by Ian Bull
“Let’s take this off,” she whispers, and lifts my head out of her chest. She giggles as she unclasps the front of her bra, and her perfect, round 34C breasts pop free into bright daylight.
Our eyes meet…and it hits me. She fucked the Boss Man. I feel it down to my soul. Maybe she did it because she felt she had to, or because she wanted to. Maybe both. Maybe they did it on the yacht, maybe on the jet. But she fucked him, I know it.
My eyes burn into her.
She backs up a bit and covers her breasts. “What is it?” she asks.
I could strangle her right now and leave her body in the bushes for her lions and coyotes to find. The urge to punish her rises in me, for her betrayal after all I did for her.
“You didn’t answer me. Are you my girlfriend?”
“Yes, I’m your girlfriend.”
The gray cloud passes. It’s because I’m off my medicine. I take less anti-anxiety meds in preproduction, which amps up the creative mania I need to get through this, but I get dark thoughts. I don’t really know what happened with her and Boss Man. She’s the best I’ve ever had, she brings out the best in me and I need her. I must remember that.
“Don’t worry. We’re on the same page now, babe,” I say, and reach for her.
She moves forward on her knees and falls into my arms. My mouth goes to her nipple, and she moans as she rolls on top of me.
Chapter 30
* * *
Steven Quintana
Day 10: Monday Morning
Malibu, California
My heart jumps when Julia climbs the last switchback and comes into view on the trail below. She has long legs, and her gait is coltish and bouncy, so I can spot her raising dust two hundred yards away, peering left and right, scanning the hillside, waiting for me to appear.
When she’s fifty yards away, I descend from my granite rock, slip between the chaparral bushes, and ease out in front of her. She freezes—she doesn’t recognize me under my baseball cap—and then she rushes into my arms, almost knocking me over.
“I did it,” she whispers into my ear. “I made you come back.”
“I’m sorry I left the way I did.”
“You’re here and you’re alive, that’s all that matters.”
We kiss for a long time, until she breaks away and gives me a funny look. “I love you, babe, but you need to shave and take a shower. Did you sleep up here?”
My skin blushes as I sniff myself. She’s right, I’m ripe. The last time I bathed was three days ago at the Dolphin Club in San Francisco, before two plane flights and a Greyhound Bus trip. “Sorry. I didn’t have time. I just checked into a hotel and took an Uber straight here.”
She touches my face, smiles, and shakes her head. “I think you like being gross. I bet you and Carl were like this half the time, like smelly orangutans.”
I shrug. “Pretty much. Let’s walk. The breeze will blow my scent backwards.”
The air in the mountains above Malibu is invigorating, and I breathe the coolness deep into my lungs, with only slight pain in my ribs. It’s one of those late winter days where it’s warm in the sun and cold in the shade as we pass in and out of the shadows of Castro Peak above us.
“I liked your text,” she says. “I knew exactly where to meet you.”
Tell TCDW to meet at first date spot 11 am Monday.
After the Bahamas, we were spending time together. One day, we drove up the mountain from Tivoli Cove and hiked below Castro Peak, just like we’re doing now. We didn’t even kiss. We just walked, knowing something was different, and I reached out and held her hand.
“Why’d you pick this spot to meet?” Julia asks.
“Because I knew we’d be alone.”
Julia nods, but adds a smirk. “No other reason?”
Julia believes in “subconscious motivations.” It’s part of her acting. Instead of answering, I reach out and take her hand as we walk.
“Did you make it out of the house okay?” I ask.
She nods. “It was easy. I got good at avoiding the cameras from all those months I spent trying to avoid you.” She pokes me.
I’m ashamed that I once made a living stalking her. Now I’m even more ashamed that I’m ruining her life again, in a brand new way. “I’m sorry you missed the Oscars.”
She smiles. “I love it when a man apologizes. Keep it coming.”
“And I’m sorry about Rikki and your hassles with Le Clerq, and everything that you’re going through because of me. I really am.”
“Yet, despite all that, I was able to find something you needed. You know why?”
“Why?” I ask, taking the bait.
“Because I never stopped thinking about you.” She tugs me to a stop. We’re both dressed in loose workout clothes, with baseball caps and sunglasses to cover our faces from the sun and prying eyes—even though there’s no one else up here. She takes off her glasses and gives me her full-on actress stare of pure attention. “Did you think about me?”
“Not every moment.”
She scoffs and play-hits me in the chest. “Men are amazing.”
“I was mad at you. When Glenn sabotaged my computer, I knew Carl put him up to it, but I didn’t know if you were in on it, too. I decided to not think about it.”
“Can I give you some advice, Steven Quintana?” she asks. “Lie to me sometimes.”
Julia smirks and wags her finger at me, then turns on her heel and walks away. She’s got information I want; I should have known she’d make me jump through hoops to get it. I hurry to catch her. “I thought about you a lot, okay? I was a little busy,” I say.
“Sounds like it. Find out much?”
“I found out a lot. Even without my computer you stole.”
“I bet I found out more. And I never had to leave Southern California.”
She walks fast, forcing me to jog to keep up. Tiny arrows of pain shoot through my chest.
“Wait,” I gasp, and she slows. The tall grass that starts just off the trail is a deep green and won’t turn brown until summer. I pull out a small pair of binoculars and scan the mountain.
“So you found the man behind the curtain?” I ask.
“I did. He’s a producer in Los Angeles.”
“Can you tell me more?”
“Will you stay if I tell you?” she asks, and walks off, glancing over her shoulder.
I dart up the trail to catch her again. I touch her arm and she slows down. The wind blows, sending waves through the green grass.
“I know some stuff, too. I know the name of a prisoner and when the game is happening.”
“Perfect,” she says. “We can tell Mendoza and Taylor what we both know. The LAPD and the FBI can handle this better than we can now.”
“I disagree. We’ve both done a better job than they have so far.”
Julia clenches her teeth. “Except I’m supposed to tell them that you came back. Plus, I’m supposed to give any information about Rikki’s death to them first, not you.”
“Yet you haven’t told them.”
“Because seeing you safe in front of me is more important. So, my darling, knowing how much I am risking for you, how long should I wait before I tell them?” She gives me her honest actor stare again. She’s playing her hand, and she’s playing it well.
“Wait two days.”
“Two days, how do you figure that?”
It’s now time for me to play my one remaining hand. I tug her arm and we keep walking. “Where are you with your problem with Le Clerq?”
“I’m meeting him and his lawyer tomorrow morning at the agency,” she says, and sighs.
“So you’re going to pay him off?”
“I have no choice. I have photos of him without crutches, but you can’t tell it’s him.”
A fox darts across the trail and disappears into the grass without a sound. There’s a flash of red inside the green, and then he’s gone.
“I’ll trade you,” I say. “Give me your info, and I can make you
r Le Clerq problem go away.”
“Is that why you wrote Wait for me. Got idea for Le Clerq?”
“I can get photos of him tonight and you won’t have to pay that slimeball. Then, I have an idea to make him work for us.” A small prop plane flies over the bay at the same height as the trail we’re on. “Let’s get under that oak tree,” I say, pulling Julia a few yards further down the trail until we’re under its branches. The plane flies past. When I look at Julia, she’s staring at me.
“What?” I ask.
“You love this too much. You’ll keep pushing until your luck runs out. I’d rather just pay Le Clerq, tell the FBI everything, and have you stay. No more risks.”
“But we’re so close. This is what Rikki would have wanted.”
“You don’t know that,” she says, shaking her head.
“I saw the look in her eyes. She was begging me to help her before they shot her.”
Julia takes a step back and narrows her eyes at me. A breeze off the ocean blows her hair across her face and makes me shiver. “You’re not going to like what I’m going to say.”
“Go ahead, say it.”
“Rolando killed the boy in Colombia, and you wouldn’t stop until you stopped Rolando. Now, you won’t stop until you stop the people who killed Rikki.” She then closes her eyes and pauses. “But the boy in that village died because of a risk you took. Rikki was shot because of a risk you took. You think you can fix what happened by stopping them. You can’t. The only thing you can fix is yourself. And the only thing you should stop is taking risks in the first place. And if you don’t change, it’s over for us.” She opens her eyes, then looks down at the ground, as if she could see the line she just drew in the sand.
I blush, feeling the blood pound in my head and my side. “I promise to stop,” I say. Whether I really can or not, I don’t know. But I don’t tell her that.
“When?”
“Give me two days before telling Taylor, Mendoza, Carl, or Glenn what you know. Then give me five days to catch the people responsible. Then I will stop.”
The wind blows through the oak branches, rattling the leaves so their shadows dance across Julia’s face. She stares at the ocean, as if calculating the odds. “What if Mendoza and Taylor come to me in the next two days? I can’t lie to them. And what if you’re an inch away from your goal five days from now?”
“Then it’s over and I stop.”
“No matter what?” she asks, suspicious.
“No matter what. I promise.”
She exhales and sticks out her hand. We shake, sealing the deal. I know she hopes the odds will work in her favor and I’ll be stopped. I wonder if I’m supposed to seal this deal with a kiss or something. I decide I shouldn’t; it’s already too serious. Instead, we leave the shade of the tree and keep walking.
“What do you think normal life would mean for us?” she asks, already thinking five days into the future, when I just want to know what she knows now.
“I’m addicted to adrenaline. You’re addicted to emotion. How normal can we be?”
“Addicted to emotion? What does that mean?”
“You can stir it up on cue, zooming from one emotion to another. That’s what they pay you to do. That’s what makes you feel alive. That’s the edge people pay to read about, and why paparazzi chase you down—”
“And makes it so hard for you to be with me?” she asks, finishing my thought.
I don’t answer. We walk again without saying a word, until I nudge my shoulder against hers. “We’re both stuck in our feedback loops. I don’t know how to stop the rush and live a quiet life. You don’t know how to be normal and boring.”
“But acting doesn’t kill you.”
“Maybe it does. It just takes longer.”
We reach the crest of the trail and head downhill. There’s a black spot in the parking lot where Corral Canyon meets the trailhead. My binoculars reveal that it’s an SUV.
“We shouldn’t go any farther,” I say.
“Let’s go back then,” she says, already turning on the trail.
“Hold on. The five days have just started. Now tell me, who’s the producer?”
“You don’t waste time, do you?”
“You don’t have much time yourself if you don’t want to pay off Le Clerq tomorrow.” She leans against a warm boulder. “He’s Robert Snow. He’s a reality TV producer.” She then talks for ten minutes straight about his job at Velodrome and all the reality shows he had done, and that he was shooting video in a prison in Honduras the night I was shot.
“You are good,” I say. I then tell her about Hong Kong, Stanley Prison, Ming Lee, and the yacht. “The event is Saturday. I’ll get a phone call from Walter when Ming leaves prison. Now we just have to find out where the event is going to be. That’s where Le Clerq comes in.”
“How?”
“You wrote I found the man behind the curtain in my own backyard. That told me he’s from Los Angeles. He’s going to have to hire a crew from here.”
“Unless he’s shooting this crazy show in Asia. Or South America.”
“Maybe. But if he’s smart, he’s hiring people he trusts, which means the event will happen closer to Los Angeles. It’s less of a risk for him.”
“I suppose.”
“Le Clerq was a reality TV cameraman for years. He knows everybody in that world. In my paparazzo days, he bragged about how good he was at stalking people with a video camera.”
“You think he’ll help us?” Julia asks.
“If I get some pictures of him first. Then we can make him an offer he can’t refuse.”
Movement on a bluff far below catches my eye. I use my binoculars and spy two people on a blanket. “Two people down there are making love.”
“Seems like a good idea on a Monday morning,” Julia says. She smiles and slips her arm through mine. Her hair smells like lavender, which sends memories of the last time we made love flooding back. I touch her face with my pinky finger and she smiles.
“Let’s find someplace where we can talk,” I say. “I have a lot to explain.”
“We can’t go to Rikki’s. People are watching.”
“I’m staying at a hotel in the Valley. We could go there. Then I’ll leave to find Le Clerq.”
“Sure. Let’s talk there. I love talking.”
Chapter 31
* * *
Julia Travers
Day 11: Tuesday Morning
Beverly Hills, California
Dorothy, the head receptionist, is waiting for us as the elevator doors open. She’s an athletic brunette with short hair and sharp gray eyes, and she’s tough enough to keep the Griffin Agency lobby clear of pushy actors with headshots who just drop by—a trick I tried myself when I first arrived in Hollywood. She smiles and holds the elevator open as Paul and I step off.
“Julia, Paul, they’re already here. Right this way please.”
Usually, I drift in here around noon, but today I’m here before sunrise, wearing my Chanel business suit (Serenity Blue, the Pantone color of the year) with matching heels. I don’t feel good about meeting Le Clerq and his lawyer, but you must look good even when you don’t feel good, as my grandmother Solveig used to say. Make it your armor.
Dorothy leads us through the glass doors and past agents in their offices, rows of shelves packed with movie and TV scripts, and past the assistants and the junior agents working the phones in their bullpens. The men all wear ties and the women wear sleek outfits with their hair done just right. The office is already half full, and the sun hasn’t risen.
“It’s not even six a.m. Why are all these people at work already?” I ask.
“The Oscars were Sunday,” Dorothy says. “The agents want to book our winners for their next projects while they’re still hot.”
“No rest for the wicked,” Paul says.
All this madness started with the Tech Oscars eleven days ago. I was a star then, a golden feather in the agency’s cap. This week, my feather
is a pain in their ass.
Dorothy leads us to the main conference room and opens the glass doors. Four people are inside—Le Clerq and his lawyer, David Griffin, head of the Griffin Agency, and his head counsel, Saul Berlin. David and Saul rise out of their chairs as Paul and I enter; Le Clerq and his lawyer do not. David comes around the table and grabs both my hands. He’s an old school New York agent in his sixties, and he always treats me with paternal respect. He squeezes my hands and stares into my eyes.
“I am so sorry about what happened to Rikki and Steven. And now this.”
“Thank you, David.” We share a Hollywood hug. Not too close, no squeezes, just three pats on the back and we’re done.
I shake hands with Saul, who looks crisp in a blue pinstripe suit. He winks at me, and then gestures to the men sitting at the table. “Simon Le Clerq and his counsel, Howard Balog.”
Le Clerq looks like he always does. He wears a tattered baseball cap on a bald head, with a fat, mean face, and a goatee that looks like dirty cottage cheese. Metal crutches lean against the conference window behind him. His lawyer is a middle-aged preppie in a blue blazer, striped school tie, and gray slacks.
“Thank you for meeting me here,” I say. “I appreciate it.”
They just glare at me.
“Breakfast?” Paul asks, and gestures to the trays of bagels, muffins, yogurt, and fruit, along with coffee dispensers, all set up on the other end of the long conference table.
“Thanks, I need something before we get started,” I say, and walk to the other end of the long table. What I really need is a moment to gather myself. I smear cream cheese on a pumpernickel bagel, then bite, chew, and stare out the window at the sunrise. The palm trees on Wilshire Boulevard are black silhouettes against blood-red clouds stacked on the horizon.
Red sky in morning, sailor take warning. My father would say that before sailing on the cold and dangerous Lake Superior. I finish half of my bagel, then walk back and sit down next to Saul. David sits at the top curve of the table, and Le Clerq and Balog sit across from us.
