One hour and two full stomachs later we reached our office and parked in the gym’s lot, which also serves as our parking area only because our office shares a mutual wall with Archie’s gym.

Arch is the eighty-year-old bodybuilder who owns both buildings. He was a native Californian who worked out with and competed against the likes of Frank Zane, Franco Columbo, Dave Draper, and Arnold Schwarzenegger in their early years. But he made his money playing muscular badasses in all those B-motorcycle movies in the sixties and seventies and that’s what he used to buy the building thirty years ago when property was still affordable.

Arch lives in the big two-story apartment that makes up the back third of the gym, so he’s always around.

When we got out of Shamu, Arch walked out of the gym’s doors wearing a sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off at the shoulders. He came over to us carrying our mail, which is delivered to his gym.

Arch is also our Agent. He doesn’t go out and hustle us film or TV gigs, but he does keep his Agency license current. In Los Angeles, you have to have an agent or you won’t get your career off of “start”. Arch got the agency license when he was acting so he could also make the agent’s fees for putting himself in a role. When he gave up acting, he kept the license out of something like nostalgia.

Anyhow, it’s good for us, and Archie is a prompt mail deliverer, so we get our bills and mailed rejections right on time.

Arch does it as a favor to us, but it’s also so he can snoop through our mail. He doesn’t open them, but he likes to keep track of what we’re getting.

This was mostly magazines we used to find new casting calls and upcoming trends that might lend opportunities to our struggling acting careers: IndieSlate, the Hollywood Reporter, Daily Variety, and several envelopes offering us great deals on credit cards.

Most actors around town worked different jobs to augment their acting careers. We worked as Private Investigators to augment ours. Whatever it takes.

Arch stood with us, stretching and flexing his arms. He had just finished his workout and he was pumped. His arms were huge, and as dark and hard as burnished oak logs. Not a lot of eighty-year-old men like him around. Of course, he dates women in their twenties and thirties. That helps too, I imagine.

Arch said, “Hondo, some girl came by earlier looking for you. She was a good-looking number, too. I told her she could wait in my living room, but she said she couldn’t stay around.”

I said, “You scared her off, didn’t you. Probably rubbed your hands together and cackled like a crazy old man.”

Arch said to Hondo, “You been putting up with him all day?”

Hondo nodded, “He’s a little pissy because they didn’t ask him to be in the commercial.”

?

??I am not,” I said. “My appearances before the cameras are for art, not crass commercialism. I’m not so desperate that I’ll appear in just anything.”

Arch hawed and slapped his thigh. “Ronny, you’d pose for a wanted poster if they told you it was going to be on television.”

Hondo said, “What did she look like?”

“Young, maybe nineteen, twenty, and beautiful, I mean a real heart-stopper. Don’t know if she was an athlete, but she carried herself like one. Bad, bad hairdo though, all short and ragged, like it was cut with a chainsaw. Definitely not a good look for her. She wore sunglasses so I couldn’t see her eyes. And she kept checking around like somebody looking for the boogeyman.”

“Did she say what she wanted?”

“Nope, didn’t say she’d be back, either.”

Hondo shrugged. “Thanks Arch.”

Arch said, “No problem-o. Hey Ronny, go take a chill pill. You have to face the fact that Hondo’s more photogenic than you. Come to think of it, so am I. Haw!” With that, he grinned and went into the gym.

I unlocked the office door and as we stepped inside, Hondo stopped. There was a handwritten note lying in the center of his desk. Hondo said, “I’m assuming you didn’t put that there.”

“Not me. I’ve been with you all day.” I examined the lock on our office door while Hondo read the note once in silence, then aloud to me: “Thank you for saving my life. I’m sorry I had to break in, but I couldn’t wait for you. It’s been a long time since anyone helped me, much less risked what you did. I will never forget it. Maybe we’ll meet again someday.” Hondo said, “She signed it: Grateful.” He rolled the note into a tube and tapped it against his palm.

I said, “At least she thanked you.”

“Uh-huh. Broke into our office to do it.”

I said, “She didn’t leave a mark on the door, either.”

“What did I do, save a professional thief? First, she steals a car off a sales lot in broad daylight and nobody sees her, then she disappears from sight at the scene of an accident, and now she breaks in after talking to Archie. That’s ballsy.”

“Or desperate,” I said.

Tags: Billy Kring Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net