Another Thing To Fall

by Laura Lippman

  She felt a pang for Greer, strange to say, even though she had sacrificed Alicia so willingly, screwed her the first chance she got. Two local girls from similar backgrounds — they should have been friends, not competitors. They had their moments of solidarity, laughing behind Lottie's — or Ben's or Flip's — back. You couldn't work next to someone, day in and day out, and not feel something. Poor, stupid Greer, who thought she was the winner because she got Alicia's shit job, only to be killed by her crazy-jealous boyfriend. At least she had a boyfriend. Alicia was in a two-year dating slump, although that was in part because she couldn't respect anyone who was attracted to the current Alicia, the loser at the video store. She wondered if she might find someone to her liking, once she was rich. She wondered if she could ever know if a man loved her for herself, or her money.

  She decided that was a dilemma she could tolerate.

  "Tess."

  Her name surprised her out of sleep, and she realized that part of the reason was that Lloyd so seldom used her name. But here he was, standing at her bedside, whispering her name, which seemed counterproductive. He either wanted her to wake up or not, she thought crankily, glancing at her clock. Almost 1 A.M.

  "What?"

  "Tess, I fucked up awful bad. Awful bad. I broke something."

  She struggled to a sitting position. "Lloyd, I know I always said I would kill you if you broke one of my commemorative plates, but I was kidding."

  "No, I broke something at the office, and I thought I could fix it, and no one would have to know, but I can't — and, oh shit, they're going to fire me, Tess, and it's all my fault, but I don't know what to do."

  She followed him groggily to the kitchen, aware that Lloyd must believe himself to be in dire straits if he was coming to her for help. His inclination had always been to bluff his way through.

  There on the table were the contents of Crow's toolbox, a tube of superglue — and an Emmy. Tess rubbed her eyes. The Emmy was still there, although it looked intact to her eyes — the globe aloft in the woman's upraised arms, both pointy wings still capable of putting someone's eyes out.

  "Is that Flip's?"

  Lloyd nodded. "I… broke it. I didn't mean to, but I was in his office and I just couldn't help myself. I picked it up and then I heard someone coming, or thought I did, and I kinda dropped it and this band popped off, the one with his name attached."

  "And you brought it home?" That error in judgment struck Tess as potentially more problematic than dropping the thing. "If the band popped off, I'm sure someone can put it back on. Someone had to put it on in the first place, right?"

  "Yeah, but I can't get the band back on with the piece of paper folded up inside, the way it was."

  "Piece of… paper?" She held out her hand. "Give it to me."

  "Don't unfold it," Lloyd said. "It's like a piece of organic-ami." She knew he meant origami. "If you unfold it, we'll never get it back together. I think it's the certificate or something."

  Ignoring Lloyd's anxiety, Tess carefully unfolded the piece of paper. It was a photocopy, yellowed from age, but the creases seemed relatively new. It may be old, but it hadn't been folded until recently.

  But what was it? What did it signify? As far as Tess could tell, it was nothing more than a list, almost like something from an IQ test in which one was asked to explain the relationship between a series of items.

  Small Catholic college

  Small Catholic college (Catholic colleges traditionally have strong basketball programs.)

  Priests

  Priests (Priests tend to be found at Catholic colleges.)

  Nuns

  Nuns (Nuns are often found in proximity to priests.)

  The two columns continued in this baffling vein — similarities conceded, but always with a duh-obvious rationalization. There was a handwritten note at the bottom, in a rather fussy hand:

  This document was one of the key pieces of evidence presented in Zervitz v. Hollywood Pictures, where a judgment of a million dollars was awarded to the plaintiff. I am working on my own list but have been advised that I need the letter about which we spoke to proceed. Yours, Wilbur R. "Bob" Grace.

  Tess examined the base of the Emmy. Perhaps the band had popped off with such ease because it had been removed recently and not replaced as it should be. What had Ben said about Greer? She loves to buff Flip's Emmy. She just took it to a local jeweler to have it all shined up.

  "You're getting fingerprints on it," Lloyd said frantically. "We need to fold it up and put it back the way it was, and I gotta get to the office before everyone else tomorrow, even Lottie."

  "I don't think so," Tess said. "In fact, I think you've done a good thing, finding this."

  "Yeah? What is it?"

  "Possibly the MacMuffin."

  "MacGuffin," Lloyd said.

  TUESDAY

  Chapter 32

  While Tess often lamented the colliding spheres that had made her sometimes rowing coach and erstwhile employer into her uncle, there were advantages to having Tyner Gray in the family. After all, few other lawyers would manage to get the details on Zervitz v. Hollywood Pictures while she was on the water, her first rowing session since she collided with Hollywood a mere eight days ago. And fewer still would then meet at the boathouse to brief her — and not charge her a dime for any of it.

  "You could have found most of what you needed to know from the Beacon-Light archives," Tyner scolded her. It was his style to be perpetually disappointed in her, but Tess had come to realize it was how he expressed affection. "But I hunted down the judge and got an overview."

  "And?" Tess asked, hosing down her shell, taking care to avoid Tyner. She wouldn't have minded splashing him, but the water was hell on his wheelchair.

  "There was this Kevin Bacon movie, The Air Up There, about a basketball coach who goes to Africa to recruit players. Think what's-his-name."

  "Manute Bol." Tess had seen the impossibly tall, impossibly thin Sudanese native play for the Washington team years ago, so long ago it was still known as the Bullets. "Was that movie even successful?"

  "A movie doesn't have to be successful to be plagiarized. Zervitz, a local man, said he gave Barry Levinson's assistant a two-page treatment for a college basketball film. Later, Levinson's literary agent happened to be one of the producers on The Air Up There, along with her husband. They never proved that anyone saw Zervitz's treatment, other than Levinson's assistant, who swore she didn't pass it along. The credited writer even produced notebooks that purportedly showed he started working on the idea before any of this happened. But a local jury awarded the guy a million bucks, and the Hollywood Pictures people decided not to appeal it."

  "So they did steal it," Tess said.

  "Don't be unsophisticated, Tess. No one will ever know exactly what happened to that two-page treatment, and the defendants may have decided it was cheaper, in the end, to pay the guy off. The plaintiff had expert witnesses saying it was too similar, it had to be stolen. But there also is a school of thought that writers, working independently, can produce strikingly similar stories, especially if they're working in a conventional vein."

  "‘Nuns are often found in proximity to priests,'" Tess said, quoting from the document she had found last night.

  "Yes, the list you saw was part of the defense, taken from the case file, a side-by-side comparison of the two projects."

  Tess was now in sync with Tyner, her mind speeding along a parallel track. "Wilbur R. Grace showed the list to someone — presumably Greer — because he thought he had a similar claim against Mann of Steel. But he mentioned a letter that he had to have as well. Greer had the letter that Grace wanted, but instead of giving it to him, she used it to leverage her position in the production. This is what Ben has been looking for, but who else? Who else wants that letter, now that Grace is dead? And where is it?"

  "Maybe Greer was playing more than one person. Aren't there a lot of people who would be upset to see Mann of Steel undone by a legal claim?"
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  Tess thought about that. Flip and Ben would be devastated, of course. They believed this was their chance to have a commercial success. Lottie, too, would be disappointed. The local crews wanted the show as well, in hopes that it would provide steady work.

  And then there was one person who would be thrilled to see it all fall apart — Selene. But Selene didn't have the power to give Greer anything she wanted.

  "Thanks, unc," she said, raising her shell over her head, preparatory to putting it away. She used the nickname because she knew he found it doubly infuriating. Tyner didn't want to be called uncle, and he found "unc" loathsome. "You're a gem."

  "I can't believe that you think that was even an adequate washing," he said. "You know better than that, Tess. Why bother to hose it off at all if you're not going to do the job right?"

  "Love you!" she called out from under the shell. One half-assed wash job wouldn't destroy her scull, and she was keen to talk to Ben, find out what he knew about Wilbur R. Grace.

  Ben wasn't at the office when Tess arrived at nine, but almost everyone else was — including several Baltimore detectives. Tess, who had told Lloyd to let her keep the Emmy for now, worried that its absence had already been noted, prompting Lottie or Flip to report a burglary to the police. Tess should have remembered how jumpy everyone was about any breach of security at the production office.

  "Is this about Flip's Emmy?" she asked. "Because I have it, but there's a reason—"

  "Flip's Emmy?" Lottie asked blankly. "No — God, no. I wish, it's just—" And with that, tough little Lottie broke down and began to cry, while Flip tried to comfort her, although Flip's idea of comforting someone seemed to consist of soft punches to the shoulder.

  "Johnny Tampa," Lloyd said. "He was kidnapped."

  "Kidnapped?"

  "Grabbed right out in front of his condo this morning," Flip said. "His driver saw the whole thing as he was arriving. Two guys came out of nowhere, dragged him into a car."

  "Has there been a ransom demand?"

  Flip shook his head. "Not yet."

  "And Selene?"

  "Safe and sound. Thanks to your detail, no one can get close to her. We told her to stay in the condo until we hear something. We've had to suspend shooting, of course. When the West Coast wakes up, they're going to ream me about this."

  Tess turned to the nearest detective. "How are you handling this? Do you have to call the feds in because it's a kidnapping?"

  "We're keeping them out of it for now. This happened only an hour ago, and there's been no communication. It seems that Tampa went to a bar last night and flirted with a local, pissed off her husband. This could be related. But that makes it more of a mobile beat-down than a kidnapping."

  This didn't sound like the Johnny Tampa whom Tess had observed over the past week. Lottie, too, looked surprised, but Flip was nodding.

  "I was there. He invited me out last night, after we finished, and I thought I should go, in the interest of, you know, male bonding. We went to this place in Fells Point, near where he lives, and he was chatting up a woman in there, and it clearly bugged the guy she was with."

  It was bugging Tess, too — but not for the same reasons. "Flip, I think we should both go check on Selene. You know how high-strung she is. You don't want her flaking out because she feels vulnerable. Let's go over there and assure her that everything is being done to find Johnny, and that we're ready to order extra security for her."

  "God, the budget—" Lottie began, then caught Tess's gaze. In that moment, Tess could tell, Lottie decided she could trust her, that Tess was not another local trying to shake her down at every opportunity. She also seemed to get that Tess had an insight into this that no one else had. "No, you're right, of course. I'll stay here, wait for updates. You go take care of Selene."

  Flip didn't speak a word on the short drive to Selene's condo, just sat in the front seat of Tess's car, twisting the brim of his Natty Boh hat. He broke his silence only after Tess parked.

  "Maybe this project is cursed," he said. "Maybe I've been stupid not to heed the warnings. A murder, and now a kidnapping. What next?"

  "Flip, you've got problems we haven't even discussed yet, but I think Johnny Tampa's disappearance is the least of them."

  In her living room, Selene was stretched out on the sofa, watching television and toying with her iPhone, a kid enjoying an unexpected snow day. Whitney was in Selene's closet, a walk-in the size of the guest bedroom at Tess's house, going through Selene's clothes.

  "Hey, I got your voice mail about what's going on. I'm sorting," she said, pointing to the various piles around her. "Dirty and clean — Miss Waites seems a little confused about how laundry works. Then, we further subdivide into ‘whore' and ‘not whore.' Yes, in case you're wondering — I'm bored out of my mind. I'd be cataloging her books — if she owned more than two."

  "Well, if we're lucky, Miss Talbot's Boarding School for Spoiled Actresses may be able to close down today."

  "I don't see how—" Flip began.

  "Trust us," Tess said, leading him back to the living room, Whitney trailing. Selene was smiling at something on her phone's screen, although the smile disappeared when Whitney snatched the phone away from her. In fact, this time Selene actually dared to grab for the phone, but Whitney swatted her away. Selene then tried to climb Whitney, reaching for the phone the whole time, but Whitney simply tossed the iPhone to Tess.

  "‘Whassup?'" Tess read. "Would it have been so hard to write it as two words? Who's this from? Oh, it's from Pete. Should I answer him?"

  Selene was a scrapper. She leaped off Whitney and tried to charge Tess, but Whitney caught her by the arm and held her fast. U R BUSTED, Tess typed back, once she figured out how to make the iPhone's keyboard appear. Then, to Selene: "So where is Johnny while he's pretending to be kidnapped?"

  "Shut up!" Selene yelled, putting her hands over her ears. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

  "Selene, you know I went through your phone the other night. That's how I found out about you and Ben. And that's why Whitney has been checking your phone at every opportunity, to see who else calls you on a regular basis. And, thanks to the wonders of the iPhone, she's also had easy access to your e-mail."

  "Ben?" Flip squeaked. "What about Selene and Ben?"

  Tess didn't have time for that side trip. "Whitney noticed that a large volume of your e-mail came from someone named Pete. I didn't think about it twice, until I remembered that Whitney called Johnny ‘St. Pete' at breakfast the other morning. Apparently, Johnny thinks that's too funny, the joke about his real name being St. Petersburg but he shortened it to Tampa. He uses it every chance he gets. So this guy — the man who says he hates you, and you say you hate him — has been in constant contact with you. What's that about?"

  Selene burst into tears. Damn, she's good, Tess thought.

  "Oh, stop it, Selene. It's clear that you and Johnny were in on this together, but once you got a security detail, more of the dirty work fell to Johnny. We know why you want out of Mann of Steel, but what's Johnny's angle? This is supposed to be his big comeback."

  Selene, realizing her tears were having no effect, not even on Flip — who still seemed stuck on the reference to Ben — slouched her way over to one of the overstuffed chairs. "Derek wanted Johnny for the other lead in that movie he's developing, the one about the gay chaplains in World War I. They share a manager, and he asked Flip and Ben to work around Johnny's schedule if he got a movie, and they said no, they had to have him in first position. It was unfair, if you think about it. They wanted it both ways — they were cutting Johnny's part to build up mine, but they still insisted he was the lead. The linchpin."

  A part of Tess's mind registered the correct use of linchpin. The Selene she knew — or thought she knew — would have said clothespin. Oh, what a fine actress she was. Actor.

  "What about Greer's murder? Do you know anything about that?"

  "No," Selene said. "It was just that Johnny couldn't make waves. He's bee
n out of work too long to risk a reputation as difficult. Whereas for me — the crazier I am, the higher my quote goes, the more in demand I am. So we agreed that I would be the difficult one, make life hell for everybody."

  "What was in it for you?"

  "Derek's company has the rights to a biopic of Sigrid Undset, the Nobel Prize winner. That and the biopic of Debbie Harry of Blondie, but I heard she didn't think I could play her. Which pisses me off, given how hard I've been practicing."

  Well, that cleared up one mystery — the presence of Kristin Lavransdatter beneath Selene's bed. And, having heard Selene's version of "Call Me," Tess could understand Deborah Harry's reluctance.

  "So the little fires, the disgruntled steelworkers, the angry community activist — that was all you?"

  "Only the first two," Selene said. "The production managed to piss off the neighborhood lady on its own. That was pure lagniappe."

  This from a girl who had pretended not to know the difference between crawfish and mussels.

  "But how did you—" Flip began.

  "After you fired Alicia, Johnny went to her, asked for her help. She was happy to do it. She was pissed at being fired. She had an in with the local steelworkers, her dad being one and all. Plus, we paid her, and Alicia liked money."

  Alicia. Everyone had been focused on the suicide as the seminal incident, but Alicia had been fired subsequent to Wilbur Grace's suicide. Tess had a sudden memory of the decking material stacked in Alicia's backyard, the shelter magazines in the bathroom. When I have time, I don't have money; when I have money, I don't have time. Tess had assumed Alicia had run out of funds. But, no, she was just too busy with her two full-time jobs, video store clerk and set gremlin, to work on her house.