From Now On, You Ride in the Trunk

The flashbulbs from the paparazzi’s cameras go off as rapidly as machine gun bullets as Novella Divine poses on the front lawn of her Beverly Hills mansion, looking dramatically distraught in a form-fitting, short white robe.

“We found her running up and down the driveway,” Detective Moe Fine says to his partner, Detective Leo Dorsey. “She didn’t start screaming until the press got here.”

“Right on cue, like a true actor. Any sign of Maury MacDonald?”

“Nope. All signs point to an abduction.”

Leo looks at the corner of the roof of the sprawling mansion, noting a set of cameras pointed at the driveway.

“Anything on the security cameras?”

“They weren’t on,” Moe replies.

“How convenient.”

Square-jawed, broad-shouldered, and gravelly-voiced, forty-one-year-old Leo Dorsey has handled front-page crimes most of his career and is no longer impressed with the trappings of the rich and famous. Moe Fine, his lanky, twenty-nine-year-old pockmarked partner, remains starstruck.

“So, who is she again?” Leo asks.

“Did you ever see the movie, ‘Superwoman?’”

“Didn’t have the desire to, no.”

“You’re about the only man who hasn’t. As far as acting goes, Novella Divine makes a great case for the return of silent pictures. ‘Superwoman’ wasn’t Shakespeare. It was like a James Bond adventure with a beautiful woman in the lead. It gave Novella a chance to be athletic and flounce around in low-cut gowns. Other actors say she’s difficult to work with. Her co-star, Fredrick Lake, once said, ‘There’s not enough gold in Fort Knox to make me do another picture with Novella not-so Divine.’”

“I remember reading somewhere that she’s been married a few times,” Leo says.

“Six. And some had grievances.”

“We’re going to have to account for their whereabouts.”

“We can eliminate at least two of them,” Moe replies. Her second husband, Cosmo Capaldi, was found dead in his home in Laurel Canyon six years ago. Accidental overdose. He never got over losing Novella. Her fourth husband, Rory Westinghouse, cracked his car up in Barcelona while on his way to serve on a panel at a Novella Divine festival.”

“And the others?”

“Another actor, Torin Half, was her first husband. He’s in jail for passing bad checks. Scooter Hanks, a bad baseball player, was number three. Number five was bodybuilder turned steroid advertiser Sven Svenson, and we’re here to investigate the disappearance of number six. Seventy-nine-year-old Maury MacDonald is a director of B-movies for Paramount Pictures. He directed two of Novella’s flicks, the supposed comedy, ‘Nice Girls Don’t Explode,’ and ‘Ginger Snaps,’ a thriller about a young bride who murders her older husband.”

“Coincidence? Or an instruction film?” Leo wonders aloud.

“A woman who looks like that doesn’t need to kill anybody. All she has to do is tell the press she’s available, and a thousand chumps will come running. Including me.”

Despite an I.Q. of 149 and being fluent in six languages, Novella Divine is one of Hollywood’s most celebrated busty, bubble-brained bombshells in the tradition of Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield. With her hourglass figure, capped teeth, and platinum blonde hair, Novella resembles a living Barbie doll.

A native of Rocky Point, a tiny backwoods town in Louisiana, Novella began modeling at age 15, picking up the crowns of “Miss Swamp Queen” and “Lady Louisiana.” A talent scout saw her, and she soon made her debut in a musical version of “Showgirls.” She collected a Tony Award and her first husband at eighteen. Since then, she’s become known more for her romantic entanglements than her acting ability.

Leo and Moe walk across the spacious, well-kept lawn, pausing to look at the duck pond.

“She likes ducks,” Moe notes. “I read in a gossip rag that she once had fifty of them.”

Novella’s assistant dabs at her face with a lace handkerchief, wiping away her tears when a photographer zeroes in on her.

Leo pushes the photographer aside.

The photographer whips out his identification. “Hey, I’m with People Magazine!”

Leo sticks his badge in his face. “I work for the people. Go away.”

He turns to Novella, who gives him a coquettish, cooperative smile.

“How is it you didn’t hear your husband being kidnapped?”

Novella’s voice is a soft, breathless whisper. “I sometimes sleep with noise-cancelling headphones. Tonight was one of those nights. Besides, Maury sleeps at one end of the mansion, and I sleep in the other end.”

“You don’t sleep together?”

“No.”

“That man’s an idiot,” Moe comments.

Novella smiles appreciatively.

“Were you two having marital problems?” Leo asks.

“All my husbands wanted to sleep with ‘Superwoman.’ Nobody wanted to cuddle or talk to Adelaide Picker.”

“Who?”

“That’s my real name. I’ll admit that Maury and I were having problems with money. My money. He was spending too much of it. And he misrepresented his state of health. He told me he had a touch of pneumonia. He’s got chronic asthma. Gets in the way of his husbandly duties, if you catch my drift.”

“Hence separate bedrooms,” Moe mutters.

“Thank goodness for my ducks. They’re my sanctuary. I’d rather sit by the water feeding my ducks than spouting insipid dialogue or partying with a bunch of drug-addled co-stars.”

A cell phone pings. Leo and Moe check their phones, shrugging their shoulders.

“It’s for me,” Novella says breathlessly. “It’s a message from the kidnappers!”

Novella hands Moe her phone. He snickers as he and Leo read the message:

“We want five millyun ($5) in virgin bills for the safe return of your hushband. We wil kauntact you where and when we make the xchange. We warn you not to noteify the Police. Your hushband is in gut care."

“The first thing we should do when we catch this guy is show him the auto-correct function on his phone,” Moe comments.

“He’s probably using a burner, but we’ll see if we can trace it.”

“My poor husband!” Novella wails. She swoons, falling backward toward the nearby rock garden. Moe drops the phone in order to catch her.

The phone crashes against a rock, shattering.

Novella falls into his arms. She quickly recovers, tweaking Moe on the cheek.

“Thank you. It was just a spell. I’m all right now.”

Leo looks at the broken phone.

“Yes, I bet you are.”

***

Trussed up in the back seat of his Mercedes, Maury MacDonald struggles with the zip ties binding his hands, spouting curses through the rag stuffed in his mouth.

Sitting in the passenger's seat and looking at the passing scenery, Chewy Machado quietly sings the O’Jays’ “For the Love of Money.”

“Money money money money... money!”

“This is outside of my comfort zone, Chewy.”

“Think of it as a step up. You went to jail for assaulting a man in a wheelchair.”

“Says the man who got eighteen months for selling counterfeit baseball cards. You really thought Babe Ruth’s last name was Roof, and Ty Cobb’s first name was Corn?”

“Relax, Dove. This is a sure thing. My cousin, Ernesto, has set everything up. We’re both gonna be $200,000 richer by this time tomorrow.”

Former cellmates Dove and Chewy are a mismatched crime wave. Dove used his light blue eyes, luxuriant golden hair, and a sculpted physique to carve out a modest career as an actor before his violent lapse in judgment. Chewy resembles an unchecked stoner, with long frizzy hair, a thick off-center mustache, and a tendency to dress in rumpled T-shirts and jeans.

Driving around with a short, balding senior citizen dressed in silk pajamas and a bathrobe has made them look even more conspicuous.

Dove pulls Maury’s stolen Mercedes into the parking lot of the Sunny Skies Motor Inn.

They are greeted by the sight of flashing lights coming from a dozen police cruisers.

A pot-bellied man with a handlebar mustache wearing a Los Lobos T-shirt is being rudely thrown into a patrol car.

“That wouldn’t happen to be Ernesto, would it?”

“I told him not to use his own phone to send the ransom note,” Chewy laments.

***

Dove tosses a bag of McDonald’s food at Maury.

“Bon Appétit.”

“How about that? A MacDonald eating McDonalds,” Chewy points out.

Maury plops down on a park bench.

“This is it? This is my dinner?”

Leo snidely replies, “Sorry, Lord Fauntleroy. We’re out of Foie gras.”

“What did I do to deserve this?”

“Nothing. And that’s the problem. You said I’d get three months' probation. I got three years in jail instead.”

“So, blame the lawyer, not your boss.”

“Well, now you’re going to pay me back for those nights in jail that I spent in bed with my eyes open and my sphincter clinched tighter than Richard Nixon’s lips.”

“You need to quit this craziness. Dove. Just because you’ve played a criminal in a movie doesn’t mean you are one. You’ve got no money, you’re driving a stolen car, and we’re sitting in Reynes State Park because the cops are crawling all over the hotel room Chewy’s cousin rented for you. You didn’t plan this out, did you?”

Dove pulls Chewy aside.

“He’s no Nostradamus, but he makes a point.”

“Relax. I’ll send an email to Novella Divine telling her to meet us here tomorrow. All we have to do is make it through the night.”

“Yeah, sleeping on a park bench with Father Time.”

Maury lets out a ragged cough, wheezing.

“Come on. I know it’s horse meat, but at least it's cooked.”

Maury takes an inhaler out of his robe, giving himself two doses of albuterol.

“An asthma attack. I’ll be fine.”

“You better be. You’re worth five million alive and bupkis dead.”

***

Dove drives to a Seven-Eleven the following morning.

“I could sure use some water,” Maury complains.

“And I’ve got a craving for a Slurpee.”

“Shut up, you two,” Dove barks. “I feel like I’m on a field trip with Abbott and Costello. We need to ditch Maury’s car.”

“So, you’re going to wait for some teen with acne to come out of the store. Then you’re going to mug him for the set of keys to his parents’ Audi,” Maury scolds.

“Sounds pretty low, Dove.”

“You got a better idea, Chewy?”

“Didn’t either one of you geniuses ever learn how to hot-wire a car?”

Dove grunts. “That only works on cars from the last century, Grandpa.”

Maury points at the 1995 Monte Carlo SS sitting by the side of the building.

“Okay, Maury. But from now on, you ride in the trunk.”

***

Moe chuckles to himself as he enters the office he shares with Leo.

“Judging by the big grin on your face, forensics found some prints in Maury MacDonald’s car.”

“We also found his inhaler in the back seat,” Moe replies.

“Then he’s still alive.”

“The guys that nabbed him are amateurs,” Moe says. “There were other prints inside the car belonging to Columbus ‘Chewy’ Machado and Dove Bader.”

“That second name sounds familiar,” Leo says.

“He was a bit player in ‘I Dismember Mama,’ which was directed by, wait for it, Maury MacDonald. He also appeared in ‘Saturday Night Cleaver,’ another picture directed by MacDonald. He got into an argument with the head of craft services over the type of caviar they were serving the actors. Ended up beating the crap out of the guy. Bader might have only gotten fired and sued if the guy wasn’t a paraplegic, and MacDonald’s stepson. Bader ended up doing three years for assault, and on top of that, MacDonald cut him out of the picture.”

“Sounds like motive to me.”

“The guys in the lab did a good job piecing Novella Divine’s phone back together so we could track down Ernesto Machado,” Moe says. “And now the kidnappers don’t know that we have her phone. They’ll think they’re emailing her.”

An hour later, the kidnappers email Novella to meet them at 4:00 p.m. at Reynes State Park.

***

“It’s go time,” Dove says confidently. “Let’s open up the trunk and let our golden ticket out.”

Dove sticks the key in the Monte Carlo’s lock, opening the trunk.

Blindfolded and gagged, Maury’s crumpled body lies motionless.

“He doesn’t look too good, Dove.”

“Yeah. Maury MacDonald’s bought the farm, ei-ei-ugh.”

***

Her features concealed by a scarf and a pair of sunglasses, Novella sashays toward the designated empty bench in the park, dropping a duffel bag next to it.

She quickly hustles back to where Leo and Moe are waiting behind a bush with a good vantage point of the bench.

A few minutes later, Dove, his face partially concealed under a baseball cap, walks down the path, sitting on the bench.

Dove looks around. He’s suspicious of the parents pushing their kid on the playground swing, the jogger stretching out his hamstrings nearby, and the three men leaning over the bridge near the pond looking for fish in the water.

Inhaling deeply, he grabs the duffel bag.

The parents, the jogger, and the men on the bridge run toward him, joined by a dozen police and F.B.I. members.

Leo shouts, “Stop, Bader! You’re under arrest!” as he and Moe join in the chase.

Dove knows there is only one escape route – down the path to the ocean.

Dove outraces his pursuers.

Stopping near a fence, he opens the bag, smiling greedily at the cash. His smile quickly fades.

“…Since when is Kim Kardashian on the hundred-dollar bill? This cash is bogus!”

Throwing the bag in the path of his pursuers, he climbs the fence overlooking the ocean.

“So long, suckers!”

Leo and Moe get to the fence in time to see Dove hit the water near the jagged rocks below.

Dove disappears. Only his cap rises to the surface, bobbing gently on the water.

***

Chewy backs away from the car, watching as dozens of police officers and F.B.I. agents rush into the park.

Blowing a kiss toward the car, he whispers, “My freedom is worth more than two hundred thousand bucks. Adios, amigo.”

Putting his hands in his pockets, he casually walks away, whistling the O’Jays’ “For the Love of Money.”

***

Two weeks later, Leo and Moe return to the office after Maury Macdonald’s memorial service.

“What a turnout,” Moe exclaims, “Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Jennifer Aniston, and a hundred others!”

“Did you notice a conspicuous absence?”

“Novella Divine. I thought she might still be in shock. You know, the whole finding out your husband was left rotting in the trunk of a car thing.”

“We’re the ones who should be in shock. I was suspicious of her until she agreed to drop the fake five million by the bench. And I was sympathetic when she bawled her eyes out after we told her the news of her husband’s death…”

“Yeah, I really felt bad for her,” Moe admits.

“I asked an officer to do a wellness check on her while we were at Maury MacDonald’s funeral. She’s gone. There’s not a stick of furniture left in her mansion, and her bank accounts are empty.”

“Guess she was a better actress than we thought.”

***

Leo walks up to the chic-looking, grey-haired woman who comes to Reynes Park every day to feed the ducks, sitting on the bench next to her.

“Detective Dorsey. I’ve been expecting you.”

“Former detective. I retired.”

“Same.”

“What have you been up to for the past fifteen years, Novella?”

“I got married again.”

Leo gives her a look of astonishment.

“The seventh time was a charm. He was a veterinarian, and we lived in Miami. I was his alluring office assistant.”

“Was?”

“He died last year. I thought I’d come back to California.”

“I’m sorry he passed. So, back to the scene of the crime, eh?”

“I’m just a dumb blonde sexpot, not a criminal mastermind.”

“With an I.Q. of 149. And you used every point to fool us,” he says.

“I didn’t murder Maury. The two blockheads I hired to kidnap him did. They were supposed to hold him for a few days, until the bank could transfer my money into an offshore account.”

“You should have picked a couple of more qualified partners.”

“Let’s just say I had a soft spot for Dove Bader. He tried hard to be hubby number seven and wanted to impress me. The whole point was to scare Maury out of my life. He was as loving as an old man can be. But he was irresponsible when it came to money. He liked blackjack, but it didn’t like him, and he chased the ponies to near bankruptcy. Maury had already dipped into my personal account several times without telling me. I endured plastic surgery, bad reviews, snide sexist remarks, and spent a lot of time on casting couches earning that money.”

“The statute of limitations for kidnapping ran out years ago. But there’s no statute of limitations for murder.”

“He wasn’t murdered, at least as far as the public is concerned. You know very well that one of the stipulations in Maury’s will was that there would be no autopsy and he would be cremated immediately. The news outlets all reported that two days after he was kidnapped, Maury MacDonald had a massive asthma attack and died.”

“Yeah, I wonder who fed them that story?”

Novella tosses a piece of bread to the ducks.