Kookaburra Gambit

Six

Early the next morning, I was walking briskly home from Chantelle's apartment in West Hollywood. I'd planned this yesterday; I'd put a sports bag with shorts, a T-shirt, and running shoes in Chantelle's Jeep when she'd picked me up last night.

I'd discovered that even at the best of times, Chantelle was not what you'd call an early riser. Besides, this morning she'd be in a rush to get to her new job on time, so it was easier for me to get myself back to Kendall & Creeling. It wasn't that far, a couple of kilometers or so, but it was mostly uphill, so I was getting a good workout.

As I walked, I mused about Chantelle and me. Last night had been lovely. Chantelle was a warm and considerate lover, no strings attached, so at the moment I didn't have to worry where our relationship might go-I could just enjoy it.

So far we'd always ended up at her place, never mine. I used the excuse that her bed was king-size and so much more comfortable for two, but I knew that wasn't the real reason I never suggested we go back to my room at Kendall & Creeling.

That was it: Creeling.

Although technically I owned one percent more of the business than she did, in essence the building was home to Ariana Creeling's private eye company. Even when she wasn't there, Ariana was always present in some way, her personality palpable in her empty office. I just wouldn't be comfortable having Chantelle stay the night.

That got me wondering if I'd ever look at Ariana as just a person who happened to be my business partner. I couldn't imagine it would ever happen-not after that kiss.

How many different people had I kissed in my romantic career? Quite a few. Some of those kisses had been dynamite, some merely pleasant, some frankly yuck. I recalled sloppy kisses and cool kisses and swallow-your-tongue kisses and kisses that made my knees go weak…

And then there was Ariana.

One kiss, that's all we'd had, in a highly charged moment of danger. If I shut my eyes I could still feel her lips on mine, her arms around me. Not to be too fanciful, but that moment had been like being struck by lightning. So this is what it is, I remember thinking. This is the person. This is the connection I've been looking for my whole life.

Unfortunately, Ariana didn't share this earthshaking insight of mine. She'd backed off, apologized. A spur-of-the-moment kiss of little significance was the message. "I'm sure you'll agree," she'd said, quite kindly, "that close personal relationships in the workplace should be avoided. They just cause complications."

I'd almost blurted out, "Complications are what I want!" but I didn't. I played it cool, knowing instinctively that if I pushed it, Ariana would retreat to a place where I could never reach her. And I was determined to reach her, however long it took.

When I got to Kendall & Creeling, I checked the car park to see what vehicles were there. My rental, of course. And the battered pickup belonging to Luis the cleaner. No one else. Even Lonnie, who liked to get an early start, hadn't yet arrived.

I made a bit of a racket opening the front door and coming into the building. I'd threatened Luis with a golf club the first time we'd met, and he'd never forgotten it. Whenever I ran into him I couldn't help noticing he always kept a close eye on me and never let me get behind him.

"G'day, Luis," I said, meeting him on my way to the kitchen. He was a little bloke, who seemed a rather down-in-the-mouth type. I'd never heard him whistle or sing as he worked, though that might be because of me. For all I knew, Luis sang like a canary on his other cleaning jobs.

Right now he was holding a wastepaper basket at chest height, like a shield. He nodded warily at my greeting but kept his lips tightly closed.

"I'm thinking of learning Spanish," I said with a big smile. "Maybe I can practice on you."

Luis took a step back.

Julia Roberts, irritated because I'd been out all night, joined me in the kitchen while I made myself a pot of tea-loose leaf Twinings Orange Pekoe-and a bowl of porridge.

"Sorry to have left you alone, Jules," I said, when even a food bribe failed to wipe the scowl from her furry face. It amazed me how she could achieve such an unmistakable expression with just a few subtle adjustments of ears and whiskers.

I headed for my office, leaving her glowering at the crab-and-shrimp-flavored treats I'd put in her dish. Maybe Jules was right. I didn't think I'd fancy that combination for breakfast.

Last night I'd got a fair amount of information out of Quip about Lamb White et cetera, and I wanted to jot it down before the details faded. I needed to be prepared for my next meeting with my clients-that word gave me a bit of a thrill-who were due in my office at eleven o'clock. I was hoping Melodie would be back from her audition for a tooth-whitening commercial well before then.

Lamb White Incorporated specialized in G-rated movies for family viewing. I knew the sort, syrupy goody-goody stories where people smile and cry a lot, but never, ever swear or have sex. The company was part of the business empire of Brother Owen, a wealthy televangelist, whose New Age Church of Possibilities had sucked lots of celebrities into its congregation. Quip described Brother Owen as an obscenely rich con artist who had ripped off millions from trusting individuals who freely gave money to support the bogus belief system he was peddling.

The movie company, Lamb White Incorporated, was run by a woman called Tami Eckholdt. Quip wasn't too keen on her either. He said she came over as warm and caring, but underneath she was a combination of Phyllis Schlafly and Anita Bryant, only worse. When he explained who these two were, I saw what he meant. "A poisonous sheila?" I'd said. He'd agreed that pretty well summed up Tami Eckholdt.

I took my Complete Handbook with me when I went to sit in for Melodie at the reception desk. I was well into the chapter "Liars and How to Spot Them" and wanted to get things straight in my head before Alf and Chicka turned up. If they were lying to me, I needed to know.

In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized reliable lie detection would be an asset for any private investigator. Achieving this, however, was harder than I'd imagined. My handbook confidently stated that lies were detected only slightly more than half the time, which wasn't much better than just guessing. And worse, the better you knew someone, the less likely you were to know they were lying to you, because your feelings got in the way, plus the person had learned how to fool you.

I stopped reading to ponder whether Ariana had ever lied to me.

"Good morning, Kylie." Harriet Porter's smile lit up her face. "You studying something?"

Harriet had a voice like smoky honey, thick chestnut hair, and a top personality. She juggled law classes with part-time work for Kendall & Creeling. Add to that the fact she was pregnant, though not showing much yet, and you had someone who had an awful lot going on in her life. Me, I'd have been flat out just keeping up, but Harriet seemed to sail on through, like nothing really got to her. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she was in a great relationship with Beth, or maybe Harriet was just one of those fortunate people who can cope, no matter what.

"I'm reading up on lying," I said. "Did you know that a person's blink rate can be a dead giveaway?"

"I think I heard that somewhere."

"The normal rate of blinking is twenty times a minute," I informed her.

Harriet grinned. "That much? You'd think we'd all wear our eyelids out. Or they'd become muscle-bound."

I had to laugh at that. Harriet had a bonzer sense of humor. "And Harriet, if people blink much faster, like up to a hundred times a minute, they're under pressure and probably lying."

"Maybe the person has something in their eye," Harriet suggested. She wasn't taking this at all seriously.

The front door banged behind Fran. She gave us both a gimlet stare. "Morning," she snarled.

If Quip could manage to be cheerful while married to Fran, the least I could do was be positive. "Last night was super, wasn't it?" I said with a jolly smile.

"You had a girls' night out?" inquired Harriet.

"When hell freezes over," muttered Fran.

I reminded myself that both these people belonged to my staff. In the interests of a good office atmosphere, I decided a little social chitchat would be in order. "Chantelle tells me Quip used to be a life coach," I said to Fran.

"Quip used to be lots of things." Fran's tone didn't invite further conversation, but I soldiered on.

"Did Quip ever life-coach you?"

Harriet chuckled. Fran gave me a long look, then said, "What the hell do you mean?"

"I was wondering if Quip was your life coach somewhere along the line."

"Why would I need a life coach?"

"Well, it'd be free, for one thing. And Quip could help you identify and meet your goals."

Fran said to Harriet, "Is she for real?"

Harriet chuckled again. Fran swung her gaze back to me. "For your information, Kylie, if it's any of your business-which it isn't-Quip gave up his life-coaching career long before I met him. If he'd still been doing it, I would have demanded he stop, because-" She broke off to glare at me suspiciously. "What are you looking at?"

I didn't want to own up, but Fran, hands on hips, was waiting for an answer. "How often you blink. It's research."

Fran rolled her eyes. "How often I blink? Jesus!"

"The rate you blink can be a giveaway if you're lying."

Fran's eyes narrowed down to slits. "You're accusing me of lying?" she ground out.

"Crikey, not in a million years," I said. "I'm not that brave."

Melodie breezed in at about quarter past ten. "They loved my laugh," she said, dumping assorted bags on the reception desk.

Melodie had confided in me that she always traveled with masses of makeup and several outfits, just in case she needed to transform herself for a particular audition.

She gave a practiced toss of her long blond hair, then flashed her pearly whites at me. "Larry, my agent, thinks I'm a sure thing." Melodie looked at the ceiling, as if a choir of harmonizing angels might burst through, all singing "Sure thing! Sure thing!"

"You've got a callback already?" I was learning the lingo fast.

"Of course not. They've still got piles of bees to audition."

Bees was the term Melodie used for would-be actors. I reckoned it applied to Melodie, too, but thought it wiser not to say so.

"It's my big chance, Kylie. I just know it. You have to follow your dream."

"Your dream is to be in a tooth-whitening commercial?"

I must have sounded a touch sarcastic, because Melodie's expression changed from joyful to severe. "Refulgent is the nation's largest-selling dental enhancer."

"The largest? Blimey, that makes all the difference."

Melodie looked at me suspiciously-a lot of people had been doing that lately-but my innocent expression saved me. "Larry, my agent, says my laugh clinched it."

I put up a hand. "Don't demonstrate. I couldn't stand to hear it one more time." Curiosity made me add, "How does the laugh fit in with a tooth whitener anyway?"

"You must have heard the Refulgent jingle, 'Laugh Without Fear.'"

"Sorry. Don't know it."

Melodie patted my shoulder consolingly. "It's understandable. You are a complete stranger, after all."

"I'm learning as fast as I can," I said in protest.

But Melodie had forgotten my cultural plight and was obviously reliving her moment of triumph at the audition. Clasping her hands, she exclaimed with deep emotion, "Refulgent! Now I can laugh without fear." She tinkled the infuriating laugh we'd all learnt to cringe at, then stretched her lips in a manic smile. "Thank you, Refulgent! Thank you!"

"That's it?" I said.

Melodie whirled on me like a demented creature. "It's a speaking part, Kylie. Do you know how hard it is to get one of those? Do you have any idea?" She took a deep breath to calm herself. "Anyone can look good, but to have words to interpret takes one to an entirely different level in the performing arts."

The phone rang. "All yours," I said, relinquishing the chair behind the reception desk. "Here's the list of calls and messages I've taken." Apparently, Melodie wasn't going to thank me for spending all this time covering for her, so I added sarcastically, "And thank you, Kylie, from the bottom of my heart."

Melodie didn't hear me. "Tiffany!" she shrieked into the phone. "This audition's the one. I feel it here." She thumped her chest. "What? Chicka? Yes, we went out last night…" Melodie slid a sideways look at me. "Tiff? I'll call you back…"

Ariana joined me in my office fifteen minutes before Alf and Chicka were due to arrive. "Bob just called me. There's a fender bender on the Hollywood Freeway and he's stuck in traffic, so he's going to be late for the Hartnidge meeting. Do you mind if I sit in?"

"Bonzer idea." I came around her side of the desk. Ariana was a little shorter than me, but we were pretty close to eye-to-eye. I wondered if she knew what an electric jolt it was to look into that startling blue. Then, of course, I realized she had to know. I reckoned from the time she was little, people had remarked on the color of her eyes.

Ariana raised an eyebrow. "Kylie?"

I felt my face get hot. I'd been staring. "I've been strategizing," I said hastily, gesturing to chairs I'd arranged around a coffee table I'd lugged in from Lonnie's office, where it had been buried under piles of papers and odd electronic devices. "I reckon if I sit Alf and Chicka over there, not together, but separate, and offer tea and biscuits, it'll create the kind of atmosphere where they'll be at ease."

I never found out what Ariana thought of this, because there was a knock at the door and Alf and Chicka sailed in. Their clothes were identical to yesterday, except each wore a pair of khaki pants instead of shorts.

"Told Melodie we could find our own way," said Chicka.

"Sorry we're a bit early," said Alf. "Chicka and me, we had a breakfast meeting with Tami, and we finished sooner than expected."

"That'd be Tami Eckholdt of Lamb White Incorporated?" I said in a casual, I'm-on-top-of-it way.

"Yeah, that Tami," said Chicka. "Friendly sort, and a bit of all right, I can tell you."

Being influenced by Quip's assessment of Tami Eckholdt, I hadn't considered for a moment she'd be sexually attractive. I now recalled The Complete Handbook counseled against accepting other people's opinions about individuals. A private investigator had to form his or her own judgments after rigorous examination of the person in question.

"Would you like to sit over here?" I said, ushering them in the direction of the coffee table assemblage.

"Right you are," said Alf. He and his twin brother flung themselves into chairs side by side. This was not the configuration I intended, but I could hardly ask them to move.

Alf winked at Ariana as he patted the nearest empty seat. "Park yourself here." When she complied, he asked, "How's tricks?"

"Tricks are fine, Mr. Hartnidge."

"Call me Alf! I reckon Mr. Hartnidge would be our dad, and he fell off the perch years ago."

"Tea and biscuits?" I said.

Alf shook his head. "Thanks, love, but no. Tami put on quite a spread for us." He jerked his head at his brother. "Chicka's got all the stuff you asked for about the staff and whatnot." Chicka obligingly whipped out copies of personnel files and handed them to me.

"How did you choose your staff?" I asked.

Alf pursed his lips. "Let's see. We wanted to bring our own people over, but immigration's hell these days, so it turned out to be more trouble than it was worth."

"That's when Tami stepped in," said Chicka. "Loaned us some Lamb White people and helped us hire a few others. Couldn't have set up the office without her."

I thought the rest of the meeting went quite well. I had a list of points to cover, and we went through all of them without too much trouble. The Hartnidges had had an investigator looking into the Australian end, but Alf and Chicka were convinced someone in their newly set up Burbank offices was the mastermind behind the opal scam.

"Not that Tami would know anything about it," said Chicka gallantly.

"We've got several Oz Mob shipments still on the way," said Alf. "God knows how many have opals in them."

"Vital Tami never hears a word about our little problem," Chicka cautioned. "If even a hint of anything illegal gets out, there goes the whole shebang."

Alf nodded sagely. "Moral clause in our Lamb White contract. No scandal. Nothing illegal." He jabbed Ariana with his elbow. "Takes all the fun out of life, eh?"

She looked at him for a sec, as if she couldn't believe he'd whacked her in the ribs. "I can see it could be a real downer," she said.

"So that's the sitch." Alf leaned back in his chair. "We'll leave it up to you experts to decide the next step."

The brothers turned to me, clearly expecting I'd know what this next step might be. "We'll do a comprehensive check on members of staff at your Burbank offices, then get back to you," I said.

Alf slapped his hands on his thighs. "Well, that's business taken care of. Now to pleasure." He beamed at Ariana. "Hope you don't mind me being a bit pushy, love, but are you free?"

Ariana looked startled for a moment, then said, "Pardon me?"

"I'd reckon a good sort like you would've been snapped up, but Melodie told Chicka, no, she'll be open to an invite. That's dinkum, isn't it? You're not hitched?"

I glanced at Ariana. She had an expression of polite inquiry. "I'm not sure what you mean, Mr. Hartnidge."

"Alf," said Alf.

"He's asking you out," said Chicka helpfully.

Alf nodded vigorously. "Yeah. A slap-up meal, a show, whatever takes your fancy."

Silence. Both Alf and Chicka gazed at Ariana.

"Could be the best offer you get all week," I remarked.

The corners of Ariana's mouth twitched. "I'm honored, Alf," she said, "but I'm afraid it's a rule of the company never to date clients."

Clearly disappointed, he said, "A rule, eh? A strict one?"

"Very strict. But thank you so much for asking."

I saw them out, then came back to my office. Ariana was still there. We grinned at each other.

"You missed your chance with Alf," I said severely. "He may not ask you again."

Ariana laughed. "I'll just have to be brave about it."