“Interesting name.”
“Wait ’til you meet her. She’s the best, excellent at her job. I’m going to have her fix me up before anyone else sees me.”
“There’s more than one makeup person on the show?”
“There are at least twelve actors shooting any given day, so the four makeup people we have are kept busy, but Lou Lou always does me.”
“Can I get you anything? Tea, water? All right then, you sit back and relax and we can get started if it’s okay with you.” At her nod, he took out his notebook again and sat down on the green patterned love seat facing her. “You told me you ducked into the army salvage store in the Country Mart to avoid Puker Hodges?”
“Yep. I bought this wonderful pea green T-shirt-”
He liked how that green T-shirt looked on her, noticed the dirt, and nodded for her to continue.
She went through it all slowly, he asked questions and she remembered more, then finally, “…I was lying flat on my back on a gurney, a paramedic placing an oxygen mask over my nose, and there was Puker, hovering over me, snapping photos. You know the rest.”
He looked thoughtful. “I don’t recognize the description of the bag lady you gave one of your T-shirts to, but someone will since we don’t have many homeless people in Malibu. I’ll check her out.”
“She loved the T-shirt. I’ll bet she’s still wearing it.”
“We’ll locate her. Now, about Carlo. Well, everyone knows Carlo. Did you go to his birthday party last month? A cookout on the beach thrown by Ben Affleck?”
“I couldn’t make it. A friend on OLTL-One Life to Live-had a baby shower. I heard Carlo gave midnight surfing lessons to fifty drunk naked people.”
“Sounds about right. Carlo just turned seventy, can you believe that?”
Mary Lisa nodded. “He’s taught a couple dozen stars how to surf over the years.”
“Okay, let’s get back to it. Carlo swore to my deputy that this guy ran you down on purpose, no way it was a hit and run.”
“As best as I can remember how it happened, yes, it was on purpose. He wasn’t weaving around like he was drunk. He came right at me.”
“Now, MacKenzie Corman, the wannabe actress with the white poodle. I’ve seen her around. I’ll speak to her as well. You’re sure the dark car that hit you was a Buick LeSabre?”
“Lou Lou owns a powder blue LeSabre, a 2000 model. It was identical to hers as far as I could tell, except for the color. It was black, possibly, or really dark blue.”
“Excellent. It was the front left fender that struck your side?”
Mary Lisa closed her eyes, pictured herself being knocked to the street in that frozen moment, and slowly nodded. “Yeah, it hit me pretty hard. You think maybe I left a dent in the fender?”
“Not likely, but who knows? We’ll get a list of all dark four-door 2000 LeSabres registered in the area, see if you recognize any of the owners’ names. You said you didn’t see who was driving. No feeling if it was a man or a woman?”
She shook her head.
He paused a moment, then said matter-of-factly, “This might have been a hit and run, someone who was drunk, hit you and was afraid to stay. If I didn’t know Carlo, how reliable he is, I’d be leaning toward an accidental hit. But the deputy told me Carlo swore the guy hit you on purpose. So until proved otherwise, we’ll treat this as an intentional act. Now, do you know of anyone who might be dangerous, or have a problem with you-like an old boyfriend, a business associate, whatever?”
Lou Lou said from the living room doorway, “The moron who tried to run her down could have been Paulie Thomas. You know how weird he is, Mary Lisa. Half a dozen people at work believe he’s going to poison Sunday Cavendish with a Danish.”
FIVE
Before Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sarah Michelle Gellar played Kendall, the daughter of Susan Lucci’s Erica Kane on All My Children.
Detective Vasquez’s eyebrows went straight up. “Really? Have you asked to have him fired, Ms. Beverly? Surely you have that kind of clout.”
“Yeah, she does,” Lou Lou said, “she just won’t.”
Mary Lisa slowly shook her head. “I really don’t share Lou Lou’s opinion about him. Besides, I really like the donuts he’s always bringing in. So does everyone else. Oh, I’m sorry. Detective Vasquez, this is Lou Lou Bollinger. Lou Lou, this is Detective Vasquez. He’s going to find out who was driving that car.”
Lou Lou held up her hand, and nodded to him.
“Is Lou Lou your real name, Ms. Bollinger?”
Lou Lou’s chin went up. “You got a problem with my name?”
“No, not at all. It’s simply interesting and unusual.”
Lou Lou was uncertain whether or not to believe him because she’d swear there was this sort of twinkle in his eyes. “Hmmm,” she said as she sat down beside Mary Lisa and cupped her face in her palm, studying her. “You’re doped up and that’s good. I’m seeing just a few scratches I can take care of easily, so don’t worry about the cameras. You swear there’s nothing serious going on here?”
“I swear.”
“Okay. I left a message on Elizabeth ’s phone, told her what happened-and reassured her, so you’d better not be lying to me.” She said to Detective Vasquez, “Mary Lisa sometimes laughs when she should be screaming. Drives us nuts. You look competent, Detective Vasquez. That’s a relief.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, Ms. Bollinger. Okay, this Paulie Thomas, what does he do on Born to Be Wild? An actor? Stage crew? What?”
“Paulie’s the nephew of one of the directors, Tom O’Hurley,” Lou Lou said. “He’s one of the prop guys. Locations are selected and the necessary props are all set up during the night before the various scenes are shot the next day. However, Paulie likes to come to the set during the actual shooting. I don’t know when the guy sleeps. Everyone likes his uncle, so no one says anything.”
Mary Lisa said, “Come on, Lou Lou, Paulie does make himself useful. Don’t forget, he isn’t paid for it.” She cut her eyes to Detective Vasquez. “He’s a gofer-he runs errands for everyone, scrounges for missing props, fetches ordered lunches, and brings in the best donuts, you know, the kind filled with cream or jelly, or the ones with sprinkles.”
“Yeah, yeah, everybody loves his donuts, but don’t forget he hates you, Mary Lisa.”
“No,” Mary Lisa said patiently, “it’s Sunday Cavendish he can’t stand.”
Lou Lou said to Detective Vasquez, “Most of the people who see him scowling at her think it’s funny. They think it’s a tribute to how good she is. Fact is”-Lou Lou tapped her head-“Paulie isn’t the sturdiest tree in the forest, lots of branches missing off the top.”
Mary Lisa said, “Okay, so he’s a little slow. What does that matter? The thing is, Detective Vasquez, Paulie’s a fixture, sort of like a mascot.”
Lou Lou interrupted her. “Yes, he feeds people sugar and they’re happy, but he’s got this thing for Margie McCormick-she plays Sunday’s half sister, Susan Cavendish-and he was really angry when the word went around that Sunday might sleep with Susan’s husband, Damian Sterling.”
“What is Damian Sterling’s real name?”
“Jeff Renfrew,” Mary Lisa told him. “He’s a nice guy, a really talented actor, a little goofy sometimes. He wouldn’t be involved in something like this.”
Still, Detective Vasquez wrote down his name. “Everyone’s got two names. Do you ever get them confused?”
“Not really,” said Mary Lisa, “but when you play the same role for such a long time, the characters sort of become your alter egos. You get to know them very well, even care about what happens to them, and you can slip into character on a dime.”