• • •
Caryl did not, in fact, come to Residence Four in the morning but sent Song to do her dirty work instead. Song avoided my eyes as she took my cuticle scissors, my nail clippers, even my stupid electric razor. So much for grooming.
I was worried that when Caryl showed up she would send me back to the hospital despite the steel in my bones unless I did something to prove I was an asset. I wheeled myself down the hall to Teo’s room, looking for information. He refused to give me Caryl’s number—that was Against the Rules—but he gave me enough other people’s contact info to get some work done.
First on my to-do list was David Berenbaum.
I was frankly shocked to hear the effusive warmth in Berenbaum’s voice when I identified myself. I had to give myself a firm reminder that Hollywood people always sound like you’re just the person they’ve been dying to see.
“Did you find something out about Johnny?” Berenbaum asked. “Things have been so nuts in post that I haven’t had the chance to do any real digging. Part of me still expects it to be him every time the phone rings.”
“We do know he was alive and well very recently. He arranged for Vivian Chandler to stay at Regazo de Lujo under his name. We ran into her there, but she doesn’t seem to know what’s going on either.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line.
“Mr. Berenbaum?”
“This is bad.”
“You know what she is?” I said tentatively.
When he spoke again, it was quiet and a little muffled. “Look, can you meet with me somewhere? I can’t talk about this with the post crew breathing down my neck.”
“I’d love to,” I said, then slapped a hand over my mouth. Could I sound any more like a fan? Hastily I tried to smooth it over. “The sooner we can get this figured out, the better. Where would you like to meet?”
“My office. It’s one of the few places we can talk safely about this kind of stuff. Teo can tell you the basics about Vivian on the way.”
A lie fell out of my mouth before I had time to examine it. “Ahh, no, Teo’s tied up with another thing. It’s just me today. But it’s all right, Caryl gave me the nutshell version.”
“You wouldn’t rather wait for him?”
“Nah.”
“Okay.” He paused. “You know, that’s all right, really. Maybe it’s my age, but I find Teo a little hard to talk to.”
“It’s not your age. I’ll be there in an hour.”
18
Reason Mind told me I should give the shallow cuts on my thigh more time to air out before I put my AK prosthetic back on, especially since I hadn’t showered the night before, but Emotion Mind didn’t want David Berenbaum to see me in a wheelchair. Cleverly masquerading as Reason Mind, it argued that I wouldn’t be wearing the AK for very long and that time was of the essence. I took it as an encouraging sign that the cuts didn’t hurt too badly once my thigh was nestled firmly in the socket.
I put on my third-nicest outfit and some fresh deodorant and decided that would have to do. I considered telling Teo that I was going out for a while, but after last night I was afraid he’d get too nosy about it, so I just left.
I had enough cash for a cab there and back, but after that I was going to need to visit an ATM. Little details like this drove me nuts; life seemed too full of speed bumps when I just wanted to Get Things Done. This was why I made a better director than a production assistant.
The trouble with taking a taxi to the Warner lot was that because I wasn’t driving through a security booth, I had to limp my way down the sidewalk to the place where people from the parking garage checked in. That normally meant extras or tourists, so when I told the freckled white guy at the turnstile that I was here to see Berenbaum, he looked at me like he was fitting me for a tinfoil hat.
“He knows I’m coming,” I said, but my voice sounded uncertain even to me. “Can someone contact him?”
“Ma’am, you’ll want to get a pass for your dashboard and drive through the main entrance.”
“I don’t have a car,” I said, feeling my cheeks go hot. In L.A., that’s like admitting you don’t have a place to sleep.
“How did you get here?”
“Taxi.”
“What’s your name?”
“Millie.”
“Millie what?”
“He doesn’t know my last name. Millie from the Arcadia Project.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Mr. Berenbaum will know, if someone can get hold of him.”
“Can you stand over there a minute?”
I got out of the way of the tourists and “background talent” and stood against a hedge, feeling the sun beat down on my hair. I suppose my lack of outrage wasn’t helping my case for being Someone Important, but I had too many humiliating memories associated with the Warner lot to cop an attitude.
Anyone who does background work more than twice is either a starry-eyed wannabe, an out-of-work actor slumming to keep his SAG card, or someone unemployable at any other job besides taking up space. Generally speaking, extras are an unruly mob with a variety of unpleasant attitude problems, and sometimes in desperation they try crazy stuff like, oh I don’t know, claiming they have an appointment to see the most famous person on the lot.
I stood there long enough that it was beginning to seem like the guy was hoping I’d get bored and go away. Finally I approached him again. “Hi,” I began, but he cut me off.
“I can’t get through to Mr. Berenbaum right now,” he said. “When that changes, you’ll be the first to know.”
“He invited me here,” I said. But even as I spoke, I could feel a Borderline paradigm shift. Without a stable sense of identity—something most people have mastered by the age of four—it becomes very easy for other people to tell you who you are just by the way they treat you. As I stood there, in my own mind I was becoming what he saw: a crazy and slightly scary woman with delusions of importance.
I frantically did a mental replay of the conversation I’d had with Berenbaum earlier, trying to reinterpret. I wasn’t really supposed to have his number in the first place; I shouldn’t have called him. His delight in hearing from me could easily have been faked. But he had specifically said that I should come to his office. I was right and the security guy was wrong. Right?
I pulled out my phone—painfully aware of how cheap and obsolete it looked—and dialed Berenbaum’s number myself. His assistant answered.
“Hi, Araceli,” I said, feeling a moment’s delight that my slippery brain had held on to her name. In Hollywood, knowing the assistant’s name is crucial. “This is Millie with the Arcadia Project again.”
“One moment please,” she said politely.
I turned to give the security guard a glare, but he wasn’t paying me the least attention.
After a few moments, Araceli came back on the line. “He doesn’t seem to be available right now. Can I give him a message?”
I stood there, disoriented, starting to dissociate a little. Dissociative episodes are a Borderline thing that happens under maximum stress; you just kind of check out, leave yourself. My brain damage didn’t help matters. In that moment if she had asked me my name, I couldn’t have given it. I didn’t understand what was happening, why I had taken a taxi to the Warner Bros. lot, why I was now going to have to take a taxi right back home. I chewed my bottom lip, furious at myself for losing it now of all moments.
“Do you have a message for him?” she prompted again.
“I . . .” I struggled to assemble words. “I’m outside. At security. They won’t let me in. He said for me to come.”
“Can you put me on with the security guard, please? Tell him Araceli wants to talk to him.”
I approached the guard again and held the phone out to him. “It’s Araceli,” I said.
> The beginnings of an I’m in trouble look came into his eyes and gave me a flutter of hope. He looked at the phone as though it were a rotary-dial antique, then took it from me and grunted a few monosyllables into it. Glancing at my prosthetics, he said, “Yes,” in a tone of deep chagrin. Then, crisply, “I’m on it.” He hung up the phone and handed it back to me.
“Well?” I said, still too shaken to be smug.
“Go on through,” he said.
I was so relieved that I forgot how very far away Berenbaum’s office was, and that I didn’t quite remember the way there, until I was all the way at the intersection of four enormous soundstages. I knew the general area of the lot where his office was located, so I kept hobbling along in the right direction until I spotted another security guard, a black guy with a sprinkling of white hair. Once he spotted me approaching, he moved to meet me halfway.
“I’m supposed to meet David Berenbaum,” I told him, “but I can’t remember exactly where I’m going.”
“Let’s see if we can get you a lift,” he said. He called in his location on the radio. “Got a young lady here with a cane, en route to DSB on foot.”
I couldn’t hear the response, but he laughed out loud and said, “I’ll bet!” He put his radio back on his belt. “Just sit tight a minute,” he said to me.
“I could kiss you,” I said.
“That won’t be necessary.”
“What’s your name?” I asked him. “I want to tell Mr. Berenbaum how helpful you were.”
“I think he can see for himself,” he said with a smile. He pointed over my shoulder, and I turned; a golf cart was approaching. Its driver had an unmistakable head of white hair. The sight of him was like daylight pouring through clouds.
“Millie!” said Berenbaum as he stopped the cart by the curb and got out. “I’m so sorry. Minor crisis in editing. Please tell me you didn’t have to walk far.” He took my hand and held it solemnly for a moment. His grip was firm, his hand soft in that old-man kind of way.
“It’s fine,” I said. “Exercise is good for me.” I didn’t mention the cuts under my silicone prosthetic socket, which were starting to smart a little.
He moved to help me into the cart, then stopped, suddenly boyish. “You want to drive?”
“Is it . . . I mean, do you think I can, with my . . .”
“It’s just a gas pedal and a brake, nothing fancy. A kid could drive it. Go on.”
He seemed so delighted by the idea, I couldn’t refuse him. I limped around to the driver’s side and eased my way into the seat. I hesitated, looking for somewhere to put my cane, but Berenbaum just took it and laid it across his lap as though he were always holding women’s canes for them, no big deal. I grabbed the wheel, and after Berenbaum released the parking brake, I used the muscles of my right thigh and knee to push my BK prosthetic against the accelerator. The cart puttered forward.
“Straight on, then make a left at soundstage twenty. Also, feel free to go faster than this.”
I pressed down harder. It felt odd without direct contact between me and the accelerator. Also I hadn’t been behind the wheel of anything in over a year, and now here I was, driving David Berenbaum around in a golf cart.
“We’re headed to the editing suite,” he said. “We’re behind schedule, so I want to stay nearby. Is that all right with you?”
“That’s fine,” I said. “As long as it’s safe to talk freely there.”
“I’ll kick everyone out of the room for a few. You know, you can really floor it if you want, it’s okay.”
I looked dubiously down at the golf cart, which was starting to vibrate and whine like a frightened dog. “Honestly, I’m afraid this thing is going to fall apart under me.”
“Don’t talk about Bessie that way,” said Berenbaum. “She’s a good soldier. Pedal to the metal, come on.”
“I—”
Without further ado, Berenbaum simply bumped my right leg with his left, knocking my prosthetic foot off the accelerator and stomping down on the pedal himself. The high-pitched shriek of alarm I made as I clung to the steering wheel made him laugh out loud. I’m sure the average grandmother could still have outrun the thing on foot, but to me it was exhilarating, steering while he accelerated, trusting him to brake in time to keep us from hitting anyone.
“Remind me to never get behind you on the freeway,” he said.
Soon we came to the northeastern edge of the lot, to a larger bungalow than the one where his office was located. I guided the golf cart into a parking space; he put on the brake and helped me out of the driver’s seat. He also held open the door to the building for me, and while that sort of thing would have driven me nuts a year ago, I had recently stopped resenting people for making my life easier.
The editing suite itself looked more like a living room than an office. A large flat-screen TV hung on a wall opposite a comfy-looking caramel couch, and a skinny college-aged kid sat at a computer desk with an older man leaning over his shoulder, staring at the screen. Nearby a young woman was writing on a spiral pad, looking stressed out and sleep deprived. Three of the four walls were decorated with framed movie posters and photographs of people shaking hands; the fourth was almost entirely covered in stills from Black Powder.
“Can we have the room for a few?” said Berenbaum to the other three. They were gone almost before he finished his sentence, and Berenbaum looked back at me, gesturing to the couch.
I sat at one end, he sat at the other, and he glanced to make sure the door was shut before letting out a long exhale and turning to the subject at hand. All his boyish good humor vanished.
“Vivian Chandler is probably planning to kill you,” he said. “In fact, I’m worried that she may have killed you already.”
19
“What do you mean, she might have killed me already?” I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or have a panic attack.
“Did she ever touch you, even briefly?”
“No. Caryl warned me about that the minute we went into her room.”
“Oh, Caryl was with you?” He gave a deep sigh. “Thank God. If Vivian had cursed you, Caryl would have known right away and would probably have executed her on the spot. Vivian’s on thin ice with the Project as it is.”
“Why would she want to curse me?”
“Why do cats chase birds? If someone is no use to her, it’s just . . . a thing she does.”
“And she’s never been caught?”
“There’s never anything to investigate. She shakes a guy’s hand and a week later his aorta ruptures, or he has a stroke, or something else perfectly plausible. It’s her specialty. Did you know Martin?”
“Who?”
“The guy who used to be in charge over at the Project. He was a real sweetheart. Drowned in his own blood because he was dumb enough to grab Vivian’s arm one day to keep her from tripping over a split in the sidewalk.”
“My God.”
“Generally she tries not to curse people who are obvious obstacles; she’s too smart for that.”
“Do you ever worry she’ll do something to you?”
“The studio would tank without me, and she knows it.”
I figured it might be rude to ask him how Warner Bros. had managed to make The Jazz Singer and Casablanca without him, so instead I asked, “Why would Vivian care?”
“Hell if I know. But she does, enough to give me her word. Someone like you, though? Teo? Perfectly safe to do whatever she likes with.”
“Actually, I’m not sure she could kill me that way,” I realized aloud. “Because of the nails and screws and stuff holding me together, I cancel out fey magic when I touch it.”
“Seriously?” Berenbaum looked floored. “Millie. This could help us. A lot.” He got up from the couch and began to pace; I could almost hear his mental gears turning.
“Why do you th
ink the viscount gave her a free spa room, of all people?” I asked him.
“Those two are definitely not friendly,” Berenbaum said. “He knows exactly what she is, better than any human would.”
“Maybe that was the point,” I said, trying to use my storyteller’s brain to unravel cause and effect. “He was obviously trying to lead someone astray, someone unfriendly who would be looking for him pretty hard. So why wouldn’t he set the equivalent of a bear trap in the room?”
Berenbaum turned to me abruptly, his eyes sparkling. “You clever girl!” he said in surprise.
I felt my cheeks warm. “Uh, thanks?”
“That makes total sense,” he said. “Let’s run with it.” Then just as quickly, he looked stricken again. “You don’t think he set that trap for the two of you, surely. He and I have been huge supporters of the Arcadia Project from way back. We owe you guys everything.”
“I know how much you’ve given to the Project,” I said. “That’s why this is a huge priority for us. Who would Johnny want to set a trap for? And,” I continued on a sudden inspiration, “who would he do something so bad to that the cops might get involved?”
Berenbaum began to pace again. I would have liked to do the same; that kind of casual, spontaneous movement was something I missed, a lot.
“I can’t imagine,” he said. “Johnny keeps a low profile, so he doesn’t have any enemies.”
“Do you?”
A light seemed to go on over his head; he snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “Susman,” he said.
“What?”
“Aaron Susman.”
“The Aaron Susman who’s produced everything of yours since Red Cotton? He’s your enemy now?”
Berenbaum gave a mirthless laugh. “Well, he’s livid about the studio, of course, but I didn’t think he’d go this far.”
“What about the studio?”
Berenbaum hesitated, then flexed his hands and grimaced. “Look. If you want the facts, you might be better off hearing his side. I don’t want him yelling to the tabloids that I’ve slandered him. Again.”
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