Red Mass

An Ellis Portal Mystery: An Ellis Portal MysteryBy Rosemary Aubert

Bridge Works Publishing Company

Copyright © 2005 Rosemary Aubert
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9781882593965

Chapter One

Neal Olen felt damn stupid standing in line. His handas perspiring, dampening the slick blue and pinkdust jacket on Navy Wench. It was not the sort of novel he’dnormally buy, but this was the only way he could get closeenough to her now. Two armed guards who wore the tough-assdemeanor of off-duty city police, rather than civilianrent-a-cops, had stepped in his way when he tried to approachthe table where Angela Vance sat signing her novel.So he muttered a confused apology, paid for the damnedthing, and got in the sluggish line. He’d had enough of linesin the navy. Even as an officer he hadn’t been able to escapethe perennial lines for mail, meals and medicine. He openedthe book in his hand, thumbing pages randomly, stopping atthe occasional paragraph that caught his eye.

The guards spoke quietly with each other, standing withthumbs hooked over belts, keeping a not-too-subtle eye onhim. Neal lowered the novel and gazed idly away, trying toavoid looking furtive. He noted the warm fragrance the in-housecoffee bar added to the cavernous Thousand Oaksbookstore. Neal glanced back at the cops, exhaling hisfrustration. They probably had him pegged for a celebritystalker. He wondered if he fit some police profile: 5′ 10″,160 pounds, hair: brown, eyes: brown, quiet, nervous-maybewhat the cops call shifty. His hand rose involuntarily,fingers lightly touching the inch-long scar above his lefteyebrow. The wound, received in childhood from his olderbrother and inexpertly sutured at the county hospital, wasone of the identifying marks listed in his military servicerecord. The scar, along with the angular line of his jaw,made him ruggedly handsome in his wife’s generous assessment.He never thought about his facial topography exceptwhen she happened to bring it up or at times like these,when such physical imperfections made him easily identifiableto the police.

Neal had heard about the book and Angela Vance, but hehad not even imagined he might have some part in it untilhe’d caught her public television interview on Story Line lastThursday night. She was promoting her book and mentionedan unnamed “navy hero” who had been valuable inher research. Now, five weeks after its release, Navy Wenchwas already a best-seller and had been featured in Newsweekalongside an article about military readiness in the new millennium.Buzz about the novel had shown up in otherplaces as well: newspaper book reviews, magazines, onlinebooksellers. The book had even been optioned for a movie.Angela Vance had been pegged by People magazine as someoneto watch in the year 2000 and beyond. Now Angela hadreceived her twenty minutes in front of Story Line‘s nationalaudience, answering even the most inane questions with adazzling smile and another mention of the book title.

Neal had been startled when Story Line‘s host, GeneKlassen, wearing his most serious face, had asked about apparentlyclassified information contained in Navy Wench.”I’ve got my sources,” she answered coyly. Angela Vancehad clearly enchanted Klassen, a normally hard-nosed interviewer,just as she had mesmerized Neal back in Coronadoat the Old Tijuana Restaurant bar.

Neal had to learn details of what in hell she had writtenand, more importantly, had to remember what he mighthave said to her, even accidentally, that could land him infederal prison. For a navy intelligence officer, nighttime intimaciescould inspire the male need to show off by spillingsecrets.

Neal was once again thinking defensively, analytically,winnowing every detail from available data, a habit left overfrom twenty years as a navy intelligence officer with assignmentsat U.S. embassies, aboard ships and ashore with navyand NATO commands. Then, he had concentrated on developingthreat assessments and briefing admirals and ambassadors.Neal had been thoroughly happy in his role as anoffice spook, a paperwork spy.

He never could have conceived that the sleazy tell-allnovel he held in his hand would interest him, let alone affecthim personally. Now, as Neal stood in line, he imaginedthat people were stealing glances at him, could actually seehim naked four years earlier in the old hotel in the LagunaMountains with Angela’s lip prints all over him. He flashedon the several lines he’d seen quoted in a review of NavyWench and its fictional characters.

Allen Neil lay back, spent, as Gillian Lorenz nuzzled close,
taking little nips at his ear, her hand languidly cupping his
penis, clearly not finished with him. Now he had a lucid
moment, time to think, to consider whether he should
have bragged to her about the KH-11 reconnaissance
satellites. Damn! No question about it-he had fucked up
royally.

A queasy feeling had come over him again, just as whenhe’d seen her interviewed on television. Angela Vance,vamping for the camera, hinting at Neal’s hidden shame,the “intimate wink” that characterized her book promotion.She’d revealed a version of her own life and the lives ofthose whom she somehow found amusing and useful to herstory and, now, useful to its sales.

Since the book had hit the stores little more than a monthago, some of the women at the office had been actingstrangely, whispering and giggling whenever he came near,like children with a secret. They had obviously put someclues together. The female attention would have been a kickany other time like the day Sheila, the office tart, had pattedhis ass at the Xerox machine. But now he hoped ferventlythat none of them would see him here. That wouldclinch it for them, make his connection to Angela Vance undeniable.Forget the logic that if there had been any permanentintimacy going on between them, she would nothave embarrassed him by making him wait in the autographline.

Neal had resisted his initial impulse to buy a copy of NavyWench. But then he had seen the ad for Angela Vance’s promotionalbook signing in the Los Angeles Times. Just afifteen-minute drive up the Ventura Freeway to ThousandOaks from his house in Camarillo. He had imagined thebook-signing scene differently, without the reverent herd ofmostly women autograph seekers in a line snaking throughthe bookstore. He wondered if Angela Vance would recognizehis face now that she had attained enough fame to warranta pair of guards. She’d remembered other things abouthim-that was for damned sure-if the Allen Neil characterwas supposed to be based on him.

He could hear her laugh from his position back in theline. He recognized that brash, ready, too-loud laugh thatwould not normally have attracted him. It was unashamed,nearly a shriek, the kind that rose above the noise in a busyrestaurant. He had heard her laugh the first time in Coronado,when he’d already had a couple of drinks and wasfeeling lonely, guilty and also furious that his wife, Yvonne,had asked him to move out.

Neal stepped to the side and peered down the line oftwenty Angela Vance fans in front of him. Her legs, crossedat the knee, were visible under the table-one high heelplanted in the carpet, the other moving slightly up anddown, maintaining some inner rhythm as she autographedeach book. A green silk blouse sleeve and that red hair wereall he could see of her above the table as she bent forwardto scratch her name and some phony personal message toanyone who had the $29.95 for her book. She looked up aftereach autograph, smiling, revealing her carefully made-upface, giving full value to the book buyer’s brush with herradiance.

At the time of his separation from his wife, Neal had onlya little over three years to retirement. Despite Yvonne’s impatiencefor him to retire, how could he throw away the sixteenyears he-they-had already invested? Besides, he hadone of the navy’s best jobs as an intelligence officer and hadjust been promoted to O-5-commander. Not that Nealwould ever admit out loud that it mattered, but replacinghis plain-billed lieutenant commander cap with one thatcarried embroidered gold oak leaves, “scrambled eggs,” onthe visor had made him stand a bit taller and sneak an occasionallook in the mirror, like a Little Leaguer on uniformday.

Two weeks after Yvonne had asked him to move out oftheir San Diego home, he had rented an apartment over agarage in Coronado, chauffeur’s quarters built in the ’20s. Itwas quiet, furnished, lonely. He could have lived aboard theUSS Constellation, moored at North Island’s carrier pier, butbooze was not allowed aboard, and he’d been using more ofit these days. He needed a space of his own other than thesmall stateroom on the ship’s O-3 level, just beneath theflight deck. Neal had already spent plenty of time in thatwindowless steel box during cruises.

So Neal celebrated his promotion alone, sitting in theOld Tijuana, contemplating the chunks of salt sliding downhis margarita glass, when this dish in a gauzy skirt perchedherself just one stool away. What now? Buy her a drink?Strike up a conversation? Pretend like she isn’t there, he decided.He glanced down, catching sight of her knee and agenerous wedge of thigh pointing his way as she turned onthe stool to wave at someone across the room. Neal lookedup and directly into her face. She looked back, staring a momentbefore breaking a smile, showing her teeth. Goodteeth, television teeth, like in a toothpaste ad. They werethe kind of teeth that made you think of your own and keepyour mouth shut.

“It’s OK-you can talk,” she said, leaning close, eyes wideas her smile.

“Must be out of practice,” was all he could think to say.Dumb.

“That can only mean that you’re married.”

“Separated,” he said too quickly. “I mean-“

“Separated is OK,” she said, reaching across the emptystool between them, giving his knee a quick pat. “Lots ofsailors are, honey.” She gazed at him, appraising, then extendedher hand to shake. “Angela,” she said.

Fast mover, he thought, encouraged but wary. It was theway foreign agents sometimes approached military people,and it set off an alarm in the back of his mind. And as an intelligence officer he’d be a prime target with his high-levelclearances and broad knowledge of up-to-date classified information.It could make a guy paranoid.

“I’m Neal.” He knew better than to ask how she knew hewas navy. Add it up: right age, dorky haircut, navy town. Atleast he wasn’t wearing shiny black shoes and khaki pants.

“Care for a drink?” he said, as she slid onto the stool nextto him.

Neal took a blank slip of paper from a table near whereAngela sat signing. He’d seen some of the others in line usethe slip to write out their names for Angela. Neal wrote: “Ihave to see you when you’re done here. Black Angus barnext door.” He slipped the paper inside the dust jacket,sticking out. He turned the book over and read the blurbs.The navy under covers. What really happens when sailors leavehome…. Not since the Tailhook scandal….

Tailhook. The chance that Angela Vance’s seamy revelationswould be ignored, just forgotten, seemed less and lesslikely with the prevailing attitude that had engulfed anycivilian discussion of the navy. The Tailhook scandal hadmoved the military and its archaic attitudes about womenand sex front and center before the public. And the clank ofbrass had been deafening as senior officers dived for coverat the merest suggestion of sexual impropriety.

Neal’s turn came. Angela looked up with the same dazzlingsmile and moist brown eyes he remembered from thefirst night he’d seen her in the Old Tijuana. No hint of surprise.”Nice to see you again, Neal,” she said without hesitation.”How’s my hero?”

“Congratulations. I hear the book’s doing well.” Nealfaked a cheery demeanor, mindful of the cops now standingclose, eyes locked on him.

“Twenty-two on the Times best-seller list,” she said, withthat prominent laugh coloring her words. She withdrew theslip, glanced at it, then bent over Neal’s copy of Navy Wenchand wrote, “To Neal Olen, more love and kisses from a heroworshipper.”

Closing the cover on his note, she slid the book acrossthe table toward him. He searched her eyes for an answer,but they had suddenly lost luster and expression, hadgone private. He’d just have to wait at the bar. It wouldgive him time to start reading the book in earnest, to assessthe damage she had done him. The signing wouldend at 4 P.M.

The Black Angus was nearly deserted on this Saturday afternoon.Heavy metal music pounded through the speakers.The hostess, noting the book in his hand, led him to a tablethat had light from a window. “Good book,” she said, noddingas Neal slipped into one of the four captain’s chairs.”Been next door, huh? She still there?”

“Yeah,” Neal answered and ordered a gin and tonic. “You gonna read, I’ll turn down the music,” she said. Heflashed her a smile of appreciation. “I was married to asailor once….” The hostess gave him a knowing nod, lookingfor a response, and, receiving none, turned away.

Neal opened Navy Wench, took a sip of his gin and tonic,and began reading, quickly realizing that the book’s slantwas anything but friendly to the sea service. Angela Vance’snovel was very clearly written from an angry woman’s pointof view, told through the protagonist, Gillian Lorenz, anabused and promiscuous navy wife. Gillian’s philanderingenlisted husband was abetted in his whore-mongering bycruises aboard his ship to the western Pacific where he”dipped his wick in every hooker from Olongapo City toPattaya Beach to Mombassa.”

He closed the book and his eyes. It was only sex, he kepttelling himself. But Neal Olen knew that what would beconsidered an indiscretion anywhere else had the potentialin the navy to ruin him. His only hope was that now that hehad been retired from the navy for nearly a year, the furormight bypass him.

Continues…
Excerpted from Red Massby Rosemary Aubert Copyright © 2005 by Rosemary Aubert. Excerpted by permission.
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