Getting Up With Fleas (Trace 7) by Warren Murphy Page A

taking a siesta, then going home early”—when I noticed him looking past me toward the door and I turned to see a tall woman with hair the color of polished pennies walking toward us, smiling.
    Tami Fluff, I thought. My first taste of Hollywood. She was terrific. She wore a leg-waving bright-yellow miniskirt and a halter top of matching material that showed off a wonderful trim stomach and only partially hid an equally wonderful full bustline. She had on spiked yellow high heels, the only kind of high-heel shoe I don’t like on women, because they had straps around the ankles and I always figure if a woman’s got good ankles, why hide them under straps? But on balance, I wouldn’t fight with her over any of the ensemble. The only thing wrong with it was that it seemed designed for a precocious Lolita of a sixteen-year-old, and this woman had to be in her late twenties. Still, who said that actresses had to have taste?
    The woman pushed by me without a glance and tossed herself into McCue’s arms. He hugged her with his left arm and snaked his right hand down to squeeze one of her buttocks. I figured that, in Hollywood, this had replaced “Love you, baby” as a greeting.
    Then his left hand followed suit. This, I figured, must be a real tight Hollywood friendship if it called for the full two-sided heinie squeeze. Then McCue disengaged and held her at arm’s length with his hands on her upper arms, just looking at her, and I knew it wasn’t too tight a relationship after all, because you don’t hold people at arm’s length like that unless they’re people you want to keep at arm’s length. This is a fact.
    Finally McCue managed to release the woman and said, “There’s somebody I want you to meet.”
    She turned to me then and smiled, a lot of perfect teeth in a perfect mouth. Every time I’ve met actresses in real life, I’m always impressed by how imperfect they are. People say that the camera is cruelly honest, but the fact is that the makeup artist is unfailingly kind. This woman, though, didn’t need the makeup artist. She was beautiful, all by herself, without help, and I made a mental note to take Chico to the next Tami Fluff movie we saw advertised.
    “This is my new friend, Trace,” McCue said to the woman. “Trace, this is Doctor Death.”
    “Pleased to meet you. Should I call you Doctor or do you prefer Death?”
    “Ignore him,” she said. She smiled and shook my hand, strong, dry, pleasant. “My name is Ramona. Ramona Dedley.”
    The shrink. This wasn’t Tami Fluff at all. This was the psychiatrist who traveled with McCue.
    “Is Trace your last name or first name?” she asked.
    “Neither. I’m Devlin Tracy. Trace is for friends.”
    “Then it’s Trace,” she said.
    “Trace is here to be my drinking buddy,” McCue said as he walked around the bar and poured a glass of sherry straight up for the woman.
    “For you, drinking under the buddy system is a good idea. Like scuba diving,” she said.
    “One should never drink alone,” McCue said. “Trace is the one who got me drunk last night and made me disgusting.” He then took the opportunity to make both of us fresh drinks.
    Ramona and I clinked glasses and sipped.
    “Doctor Death’s an alchemist,” McCue said.
    “I thought you were a psychiatrist,” I said.
    McCue answered before she could. “The same thing,” he said. “There’s no science to what Ramona does. It’s all nonsense. You ever read those stories about all the shrinks they get to come to a parole hearing to swear some guy is sane, and then they let him go and, twenty minutes later, he cannibalizes some keypunch operator eating a tuna-fish sandwich in the park? Those are shrinks. A bizarre superstition.”
    “Ignore him,” Ramona said. “He will always be a peasant with a peasant’s mind.”
    “Have her explain to you the lunacy at the last meeting of the headshrinks,” McCue told me.
    “I don’t know what he’s talking about,” Ramona Dedley said