Loren D. Estleman - Valentino 03 - Alive! Read Online Free Page A

favors by stringing him along.”
    Ruth opened the door without knocking and leaned in. “I just put through a call. Why’d you hang up?”
    “Why’d you put it through? I said not to disturb me.”
    “It was for Valentino. That woman’s still trying to reach him.”
    Valentino said, “What woman?”
    “I gave you the message.”
    He fished out the pink crumple. He’d put it away without noting the first name. It was Lorna, Craig Hunter’s ex-wife. She never called on her own behalf. The last time, Craig had been in jail in Mexico, charged with smuggling fighting roosters across the border in return for Colombian cocaine.

 
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    HE RETURNED LORNA’S call from his own office, surrounded by press-agent ephemera and props from movies so obscure their entire casts might have been in witness protection: Broadhead had compared the effect to “a Sunset Strip souvenir shop after the Big One.” Valentino himself considered the Laurel and Hardy salt-and-pepper shakers, mountains of moldering Photoplay s and Silver Screen s, and the papier-mâché sarcophagus from The Mummy’s Brain his personal totems, among which he found the peace that used to await him at home in the days before he’d sacrificed his private life on the altar of The Oracle.
    “Val, it’s so good to hear your voice.”
    “Yours, too.”
    He wasn’t just being polite. Craig Hunter’s ex-wife—who had put up with him long after everyone else had given him up as a lost cause, maintaining contact even beyond their divorce—spoke in the warm contralto she used all the time now. Its ironic undertone had typecast her as the leading lady’s wisecracking best friend in several romantic comedies until her manager had hired a coach to raise it a full octave. That had led to sitcom stardom at ABC. When after three successful seasons she’d quit, announcing her plans to devote all her time to making one man happy instead of twenty million fans, she’d shaken the network to its foundation. Two years after the marriage broke up, she was still not returning agents’ calls.
    “I’m sorry I didn’t call back right away,” Valentino said, stopping short of adding I thought it was Craig .
    “That’s all right. We sort of lost touch. These things are a little like cancer. Old friends stop coming around.” Candor like hers had kept the couple away from Hollywood parties. “I was wondering if you’d heard from Craig lately.”
    “He called me last night from San Diego.”
    “Did he say where in San Diego?”
    He hesitated only briefly. There were no secrets between the divorced. “A bar. He didn’t say which one.”
    “He must have used a pay phone. His cell carrier dropped him when he stopped paying his bills. Did the number come up?”
    “I didn’t check. He woke me up. If it was a pay phone, it probably came up ‘out of area.’”
    “Oh. What did he want?”
    “He said he needed my help, but Lorna—”
    “I know, Val. You don’t have to say it. I reached the end of my own rope last week. He showed up here late, drunk or high or both, acting like the house was still his—me, too. I had to threaten to call the police to get him to leave.”
    “Did he threaten you ?” Craig had always been sloppy and maudlin under the influence, never violent.
    “No, nothing like that. He just wouldn’t leave. But when I mentioned the police, he seemed to sober up right away. He mumbled something about being ungrateful and slunk on out. I offered to call him a cab—he was in no condition to drive—but he acted as if he didn’t hear me. I heard his car start up and leave. I’ve been worried sick ever since. I kept thinking he’d gone off Mulholland or something and was in a ravine somewhere. You don’t know how relieved I am he called you.”
    “Why do you think he was so worried about your calling the police? Forgive me, but it wouldn’t be the first night he spent in jail.”
    “I have no idea. You don’t suppose he’s mixed up with the