“Eventually I will. Right now, though, I more or less promised her I’d help her on a project.”
“Bank job or supermarket heist?”
“She has a chance to get hired as an assistant to Buzz Beckworth.”
“The old boy who draws the Rick the Rascal panel? Hell, he’s running in a thousand or so newspapers. There’s also that animated kid show, and a movie’s in the works,” Mike said. “Why would he want an assistant whose drawings look like they were turned out by a nervous worm who accidentally crawled through a puddle of ink?”
“Her stuffs improved a lot the last couple of years.”
“A one hundred percent improvement would still leave her a few notches below godawful.”
“The sample Rick the Rascal panels she did aren’t bad.”
“Ah, I see what you’re going to do, sappo. Ghost the stuff for her so she’ll get this job. Once she does, you’ll have to help her out until the last syllable of recorded time.”
“No, all I’m doing is helping her polish her samples. She gets the job, she’s on her own.”
“Sure, sure.” He shook his head. “Anyhow, I heard that Beckworth is way up in his sixties and is pretty much a recluse these days. Lives in a Moroccan mansion in Beverly Hills, place with a high stone wall around it and broken glass along the top. Sort of dwelling Norma Desmond or Dr. X would love to sublet.”
“Turns out he’s a distant relative of a friend of hers. The friend told him about Casey and set up the interview.”
“Are these people also related to Grandma Elsie?”
“I know I complained to you about some of the rough times I had when Casey and I lived together before,” he admitted. “I’ve changed since then, and I think Casey has, too.”
“You’re likely to get hurt again, buddy.”
“Not this time, no.”
“Remind me to interview you sometime for a new book I’m planning to write,” said Mike. “It’s entitled How to Win at Russian Roulette.”
Chance is what fouls you up, spoils your plans, and disrupts your tranquility. The return of Casey McLeod to Wes’s household had, initially, gone very well, and if he hadn’t happened to be listening to his car radio while driving home from the animation studio on that chill, for L.A., late afternoon in mid-November, his life might well have continued smoothly for awhile longer.
He’d done quite a bit of work on the sample Rick the Rascal panels, and they’d turned out looking very much as though they’d been drawn by the reclusive Buzz Beckworth himself. Casey’s wrist was still bothering her considerably, and so Wes, who was a very gifted artist, had done most of the penciling and inking on the newest batch of panels. He’d found Beckworth’s scratchy style easy to imitate.
And apparently the cartoonist was satisfied with the work. He’d hired Casey. She was also coming up with the gag ideas for the cartoons, and for each completed panel he used, the cartoonist paid her two hundred dollars. Not a fortune, but it added up to a pretty fair salary for Casey.
Turned out she’d stored some boxes and suitcases with a friend in Long Beach before starting to house sit for the Mirandas, and those provided clothes and household goods for her. An old friend in Pasadena was dating a guy who worked for a car lot, and he got her a special deal on the lease of a red Mitsubishi two-door. All in all, by the middle of November everything was going well. Wes and his guest had started sharing his bedroom the third night she was there.
But then he happened to hear an interview on the local NPR station he always listened to while driving across Greater Los Angeles, and that unsettled him considerably.
Casey wasn’t there when he got home at the front end of twilight. He paced the living room and kitchen, drinking down several cups of herb tea, muttering, reciting the speeches he intended to deliver to her.
“Having a nervous breakdown?” she inquired when she came in at nightfall and dropped her portfolio on the sofa. “I heard you babbling from all the way outside.”
“Where were you?”
Her eyes went wide. “Are you ticked off about something?”
“As a matter of fact.”
“Well, it can’t have a darn thing to do with me,” Casey said. “I drove over to Buzz’s to deliver the latest drawings, which he loves and adores, by the way. Then I drove down to talk with Roy Pomeroy about the next issue of Bertha the Biker. Going to have to postpone that because of my darned wrist.” She’d abandoned the sling long since, but still wore an elastic bandage around the injured wrist. She rubbed at that now.
He took a slow breath in and, as slowly, exhaled. “I heard an interesting interview on the radio this afternoon.”
“It must’ve been if it’s got you so fired up.”
“Yeah, they were talking to Carlos Miranda.”
“See? I told you he existed.”
“He does, yes. He’s on a tour to promote his latest novel, Sixty-one Years of Misfortune and Sorrow.”
“Carlos writes fairly grim stuff.”
“One of the most fascinating parts of this interview was when he mentioned that this was his very first trip, ever, to Southern California,” continued Wes. “He’s lived in Taos, New Mexico, for the past five years.”
“I wonder why he’s denying having lived here?” She frowned, rubbing at her wrist again. “Probably some sort of trauma induced by the fire.”
“Carlos Miranda also mentioned that he’s gay.”
“Yes, I was aware of that. Carmelita’s very understanding and they—”
“No, nope, won’t work, Casey. There is no Carmelita. No, this guy lives in New Mexico with a photographer named Earl.” He paused, eyed the young woman for a few seconds. “So?”
She sighed and shrugged simultaneously. “That’s the trouble with fibbing, isn’t it? Some little unimportant—”
“Little? You’ve spun a massive falsehood here.”
“Okay, I did.” She sighed again, looking very contrite. “The biggest mistake I ever made in my life was moving out on you. When the fires started up this year, it struck me as something I could use to arrange a comeback. You’re such a decent, understanding man that I was sure you wouldn’t throw me out if I pretended to be homeless.”
“How can I have an opportunity to be understanding when all you do is tell me unmitigated baloney?”
“Wes, things have worked out fine, haven’t they? So why look a gift house in the mouth?”
“Horse,” he corrected. “Your car didn’t explode.”
“Well, no. That’s it out in the driveway.”
“There’s no friend who’s being romanced by a car salesman in Pasadena.”
“I made that up, rather than having to explain—”
“What about Rasmussen?”
“Who?”
“The kindly trucker who rescued you from the blazing hills of Maravilla Canyon and delivered you to my doorstep.”
“He’s fictitious, too. Actually I drove over in my car and parked it around the comer.” She took a few careful steps in his direction. “The thing is, Wes, we’re both happy now. I think it’s great we’re back together, and I promise I won’t fib any more.”
“Where the hell does Buzz Beckworth come in? Did you make that up, too?”
She turned away, walked over, and sat on the sofa. “I was hoping you weren’t going to ask about him,” she admitted forlornly, tapping her forefinger on the portfolio clasp.
“This stuff I’ve been diligently aping — you actually take it to him?”
“Six panels a week. Yes, that part’s all true.”
“But?”
Casey folded her hands in her lap and studied them. “Okay, I suppose I’d better explain the whole mess to you,” she said slowly. “Yes, I owe it to you.”