Blue Smoke and Murder

3

LATE AFTERNOON

SEPTEMBER 3

Zachary Balfour tried not to look bored, which he was.

Or irritated.

Which he definitely was.

Nothing chapped him quite as much as a client who wanted to wear a “bodyguard” as an accessory when what she really needed was a muzzle and a rabies shot.

Not that he had any particular fondness for dodging bullets. He supposed he should be grateful this job could have been phoned in. But he wasn’t thankful to be doing no-brain work at combat rates.

Seven days with DeeDee Breitling made a bullet look good.

You owe me for this one, Faroe. Little Ms. D-cup and dirt-for-brains might be the beloved niece of a D.C. official St. Kilda Consulting wants to please, but she’s wasting my time. The only stalker she has is in her dreams.

She needs me like a snake needs stilts.

The D.C. official knew it. The client had just wanted to have a tall, dark, and safe escort for her niece while DeeDee did Hollywood.

At least the gig would pay for a few weeks of roaming the West, looking for collectible old cars forgotten in even older barns or wrecking yards. That search was both Zach’s passion and a way to keep food on the table, some of the time. The rest of the time he took contracts with St. Kilda.

But not as a nanny, for the love of God. What was Faroe thinking?

Maybe the boss was still sore about Zach cleaning him out in poker.

“Isn’t that right, darling?” DeeDee Breitling asked.

She cooed, actually, but Zach was trying not to notice. Having four older sisters had taught him way too much about females for him to fall for this lip-licking idiot’s act.

Too bad the surgeon didn’t expand her brain along with her breasts. Or sew her mouth shut.

The idea made Zach smile.

DeeDee took that as agreement. She turned to the art dealer waiting expectantly. “It’s perfect for my living room. Have it wrapped and sent to my Manhattan address.”

Zach looked at the art she’d just bought and decided it was a match made in heaven. The two tiny gray splotches on the black background at the bottom left of the canvas represented her two brain cells groping for each other in the dark. The horse’s butt outlined in gold in the upper right-hand corner of the frame needed no explanation. It represented the buyer.

At least the artist had a sense of humor, as well as a fine understanding of flow and line. Evoking an equine ass with a few spare strokes of the brush wasn’t easy. Like creating a fine haiku, it took a lot of training, work, talent, and intelligence to pull off. Painting a whole horse and making it work took all that, plus technique.

Making the horse transcend the canvas took genius.

But DeeDee only liked the kind of art that other people told her she should. The great painters of the American West didn’t have much traction in Manhattan. If you painted Paris scenes in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was art. If you painted Wild West scenes in America during the same time, it was called genre painting and generally ignored by East Coast museums and collectors. Thomas Moran-and lately, Frederic Remington-was the exception that proved the rule.

“Now, what about dinner?” she asked Zach.

What about it? Three leaves of lettuce and a carrot shaving doesn’t take much discussion.

“This isn’t Manhattan, of course,” she said, frowning, “but there are still some decent restaurants.”

“Sure you don’t want to try Tommy’s Burgers?” he asked hopefully. What was the point of getting close to L.A. if you didn’t eat at the original Tommy’s?

She shuddered. “No. I thought our last night in Hollywood should be special.”

Zach told himself she was making a joke. But he knew DeeDee didn’t have any sense of humor. He’d found that out within the first five minutes of his week-long assignment.

How do you owe me, Faroe? Let me count the ways.