Free Bride of the Rat God by Barbara Hambly

“So why give them a handhold if you knew they’d jump on it?”
    Norah frowned, looking back toward the house. She barely recalled what she had dreamed the previous night, before the dogs’ barking had wakened her. About Kiss of Darkness, she thought, though why it should have troubled her she didn’t know. Aside from being beautifully photographed, it had struck her as the most incredible nonsense she’d ever seen. “Maybe because of Mr. Pelletier’s death,” she said. “Or because I had nightmares, too, last night.”
    “It might have been the tea,” he pointed out. “It keeps some people awake, like coffee does.”
    “I suppose.”
    “I will bet you,” he added with a wry quirk to his mouth under the reddish beard, “that when those ladies show up tonight with their ouija boards, they’re going to discover that Christine’s problem stems from somebody she was married to in a previous incarnation—my guess is an Italian count in the Renaissance, with a saver on an Egyptian pharaoh—who isn’t resting easy on the astral plane because of Christine’s current impure life. And I’ll also bet that the condition can be corrected by cold baths and meditation at the Sabsung Institute for the Weil-Being of Souls. Yikes,” he added, glancing back over his shoulder at the road. “Here comes the second wave.”
    Black cars bearing the lettering LAPD slowed and—their drivers apparently getting a look at the driveway—began to park on the narrow dirt strips on either side of the road or in the small bays of more or less level land among the slopes.
    “No bets.” Norah grinned. “Though it might very well be an Indian sachem. I shall see you Monday at the studio.”
    “I’ll expect a full report.” He slammed the car door, gave her a brisk thumbs-up, and put the little car into gear.
    Unlike the reporters, the police did not regard Norah as invisible, and for nearly an hour, while Christine spun contradictory accounts of Frank Brown’s premiere party—a narrative not improved by the fact that she’d been well and truly drunk during all the operative events—Norah answered questions about Sandringham’s brief visit to Enyart’s. Chang Ming did his best to assist the police and reporters in the execution of their duties, Black Jasmine supervised, and Buttercreme hid in the kitchen. No sooner had they departed than Flindy McColl appeared, an energetic redhead wearing the longest scarf and the shortest skirt Norah had ever seen. She insisted on giving her own press conference for the few reporters left: “Ya know, Frank can’t kick, ‘cause if he buys out Enterprise Pictures from old Jesperson, you and me’ll be just like sisters!”
    She also approved heartily of the idea of a seance that night. “What a scream! Can I stick around? Madame Ayshaya—that’s my astrologer—says I had this one lifetime where I was a nobleman’s daughter, and I got kidnapped by pirates and sold to a harem in Algiers.” She cracked her gum. “Maybe you’ll find out the same thing happened to you, huh?” She produced a small gold flask from her extravagantly fringed bag, took a hefty swig, and offered it to Christine, who took the hint and—the reporters being gone by then—produced an unmarked bottle from one of the brass and lacquer allegedly Chinese cabinets.
    “If it did, why can’t I remember it?” countered Christine. “And why can they? And how does dancing around in the moonlight to those awful flutes they play and bathing outdoors in cold water—you know, they have a marble shower stall the size of my bedroom. I’ve seen it, darling—how does all that make them remember? The least they could do is hire a decent musician, like that gorgeous boy we’ve got working at Colossus, or buy a gramophone. And if Frank buys out Enterprise, we’ll not only be sisters, but you’ll get to have the Rothstein boys playing on your sets as well instead of that awful old German fiddler you’ve got