion show,” repeated Carter, growing hypnotized by her breasts.
“Yeah, a lingerie fashion show benefitin’ low-income kids…uh, ‘Undies fer Underprivileged.’”
Maya rolled her eyes.
“Ever hear a’ it?” Pepper asked.
Carter shook his head no.
“Mr. Zane is out of town,” said Gary, taking hold of Maya’s arm and motioning for Carter to take Pepper and Claire. “I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to escort you out.”
“Can ya do it around the opposite side a’ the house?” asked Pepper. “I wanna see where to put the Porta Potties.”
The three Trophies allowed themselves to be led toward the front entrance of the compound, maintaining a constant chatter about their fashion-show layout and avoiding the kitchen side of the mansion.
“You still didn’t tell us how you got in,” said Gary as they neared the front gate.
“Oh, Marion gave us the code,” said Pepper casually.
That brought Gary grinding himself and everyone else to a halt along-side the guardhouse. “We changed the codes,” he said, eyeing them suspiciously. “Does Mrs. Zane have the new ones?”
“Did Maya tell you she was modeling the ‘Undies’ in the fashion show?” asked Claire after receiving the internationally recognized signal for “Girl, that’s your cue!” from Pepper.
“Is really pretty stuff,” said Maya, letting her fur car coat fall open and giving the guards an eye-popping view of her tiny vintage Alaia stretchy tank that barely covered her crotch. She used her hands to outline her breasts. “There is little red satin push-up bra,” she breathed as Pepper peeled off and slipped into the guardhouse. Next, Maya outlined her loins. “And itsy-bitsy red satin G-string that tucks up between the bum cheeks. What were you asking?”
“Uh-huh,” answered Gary, whose blood had rushed away from his brain.
Carter made a stretch that turned into a flex. “Ahhh. Had a really good weight session today. Been working out with my old Navy SEAL unit. Mmm. I like to keep in shape because—”
“Where’d Mrs. Papapapadopoulos go?” asked Gary, without taking his eyes off of Maya.
“Oh, she had to pee,” answered Claire.
“Where?”
“In there.”
Gary followed her gaze. The sight of Pepper through the guardhouse window snapped him out of his trance.
“First we run, ohhh, twenty miles, thirty miles…” continued Carter, until Gary whapped him and pointed to the guardhouse.
“Mrs. Papadoupoulos! Mrs. Papadopoulos, we really can’t let you in there!” Gary yelled as he and Carter rushed the guardhouse with Maya and Claire on their heels.
Inside was a ten-by-six-foot room with a security console, two chairs, multiple screens, a coffeemaker, computer set-up, and a bathroom. Pepper was fiddling with the alarm system but spun around when everyone piled in.
“Sorry, false alarm,” she said with a shrug.
Gary gently took her arm and started guiding her to the door. “We have to keep this area restricted since—”
“I need to pee,” said Maya, lunging for the bathroom (and almost colliding with Carter, who had his hands full of the porn pictures he was hastily removing from the walls).
Gary gathered Claire’s arm in his other hand. “The rest of us can wait outside.”
At that moment Pepper sidekicked Claire, who suddenly buried her face in her hands and sobbed, “Oh, won’t somebody tell me which gun to buy!”
“Which what? Why do you need a gun?” asked a bewildered Carter. “Um, I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name…”
“Claire! Claire the loser!” she sobbed, while Pepper went back to work at the console. “I’m sorry, but I’m just so confused! It’s my husband’s birthday tomorrow and I want to give him a really good handgun, but so far, ten different people have recommended ten different guns and I just don’t want him to get hurt! Wah-ha-ha!”
While both of Marion’s security guards instantly weighed in on their personal choices of weapons, she and Vlad crouched at the top of the grand staircase, waiting for the cat’s cradle of red beams at their feet to dissolve.
At the opposite end of the Zane mansion, Patti Fink was in position on the second-floor landing of the tower staircase. She peeled off her jumpsuit and opened her pack as she watched Roger and Jeff lug another crate of dishes out of the basement.
Inside the guardhouse, Pepper was frantically trying to differentiate systems when Maya came out of the bathroom.
“Well, thanks a lot, we can go now,” said Claire, cutting off Carter’s agonizingly detailed description of a Heckler & Koch P30.
Seeing Pepper give the internationally recognized sign for “NOOO!,” Maya sidekicked Claire, who gave a frustrated sigh before commencing to spasmodically jerk her body and roll her eyes.
“Oh, no! She’s pitchin’ one a’ her fits!” cried Pepper, going back to the console.
“Oh, my God!” cried Gary, catching Claire as she fell back into his arms. “They didn’t cover this in my CPR class!”
Carter helped him ease Claire down to the floor of the guardhouse.
“Quick! Catch her tongue before she swallow!” yelled Maya, to buy Pepper more time (and a few great pictures for herself ).
Claire immediately started trying to spasm and shimmy away from the guards, but Gary caught her by the feet and dragged her back.
“I’ll hold her jaws apart!” he told Carter, who was rolling up his sleeves.
Pepper had the beams disengaged a minute later.
Ten minutes later, she and Maya decided to let Claire know about it.
Feeling her way in the dark, Marion had no problem leading Vlad down the colonnaded corridor and the hall of the family wing, but she grew confused upon entering what she’d thought was the master suite. “I think I got turned around,” she whispered. “This floor feels like the guest bedroom…Richard and my rooms are carpeted. Can we just switch that penlight on for a second?”
“Keep it low,” Vlad advised, passing the light to her.
Unfortunately, Marion didn’t keep it low and thus was able to discern the five big swipes of orange paint samples that were defacing the antique-silk-padded wall of her master sitting room. And the unlit neon wall sculpture of a kitten that could only have been chozen by Tawnee.
It burns! It burns!
“Are we in right room?” whispered Vlad, snatching back the penlight and switching it off.
“No. But we’re going in anyway,” she whispered, stifling her scream and taking his hand.
Marion later learned that Tawnee had also banished the silk plush carpet in the master bedroom after she tripped over a silver beanbag chair and landed with a bang on the black hardwood floor.
Roger and Jeff swayed slightly as they stared up at the ceiling.
“That was not the pipes,” said Roger, stumbling backward and pulling open his cutlery drawer.
“We should call the guardhouse,” said Jeff, trying to remember where the phone was located.
“Yes. And remember not to get your skirt wet when you sit down to pee.” Roger sneered and raised a wicked-looking cleaver. “A child can divide a Holstein with this blade.”
“Will it stopa bullet?” Jeff slurred.
“No, but your vagina will. Come on, there are two of us!” The red-eyed giant clamped down on Jeff ’s wrist, hauling him behind as he lurched toward the tower staircase. “No one!” he growled, taking a chop at the air.
“No one disturbs the kitchen of Roger Dufau!”
The bang was Patti’s cue.
She shook out the fringe on the sleeves of her white vintage dress (once worn by Stevie Nicks in concert!) and tucked a hair that was sticking to her white face paint into her flapper-style headband. As she leaned out over the spiral stairs, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the tower casement window and was pleased to see she’d painted a perfect 1920s moue on her lips.
Eat your heart out, Gilda.
If that child bride had looked only half this good, she might have stayed off the roof.
Roger and Jeff were too startled, terrified, and shit-faced to move. Dimly uplit from the glow of the kitchen light spilling into the stairwell, Patti indeed appeared to their eyes to be a spirit.
“Holy God, it’s the old-maid ghost,” Jeff croaked. “I was h-here when she ch-choked on her peanuts in the l-laundry room.”
Roger let his cleaver clatter to the floor and crossed himself. “Old and hideous!”
Patti was not amused.
“Are we in closet?” asked Vlad.
“Yes,” whispered Marion.
When he broke away from her, it took her a minute to figure out that he was feeling the walls for her safe.
“Uh-uh,” she whispered, pulling him into the next closet, where he broke away again and began the same exercise before she could stop him and pull him into the next closet.
Back in the guardhouse, Gary and Carter were trying to get a computer printout on the Heckler & Koch. Back on the guardhouse floor, Claire was sitting up, guzzling her third glass of water, trying to wash away the bacon taste of Carter’s knuckles from her tongue and memory.
At that moment Pepper whacked Maya and pointed to the third multi-screen above the console. Security camera three faced west and included a view of the tower’s second-story casement window. Its screen was currently framing an image of Patti-the-flapping-ghost.
“Ho-ly smokes!” Pepper yelled as Maya planted her pump on Claire’s chest and pushed her back down. “She’s seizin’ again!”
“Man, I’ll never get this printed,” Carter said, rolling up his sleeve.
In the tower stairwell, a mesmerized Roger and Jeff swayed drunkenly below Patti’s apparition, who was now trying to strike a more youthful pose.
“She must have been ninety when she died,” Jeff murmured, taking Roger’s hand.
Roger nodded in grim agreement.
Now Patti was just plain offended!
As this was going on, Marion pulled Vlad (who was now muttering in disbelief ) through the third closet and makeup room and into the last closet. “It should be on this wall,” she said.
Vlad switched on the penlight.
It burns! It burns!
Shielding her eyes from the sight of Tawnee’s sunflower wallpaper, Marion helped Vlad feel for the safe.
Back in the tower stairwell, Roger had fetched some more wine and he and Jeff were now seated on the floor, staring up at a pissed-off apparition and passing the bottle back and forth.
“No one will believe this,” mused Jeff.
Roger nodded. “It’s like looking at a mummy.”
Patti reached into the darkness and unscrewed a lightbulb from a sconce.
Vlad cut the last of the wallpaper away from the safe, spit on the thumb-recognition screen, and wiped it off with his sleeve. “Okay.”
After a squeamish hesitation (and a dirty look from Vlad), Marion pressed her thumb to the screen. Instantly it came to green life as the metal panel slid back.
What was it that John DeLorean said? Oh, yeah.
“Better than gold!”
Marion felt the Stage III power surging back into her body as she once again held her Black Book in her hands. After Vlad spit some more on the safe (eeew) and stuck the wallpaper back, they began to feel their way out of the master suite.
“What the hell are you doing?” Marion whisper-moaned as they met up with Patti on the second-floor landing of the tower.
“Improvising!” Patti hissed, before hurling fistfuls of lightbulbs down on her disrespectful audience.
Jeff and Roger tripped over each other as they ran screaming out the front door.
“Boo!” said Pepper, letting Vlad, Marion, and Patti out the service gate. At the sound of Jeff and Roger screaming across the front lawn, they all dove into the van with the blacked-out windows and Maya drove them away.
After the initial celebration inside the van, Claire sat back and resumed massaging her aching jaw. “What took you so long?” she yawned.
“Don’t feel bad,” Patti sniffed. “My two drank themselves blind!”
“Well, our diversion wuz gettin’ desperate,” countered Pepper.
Patti regarded Claire rubbing her jaw and could come to only one conclusion. “Marion,” she whispered. “She’s a really good friend.”
Pepper, riding shotgun, looked back at the Black Book Marion was clutching to her breast.
“So that’s the famous Black Book,” she mused. “It really does exist.”
Marion nodded. “Free at last, thanks to you,” she sighed.
Suddenly Pepper reached back and snatched it out of her hands. “Good. I wanna see what it says under my name in there!”
All of the Trophies wanted a turn.
78
Broad Beach Daylight
Marion had never thought to ask her mother what exact time of day she’d been born (at least not until her mother had become too far gone to remember). So, “I said, morning and stop bothering me!” was all she had to work with. It made astrological profiles difficult. But since they really weren’t that important to her, and her birth records had been destroyed in a fire, she’d let the question go. Besides, she was positive she’d been born at dawn. It was the time of day she cherished most.
