The Monet Murders Read Online Free PDF

was rare in Hollywood. Or anywhere else.
    So Myrtle got a screen test and they offered her a contract then and there. It was three years at five hundred a week, with bonus possibilities if she hit it big. It was more money than she’d ever dreamed of, and the evening after she signed it I could hear her in the bedroom weeping. I didn’t try to comfort her. I just let her alone. She was getting rid of some heavy things. God most likely knew what they were. I could only guess.

CHAPTER TWO
    I wasn’t in any particular hurry to find Catherine Moore. I knew when I found her and told her Manny’s tragic story, she’d laugh in my face, while her new husband from St. Paul, who was probably an ex-lumberjack or left tackle, would offer to break my jaw for me, and I’d have to talk him out of it or kick him where it’d do the most good before hustling away with dignity intact, more or less.
    Besides, I was on a daily retainer. I didn’t feel guilty about taking my time. Manny didn’t need the money. I didn’t either, but I liked it. Besides, I wanted to think the situation through. There was no sense running off half-cocked withno plan. In the end, a good plan of action would be more professional and would probably save Manny money. Was I rationalizing? Could be.
    By the time I’d finished my meeting with Manny, I was ready to go back to the Garden of Allah. It was cocktail hour and the starlets were just starting to think about going for a swim. I was still feeling a little glow from Manny’s bourbon, and, of course, that’s precisely the condition you’re in when you’re sure another drink is a good idea.
    When I got back to my bungalow at the Garden, I was surprised to see that Myrtle was packing her suitcase. Her eyes were red and a little swollen and her nose was running. Even so, she was stunning. She was wearing shorts and a thin top with nothing underneath. That was obvious.
    â€œHi, honey. Was it something I said?”
    She came over and put her arms around me. The smell of her perfume was faint but arousing. So was the feel of her body. She could have been an athlete—and in some ways, she was.
    â€œOh, Riley. I am so sad.”
    â€œI figured that when I noticed you were crying. You forget, I’m a detective. Or at least my alter ego is.”
    â€œDon’t make a joke. It’s true. You see, the studio people came to me today and said my contract has a morals clause and that living with you like this was not a good thing.”
    â€œ I think it’s a good thing.”
    â€œI do too.” She snuffled on my shoulder. “But. . . .”
    Well, I wasn’t surprised. Living in sin, as some people call it, was okay for the anonymous Myrtle George, but not for Yvonne Adore, a potential star. The studio was going to remake her into some kind of mystery woman from a farawaycountry—which was not much of a stretch, really—but that image would be incompatible with cohabiting at the Garden of Allah with a private detective going by the name of Bruno Feldspar. The studio boys would concoct some improbable story about her—that she was a Greek virgin who had just left the convent or something along those lines; but if she was still living with me, the tabloids would soon sniff out the truth and go into exposé mode, and everyone would get the horselaugh, which, as Manny Stairs explained, was career cyanide. Some people say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but they’re wrong. Consider Fatty Arbuckle as Exhibit A.
    Then, once the studio had established her exotic story in the public’s mind, they would arrange a romance for her with one of their other contract stars in order to boost the publicity for both of them. It was a well-oiled process. It wouldn’t be a real romance and the guy could in all probability be a beautiful pansy, so that the story would do double duty, providing cover for the pansy and