Another Thing To Fall

by Laura Lippman

  Yet Tess recognized no one — except the young man who was waiting for Selene. But then, Buddhist monks, living in seclusion in the mountains of Tibet, probably knew of Derek Nichole, a pretty boy who had transformed himself into the actor of the moment by taking on a trio of foolproof roles — crippled man, developmentally disabled man, cancer-ridden gangster trying to make one last score so his small daughter would be financially secure. He hadn't been nominated for an Oscar, but the consensus was that it was a matter of when, not if.

  "Hey, doll," he said, not bothering to get up as Selene slid into the semiconcealed booth. No cheek kiss, no hug, just the smallest of waves, the fingers barely lifting from the table. Tess wondered if it was film or fame that taught one to modify gestures that way. "I didn't know you were bringing your mom."

  "Joke," Selene assured Tess. "JOKE. I mean, Derek's met my mom, and she's a blonde like me."

  "I don't know," Tess said. "I could be your Baltimore mama. The city used to lead the nation in pregnancies to girls under fourteen."

  "Yes, but I'm twenty, so you would have had to have me when you were six."

  Tess waited a beat for Selene to declare again "JOKE!" When she didn't, it seemed too late to correct her math skills. Yet Derek, his tone gentle, said: "The numbers go the other way, baby. You add fourteen to your age to figure out how old — well, it's not important. Margaritas for everybody?"

  "I'm working," Tess said, "and she's underage."

  Derek looked at Selene. "I thought you were coming to New York to have fun. You told me you had a late call tomorrow."

  She shrugged prettily. "I can have fun, within limits. I told you what the perimeters were."

  "Parameters," Derek said. Again, he managed to correct her without being condescending or unkind.

  "Isn't that what I said? I'm going to the loo."

  She didn't ask Tess to let her out from the banquette, just crawled over her as if she were a piece of furniture.

  Tess started to stand: "I should—"

  "Don't be silly," Selene said. "It's a one-seater. Besides, you can see me from here. I don't need that much guarding, not here. It's Baltimore where all the strange shit is happening. Baltimore's the real problem."

  Tess settled for watching Selene thread her way through the crowd, then keeping an eye on the door marked CHICAS.

  "She's a good kid," Derek said.

  "Kid being the operative word. How old are you?"

  "Twenty-seven, so it wouldn't be exactly scandalous if we were dating." He held her gaze. There were more handsome men in movies, with smoother, regular features, but Derek Nichole commanded one's attention. "Look, it's not like that with us. We're pals. She wants to do what I did, careerwise, but it's harder for girls. All the media wants to write about is the bad-girl stuff. I ran with a tough crowd, back in Philly, wiseguys, but nobody cared where I went, or who I fucked, as long as I didn't break a bottle over somebody's head. Her, that's all they want to write about."

  "Poor thing," Tess said, and it didn't come out as sarcastic as she had intended.

  "I told her not to sign up for this stupid television show. I said go do theater in the West End, make another independent film, but she began to worry that she didn't know where her next Chloe bag was coming from, and she jumped at the paycheck. Now she's got all this great attention from the film, and she can't leverage it. She's sewed."

  "Sewed?"

  "Television shows require a minimum commitment of five years. And it's one way. You commit to them for five years, but they're not obligated to keep you. I made the same mistake, but I got lucky. The show I did ended up six and out. If it had been a success, I would have been stuck."

  "How did you do it?" Tess asked. "I mean, you weren't much older than Selene when you…."

  He smiled at her inability to find a tactful way to finish her thought. "When I went from a punch line to being touted for an Oscar? Let's just say I was smart enough to know I wasn't quite smart enough, and I found some people who understood what I wanted to do. Mentors. Or, Mentos as Selene calls them, and she's not far wrong. The fresh-maker, right? Well, they made me fresh again, made me someone who had to be considered in a different light. The only thing they couldn't change was my own stupid stage name. I meant to be Derek Nichols, but when I put my paperwork in, they misread my handwriting."

  Tess helped herself to the chips on the table, dragging one through a wonderfully subtle salsa verde. She was aware that people were glancing covertly toward their booth. Who was that woman with Derek Nichole? She also was aware that she was on the verge of enjoying herself, that Derek had shown more depth and subtlety in five minutes than Selene had over the course of an entire journey up the New Jersey Turnpike, where she had quizzed Tess on the origins of every rest stop name. Tess could forgive a twenty-year-old for not knowing who Joyce Kilmer was, but her ignorance of Walt Whitman and Woodrow Wilson had been a little staggering. Selene had asked if Whitman had invented the Whitman Sampler.

  "What are you going to do next?"

  "You know that best seller, the one about the two gay chaplains during World War I, one American, one British?"

  Tess had managed to miss this novel.

  "I'm producing that for my company, and I'm going to play the younger chaplain." Her expression must have betrayed her, because he laughed. "Don't worry, that's the American. I know I can't do accents."

  "And is there a part for Selene in it?"

  "Afraid not. In fact, there are almost no women in it. You see, my character ends up shell-shocked—"

  But here was Selene, back from the bathroom, holding a margarita the size of her head.

  "Someone gave it to me," she squealed in protest as Tess unwound her fingers from the stem. Tess took a sip — definitely tequila. Really good tequila.

  "Don't waste it," Derek said. "That would be a crime."

  "You drink it, then," Tess said, but he gestured toward the bottle of Negra Modelo in front of him.

  "Okay," she said. "Just one, and only because I'm opposed to waste. I'm working after all."

  WEDNESDAY

  Chapter 13

  Tess awoke to a perfect sunrise, a piercing red-orange light that she normally would have admired. Today, it felt like dozens of needles stabbing her eyelids.

  "Where am I?" she rasped, putting a hand to her head. Once she touched it, she realized it was throbbing. Strange, for Tess seldom had headaches and never had hangovers. And she felt as if she were moving. Could she have bed spins? No, she was moving, lying in the backseat of a car traveling swiftly.

  "Delaware, for a few more minutes," the driver replied. Selene's driver, in Selene's car, but—

  "Where's…where's Selene?"

  "Back in New York. Once you got ill, her only thought was to make sure you were taken care of."

  "I got… ill?"

  "That's what she told me. She called and asked that I come get you, said you had reacted very strongly to something in your food or drink, that you seemed to be going into some kind of shock."

  "Not shock," Tess said. "And not food poisoning." Her head felt as if it had been filled with wet cotton balls, but she could still find the thread of what happened. The drink that had materialized, Derek's insistence that she not waste it, a few sips, a few chips and salsa — and no memory beyond that. Fuck them. They hadn't even let her enjoy the chorizo con queso appetizer that she had ordered before the drink kicked in.

  "They drugged me," she said flatly. "They drugged me, and you obligingly whisked me away. How can you do that? You know I'm supposed to be with her at all times."

  "I work for Miss Selene," the driver said. What had Selene called him? Moby? That seemed an unlikely name for a thin black man. "I may have been hired by the production, but I quickly learned that it's better to do what she tells me to do. For one thing, she pays me extra. Besides, Mr. Nichole is a nice young man. A good influence."

  Tess had thought so, too. But now she was thinking that Derek Nichole was an even better
actor than he was reputed to be. He had seemed so kind, so genuine. A genuine jerk.

  "Where did Selene tell you to take me?"

  "Initially, we took you to Mr. Nichole's suite at the SoHo Grand to assess your condition. When it became apparent that you didn't need a doctor, I started back to Baltimore at Miss Selene's insistence. And she said to tell you that she promises to make her call today. ‘Cross my heart and hope to die,' if she doesn't. Those were her very words." He sounded a little sheepish, repeating his employer's assurances.

  "How's she going to get there if you're with me?"

  "She'll hire another car, or even take the train. The Acela's only a little more than two hours, and her call's not until two P.M. She has plenty of time. Now where would you like to go?"

  "Take me to the production offices. I might as well resign before they fire me. On the job for all of a day and I fuck it up."

  "You underestimated Miss Waites's ability to get what she wants," the driver said. "Don't feel bad — everybody does. You sure you wouldn't like to go home first? Take a shower? Maybe throw down a little mouthwash?"

  Tess registered the metallic lime aftertaste in her mouth. "That's not the worst idea I've ever heard."

  The driver laughed, a rumbling rolling bass that managed to charm Tess despite her foul mood and pounding head. "And what would that be, exactly?" he asked. "What is the worst idea you've ever heard?"

  "Hard to say, but taking this job is in the top five."

  Once home, she released the driver, showered, then drove herself to the production office, feeling marginally better. It was embarrassing being undone by a roofie, the date rapist's drug of choice, but Tess was far more humiliated by being outwitted by two actors. They may, per Alfred Hitchcock's edict, be treated like cattle, but they had trumped her, so what did that make her in this barnyard analogy? A hen they had stomped on? A fly that they had swatted with their perfect little tails while never missing a beat in their cud chewing?

  The production office parking lot was filled with patrol cars, and for one paranoid moment, Tess thought that someone had called the police to report Selene missing. Shit, what if something had happened to her while I was out? But then she registered the evidence unit and the yellow tape, and her self-centric fear was replaced by something more substantial.

  She found Lottie in a cluster of people standing just outside the front door. Lloyd was in the group of production employees, and part of Tess's mind registered that fact, pleased he had shown up on time for his second day of work with no adult oversight whatsoever. She hoped he wouldn't be denied a third day on the job because of her ineptitude.

  "What—" She stopped at the sight of Lottie's face, about as gray as any face Tess had ever seen.

  "Greer. She was working late and — they don't know. They just don't know. A break-in — but I don't see how. Or why. There's nothing of real value here, nothing worth — and, Greer, who would—"

  Lottie bit her lip fiercely, as if she'd rather inflict pain on herself than cry in front of employees.

  Homicide detective Martin Tull, Tess's one true friend at the Baltimore Police Department, came out of the building just then, snapping off his rubber gloves.

  "Hey, Tess," he said, not the least surprised to see her there. Life in Baltimore was full of such coincidences. "You working on this show?"

  "I was," she said. "I'm not sure where I stand just now. What happened?"

  He glanced at Lottie and the other Mann of Steel types, then motioned Tess to walk with him toward his car, out of earshot. "She was beaten to death. The office is trashed, but all the major stuff, the computers and television, were left behind. That woman, Lottie, is going to look around once the evidence techs get through, see if anything was taken. But there's enough small valuable shit — iPods, laptops — that it's hard to see it as a burglary."

  "When?"

  "Last night, after ten. They say she worked late a lot, so it's either someone who knew that — or someone who didn't expect to find her here late."

  "Weapon?"

  "We haven't found it yet. If the guy's smart, he tossed it in the harbor as he left."

  "They're not always smart, of course."

  "No, and this looks impromptu as hell. The little lady" — he jerked his head back toward Lottie — "says there was a fiancé, though, and that there's been some trouble there, a bad breakup, maybe."

  "You have any information on him?"

  "John ‘JJ' Meyerhoff — not one of those Meyerhoffs," Tull added at Tess's sharp intake of breath. It was a surname that one found on big buildings all over Baltimore, most notably the symphony hall. "I have a feeling I'm going to be making that point all day. This is a rough-and-tumble family out in the county. We've already sent a car there, but Mama Meyerhoff says her son took off for a fishing trip about two A.M. — she doesn't have any idea where he goes to fish, of course."

  Of course, Tess thought. An ex-fiancé. That made more sense than anything running through her head. It looked personal, it looked like an act of passion, and only a foolish detective would disdain such an obvious answer. So there was every reason to believe that this was a huge coincidence, someone at the production getting killed while Tess was in New York, sleeping off a roofie-in-duced coma. She wasn't on the hook for this. Then why did she feel so guilty?

  Someone grabbed her elbow. It was Flip, flipping out, and now her guilt was earned.

  "Jesus, Tess. I just got off the phone with Selene's driver and he told me what happened, how you were in New York—"

  She stopped him, unwilling to hear her incompetence rehashed. "I'm sorry. It was a complete screwup on my part, and I know I have to resign and refund your retainer. There's no excuse for what I did. But if you could, consider keeping Lloyd on, okay? Don't hold him accountable for my mistake."

  "Resign? Because that little bitch drugged you and dumped you? This just convinces me more than ever that she's behind all the shit that's been happening."

  Chapter 14

  Ben had taken to writing in a local Starbucks, much as he loathed the cliché of the whole enterprise, the screenwriter at Starbucks. But the room at the Tremont got old fast, and when he tried to write in his office in Locust Point, there were always interruptions. Flip could sequester himself in his office and no one would get past his little pit bull, Greer, but Ben's closed door didn't persuade anyone that he was working. Lottie, especially. Granted, Lottie had caught him napping once. It was after his first night with Selene, and he was exhausted because seducing her had required an actual courtship, the big buildup of dinner and talking, not just the usual hump-and-dump, but he couldn't exactly explain to Lottie that he was worn out by the demands of getting a twenty-year-old girl in bed. A twenty-year-old girl who knows far more than I do, not like I was her first, he told himself now.

  Even so, when he had come to work the day after he was discovered napping, the little sofa in his office was gone. Lottie had given him a supercilious smile, daring him to object. He hadn't said a damn word, just gone online and ordered another sofa from Pottery Barn, a much more expensive one that actually had a foldout bed, then put the bill on his expense account, with the scrawled notation: writing supplies.

  The irony, of course — one of the ironies; there were ironies upon ironies in his relationship with Flip — was that Ben was the real writer of the two, the one who took the final-final pass on all the scripts. Everyone thought that Flip was carrying him, but Flip would be lost without Ben. Oh, Flip pretended to go over Ben's scripts, but it was acknowledged between them that this charade was for everyone else, because Lottie, the directors, and the various department heads were less likely to argue with Flip, whereas they would happily bust Ben's balls over any detail. When they had the tone meeting for one of the early eps, Lottie had tried a little divide-and-conquer. "I'm not so sure about this beat," she had said. "It's a little glib, don't you think? The kind of conventional sitcom scene that you're trying to avoid." The director, the has-been of the week,
had nodded, although it wasn't clear that the guy could read, much less form an opinion about the words in front of him. Flip said: "Well, it was my idea, but if you think it could change…." "No, no, no." Lottie had backtracked so fast that she almost ended up leaving the room. "I guess I just didn't get it. Now that I see — sure, of course. And the next scene is even better, really pulls it all together, pays off the conceit." "Ben thought of that," Flip said cheerfully. Yes, after that meeting, no one had tried to worm between them again. And when they were alone, Flip was generous in his praise for Ben. Plus, Ben finally had an executive producer's title and a "story by" credit on every episode. What more could he want?

  To do it by myself.

  He glanced around the Starbucks, wondering if he had spoken this traitorous thought aloud. It had actually been hard finding a Starbucks in Baltimore. There was only one within walking distance of his hotel — well, two, if one took a more generous view of what was walking distance, but he was a California boy through and through — and almost nothing was near the production offices, stuck as they were on that godforsaken peninsula. Out there, they had to drink the coffee from a local purveyor, which tasted funny to Ben, although everyone swore it was better. Locally roasted, blah, blah, blah. As if local was necessarily a good thing here in Charm City, where the people, even the people in Starbucks, all looked weird to Ben. Pale, pasty. All right, downright doughy. Not to mention the teeth — God, the teeth. Living in California, where almost everyone had veneers and whiteners, one forgot what real teeth looked like. These relatively normal mouths were as shocking as a Shane McGowan convention. Worst of all, Baltimoreans also had this — how to describe it — bovine happiness. No one seemed rushed or impatient here, a fact that drove Ben mildly insane when he was trying to order his morning mocha and get to work. The people around him were too dumb to know how miserable they should be.