The Monkey's Raincoat by Robert Crais Read Free Book Online

land of make-believe.
    I went in a door that said Emergency Exit Only and took the first flight of stairs I came to, turned down a short hall and passed seven of the most beautiful women on Earth, strolled past the casting office receptionist like I owned the place, went through a glass door and down another short hall past a man and a woman who were arguing softly, and stopped outside Patricia Kyle’s door. She was on the phone.
    I said loudly, “Have the abortion. It’s the only way.” I looked at the man and the woman. “Herpes.” Then a hand yanked me into Patricia Kyle’s office and the door slammed amid a gale of red-faced laughter.
    â€œYou nut, that’s my boss!”
    â€œNot for long.”
    She picked up the phone and cupped the receiver. “Business. I’ll just be a second.”
    I took a seat in a chair beneath a wall-sized poster of Raquel Welch from the movie
1,000,000 Years B.C
. Someone had taken a Magic Marker and drawn a voice balloon over her head so that Raquel was saying, “Mess with me, buster, I’ll gut you like a fish!!!”
    Patricia Kyle is forty-four years old, five-four and slim the way a female gymnast is slim, all long, lithe muscle and defined curves, with a pretty Irish face framed by curly auburn hair. When we met four years ago she weighed in at one seventy-three and had just gotten out of the worlds worst marriage. Only her ex didn’t see it that way. He’d show up all hours, drunk and stumbling around, knocking over the garbage cans, doing Stanley Kowalski. To prove how much he loved her, he put a brick through the rear window of her BMW and used an ice pick on the tires and that’s when she called me.I took care of it. She dumped the weight and quit smoking and took up Nautilus and started running. She got the job at General Entertainment. Things were looking up.
    She apologized into the phone, told whoever it was that GE and the producers really wanted their actor but couldn’t pay more than Top of the Show, that she knew the actor’s wife had just had a baby and so he’d probably want the work and the money, and that he’d be just so
right
for the part she really wished he’d do it. She listened, then smiled, said fine, and hung up.
    â€œHe’s going to take the role?”
    She nodded. “It’s twenty-five hundred dollars for two days work.”
    â€œYeah, but those guys earn it.”
    She laughed. I’ve never heard Patricia giggle. It’s either a smile or a full blown laugh, but nothing in between. I gave her the once-over. “Nice,” I said.
    She put a thousand watts out through her teeth. “One-twelve,” she said. “I ran in my first Ten-K last week,
AND
I’ve got a new boyfriend.”
    â€œHe’s just after your mind.”
    â€œGod, I hope not.”
    â€œTell me everything you know about an agent named Morton Lang.”
    She pushed back in her chair. “He used to work for ICM, I think, then he left about a year ago to start his own agency. He calls maybe once a month, sometimes more, to push a client or ask about upcoming roles.”
    â€œTalk to him anytime in the past week or so?”
    â€œUnh-unh.” She leaned forward, gave me dimples and an eager look. “What’s the dirt?”
    I tried to give her the sort of look I’d always imagined Mike Hammer giving to dames and broads who got out of line. “It’s the game, doll. You know that.”
    Her left eyebrow arched. “Doll?”
    I spread my hands. “Let’s pretend you didn’t commit this major gaff by asking about a client, and continue. Mort had business with a producer named Garrett Rice.”
    â€œGarrett Rice. Yuck.”
    â€œCrepey skin, lecherous demeanor, sour body odor. What’s not to like?”
    She looked at me as if she were trying to think of a concise way to say it. “When you’re in high school, and you