Wag the Dog by Larry Beinhart Read Free Book Online Page B

fresh-squeezed juices. Vegetables as well as fruits. Or you can have water from six different countries, with or without bubbles. In Ireland it falls from the sky and it’s free.”
    â€œThe juice sounds fine,” I say.
    â€œIt’s a lot of work, but it’s my job,” she sighs. She leaves me there. I’m looking around. The living room is two stories high. Halfway up, around two and a half sides, is a railed walkway. There are several doors leading off to bedrooms. A stairway comes down one side. It is out from the wall and behind it the wall is made of stone or simulated stone with a waterfall. There are plants in the niches in the stone. There is a pool at the bottom, live fish in the pool.
    The fourth side, facing the beach, is mostly glass.
    Underneath the walkway there are other doors leading to still more rooms. A kitchen, a dining room, a screening room.
    There are two paintings on the walls. One is very French, made of dots of paint. The other looks like an old 3-D drawing combined with a painting. It looks like the picture of God and Adam from the Sistine Chapel, except Adam is Elvis and God holds a Coke bottle. I look closer and see that there is a pair of old-fashioned cardboard 3-D glasses available to view it in its full splendor. It’s an original by James Trivers.
    I feel like I’ve seen all of it, except the painting, before. Nothing mystical or déjà vu, but more like it’s been used as a location in a movie or on TV. Perhaps it was designed by a designer who also does sets, or by an architect inspired mostly by films about Hollywood.
    None of which is what I’m trying to understand by looking at the house.
    Then she comes in. Down from the upstairs room. Barefoot, jeans, cotton shirt. Easy, casual, perfect. The cotton shirt is a man’s-style shirt, but not a man’s shirt—it’s her shirt. Now I realize what it is I’m looking for—man signs. Is she living alone or not?
    This is supposed to be a professional relationship. But it’s not. What am I going to do when her lover shows up? If she comes back from a party with sleepover company? Or back from lunch for a matinee? Where am I going to put that?
    I’m a professional. I have been for a long time. But I stopped being a professional right at the beginning. On the beach. When I erased the tapes. Altered the record. Gave in to a client’s paranoia. Served her instead of the company. Made it worse by filing a false report. Why would I do that? Because she kissed me? Maybe it was even earlier, when she walked into my office, looking like a movie star—which is what she is—and delivering her lines like a scene from a film—which is what they were.
    â€œHi, Joe,” she says. “It makes me feel good that you’re here.”
    â€œYeah. Beautiful house. Really nice.”
    â€œThanks,” she says, looking me square in the eye.
    I look away. Things are not irrevocable. I can come to my senses, amend the report to say that after I arrived she asked me to look into all these other things. I can do that. Get back on track. “You’ll have to show me around,” I say. “Including the utility room and where the electrical is. That is, if you know.”
    â€œI know,” she says.
    â€œAnd go over the security system. I saw coming in, the CCTV. We’ll walk the perimeter together.”
    â€œThe perimeter?”
    â€œOld habits,” I say. “Also, some clients like it when I talk that way. They like the idea that they’re getting security from a former Marine.”
    â€œI guess I like that too,” she says.
    â€œAnd is there anyone else”—I say this as casually as I can—I can’t believe this, my throat is dry—“living here. At present.”
    â€œJoe.” She says my name and pauses so I have to look at her and listen. “There’s no one.”
    â€œThat’ll make it