Hollywood Holiday Read online

  “Well, don’t keep him waiting,” she chided.

  “Don’t worry, I don’t plan to.”

  Unfortunately, traffic getting out of the parade area was just as bad as getting in. The more word spread of the accident, the more people were showing up on the off chance they might get to wave “Hi, Mom” behind one of the local newscasters on the scene.

  It was almost an hour later when I finally pulled up to my condo complex. I killed the engine on my Honda Rebel, slowly walking it into the Palm Grove retirement community in South Pasadena.

  My great-uncle Sal had long ago gone to the big bingo game in the sky and left my great-aunt Sue on her own. Which, as it turns out, wasn’t such a good thing as she was prone to put pot roast in the freezer and ice cream in the oven. So, I’d moved in to keep her company and keep the fire department at bay. The rent for the prime location couldn’t be beat, and I had the pool to myself as soon as Jeopardy! came on. All in all, a living situation that suited me fine.

  “I’m home!” I called as I pushed through the front door.

  “Is that my favorite niece?” Aunt Sue called from the sofa.

  “Your one and only.” I stooped to give her a kiss on her cheek. She smelled like Bengay and rose water, a combination that was strangely pleasant.

  “How was your day, dear?” she asked, yelling to be heard over Wheel of Fortune playing at top volume on the TV.

  “Great.”

  “What?”

  “It was good!”

  “Speak up!”

  “Where’s your hearing aid, Aunt Sue?”

  “My marmalade?”

  “HEARING AID!” I shouted.

  She smiled and waved me off. “I don’t need that thing. I can hear the TV just fine.”

  So could half of L.A. County.

  “Hey, guess what?” Aunt Sue said, diverting the subject.

  “What?” I played along.

  “Gertie broke her hip at the seniors’ ballet class today.”

  It was easy to see where I got my love of gossip. “Ouch,” I replied.

  “No kidding. Lucky it was her plastic one, so they’re just putting a new one in. It’s her third hip in three years.”

  Sometimes I had the feeling Aunt Sue’s friends were 90 percent plastic parts.

  “You eaten yet?” I asked. I sniffed at the air. A faint smell of burnt rubber wafted in from the kitchen.

  Uh-oh.

  Aunt Sue shook her head. “Nope. But there’s a ham in the oven.”

  I walked into the kitchen and peered in said oven. A ham was, indeed, sitting there. Only Aunt Sue had forgotten to take it out of the packaging. The ham was dripping with melted plastic “gravy.”

  I turned off the oven, grabbed the phone, hit number one on our speed dial, Pedro’s Pizza, and ordered a large everything.

  An hour and several slices of heaven later, Aunt Sue was snoring happily beneath an afghan on the sofa with a rerun of Walker, Texas Ranger blaring from the TV. I slipped into my bedroom to get ready for my date.

  I pulled on a black T-shirt with a pair of big red lips on it, put on some big hoop earrings, and painted my lips a hot ruby red to match my shirt. I slipped on a pair of lacy red panties, just in case things got fun, and I did a little hair fluffing. I added thick mascara and smoky eyeliner. Then I looked in the mirror and decided the eyeliner was a bit much and wiped it off. I checked my watch. 8:43.

  I had a few minutes left, so I pulled out my laptop and googled the band Twelve.

  Admittedly, I didn’t know a whole lot about them. They were before my time, musically speaking. In the late eighties they’d been one of the biggest pop-metal bands on the Sunset Strip. Ratted hair, lots of eye makeup, and skintight neon-colored pants. Their bios read like the typical rock-and-roll story…trashed hotel rooms, rehab stints, and lots of rumors linking them to the hot young starlets of the day. As Max had mentioned, they’d had one big hit, “Summertime Girl,” which had consisted of a lot of screeching guitar and synthesized keyboards. I pulled up their music video on YouTube. I had to admit, it had kind of a catchy chorus. And the bass line did lend itself nicely to the modern dance remix I’d heard on the parade videos. I could see how some savvy producer had decided to turn it into a new holiday hit.

  I watched the band in their heyday, looking twenty-five years younger than they had in the parade footage. I had to admit that Dusty had been kinda hot back then, in an androgynous sort of way beneath all the Aqua Net and eyeliner. The band was singing at a junkyard, and a video vixen was doing some sexually suggestive aerobics on the hood of a Chevy. Very summery.

  I switched to a Wikipedia entry on the band, getting a quick rundown on the “where are they now’s. After “Summertime Girl,” Twelve had fizzled. They’d done a couple of ballads that had decent radio play, but as soon as the grungers had burst on to the scene, Twelve had disappeared from the public eye. A couple of the guys had taken jobs as studio musicians, and one had done a reality dating show. Dusty had continued playing in small venues to throwback crowds. None of them had seen anything close to the status of “rock star” in at least two decades.

  Until now.

  I was just thinking how sad it was that Dusty wouldn’t get to enjoy the band’s newfound fame when a binging sound erupted from my computer, signaling that I had a Skype call. I hit Accept, and my screen was immediately filled with a tall, broad-shouldered guy wearing a day’s worth of sexy stubble and a grin that showed off a delicious dimple in his left cheek. My heart fluttered in my chest. My date.

  “Hey, babe,” he said.

  “Hey, yourself, handsome,” I flirted.

  His grin widened. “I like the red lipstick. Hot.”

  I puckered up, doing a kissy-face for him.

  He chuckled back.

  Cal and I had been dating for the past few months. He worked as a bodyguard, mostly doing celebrity stuff and private short-term assignments. Unfortunately, that meant he was regularly out of town. His job, coupled with the fact that tabloid reporters didn’t exactly keep nine-to-five hours, meant our schedules were hard to match at best. Completely opposite at worst. And things somehow seemed to be “at worst” more often than “at best.” Not the greatest conditions in which to start a relationship.

  At the moment we were still in that indefinable area. We’d yet to use the words boyfriend or girlfriend, and the biggest commitment I had was a toothbrush at his place. But if I saw him with another woman, I’d probably scratch her eyes out.

  Then his.

  “So, how was your day, hot stuff?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

  I rolled my eyes. Cal was currently in Washington, D.C. guarding some politician. He told me he couldn’t say who, or the Secret Service might have him taken out.

  “Come on, it’s Obama, right? Or maybe an Obama teen?”

  “Okay, I’ll give you a hint,” he said, leaning in close to his screen. I did the same. “There’s a vowel in this person’s name.”

  I gave my screen the finger.

  Cal laughed. “God, I miss you.”

  There was that flutter again. “Me too. When are you coming home?”

  He sighed. “Soon. I hope. They keep extending the detail.”

  “By Christmas?” I asked. This was our first holiday together, and somehow in my mind it solidified our relationship to actually spend it together.

  Cal paused. “Maybe.”

  “Just maybe?” I could hear my voice rising into whining territory.

  “I promise I’ll do my best to be there by Christmas.”

  “Try hard, okay?”

  “Will do. So, how was your day?” he asked, obviously trying to change the subject.

  I shrugged. “The usual. Clooney has a new girlfriend, Gaga wore a hat made out of chicken feathers, and a rock star was pushed off a holiday float by a snowman.”

  Cal raised an eyebrow. “I miss Hollywood.”

  My turn to chuc
kle. “Yeah, well, Hollywood misses you.”

  I heard a noise in the background, and Cal looked over his shoulder. “Hey, I gotta go, babe.”

  I sighed. “Already?”

  He shot me a lopsided grin that said he didn’t want to part with his screen any more than I did. “Sorry. Duty calls.”

  I nodded, trying to swallow down my disappointment. We hadn’t even gotten to the lacy panties part yet. “Right. I get it.”

  “Sorry,” he said again. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Same time?”

  I nodded. “And, hey, be careful,” I added.

  Cal smiled. “Will do. Bye, babe.”

  And then he was gone, and I was staring at a blank screen.

  I flopped onto my bed, not bothering to take off the lipstick before I fell asleep.

  The next morning I was on a mission: I had to talk to the guys in Twelve. The thing that wasn’t so clear was how I was going to get in to see them. Believe it or not, famous celebrity types aren’t always excited to see paparazzi knocking at their door. Shocking, I know.

  Luckily, I knew one type of person that musicians were always happy to see knocking at their door: groupies.

  I grabbed a plaid skirt that had a slight schoolgirl look to it and paired it with some thigh-high white stockings and my combat boots. I added a tank top that was a size too tight and decided to duplicate the over-the-top smoky eyes I’d nixed last night. By the time I was done, I looked pretty darn slutty, even if I did say so myself. I grabbed Strawberry Shortcake and headed for the door.

  “Where are you going, dear?” Aunt Sue asked, blinking at me from behind her bifocals at the kitchen table as she spooned Sweet’N Low onto her grapefruit.

  “Going to grill some musicians, Aunt Sue.”

  “Sounds like fun! Hey, you see Sinatra, tell him I’m single,” she said, waggling her sparse eyebrows up and down.

  “Will do!” I promised. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Sinatra was more likely to be playing bingo with Uncle Sal in heaven’s VFW hall than chatting with me today.

  According to my sources, Twelve had set up their publicity headquarters at the Beverly Hotel on Wilshire. It was a trendy high-rise with a steep price tag and excellent security. Not optimal for my purposes, but I could work with what I had.

  I wedged my bike between two Priuses a block and a half away, then hiked in, rehearsing my spiel the entire way. I pushed through the glass front doors and crossed the lobby to the elevators like I owned the place. And if the elevator car hadn’t been so slow, I might have slipped in just that easily.

  “Excuse me, young lady,” a voice asked behind me as I waited for the elevators to open.

  I spun to find a guy in a cheap suit with a pin on his lapel that read SECURITY.

  “Yeah?” I asked, trying to channel the bored, entitled accent of a Beverly Hills teen.

  “May I help you?”

  “Just waiting for the elevator.”

  “Are you a guest here?”

  I pursed my lips. “I’m a guest of a guest.”

  “And that guest would be?”

  “The band Twelve.”

  The security guy looked me up and down, then raised one skeptical eyebrow in my direction.

  “I’m a groupie,” I informed him.

  Cheap Suit snorted. “In combat boots? I don’t think so, sweetheart.” Then before I even had a chance to sputter back a scathing retort about my fave footwear, he grabbed me by the arm and propelled me right back out of the glass doors I’d just entered.

  “Sorry, kid, you’re not their type,” he told me before the doors shut in my face.

  I narrowed my eyes and thought about $5.50 worth of bad words.

  Fine. It was time to call in the big guns. I scrolled through the contacts on my phone until just the right face popped up. It rang three times on the other end before a breathless voice answered, “Hello?”

  “Hey, Allie, it’s me. I need a favor.”

  “Does it involve a story?” she asked, suspicion in her voice. As it should be. Most days my mission in life was to scoop Allie on any story I could, let alone one as big as murder on Santa Claus Lane. And, to be fair, her mission was usually to scoop me.

  “Maybe,” I hedged.

  “What’s the favor?”

  “I need you to be a groupie so I can get in to see the band Twelve.”

  I heard more deep breathing on the other end as I waited for her reply. I prayed to God whatever had her panting did not involve my editor.

  “This is about Dusty Miller’s death, right?” she asked.

  There wasn’t any point denying it. “Yeah. But it’s my story,” I quickly added.

  More panting on the other end.

  “Hey, you okay?” I asked.

  “I’m on the elliptical at the gym.”

  Of course she was. Allie was slim, cellulite-free, and had the body of a porn star. She must live at the gym.

  “Tell you what,” Allie finally said. “I’ll be your groupie, but I need a favor from you in return.”

  Uh-oh.

  “What kind of favor?”

  “It’s about Felix.”

  “What about him?” I asked, my thoughts again going to the horizontal mambo everyone speculated the two were routinely dancing.

  “I need a key to his place.”

  I scrunched up my nose. “Please don’t tell me you’re stalking him.”

  I heard her shaking her head on the other end. “No. It’s for his birthday. I want to surprise him with…something,” she said, trailing off mysteriously. If the something involved whipped cream and strategically placed strawberries, I didn’t want to know.

  “Anyway, I need to get into his place, so I need a key.”

  “Why not just ask for one?” I reasoned.

  “No way!” Allie screeched into my ear. “Ohmigod, he’ll think I’m, like, psycho or something.”

  Which, of course, she wasn’t. She just wanted to break into his house.

  “Okay, fine,” I relented. “I’ll swipe the key for you.” Somehow. “Just, meet me at the Beverly Hotel ASAP. And look slutty!”

  I heard Allie giggle on the other end. “This is going to be fun, isn’t it?”

  Famous last words.

  Forty-five minutes later, true to her word, Allie appeared, wearing a high-cut mini-skirt, and low-cut cami tank, and a pair of heels that made her legs look ten feet long. If I were a guy, I’d be getting excited. As it was, I was a reporter on a deadline, so I was getting antsy.

  “What took you so long?” I hissed.

  “You can’t rush perfection,” she shot back. She gave me a quick up and down. “What’s with the Catholic uniform? You going to church or something?”

  “Ha, ha. Very funny. This was supposed to be my slutty schoolgirl outfit.”

  She blinked at me. Then her ruby lips curved into a smile. “Oh, honey, you got a lot to learn about slutty.”

  Apparently.

  I gave Allie the lowdown on my issues with Cheap Suit. Then I watched as she sashayed through the glass doors, stopped at the front desk to chat with the clerk, then sauntered over to the elevator and hit the button to summon the car. Like a beacon, it brought Cheap Suit out of his hidden security cubby to question her.

  I couldn’t hear what they were saying from outside, but I could see the body language. Allie did some hand gesturing. Cheap Suit crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head no. Allie clasped her hands together in a pleading motion and leaned in, displaying a motorboat-load of cleavage. Cheap Suit’s shoulders relaxed a little. Allie touched his arm with her manicured hand. His arms uncrossed, hanging at his sides as he leaned in and smiled.

  Finally, Allie clapped her hands in glee. She turned to the glass doors, and gestured me in.

  Wow. The girl was good.

  Cheap Suit barely even gave me a glance, his glazed-over eyes fixed on Allie as I crossed the lobby to her and stepped into the elevator.

  “Thanks again, Eduardo,”
Allie cooed to the guy as I joined her. “You are a total doll.”

  “What did you say to him?” I asked as the doors slid closed and we made our way to the penthouse suite.

  She shrugged. “Trade secret. Can’t give you all of my tricks, now can I?”

  I rolled my eyes so far up I could see my brunette roots.

  The elevator doors slid open at the penthouse, which was a buzz of activity. The main room of the suite had a dining room to one side, a kitchenette beyond it, and a large bar spanning the opposite wall, leading down into a sunken living room. Bedroom doors opened up off both sides of the suite, and I could see bright lights and cameras set up inside. Presumably, this was where they were conducting their “select” media interviews today.

  The surviving members of Twelve were all assembled in the sunken living room in various states of PR damage control. Two guys sat on the sofa, wearing layers of pancake makeup and overly hip feathered earrings. I recognized them from my googling as the bassist and keyboard player, both of whom were downing glasses of amber-colored liquid like it was milk. I spotted the lead singer, Baxter, on his cell, standing on the balcony, waving his arms. And the guitar player was huddled in the corner, his head close to a woman in a suit holding a notepad and mumbling about the schedule.

  Allie and I made for the guys with the drinks.

  Tabloid 101: the more drunk a celebrity is, the better the quotes you’ll get.

  “Griffin Moore?” I asked, addressing the older of the two, a guy with salt-and-pepper hair held in a ponytail and dark circles under his bloodshot eyes.

  He looked up, gave me a cursory glance, then did a slow scan of Allie’s Slutty Barbie outfit. “That’s me,” he acknowledged. More to Allie’s breasts than to me, but I wasn’t going to be picky.

  “I’m Tina Bender, and I’m just such a huge fan,” I gushed. “It’s a total honor to meet you.”

  “Thanks,” he told Allie’s breasts.

  “Allie,” my distracting companion said, sticking a hand his way.

  He took it, lingering on a handshake. Then he turned to the guy sitting beside him. “Zane, man, I think we’ve got real live groupies here. You know how long it’s been since we had groupies?”