Voices in the Wardrobe by Marlys Millhiser Page B

be and mingling with the attendees as we all should be. I was abducted by Mr. Monroe and Sarah. Why do you not wish to socialize with the students you came to teach? Who are paying good money for it too.” His voice deep and resonant, his diction dramatic, his thinning hair a comb-over dyed an innovative shade of dirty rust, his florid complexion deepening to rose when he felt thwarted.
    â€œNot everybody feeds on desperation like you do, Doctor,” Brodie said. “You an MD, PhD, Masters in English lit or psychology? What? Veterinary medicine?”
    â€œYou know, I always wondered that too, Grant.” Sarah Newman returned to her chair and martini-up. It was that kind of day.
    Grant Howard ignored the change of subject. “Have you no pity? Those desperate aspiring young talents are the future of Hollywood. We all have a responsibility here to encourage their endeavors in a very voracious and difficult field. I, for one, am proud of the Institute and all it stands for.”
    â€œI kind of liked the hallucinating stripper, myself,” Kenny said, ignoring the subject too. “But then I’m not faculty.”
    â€œWho are you exactly?” Jerry, the ferret, asked Kenny. “You seem to hang out with the big shots around here.”
    â€œHe’s an investigative reporter like you,” Charlie said and ordered another margarita, “and my client, Kenneth Cooper.”
    â€œ The Last of the Manly Hardy Boys? Dead Time in Disneyland? And you wrote for the Miami Herald. ” Jerry Parks had a boyish look about him, sideburns and mustache notwithstanding. “I thought you were a much older guy.”
    â€œAnd you thought I was too young to be a grandma. Where did that come from?”
    Keegan Monroe pulled a folded newspaper clipping from his shirt pocket and handed it to her. “Was hoping, as busy as you are, you might possibly miss this.” He was an odd man. Prison seemed to have given him more confidence than success had. “ Star Universe. ”
    The Star Universe , a tabloid actually not published in Florida, tended to concoct stories about Hollywood stars and their peccadillos and families. Rarely did they bother with mere agents. The picture was of Libby Greene dancing with (to Charlie) a total stranger at some outdoor venue and under lights. He had “predator” written all over him. Libby Greene, daughter of Mitch Hilsten’s agent-girlfriend, seen partying at producer Clint Melneck’s estate with his youngest son, Gary, is rumored to be pregnant with Melneck’s first grandchild . It was this sort of unfortunate wording that had gotten Charlie in trouble before—she was an agent but not Mitch’s. Congdon and Morse would be flooded with filmscripts for Mitch and they would get tossed unopened. Libby Greene, however, was her daughter.
    Charlie took her margarita and cell out to the rescued sea lion garden next to the patio bar but concealed by palms and spiky things. Paths circled a series of connecting pools where the sea lions could glide over huge rocks and slumber still in the deepest part of the pool but not hide from the hotel guests wanting to stroll by and watch their every move. Today, Charlie could really identify with the sea lions.
    She stopped to lean on the stone wall of an arched footbridge between pools, the fronds of some exotic swordlike thing clacking in the breeze, when Libby and not her cell’s voice mail answered Charlie’s sweaty panic attack. She nearly choked on a slug of salty margarita and relief.
    When she returned to the table she was much settled down, even had some more nachos.
    Kenny’s grin was both satyrical and satirical though it showed little of his teeth and less mirth. “You should be listening to this, Charlie. Dr. Howard knows a few things about the Sea Spa at the Marina del Sol.”
    Jerry Parks, busy with PDA and stylus, apparently happy to have been abducted now, was so