She eyed the cup. “Gingerbread latte?”
I said, “Peppermint”—she sagged a little with desire—“mocha.” Her head drooped wantonly. I walked over and extended the cup. She took it.
I heard her slurping contentedly as I walked out. Classes were in session, the halls empty. My footsteps seemed unnaturally loud without bodies there to absorb the echoes. As I went by each classroom, the voice of the teacher inside rose and fell like the whine of a passing car. Despite the full classrooms all around, or perhaps because of them, the preposterously long hall felt desolate.
There was a clap like a gunshot, and I jumped, my files spilling all over the floor. Wheeling around in a panic, I saw that the noise had been nothing more than a kid dropping his binder, which had struck the tile flat on its side. I mock-grabbed my chest and said, too loudly, “You scared me.”
I’d intended it lightly, but it had come out angry.
The student, crouched over his binder, glanced up lethargically. “Relax, dude.”
His tone got under my skin. I said, “Hold on to your stuff better, dude.”
Two girls paused in the intersecting hall, rubbernecking, then scurried away when I glanced at them. A few students had collected at the far end also, by the stairwell. I was breathing hard from the scare, still, and from my reaction now. I knew I was handling this poorly, but my blood was up and I couldn’t find my composure.
The kid nodded at my spilled papers. “You, too”—he turned to walk away, coughing into a fist to mask his last word—“asshole.”
“What the hell did you just say to me?” My words rang down the corridor.
A teacher I vaguely recognized stuck her head through the doorway of the nearest classroom. Lines of disapproval notched her forehead between her eyebrows. I stared her back into her classroom, and when I refocused, the offending student had vanished into the stairwell. The others milled and gestured.
Embarrassed, I gathered my papers swiftly and left.
CHAPTER 16
Vast iron gates greeted me a mere two steps from the curb. A ten-foot stone wall ran the length of the property line. The only point of access was a call box with a button, mounted on a pillar beside the gate.
Though it was three o’clock—and February—the cold had given way to a hot snap, the sun harsh off the concrete. I was supposed to be in class discussing dialogue, not chasing down movie-star litigants.
Before I could push the call button, a screech jerked me around—a door rolling back on a beat-up white van at the opposite curb. The clicking of a high-speed lens issued from the dark interior. I froze, nailed to the pavement. Leading with a giant camera, a man emerged and walked deliberately toward me, snapping pictures as he came. He wore a black zipped hoodie pulled up so the camera blocked out his face; there was just a lens protruding from the hood like a wolf snout. I could see the dark amoeba of my reflection in the curved glass. My thoughts revved as he neared, but I was caught off guard, my reaction lagging.
Just when I’d balled my hand into a fist, the giant zoom lens lowered to reveal a sallow face. “Oh,” he said, disappointed. “You’re not anybody.”
He’d mistaken my immobilization for apathy. “How’d you know?”
“Because you don’t give a shit if I take your picture.”
I took in his scraggly appearance, the multipocketed khaki shorts weighed down with gear, and finally put it together. “National Enquirer?” I asked.
“Freelance. Paparazzi market’s gotten tough. Have to sell where you can.”
“Conner’s a big catch now, is he?”
“His price has gone up. Hype over the upcoming movie, you know, and the paternity suit.”
“I hadn’t heard.”
“Some club skank. She threw up on Nicky Hilton, made her stock rise.”
“Ah. Got herself a media profile.”
“They’re paying twenty grand for a clear shot of Conner doing something embarrassing. Nothing like a sleaze-success cocktail to stoke a bidding war.”
“Cocktails that stoke. I could use one.”
He looked at me conspiratorially. “You a friend a’ his?”
“Can’t stand him, actually.”
“Yeah, he’s a dickhead. Kneed me in the nuts outside Dan Tana’s. Lawsuit pending.”
“Good luck with that.”
“Gotta get them to hit you, not the other way around.” He eyed me knowingly. “He’ll settle.”
I hit the button. Asian chimes. The crackle of static told me the line had gone live, though no one said anything. I leaned toward the speaker. “It’s Patrick Davis. Please tell Keith I need to talk to him.”
The guy said, “That’s your game plan for getting inside?”
The gates buzzed. I slipped through. He tried to follow, but I stood in the gap. “Sorry. You need your own game plan.”
He shrugged. Then he flicked an ivory card from his wallet: Joe Vente. Below, a phone number. That was it.
I tilted it back at him. “Spartan.”
“Call me if you want to sell out Conner sometime.”
“Will do.” I pulled the gate shut, making sure the lock clicked.
The Spanish Colonial Revival was spread out with no regard for the price of L.A. real estate. To my left, the row of garage doors was raised, presumably to vent the heat. Revealed inside were two electric coupes, plugged in, three hybrids, and various makes of alternative-fuel cars. A private fleet for conservation; the more you spend, the more you save. The front door, sized for a T-Rex, wobbled open. A waif, made waifier by the giant doorway, waited for me, holding a clipboard. She had impossibly pale skin, a neck that looked like she’d stretched with tribal rings, and a model’s expression of perennial boredom.
“Mr. Conner is out back. Follow me, please.”
She led me across a house-size foyer and through a sitting room and a set of double doors open to the expansive backyard. Stopping at the threshold, she waved me on. Maybe she’d ignite in direct sunlight.
Keith bobbed on a yellow inner tube in the middle of the pool, a black-bottomed monstrosity interrupted by a confusion of waterfalls, fountains, and palm trees sprouting from island planters. He said, “Hi, asshat,” and started paddling in. Then he shouted past me, “Bree, the pool bar’s out of flaxseed chips. Think you can get them restocked?”
The waif jotted a note on her clipboard and disappeared.
Two rottweilers frolicked on the far lawn, all fangs and cords of saliva. Knotted ropes—of course—abounded. To my right, a woman reclined on a teak deck chair, filling out a yellow one-piece and reading a magazine. Her blond hair, turned almost white by the sun, tumbled down around her face in a Veronica Lake peekaboo. She looked far too refined for the company, and too old—she was at least thirty.
Keith collapsed onto the chair next to her and lit up, of all things, a clove cigarette. I hadn’t seen one since Kajagoogoo clogged the airwaves.
“Meet Trista Koan, my lifestyle coach.” Keith set a hand on her smooth thigh.
She unceremoniously removed it. “I know. The name’s a laffer. My parents were hippies and shouldn’t be held accountable.”
“What’s a lifestyle coach do, exactly?” I asked.
“We’re working on reducing Keith’s carbon footprint.”
“I’m gonna save the whales, dawg,” Keith said. His teeth appeared seamless; the sun off them was squint-inducing.
My expression made clear I was missing the connection.
“L.A. is all about environmentalism, right?” he said on the inhale.
“And hair restoration.”
“So we gotta get people thinking that way everywhere.” Inspired, he swept his arm to indicate, presumably, the world beyond the park-size backyard. The grand gesture was undercut by the jet trail of clove smoke left behind. “It’s about constant awareness. I was all into the electric-car thing first, right? Even ordered a Tesla Roadster. Clooney ordered one, too. They inscribe your name on the sill—”
“But t
he problem is . . .” Trista said, keeping him on track.
“The problem is, electric cars still plug in to the grid and suck energy. So then I bought some hybrids. But they still use gas. So I switched to”—a glance to Trista—“what’re they called?”
“Flex-fuel vehicles.”
“Why not take a bus?” I thought it was pretty funny, but neither he nor Trista laughed. I said, “Whales, Keith. This started with whales.”
“Right. They’re using this high-intensity sonar, it’s like three hundred decibels—”
“Two thirty-five,” Trista corrected.
“You know how many times louder that is than the level that’ll hurt humans? Ten.”
“Four point three,” Trista said, with faintly disguised irritation. I was beginning to understand her role better.
“That’s as loud as a rocket blasting off”—he paused to look at Trista, but evidently he’d gotten this one right—“so it’s no wonder whales are beaching themselves. Bleeding out their ears, around their brains. The sonar also gives them, like, air in their bloodstreams—”
“Emboli,” I said, figuring Trista might need a break.
“—so imagine how much other sea life is killed we don’t even know about.” He was waiting for my reaction with an almost sweet eagerness.
“The mind boggles.”
“Yeah, well,” he said, as if that were something to say. “So I’m a dumb-ass actor. I’m twenty-six, and I make more money in a week than my dad made his whole miserable working life. It’s a miracle, and I know I don’t deserve it, because no one does. So what? I can still tune in, make a difference. And this movie’s really important to me. A passion project.” He looked to his life coach for approval, which Trista withheld.
He’d leapfrogged our animosities, momentarily, for a pitch and some pious confabulation. He was using me to work out his new material, the green-friendly repackaging of Keith Conner, which would give him the edge on the red carpet, where it really mattered. But now playacting was over and it was time to get down to business. Sensing this, Keith held out his arms. “So what the hell are you doing here, Davis? Aren’t we suing each other?” He flashed his camera-ready smile. “How’s that going, by the way?”
“I’m here to take possession of the house.”
Trista didn’t look up, but she touched a fist to her lips. Keith smirked and beckoned for me to talk.
“I have something of yours.” That got his attention. I removed a DVD, a matching one from my office, and held it up.
“What is it?”
“It looks like a disc, Keith,” Trista said.
I liked her as much as I liked looking at her.
“Yeah, but what’s on it?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Didn’t you have someone leave it for me?”
“Me send you a DVD? Davis, I haven’t thought of you since you got kicked off my movie.” He gestured around, appealing to an invisible supporting cast. “They said you were a little nutty, man, but hell.” His stare hardened. “What’s on it? Is this some bullshit from that paparazzi ass-suck who’s stalking me? You here to fucking extort me?”
Maybe he was a better actor than I gave him credit for. “No.” I flipped the case to him. “It’s blank.”
Trista was finally interested enough to set the magazine down on her tan knees.
Keith was getting worked up. “What’d the delivery guy say?”
I rolled with it. “That he was told to bring it by, since you were shooting pickups in New York.”
“No, I’ve been right fucking here, cranking preproduction on The Deep End. It’s a race against time, man.”
I said, “The Deep End?”
“I know,” Trista said. “Keith’s manager’s title. We had to agree to it before Keith came on board and got us the green light.”
I said, “Producer–lifestyle coach? That’s an unusual hyphenate, even for this area code.”
Keith said, “She’s hooked in with the environmental group behind the production company. She knows everything about this stuff, so they flew her in as a, you know . . . resource.”
The picture resolved, their relationship finally becoming clear to me. Trista’s job was a new version of my old job. Monitor Keith so he didn’t get caught looking too hypocritical or saying anything too stupid. I’d rather push a boulder uphill in Hades, but maybe that’s why I was teaching screenwriting in the Valley and Trista was reading glossy magazines next to an Olympic-size tiki pool.
Keith tossed the jewel case back over, giving me a nice clean set of prints. I wanted them on record in case he vanished behind locked mansion doors or hopped a carbon-free jet to Ibiza.
“I wouldn’t send you shit.” He leaned forward. “Not after you assaulted me.”
For the thousandth time, I replayed what I’d reconstructed of the phone conversation between him and Ariana. I pictured the words going in, straight to the pit of her gut. Everything that had followed. Until I lowered my guard and took a step back, I didn’t realize how badly I’d wanted him to go for me so I could knock in those shiny teeth. I wanted it all to be his fault.
I slid the DVD case into my back pocket, careful not to smudge it too much with my own fingerprints. “Don’t get worked up, Keith. I’d hate to see you lose another fight with a countertop.”
He nodded at the double doors behind me, where Bree had materialized, a clipboard-wielding apparition. “She’ll see you out.”
CHAPTER 17
An officer accompanied me up to the second floor, where Sally Richards sat at a desk, intently focused on her computer screen. I crossed and set a Costco box of Sweet’N Low beside a picture of her holding a toddler.
She glanced over at my offering and bobbed her head, amused. “Great. That’ll get me through lunch tomorrow.”
“This a bad time?”
“Sorta.” She nodded at the monitor. “A Japanese guy pulling a live snake through his nostril on YouTube.” She shoved back and folded her arms. “A new disc show up on your doorstep?”
“No. Did you manage to retrieve anything off the old ones?”
“Totally wiped. Though our tech-head could tell there’d been something burned on them once. He said the data was totally obliterated by some self-devouring software program. He’s never seen anything like it.”
I chewed on that dread-inducing tidbit a moment. “Any prints?”
“Just yours. Your wife’s. You’re in the database for background checks for community service you guys did in college?”
I nodded.
She continued, “And the discs have some marks consistent with latex gloves. In other words, fucking smudges.”
I handed her the DVD case from my back pocket. “This has Keith Conner’s fingerprints on it.”
“Wonder what you could get for it on eBay.”
“I was hoping you’d pulled a partial and we could use this for a match.”
“A partial? Easy there, Kojak.”
I pressed on: “Even if Keith had someone else do the drop or break-in, I figured he might have touched the disc at some point. He’s not the brightest bulb on the string.”
“You don’t say.” She followed my gaze to the picture of her with the toddler. “Artificial insemination, since you asked. Miracle of life, my ass. The nausea alone.” She whistled. “If I had it to do over again, I would’ve adopted from China like any self-respecting daughter of Sappho.” Her voice rose. “Now, Terence there, Terence has four boys. Four. Imagine that.” Valentine paused at the top of the stairs, regarded us with sad, tired eyes, then trudged up a corridor. Sally said, “He loves having me as a partner. Makes him the envy of the squad room.”
“I would’ve thought it was his ready smile.”
She said, “Sit.”
I obeyed, easing into the humble wooden chair at the end of the desk. On her blotter was a to-do list. Call gopher guy. Rebate on dryer. Sitter for Tues night shift. The glimpse into the cogs and gears of her life struck a chord.
Perhaps it resonated with the banal tasks I’d been crossing off my own checklist while my insides crumbled.
I kept my gaze on the floor. “Ever feel stuck?”
“Like that U2 song? Part of being a grown-up, I suppose.”
“Yeah, but you always hoped it wouldn’t be you.”
She smirked. “The only new surprises are you can’t eat Indian on an empty stomach and how expensive patio furniture is.”
“Just how it goes, I guess. It’s okay. If you like where you are.” I looked away quickly; I’d revealed more than I’d wanted to. “No prints at all? Maybe you should’ve dusted the camera and tripod.”
She noted my discomfort, the rushed segue. “Sure. We could shoot an episode of CSI at your house. Maybe call in FBI profilers.”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “You have limited resources. As of now it’s still a camcorder prank.”
“Not just that, Davis, but the guy wore latex gloves. The jewel case, sleeve, and discs are totally clean. If we believe your version, the DVDs autoerased like something out of a Bond film. Whoever’s behind this went to great care. He’s not suddenly gonna push a ‘record’ button with a bare thumb.” She poured water from a bottle into a mug and busted into the Costco box, digging out a few pink packets and dumping the crystals. “Now, I shouldn’t tell you this, but you did bring me Sweet’N Low. . . .” She used a pencil to stir. “You have any other cops to the house?”
“That’s a question, Sally. You didn’t actually tell me anything.”
“How ’bout that.”
“Why are you asking about other cops?”
She took a sip, leaned back in her distressed little chair. “The boot print came back—”
“Wait a minute. Boot print?”
“From the mud patch by the leaky sprinkler in your front yard. We saw it when we went over to talk to your neighbor.” She tugged open a drawer, then tossed down a file in front of me. Numerous photos spilled out. A decent impression of a thick worker’s sole, pointed toward the street. Left behind, I guessed, when the intruder split the premises. In a few of the shots, the print was illuminated by a Mag-Lite flashlight, just like Sally’s, lying in the grass to give a sharp angle.
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