Reel Stuff

by Don Bruns

  Hunching my shoulders as I walked by two of the offices with cameras, I stopped one door down from Juliana’s agency.

  Reaching into my pocket, I felt the gold-colored key that I’d swiped from Sue Waronker’s desk. I could only hope that it worked. I could only hope that no one had figured out I was the one who’d swiped it.

  Two cameras, on either side of the door. There was no way to avoid them, but with collar up and cap down, it would be hard for them to prove who I was. And that was only if I got caught. My objective was to do such a professional job that no one would even suspect they’d been burglarized. Therefore, there would be no reason to check the video. Hey, I was in the security business. I knew how to do these things. I’d been doing this for a couple of years and I knew my business.

  Maybe.

  Head down, cap pulled low, I walked the seven steps to the door, inserted the key, and turned it, feeling the bolt move. Damn. It was that simple.

  I turned the handle and pushed the door open.

  A dim, emerald-colored night light highlighted the reception area with a ghostly glow, casting a green aura over the entire area. I froze, waiting for an invisible alarm system to telegraph its warning. As I suspected, there was none.

  In the eerie light, I could see the file cabinets and the open doors to Juliana’s and Kathy Bavely’s offices. I had access. As long as no one had seen me enter. There are silent security systems and, although I hadn’t seen any sign of one, you never know. I installed these systems for a living, and some of them were deceiving.

  Pulling a small Maglite from my windbreaker, I turned it on and surveyed the area, hoping that no one outside would notice the wandering beam.

  Being familiar with Londell’s office, I walked in, opening the insurance file and pulling out the Jason Londell ten-million-dollar policy. I placed the four-page contract into the copy machine and pushed the copy button. Twenty seconds later the hum of the machine filled the office.

  As the papers flowed from the machine, I went through the other company files, pulling contracts for several high-profile actors, authors, and producers like Jason Londell. Current or former clients, I wasn’t sure which was which, I just wanted a sampling of the people she worked with.

  Juliana’s laptop was open on her desk, and I sat down and tried to enter a password. Her initials, the name of the agency, but nothing worked. I didn’t know her birthday or wedding anniversary, so I gave up.

  I did have the proof of an insurance policy. I had suspicion that she might have been unfaithful to Jason before he was killed. I’d done my job. But there was still something bothering me, I needed documentation bordering on proof. This was a personal quest. And, I’ll admit, I was a little upset with the lady’s attitude when she put me down in front of Em. I wanted some proof that she was a killer, but I was pretty certain I wouldn’t find it. Still, I was determined to keep looking.

  After rummaging through Juliana’s files, I found nothing incriminating. I’d rifled her personal information and she was clean. I’d even looked under M for Rob Mason. There was nothing. Maybe on her computer, but I had no idea how to get into that.

  I turned off the Maglite and, feeling a sense of defeat, shoved the copied pages into my jacket pocket. I glanced at my cell phone for the time and saw Em had been at Chateau Marmont for almost forty minutes. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of her being single there, but I also didn’t want to leave the office until I had a chance to explore everything I could find.

  As I headed toward the door, I turned around, and in the dim security light, I saw Bavely’s office door, open and inviting. What would she have that Juliana didn’t? Probably nothing.

  I walked in, seeing a similar set of filing cabinets that lined the far wall of the small office. This was where Em had agreed to a pact with the devil. She’d walked out, full of optimism, confidence, and hope. And I’d done nothing since but try to dash her dreams and destroy her self-confidence. Partially because I didn’t want her to succeed. Partially because it went against everything we were sent here to do. Prove that Juliana Londell was a culprit in the death of her husband.

  The beam of light spread to a soft hue, and again I questioned whether anyone driving by could see that beam through the blind-covered windows. Shining the light on the file cabinets, I looked for the same information. Jason Londell. M for Rob Mason. There was nothing. I flashed my light on her computer and made the same play for password recognition.

  Her initials didn’t work. KB. The agency name didn’t work. And then I remembered reading about the most popular passwords people use to protect their computers. Number one was password. Number two was 12345. Kathy was too smart for that, but on that list was superman. I concentrated on positive results and typed in supergirl. Nothing. Trying a play on words I keyed in superagent. Watching the screen I willed it open. The screen remained blank.

  Any time you try to guess someone’s password, it’s a big gamble.

  I walked into Londell’s office, typed in superagent, and again, nothing. It was time to head back to the Chateau and see if Em had been led off to one of the suites or villas by some hot movie star or producer.

  Ready to erase my entry on Juliana’s computer, I stared at the word. Reaching down and touching the number one on her keyboard, I pushed enter one last time. Superagent1. The screen opened with a harpsichord sound, and I had full access to Juliana Londell’s computer.

  My smile spread from ear to ear, and I stared for a moment, not believing I’d actually pulled it off.

  I was proud of myself, but decided to tempt fate. Walking out of the office, I entered Kathy Bavely’s room. Superagent was still on the screen. I reached down and hit the number 2. Superagent2. Bingo. The screen opened and whatever was on that hard drive was mine.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Glancing at my phone, I saw I’d been inside for more than an hour. Although I didn’t expect anyone coming in this late, every minute I was there presented a greater chance of being caught. I needed to do a quick scan of information on their computers, looking for the outside chance that there might be personal information involving Jason Londell or any infidelities that Juliana may have had.

  Em was by herself and, while she was perfectly capable of dealing with almost any situation, I decided I should at least give her an update.

  I pressed her number, and she answered the call on the third ring. The background noise reminded me of a huge crowd celebrating New Year’s Eve. Somewhere in the distance I heard loud music and the shrill sound of several women screaming.

  “Skip, this place is remarkable,” Emily was yelling over the din.

  “Are you getting information?”

  I could hear her speaking to someone, her voice muffled as if she had her hand over the mouthpiece, and then she was back.

  “What? I can’t hear you. Skip?”

  “Are you getting information?”

  “Leonardo DiCaprio just talked to me for fifteen minutes. DiCaprio, Skip. Frigging Leonardo DiCaprio.”

  She’d been drinking. More than one or two.

  “Unbelievable. I told him about the TV show. Do you know he got his big break on a sitcom? Something about Growing Pains.” There was another pause, more talking off the phone, then, “He wished me luck. Do you believe that?”

  “Does he have information on the case?” I found myself raising my own voice, more than a little pissed off.

  “Of course not,” she yelled back.

  “So you’re not getting anything useful? Right?”

  “There are people talking about the murder. Yes. And the funeral. Lots of people are going. I’m listening, Skip, but useful? I’m not sure I’ll find something useful. There’s talk, okay?”

  She couldn’t just walk around asking people what they knew, like she was a detective. It didn’t work that way.

  “When are you coming back?” The noise was even louder.

  Fifteen or twenty minutes going through the computers and depending upon
traffic another thirty minutes.

  “At least another hour. Maybe you can run into Ben Affleck or Lindsay Lohan. See if they can help with our Londell investigation.” I was pissed, but I knew it had nothing to do with her being there. It was simply my inability to cope with the situation.

  “What? Skip, I can barely hear you. Come on in when you get back, and I should be here.”

  Apparently my dripping sarcasm was lost on the new starlet. I was on my own courting a possible misdemeanor charge, and my girlfriend was hanging with the elite celebrity crowd.

  Turning back to Bavely’s computer, I stared at the screen. Em had said, “I should be here?” As if she might not be there when I returned. What the hell did that mean? Where would she go?

  Kathy Bavely’s icons were well organized, and the one that jumped out at me was in the middle of those colorful tiles.

  J’s Schedule.

  I clicked on it and the screen opened immediately. A calendar appeared and every box for the month was filled with Juliana’s appointments. I couldn’t tell if Juliana had added them, or if this was Kathy Bavely’s way of keeping track of superagent1, but if this was to be believed, Londell had not left the state. There was no way she had gone to Miami. Every day for the last twelve months seemed to be full of activities for superagent1. That in itself didn’t absolve her from any guilt, but we couldn’t—I couldn’t—place her at the scene of the crime.

  And then, working backward, there were meetings with clients, and initials that had me guessing. The two letters that popped up before the murder and after didn’t confuse me at all.

  R.M. lunch.

  R.M. dinner.

  R.M. dropped her off.

  Rob Mason was obviously more than a manager of talent. He and Juliana seemed to have been in a relationship that possibly had started before the murder. Maybe two or three weeks before.

  I rifled through the preceding month and R.M. was off the map. Had she found this guy two weeks before Jason was killed and decided to have an affair? Then killed her husband so he wouldn’t find out and cancel her seventy-five-million-dollar inheritance? That didn’t seem to add up.

  Going a little deeper, I saw the initials C.A.

  C.A. dinner.

  C.A. stopped in ten a.m.

  C.A. took her to lunch.

  C.A. dropped her off, early morning.

  I only knew one C.A. in Juliana’s circle. Clint Anders. Jason Londell’s good friend and his last employer and producer.

  The attention to lunch appointments, early drop offs, and dinner engagements led me to believe that Kathy Bavely was keeping tabs on her partner, or in this case, apparently her boss. I didn’t know why, but she was keeping a personal log, spying on Juliana’s personal affairs. It certainly seemed that way. Maybe it was because Juliana was all about stealing Kathy’s clients. Clients like Em.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  There was an underlying tension between the two ladies, that was a given, but I had to wonder why she was logging the meetings that Londell had with these two guys, Clint Anders and Rob Mason.

  Scanning the calendar, I kept checking out the months preceding Londell’s death. Three months back she had blocked out a section of the calendar with J.L. SP. Every day. I concentrated, thinking about what those initials meant. And then it hit me. Jason had been in Singapore. That must have been her abbreviation. SP. Singapore. And every day he was gone, Juliana apparently had an appointment with someone else. J.L. SP. Jason Londell, Singapore.

  I also noticed that in some of the boxes was the comment, “See B.T.”

  I had no idea. Scanning through the icons, I saw nothing about B.T.

  And for about two weeks C.A. and B.T. appeared together, as if there was a three-way meeting between Juliana, Clint, and B.T.

  I Googled the initials B.T. and a broadband website and a music site came up, but nothing seeming to have a correlation. B.T. It could be anything. My guess was it was another guy who had some relationship with Juliana.

  The other calendar that intrigued me was one that showed dates and four initials. The time frame started about three months ago. This one was titled J.L., but simply had four initials in each day part. Ph A A. Sometimes the initials appeared a couple of times in one day, but more often it was every three or four days. Ph A A. There were numerous mentions. Not one word of what it meant. As if to just remind her that the day included Ph A A.

  Ph A A. I didn’t have a clue. I put it in my mind and kept reminding myself it was there. Sooner or later, something would come up. Ph A A.

  Making sure I erased whatever trace there was that I had been on her site, I left Bavely’s office, after rubbing the wind-breaker sleeve over the keyboard in case someone checked for fingerprints.

  I walked into Juliana’s office and smiled when I saw the keyboard lit up. Superagent1. I now was pretty sure that Kathy Bavely was pimping Juliana Londell. She knew that Londell’s password was superagent1 so she assumed the password superagent2 without Juliana’s knowledge and was keeping some sort of a scorecard.

  Scanning the icons, there was no calendar for superagent1. But there was an icon for B.T.

  I clicked it and the name Betsy Timmermeister flashed on the screen. Bingo. A spreadsheet icon appeared and I clicked on it.

  Dates, dollar amounts, values on cars, buildings, houses, boats, bank accounts, investments. Row after row of numbers. I’m certain my mouth dropped open. It was a huge amount of information to absorb.

  Thousands of dollars. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands. Probably millions. I’d never seen so many zeros on a spreadsheet before, even in my business classes at Samuel and Davidson University. I would bet some Fortune 500 companies didn’t have this kind of a balance sheet. My eyes were wide open as I stared at the figures.

  With just a brief glance, I realized I had the Londell fortune in my grasp. Betsy Timmermeister was some sort of financial guru who kept at least seventy-five million dollars organized for Jason and Juliana Londell. And if I had to bet, I’m sure the ten-million-dollar life insurance policy was included as well.

  It would take an hour to pore through the entire spreadsheet, and I couldn’t afford to be in the office that long. I hit the print button and heard the hum of her machine. I hoped that she didn’t have the software to check her computer to see what had been printed. I’m sure most people don’t. Anyway, this office was too small for anyone to care about paper usage. Who would suspect that an ex-manager of a budding starlet, who’d been fired from his job, was stealing Juliana Londell’s financial report?

  And remembering that I’d been fired from a manager’s position that I never really had made me feel better about copying what turned out to be twenty pages of financial reports. I couldn’t even imagine going through the numbers.

  Quickly scanning Juliana’s e-mail, I keyed in Jason Londell’s name. She’d kept an impressive list of messages to and from the actor. Hundreds. Too many to print, and I didn’t have time to see if there were threatening e-mails.

  Turning off the computer, wiping the keyboard, I used the Maglite to find my way to the door. I hunched my shoulders, buried my cap-covered head, and locked the door behind me, making sure to hide my face at all times from the camera.

  As I walked away, I put my hand inside my windbreaker, touching the papers stuck in my waistband. I didn’t know what it was going to prove, but it sure was going to make some interesting reading.

  One hour and twenty minutes later, I pulled up in front of Chateau Marmont. The valet guy was at my door in an instant, and I watched him as his eyes scanned my vehicle. In the bright entrance lights, I could see the look of disdain on his face.

  “Valet, sir?”

  What the hell.

  “Yes. And please, make sure not to park too close to another car. I don’t want to ding this vehicle.”

  He smirked, as if he understood the joke.

  Stepping out of the car, I watched the paparazzi lined up on the sidew
alk. Not a one of them even gave me a glance.

  I walked in, looking to my left and right, trying to separate the beautiful Em from the throng of crazy people who packed the room.

  I couldn’t find her, but I knew I could use a beverage, so I walked to the crowded bar and stared halfway down at one of the attractive young girls slinging drinks. She frowned at me and kept pouring and mixing. Obviously, my captivating charm didn’t work on her. The muscular male in the black T-shirt and stubbly beard noticed my state and stepped in front of me, asking me what would be my pleasure. So, I could get the big guy’s attention but—

  With a beer in my hand, I walked away from the bar and started searching for Em.

  I was invisible. No one stepped out of my way, and no one glanced at me. A ghost, walking through a throng of involved people. Involved in their own little worlds, their own conversations, their own cliques, and ignoring the man with a history of seventy-five million dollars in his possession. No, I didn’t have the seventy-five million dollars. But I could control the fate of that money. I had names, account numbers, dollar figures. I probably had information that could stop the flow of assets to Juliana Londell. You never know.

  Feeling somewhat empowered, I made it through one pass of the room. I didn’t see any noticeable celebs, even though I expected to run into one at every table. If there were celebrities, I was blind to them.

  “Skip.”

  I felt her smooth arms around my neck and I knew she’d found me, not the other way around.

  “Where have you been? I was almost abducted by Ashton Kutcher.” She giggled and I said nothing. My girlfriend was having way too much fun, and I was not feeling like fun at this moment. I’d had a remarkable stroke of luck at Juliana’s office and I wasn’t ready to get into party mode.

  “Come on, Skip.” Again, the giggle. “I could get used to this. Lots of hot movie people coming on to me and—”