Rage Issues

By Anne Louise Bannon

Main Title

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Coming soon

Copyright

Connect with Anne Louise Bannon

Other books by Anne Louise Bannon

About Anne Louise Bannon

Many thanks go out, as always, to my wonderful editor, Carol Louise Wilde. I also want to thank my new cover designer, Tatiana Vila.

On the support side, thanks go to my husband, Michael, Holland, and my daughter, Cornelia Ann Klarner. In addition, I want to thank all my friends from the Lady Sings the Clues Author Pod: Sheila Lowe, AJ Llewellyn, Peg Brantley, Saralyn Jacobson Richard, GP Gottlieb (who had the whole crazy idea in the first place), AE Wasserman, Ilene Schneider, Carolyn Pouncy, Maryann Spencer, and P.K. Adams. You ladies are amazing.

To Analyn Revilla, Phoenix Smith, Bennie Thomas, and Bri Webber, my journaling friends. You were the best blessing of the Pandemic.

It started because I snapped. I was working at a domestic abuse shelter in the northern part of L.A. I’d been there almost eighteen months, which was pretty good for that job. I was technically the secretary for the group. There was a lot of handholding involved as well and not just the hands of the clients. The caseworkers needed their fair share of propping up, although, to be fair, they were always available when I needed to whine and weep.

Martina Rivera was in my office, a miserable puddle. For months, the poor woman had been calling, trying to find a way to get away from her husband, an exceptional son of a bitch, even among the bastards we usually dealt with.

Now, I know how incredibly hard it is for an abused woman to break away from her abuser. The stats say seven tries, on average, before she finally gets out, and that’s about right. It’s even harder for Latinas, who face tremendous cultural and family pressure to stay with the louts. If the woman is an immigrant and her husband is here legally and she’s not, such as was Martina’s case, the bastard has even more power over her.

However, Juan Rivera had seriously injured one of the kids. The cops got called in, Children’s Services had removed the rest of the children, and the D.A.’s office was talking about prosecuting Martina as an accessory because she didn’t stop her husband. Great idea, punishing her when she was just as much a victim.

Only that’s exactly what I wanted to do. Cripes, the woman had been calling and calling. We’d given her option after option. She still didn’t leave.

That’s when I snapped and walked out. The caseworkers took care of Martina. A week later, I went to lunch.

I wanted to ask her why the hell didn’t she get out? I told my friend Berto Esparza, who was buying. Of course, I didn’t. I got her caseworker and got out the lawyer list. I shook my head and blinked back tears. Berto, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I was building up a shell just to keep from caving in from all the sadness. Anyway, that’s why I quit. Merrilee gave me all the vacation time I’ve accrued, like they can afford it. She was pretty grateful, actually. I held out longer than most people do there. I just have no idea what I’m going to do now.

Berto opened his mouth and I glared.

Don’t say it, I said.

I knew what Berto was about to suggest. We’ve been close friends for a lot of years and have had a few of the same conversations more than once.

He’s about medium height, with gray flecks shot through his thick, dark hair. His build is stocky and muscular – he’s built like a cement block and his face is almost as square. For somebody who’s spent as much time as he has dealing with the dregs of humanity, he’s pretty cheerful.

I wasn’t going to, he replied with a big, shit-eating grin on his face.

He’s a private investigator with fancy offices next to Beverly Hills and a nice house in the Valley. What he was going to do was ask me to formally join his firm, never mind that he’d just said he wasn’t.

I met Berto back in the days when he was mostly process serving. In fact, that’s how I met him. He tried to serve a subpoena on a partner of mine. Berto tipped me off that the son of a bitch was embezzling the entire budget of a play we were producing. What’s really ridiculous is that the show was run on a freaking shoestring even for the cheap house we were in.

Since that time, Berto has periodically asked me to become his associate. You see, as a theatre producer in Los Angeles, I was making a living, but not a great one. I had resisted because I still had some residuals coming in from various acting jobs I’d done. Since I’d turned forty, however, the acting jobs weren’t all that plentiful, and I was pretty much done with The Industry, anyway. Yes, I capitalized that correctly. It’s an L.A. thing that says a lot about our local economy.

Berto, I really don’t want to work for you, I groaned, stabbing my salad with more force than necessary.

Berto laughed. He was in full dress uniform that afternoon, as in a custom-tailored dark wool suit and a snowy white Egyptian cotton shirt with French cuffs. His tie was more colorful, but still a subdued mélange of dark greens and grays. He had taken me to one of those hotshot places in Pasadena, a brass rail and wood sort of place with a trendy menu featuring currant emulsions, for crying out loud, and beautifully tender meat.

Daria, you damned near already do, he said.

There’s a huge-ass difference between serving the occasional summons and being a full-on associate, I said. You know, like people shooting at you.

As if they don’t shoot when you serve a summons.

Just because it hasn’t happened yet, I grumbled.

Berto chuckled again. I got shot at more often process serving than anything I do now.

He had a point. Berto’s specialty is tracking down the stalkers behind various and sundry threatening emails and letters that celebrities get, preferably before the stalker does something that requires police intervention. Thanks to social media and the access it gives fans to their faves, business is booming. Pretty tawdry stuff, by and large, but he’s probably saved a life or two and he gets paid very well for it. His other cases are usually runaways or digging up evidence on behalf of the law firm next door. So, while the folks he’s chasing can be pretty icky, they aren’t usually violent.

That didn’t mean I was ready to concede. I waited while the waiter came by to take our salad plates away. Okay, I was trying to find some new way to wriggle out of working for Berto.

Berto, I really appreciate the offer, but I really don’t want to be a charity case.

Berto laughed loudly as the waiter placed a beautifully scented rib-eye in front of me and half a roasted chicken with perfectly golden-brown skin in front of him.

Like I’m going to risk my business to help you pay your bills. Still chuckling, he dug into his bird. Come on, Daria. I want you because you’re good. You’ve got great instincts. We work well together. All you need is some training, which I expect you to take. You’ll also have to work under my license for a couple years, then you’ll get your own.

I winced at that part and Berto nodded.

I see what’s going on, he said.

See what? I took a bite of my steak.

It was heavenly, cooked with just the right amount of red in the middle, juicy, with a little bit of spice and some lovely pan juices, and, yes, I was desperately trying to avoid what Berto thought was going on.

You forget I really know you, Berto went on without mercy. And I know what you really want.

Seriously, Berto? I rolled my eyes. I don’t even know what I want.

Aha! Berto gleefully slapped the table. "It is now my turn to call bullshit on you, hermanita. You know damn well what you really want to be doing with your life, and I know why it’s scaring you. After what happened, I don’t blame you. But you know that, more than anything, you want to get back to producing plays."

Well, duh. Of course, I want to. But I can’t. I can’t make enough money to survive on.

But you can working for me. Berto sat back, utterly satisfied with himself. The whole reason you’re pushing back is that you’re afraid that working for me means that you’re giving up on theatre.

I am not! Okay, I was, and I knew damned well I was.

That’s what you’re not getting, Daria, Berto chewed on some more chicken, then grinned. Did I ever say you had to work full-time?

Huh?

Trust me, Daria. This is how we’re going to get you back to the theatre. You work part-time for me, for the money, then you work theatre the rest of the time. I can’t promise there won’t be times when I’ll need you to put the extra time in. You know that’s going to happen.

And probably at the worst possible time, too. I glared at my almost gone steak.

Probably. He shrugged. I need you. I need someone I can trust.

Great way to put a few extra nails in the coffin. I sighed.

Berto had good reason to worry. When his last associate had left, the asshole had tried to take all Berto’s clients with him.

There’s still the potential for getting shot at, I said. That really does scare me.

It should, Berto said. But you have a gun and know how to use it.

I made a face. I hated that gun, but fortunately, I had yet to do more than wave it around.

Come on. I’ve got a big case coming in, and I think you’ll find it interesting. Come with me to the meeting this afternoon.

I tried to glare at him and couldn’t. I’m not saying I’m going for it. But I’ll go to the meeting.

Good. It’ll be fine.

I don’t know, Berto. This is, like, way outside my wheelhouse.

He grinned again. Good. It’s the cocky assholes who get into trouble.

Like that was reassuring. Still, I’d done errands and even served a few summonses for Berto before. He was right. There was no reason I couldn’t work with him and do a play at the same time.

We rode back to the Westside in Berto’s BMW sedan. It’s a fairly discreet car, given that they’re everywhere in L.A. Berto loves it because the paint job is such that the car changes color depending on how the sun hits it.

I spent most of the ride bracing myself. It was one of those wet, drizzly February days, varying between mists, dry spots, and downpours, with an occasional break of sun just to throw things off. Like most Angelenos, Berto doesn’t slow down just because the freeways are wet. We skidded a little as he got off the 134 freeway onto Forest Lawn Drive.

We wriggled around on surface streets and a quick patch on the Hollywood Freeway, then Franklin until we got to Sunset. Past the Chateau Marmont, where John Belushi took his last trip. We were waiting for the light at Doheny when I looked up.

All along the side of this tall, narrow building, a mural-type ad had been painted. The building was at least ten stories tall. On a dark, navy-blue background was the figure of a man surrounded by a halo of white light. It was a three-quarter back view, from about his hips up. His shirt was dark blue with white stripes, and it was one of those cowboy styles - you could see the curved edge of the yoke. He wore a white cowboy hat and held a microphone to his face. His free hand was raised over his head, either in blessing or to greet the unseen fans he faced.

Luke Winston, Live in the U.S., in stores now! read the banner underneath.

I tried to think of something sufficiently sardonic to say that would note that a country western star was as big as Springsteen. Of course, Luke Winston had been that for some time and had one huge crossover following.

Aren’t you curious about your first case? Berto teased, as he made the turn into the building’s garage.

Assuming it is my first case. Isn’t it the usual celebrity getting threatening letters?

Somehow, I think this one’s going to be a little bit different. Hal Watkins is bringing the client over himself, and he didn’t say anything about letters.

Hal Watkins is one of the partners next door at the law firm. He refers a lot of Berto’s clients.

Like all the offices on his floor, Berto’s outer office wall is glass, letting you see into the antechamber as you walk up from the elevator. Berto’s wife, Marisol, decorated the office because, frankly, Berto would have put up Super Bowl posters and his kids’ latest school projects. Instead, Marisol chose a couple Frieda Kahlo prints for the outer office. The rest is done in a soothing blue and soft gold palette, to accent Franny’s cherry wood desk, which faces out onto the corridor. There’s an overstuffed leather couch facing her desk, with its back up against the glass, and another on the wall furthest from the door, which has the filing and copy room on the other side.

Hanging around Berto as long as I have, I know most of the players around him by name, though not by sight. As we walked up to the office, I could see Franny, Berto’s administrative assistant, smiling and shaking hands with five strangers. Franny’s an African American woman, with rich, dark skin who is... Well, she’s not fat by any means, but hardly thin, either. She’s tall and carries her weight well. She generally wears her hair straightened and in a more conservative turned under do, although, at that moment, she was in one of her periods when she experiments with braids. She always dresses in nice suits. Nobody in their right mind messes with Franny, least of all Berto, who is completely dependent on her.

Of the five strangers, Hal Watkins was easy to peg - he was the White guy in light gray Armani and no topcoat. Okay, the other strangers were White, too. Two other men and the one woman were all wearing Burberry raincoats of varying shades of tan. The last man was wearing a discreet black and white twill woolen topcoat buttoned all the way up. He had dusty straw-colored hair that was decidedly thinning on top, a straw-colored mustache that wasn’t anywhere near thinning, and he wore wire-rimmed glasses that he constantly pushed up his nose with a black-leather-gloved hand.

He did look vaguely familiar. That wouldn’t have made any difference, except that it suddenly hit me what Berto had been talking about when he’d asked me if I was curious about the new client. Berto’s new client was the guy on the side of the building, country star Luke Winston.

I hitched my beat-up navy pea coat around my shoulders. I’d dressed up for lunch, well, for me anyway. I was wearing a white oxford shirt over a dark green turtleneck, and my best jeans and cross trainers. I was a little under-dressed for this crowd.

I ran a hand over the curly dark blond mass I call hair. I wear it down to my shoulders because if it gets too short, I look like a poodle. Too long, and it becomes a real pain in the ass to deal with. I have the kind of hair most women I know covet and then some. Except on rainy days, when it all goes psycho, like that day.

I’m pretty much average height, and while I’ve added some padding over the years, I can still legitimately zip up a pair of size eight jeans without lying down.

The group in the office had seen us coming because they all turned as one toward us. Berto grinned as he ushered me in.

Hal, good to see you again, Berto said, quickly shaking Hal’s hand and sliding out of his own Burberry.

Good to see you, Hal replied quickly, then turned to the man in the black and white topcoat. Mr. Winston, this Mr. Berto Esparza.

It’s a real pleasure to meet you, sir. Mr. Luke Winston’s voice was firmly planted in the deep South, and for all the ritual was professional, I got the sense that Winston was utterly sincere at the same time.

Same here, Mr. Winston. Berto smiled warmly as he shook Winston’s hand.

I saw a flicker of surprise in Berto as Winston melted back and Hal introduced the entourage. As Berto later explained, most celebrities introduce their helpers in passing, and they certainly don’t step aside.

There was Leo McKesson, Winston’s manager, a thinnish, serious man with a perfectly tanned face and broad shoulders. His voice pegged him as also coming from the South. Jenny Richards’ voice had no distinguishable accent. She was in her early thirties, pleasant and professional, and head of Winston’s mail department. Jay Swanson looked like he was fresh out of college. Tall and broad-shouldered, he had that kind of jovial, eager to please puppy look.

Then Berto pushed me forward.

I’d like to present my new associate, Daria Barnes, he announced as I smiled reluctantly. Let’s get your coats, and we’ll talk in my office.

I’ve got them, Franny said, and indeed, she already had McKesson’s raincoat in her arms.

Winston had slid off his gloves and pocketed them and his long, pale fingers quickly unbuttoned his coat. He noticed that I was watching him and grinned.

Expecting something different? he asked softly as I took his coat.

He was dressed in an exquisitely tailored dark gray suit of the prettiest worsted wool I had ever seen. The cut was more English, although it emphasized his slim form nicely without the showiness of an Italian cut. His shirt was sky blue silk broadcloth with a matching tie. His shoes were Italian, though, and black business pumps that laced.

Not quite your concert image, I replied.

Well, it’s a more discreet way of getting around. I don’t get recognized as much. His soft brown eyes twinkled impishly. I got my cowboy shorts on underneath.

He was a lot shorter than I’d expected, building murals notwithstanding. Up next to him, I could see that he was almost six feet tall, but he didn’t seem tall, if you know what I mean.

Franny relieved me of Winston’s coat and my own and I found myself swept into Berto’s office.

It’s a large room, with the same cherry and soft gold accents played this time against a deep, rich green. Berto’s huge desk, which is always a mess, is flanked by rows of filled bookshelves behind him on the walls. Two tan leather wingback chairs face the desk, and to the side is a corner group of two black overstuffed couches with a glass coffee table.

Hal had excused himself, so while the client settled himself on a couch, I dragged over the wing backs. Winston had landed next to the corner. Berto, who was getting his notepad from the desk and some other papers, said that he’d sit next to Winston on the other couch. McKesson sat next to where Berto was going, and I was waved into the place on Winston’s other side. Richards and Swanson took the wing backs.

Winston leaned over and picked up a framed photograph.

Mr. Esparza, is this your family? he asked.

Yes, it is. Berto rooted around the desk some more, then picked up his phone. Franny, the contract, please.

I pointed out the children as I named them. That’s Sarah, she’s ten, then Jesse, five and Ruben, three, and that’s Marisol, his wife. All had cowboy hats and western wear on.

Winston nodded at the photo. They wouldn’t happen to be country western fans?

I rolled my eyes. And how.

Let me guess, you’re not. Winston’s eyes were teasing, as opposed to peeved.

With all due respect, Mr. Winston, I’m afraid not.

Who is your favorite group?

The Chicago Symphony. I smiled, slightly uncomfortable with where I stood.

He laughed, loud and hard. That’s the best answer I’ve heard yet.

Chicago Symphony? snorted Berto from his desk. Everybody’s heard of them.

I rolled my eyes. I was on the spot. I smiled weakly at Winston. I’m sorry, Mr. Winston. I really don’t have a favorite group. Classical music is as close as I get to a favorite genre, but I listen to almost everything that isn’t on a major label.

The more obscure the better, teased Berto. If you’ve heard of them, Daria’s not listening to them.

Well, nobody’s heard of me. Winston winked at me. Don’t worry about it. Got fans enough. Now, Mr. Esparza, about my case.

Berto was finally sitting down. Yes. How can I help you?

Winston shifted. It’s about Larry Ochoa.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered a report from the eleven o’clock news that Winston’s drummer had died in an accident at a rehearsal.

Winston’s face had suddenly become unreadable. Richards and Swanson both fidgeted uncomfortably while McKesson glared. He was obviously pissed off at something, what, I had no clue.

Berto nodded.

I don’t know how much you know about the case, Winston continued. It was a week ago today. The police have decided it was an accident. It was the fall from the catwalk that actually killed Larry, they told me.

You see, said McKesson, the autopsy turned up Vicodin in his system. You know, the pain killer?

He’d been injured recently? Berto asked.

Winston sighed. Well, yes. I, uh, don’t think we need to go into that.

They need to know, McKesson told him softly, then turned to us. The problem is, Larry used to be hooked on heroin and probably other stuff, years back. He’s been clean for six years and playing for us for a little over four years now. The police figured he got strung out on the Vicodin, climbed up the catwalk and fell off.

I know he hasn’t gone back to using, Luke said emphatically.

"If he wasn’t using, how did