by Cindy Brown
“Cody Ziegwart is my brother. He has a brain injury. And you bilked him out of four thousand dollars. Do you know how long it takes to make four thousand dollars when you work part-time for minimum wage?”
Jay held up a hand as if to fend me off, but his eyes had a smarmy gleam in them. “Hey, hey, hey. I didn’t know he was, you know. I mean, a lot of people in this business aren’t the brightest bulbs in the box.” He smiled at me condescendingly.
“And that makes it okay to—wait a minute, you. I’m an actor too. You are not denigrating my profession and you are not scamming my brother. You are writing me a check right now.”
“Why would I do that? Your brother—Cody, is it?—signed a contract with us.”
“You’re not a real agency. You’re not registered with the Screen Actors Guild—”
“If you’re an actor, you know that Arizona is a non-union state and that there are plenty of jobs for non-SAG talent.”
“And because I’m an actor I know that agents get paid when they get us gigs. Not four thousand dollars in advance.”
“Your brother paid for our deluxe package, which includes acting classes, headshots, and inclusion in our online talent gallery.”
“You know as well as I do that classes and headshots don’t cost that much, and inclusion in any gallery is just what agents do—for free.”
“We are just being paid for services rendered.”
“I’ll render you a new ass—”
Jay stood. “Do I need to call the cops?”
“Yeah, why don’t you do that. I’ll just tell them...I’ll tell them...” What? It was true. They weren’t doing anything illegal. Unethical, underhanded, and downright dirty, but not illegal.
I put both palms flat on Jay’s desk and leaned toward him. “I don’t know how I’m going to do it, buddy.” I felt a sneeze coming on. I encouraged it. “But I am getting back my brother’s money. Afllechh.” I sprayed my cold germs all over his desk. Ha. “And I’m going to get you too.”
Chapter 52
You Great Booby
Essence Talent Agency was only a few blocks from Duda Detectives office, so I walked there. Good thing Uncle Bob wasn’t in, because I was pretty useless once the adrenaline left my system. Just me and my big head. I called around and found out that, yes, my pickup had been towed. I then called the tow yard and found out that Matt’s quote was pretty good—only off by a hundred dollars, in the wrong direction, of course. I found out I could pick up my truck anytime, as long as it was Monday through Friday between eight and six. I found out a lot of information about cars and towing, but it didn’t make me feel any better. So I called Matt and asked if he could meet me for lunch. I’d go get my truck afterward.
“I’m not coming if you’re going to sneak in a thermos of soup again,” he said.
“I won’t. I promise.” I was off the broth kick after last night anyway. “Just come cheer me up, please?”
We met at Tommy Pastrami. Once we got our food, we sat down and I told Matt about my morning.
“Did you talk to Cody?” he asked. “Before you tried to axe his modeling contract?”
“His fake modeling contract.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“I didn’t want to bother him at work.” I cringed, as I should.
“You know, Ivy, you say you understand that Cody’s an adult, but—”
“I was worried about him. Besides, I think he knows something is wrong and just doesn’t want to admit it. He’s been keeping things from me. Why would he do that if he didn’t think there was something wrong?”
“Didn’t he say he wanted to surprise you? Maybe you should have taken him at his word.”
“But...”
“Maybe he wanted to make his big sister proud of him.”
“Are you trying to make me feel bad?”
“I’m trying to help you see that you can’t treat Cody like your baby brother for the rest of both your lives.”
“I thought I was doing the right thing.”
Matt’s voice softened. “I think you were doing the right thing. You just did it the wrong way.” Neither of us said anything for a minute. He watched me pick at my small green salad, no dressing. “Do you want some of my pastrami sandwich? It’s huge—too much for me.”
“Nah.” I tried to eat my salad with more enthusiasm. My stomach growled, as if it were mad at the deception.
“I’ve noticed you’ve been eating differently these past few days.” Matt’s voice was careful, the way I suspected he was with his social-work clients.
“Just not feeling well. This cold, you know.”
“You sure that’s all it is?”
“Okay, some of it is that stupid Glinda costume. Candy is so much thinner than I am.”
“Couldn’t they have gotten you another costume?”
“I don’t know.” I was lying. Eden did offer to let out one of Candy’s costumes. “I needed to lose a few pounds anyway.”
“Guess I’ll have to take back those chocolates I bought you for Valentine’s Day.”
“Yeah, that’d probably be best.”
“Wait, I was kidding,” Matt said. “Were you?”
“Yeah,” I lied again. “Of course.”
Matt look at me seriously. “Do you know who you sound like?”
“I know, my voice has dropped half an octave with this stupid cold, and—”
“Ivy. How can you be worried about Candy when you’re doing the exact same—”
“Give me a break.” I sniffed loudly. “I’m sick.”
“Yeah,” said Matt. “Let’s hope it’s just the cold.”
We were just leaving the restaurant when my phone chirped. And chirped. And chirped. I didn’t recognize the number, so I stopped on the sidewalk to read the texts. “Oh, they’re from Cody.” I said to Matt. “He must have heard something about my meeting with his agent.” There were three messages:
“This is my new cellphone number!”
“I have a big secret to tell you.”
“Sorry about dinner.”
“Huh,” I said to Matt. “All his texts are nice and happy. He even has a surprise to tell me. Maybe his agent is actually decent and I spoke to his evil twin earlier. He did have a Darth Vader desk.” I texted back: “Can’t wait to hear about your secret. Talk later? And I am sorry about dinner. I was a poop head.” I put my phone back in my pocket, and we resumed our walk back to Uncle Bob’s office.
“Hope the show goes better tonight,” Matt said.
“Not sure it could go worse. Wait, I shouldn’t say that. Oh no, did I just jinx myself?”
“You’ll be fine.” Matt kissed me on the cheek. “Call me tonight after you’re through.”
“Maybe then you could deliver those chocolates in person—along with something else.” I waggled my eyebrows. Matt called that move my sexy Groucho Marx.
“I’m going out of town for the weekend, but we’ll celebrate Monday night—a fancy dinner, a box of chocolates, and that…something else.”
“You’re going out of town on Valentine’s Day weekend?”
“Didn’t you tell me you had to work all weekend? Looking for Candy and playing Glinda and performing at that erotic art show—”
“Exotic,” I said. “I’m the exotic part of the show. And I don’t have a matinee on Sunday. Another show is moving into the theater. And...” I took deep breath. I had to tell him. “I might be moving on with The Wizard.”
Matt stopped walking and looked at me, his gray eyes serious.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you...” I looked at my feet. I was standing on a crack in the sidewalk. “But nothing’s for sure. Yet.”
“You’re talking about...moving on with the show?”
I nodded. “My first national tour.” I felt the corners of m
y mouth turn up in spite of myself. It would be such a big step, career-wise.
“When?”
“Um, next week.”
“As in a few days? Why didn’t you tell me?” There was a tone in Matt’s voice I hadn’t heard before. Not sure if was anger or hurt.
I felt the smile on my face slip away and my jaw grow tight. “I wanted to tell you, but…” But what? I wasn’t sure.
“How long have you known?”
“Since Monday. But remember, it’s not for sure and—”
“And this tour will last for what, a few weeks?”
“Months.” I knew Matt was looking at me, but I couldn’t raise my eyes to his.
“Okay, really, why didn’t you tell me?” Definitely anger in his voice now. “Because you thought I might stop you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Great. Just great. And all this time I thought you actually knew who I was. Knew that I loved you.”
Did he just say “loved”—past tense? He turned away. “Wait. Matt?”
“I have to go,” he said. And walked away.
Chapter 53
Somebody Is Making Game of You
“Matt,” I said to my boyfriend’s back. “Matt!” He didn’t turn. I called him after I got into the office, but it went to voicemail. Finally, I texted him: “I’m sorry. Really sorry. Can we meet and talk about this?”
“I’ll be gone for the weekend. Talk on Monday.”
“Thanks. I love you.”
I waited for a response, an “I love you too” or maybe “XXOO,” but none came. Served me right, especially since I hadn’t told him the reason I’d be around Monday was because The Wizard’s Tucson run started Thursday. I called my uncle, to see if he had any advice for his screwed-up niece. Another voicemail: “You’ve reached Bob Duda. I’m on vacation for a few days.” Dang, I forgot. He’d told me he was going down to Mexico this weekend, meeting Bette in Rocky Point for a couple days of sun and sand and romance.
Chirp. A text. Maybe it was Matt.
Nope. Cody. “Can’t talk today. See, I told you I texted you.”
What? Of course he texted me, that’s why I was replying.
Wait. I scrolled back through his texts. They weren’t from today. They were from last week, before I ambushed Cody at work.
Cody did text me. My stupid phone just hadn’t delivered them. This had happened before. I’d called my cell phone provider, CHEEP cellular, but they just said something about different networks and blah, blah, blah. As soon as I could get out of this contract, I was switching companies.
I sat at my desk a minute, feeling alternately sorry for myself (stupid cold, bad phone company, my friends and family pissed off and/or out of reach) and mad at myself (friends and family out of reach partly because I pushed them there). Well, I made my bed, but I wasn’t going to lie in it. I turned on my computer. I might not be able to do anything about Matt and Cody right then, but I could try to help Candy. I made a call.
“Hey, Logan,” I said when he picked up. “When you were questioned at the station—”
“Ugh. Don’t remind me.”
“Just this one quick question, I promise. Did the police ask you about Candy?”
“Yeah. They wanted to know if I’d seen her that night, or any time since the reception on Sunday.”
“And?”
Logan sighed heavily into the phone. “Ivy, I know you’ve been looking for her. Wouldn’t I have told you?”
“Hey. No more of this answering questions with questions. Did you or have you seen Candy?”
“No, I have not seen Candy since Sunday night. Direct enough for you?”
“Yes. Thank you,” I said. “Friends?”
“Why not?” Logan said, then chuckled. It was a few seconds after he’d hung up before I realized he’d answered me with a question again. Big jerk.
But I was pretty sure now that the police suspected that Candy was involved with Babette’s death. Why? I scrolled through the regular news sites online, trying to find out more about Babette’s death. Just dry facts, like “Reality TV star Babette Firman, 56, was found dead today in her hotel room in Phoenix, Arizona. Sources say she died late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning. No official word on cause of death, but police are treating it as suspicious.” I followed a link that took me to Babette’s bio. Lots of photos, lots of filler info, very little actual information. I took a few minutes to google her. Same thing: lots of hearsay, few facts. Born in Burbank (birthdate unsure), Babette had held assistant-type jobs in Hollywood (production assistant, talent assistant, executive/personal assistant) for several years before becoming a reality TV star about seven years ago. Her main talent was her “razor-sharp wit,” or as I called it, “pure meanness.” She was almost universally disliked and feared. I couldn’t find out how she rose to fame; no mentions of other TV shows or any acting or producing experience. Her star seemed to rise out of nowhere.
One of her bios was on a tabloid site. Hey, maybe these sites would have more info about Babette’s death. I scrolled through a few. Yikes. I’m not sure you’d call it information, but there was a lot of “news.” Headlines shouted: “Babette Botox Bash Turns Deadly!” and “Who Killed the Queen of Mean?” and even, “Ding Dong, the Wicked Witch is Dead.” This last article put the suspicion of murder squarely on our cast. “Police speculate that it must have been someone at Babette’s Wednesday night Botox party, a private beauty party attended only by cast members of the touring production of Wizard: A Space OZpera.” Not true. There were other people there too, the ones I didn’t recognize. Still, I scrolled down, taking in the headshots and short bios of some of the key players. There was Candy, of course, with the caption. “Could the new It Girl have killed her star-maker?”
Could she? Despite everything, my gut said no. The article didn’t offer up any motives, either, just that the two were close and “most murders are committed by people close to the victim.” And, “sources say the new It Girl’s fingerprints were found at the crime scene.” Damn.
Next was an unflattering photo of Desirée with her mouth open, shouting. “Former starlet turned stage mom said she’d kill Babette for dissing her little girl.” How did they know this stuff? Somebody at the party must’ve talked to the press.
Ah, now there was a nice photo—a tan well-muscled guy in tighty-whities on a ledge outside the Hotel Fuente. “Did the Botox ‘doc’ screw up?” asked the caption. The paragraph underneath IDed the guy as Miguel Gabriel, a dentist from Los Algodones, Mexico. Wait, a dentist? That fact sent me off on another quick search: yes, dentists could inject Botox. Okay, then.
I went back to the article about the “suspects.” I could just see the top of one more photo. I scrolled down to see who it was. Oh no. I rummaged through my purse to find the business card from the ghost photo reporter, then checked it against the story’s byline. Yeah, the jowly journalist wrote the article. I should have known by the caption under Eden’s picture: “Was it karma, or did this Wiccan warrior use her black magic?” Of course there was nothing positive in the article about Eden and the intervention, plus there was the mistaken Wiccan reference. Arghh.
But something about the photo looked familiar. I looked at it closely. It was grainy, copied from some other picture, and looked like Eden had been standing with someone who’d been cropped out of the photo.
I googled Eden’s name and looked under images. The cropped photo showed up most often, along with a recent headshot and a few pictures of her as a child actor. And ah...there was a wider shot of the cropped photo. The background looked familiar because it was Paris—the Eiffel Tower had been cut out of the photo along with the man who had his arm around Eden. His head was turned toward her and the wind blew his hair into his face, but the profile looked familiar. I zoomed in.
It was Arrestadt.
Chapter 54
<
br /> The Good Lady Should Explain Herself
The shot was taken in almost the exact same place as Candy’s vacation pic. Only the girl was different.
I closed my laptop, locked up the office, and jogged down the stairs to my truck. Or not. My truck was still at the tow yard. I could Uber over there right now and get it, or I could go talk to Eden. Better to strike while the iron was hot. Maybe she hadn’t seen the article yet. I walked to the theater.
I signed in at the stage door. “Just coming in early to go over my song,” I lied to the guard.
“Good thing,” he said. “You sound like Morgan Freeman. Hey, does he sing?”
I ignored the guard, at least outwardly. On the inside, I was really really nervous about the show. I swallowed my nerves, focused on my immediate task, and headed toward the wardrobe room. Eden said last night she had some costume repair to do this afternoon. As I neared the room I heard chanting. Yes, Eden was “home,” and was again stirring a pot, though she wore more clothes this time: black yoga pants and a black tee. “More magic panties?” I asked.
Eden jumped. “Oh! Uh, no, something else.” She turned back to the pot, away from me.
“Didn’t mean to scare you. Did you think I was the ghost?”
Eden didn’t say anything, just kept stirring.
“Hey, you notice she hasn’t been around lately? Do you think maybe Babette was the ghost after all?”
“I think the Lady exists,” said Eden. She didn’t say anything else, just kept her eyes on whatever was in the vat. She must’ve already seen the online piece.
“Listen, you may have already figured out it was me they quoted in that article. I’m really sorry. I actually was telling the reporter about the intervention. I thought it was a good thing, you know bringing the whole issue into the public eye? And I never said you were Wiccan. That must’ve been somebody else.”
“It’s okay, Ivy.” Eden finally looked at me over her shoulder with a smile that seemed genuine. “People say what they will. It doesn’t change the nature of our cosmic journeys. I guess you know that already.”
