Mimi got a job at the little gas station down the street, nothing spectacular mind you; no gourmet dishes, no sweet smell of gumbo in the morning, no inventive recipes, and absolutely no cooking experience required. At any given time during her shift, she was likely to be covered with grease, oil, dirt, scum and other various forms of debris, but it was perfect for her. Besides she couldn't complain, it kept her busy and her imagination under control; the unlimited amount of hours preventing her mind from conjuring up images of Jack- Aries- Smith— Stark— whatever his name is. Other than the abundance of available hours, which she was using to work herself into complete exhaustion, she had also made a new friend, her boss Beverly Beazley.
Beverly Beazley was one of the most caustically sarcastic, shit-talking, chain smoking, brass-balls sixty-five year old Mimi had ever met. Bev, as she preferred to be called, liked to do things the hard way just to learn a lesson, she took the bull by the horns, never backed down from a fight, cursed like a sailor, dressed like she worked on wall street, and always smelled like wilted roses, gasoline and fresh cloves. She was a verbal assassin who would sit as silent and unconcerned as a snake until provoked. Mimi couldn't help but love the spitfire; her honesty was so brutal that there was never any room for lies.
"You need to take tomorrow off Mimi, now I insist," she said as she ran a hand through her short and sassy, spiked silver hair.
"Tomorrow, Bev," Mimi just smiled to herself, knowing there was no way in hell she could mentally afford to take a day off.
"Hell sugar, you've been saying 'tomorrow' for three days now," Bev's bright jade eyes bulged as she shook her head. "You been going for thirteen days straight." She took a long drag from her clove cigarette before continuing, "I'm starting too really like you and as we know, I don't get on well with many folks, so I'd hate to have to scrape your dehydrated ass off my gas station floor." She looked down at Mimi through her grease smudged, designer, black rimmed glasses.
***
Lana Lutz had quickly moved her things and herself out of Aries' mansion the minute Detective Angus had dropped the news that Aries was still alive. She was in panic mode now, afraid her lies would be blowing up in her face soon. Lana had gone through his large mansion with a fine tooth comb, removing incriminating evidence and washing away any thing that proved she was there. She could not determine the difference between what could hurt her and possibly have her locked behind bars and what was just every day living debris, so she put EVERYTHING in a trash bag than burnt it out back in the incinerator. She just refused to take any chances with her life and her ability to walk up and down the street if she wanted. Prison was not for her and she just cringed at the thought, no shopping, no gourmet meals she never finished, no maids, butlers, chauffeurs, no sex and no freedom.
***
Detective Angus went to Lana Lutz's new Upper East Side apartment. He had a trusty old tactic he liked to use in dire straits; one that had never failed to make the guilty sing like untrained parakeets. He knew after a few minutes of mindless banter that his plan was indeed working on Lana, as she was almost squirming, her neon guilt scribbled all over her face.
"So, when was the last time you saw Brad Lowell?" Detective Angus questioned.
"The night I was forced to break it off with him." Lana looked down at him, trying to appear unconcerned, despite the fact that she was scared shitless. How had he found her? She thought she had hid her tracks well and never expected anyone to find her. Hell the paparazzi had not even found her yet.
"Forced?"
"Well, when Aries found out about our affair, he went wild with jealousy, demanding I end it immediately," she lied, trying for the life of her to squeeze out at least one tear.
"Aries Stark?"
"Yes," she sniffled despite the fact that she still had yet to shed a single tear. "He was so angry, he rushed over to confront Brad, and tell him to stay the hell away from me."
"And did Aries confront Brad?"
"I never knew." She was batting her eyes like a brain dead ding bat. "That was the last time I ever saw either of them again," she added.
Angus saw the charade in Lana's lying eyes; he watched her squirm and turn her head from his perceptive glare. Did she think he was some new fool who would honestly buy her act? He had been a Detective long enough to know acting when he saw it, and to see through bad acting easily. And, unfortunately for Ms. Lutz, her acting skills were limited and overly dramatic at best.
"Ms. Lutz, may I ask how you neglected to inform us of this crucial piece of evidence that is obviously more than relevant to the case," he said carefully keeping all of his rising emotions from his voice.
"It didn't seem important at the time, Aries was always going off on a tangent, I didn't really believe he was going over to Brad's when he said it," she shrugged. "But if you will excuse me, I have personal business to attend to," she said as she nodded curtly and walked away.
Angus watched her walk away with a slight grin on his face. He was amazed at how easily she could turn her bad acting off; she had gone from trying to muster up tears for a dramatic effect to stone cold in 13 seconds flat.
***
"BRAD LOWELL!?!" Aries barked incredulously, "The actor Brad Lowell?"
"Yes," Angus said, sitting next to his partner and across from Aries.
"You're sure it was his body?" he asked his temper calming with his increasing concern.
"Yes."
"And you think I killed him?" Aries shook his head in disbelief, almost laughing. "Over Lana?"
"Ms. Lutz said that the last time she saw you, you were on your way to confront Mr. Lowell and tell him to stay away from her," Cruz read from Lana's statement.
"Did she," he answered, wondering what Lana's manipulative ass was up to now.
"Yes. Tell us about your relationship with Mr. Lowell."
"I didn't have one, I think I met him once at some movie premiere," he said. "There was some trouble with him getting in the door." He remembered the night, it was the first time he had seen the man that Hollywood was buzzing about due to the strong resemblance he had to Aries.
"Did you have any feelings of resentment towards him?" Angus asked.
"For what?"
"The man has your face, he's been trying to take over your movie career, and than you find out he's sleeping with your fiancée, it would make any man snap," Cruz said, but Aries was already shaking his head in objection.
"First of all, I could care less who does or does not look like me. Second, I left my entire life behind to get away from a movie career that I hated, a career that has brought me nothing but invasion, paranoia and stalkers hell bent on exposing every move I make. I wish Brad had of taken my fame, hell I would hand it over freely to him. Last and most important, Lana is a slut who has been fucking other men since the second night she fucked me. She's like a parasite, a leach that won't let go, she is a money hungry, fame obsessed, over rated groupie," he said with a look of pure disgust. "And she was NEVER my fiancée," he clarified.
"She has been saying the two of you were engaged at every press conference since the day of your disappearance." Cruz shrugged.
"Yea, well, she says a lot of things that aren't true."
"She says it is your baby." Angus threw the words at him just to gauge his reaction.
"It's a chance, it's also a chance it's one of the three other guys she was fucking at the time," he said casually, his words empty of any jealousy but sparked with bitter anger.
"And that never bothered you?"
"That's the only reason I stayed with her as long as I did. She cheated so much she never had the time to question me about all the other women I was sleeping with."
***
"I'm not charging him yet," Angus said to Cruz, as they watched Aries Stark walk to his car.
"I agree, I don't think he did it. He's pretty straight up. Now Lana on the other hand," he shook his head. "I don't believe a word that comes out of that woman's mouth."
"We have enough circumstantial evidence to bring Lana back in, and this time I want to bring her chauffer in too." Angus had a feeling about the chauffer, he wasn't sure what that feeling was yet, but he knew he had to talk to the chauffer.
***
One didn't become a schemer over night; it was something that poisoned the blood from birth. Lana was the best schemer she knew, and normally she would smile with pride as she worked her skill. At the moment, however, she was not smiling as she piled her suitcases into the trunk of her rental car with fear induced haste; she was getting the hell out of here as fast as she possibly could. She wasn't sure how long the little lies about Aries and Brad would last before collapsing. She was certain that once Aries denied her allegations, they would head for her without hesitation. Well, she wouldn't be there; they would not find her until she was ready to be found.
At this point she was getting trapped in her own little web, and she had to get out of dodge before it all exploded in her gorgeous face. Sure her main goal in life was to regain her fame, but not at the cost of her own freedom. She needed to produce some home-made evidence of her own, and plant it at the right place at the right time. Crafting the false evidence would be the easy part, but getting back onto any of Aries properties would be tricky.
***
Lyndsy and Luci sat across from Mimi at the funky little beatnik coffee shop. They knew their friend better than she knew herself and, above all else, were positive Mimi would use her stubbornness before she used her reason. She was hard headed and superstitious, but she was never cold, despondent or uncaring of those close to her. This was something else then just her natural stubbornness, something was wrong.
"Are you smoking?" Lyndsy looked at her as if Mimi had lost her mind.
"Cloves, they're pretty good," Mimi answered, taking a small drag from the aromatic cigarette. Both girls looked at their friend strangely. If they had ever been worried about her before, they were almost panicked now. She was not snapping out of this one. With each strange tragedy she had changed a little, come up with a new superstition, but now she was just like someone else, someone they did not even know.
"Did you read the paper?' Lyndsy said, dropping it on the brightly colored table and sliding it in front of Mimi.
Mimi looked down at the picture of Aries Stark; it was the first time she had ever seen him out of disguise. He looked so different, so foreign, yet so very familiar. Even though the eyes looked different, they were his eyes; she could recognize them even though the color was off. To bad it was the only thing she could recognize. Mimi pushed the paper away and turned her head to the beautiful chocolate skinned goddess, in a gorgeous floor length gown made of rags, who stood on the generically lit stage, gently forcing her melodic poem on the ears of the unappreciative coffee shop patrons.
"Why come to poetry hour and not listen?" Mimi said to herself, taking a healthy sip of her caramel latté. "No one listens anymore, but than why should they." She took a long pull from her clove cigarette. "No one ever tells the truth."
"He may go to prison, Nomi," Lyndsy said seriously, trying to get through to her friend.
"For murder," Luci added with a concern visible in the frown on her face.
"That's not my business," she said although it killed her. "Besides, maybe he did it; he was running away from something and living under an alias." She shook her head taking another long drag, "sounds suspicious to me."
