by Matt Goldman
“Ebben said he’d like to option the rights to a case I investigated, but I didn’t agree to anything. Or give him any indication I’m interested. Did he tell you I did?”
Debra said, “Ebben said he thought we could make a deal. If you sign on, we can sell this. We’ll start with premium cable, Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, Apple, maybe YouTube TV. Pretty sure we’ll end up at one of those places. But if not, basic cable is easy. I’m thinking TNT for sure but I know BBC America is looking for just this kind of thing. And they’re on the rise.”
“I have questions.”
“Of course you do,” said Sebastiano. “That’s why you asked for this meeting, right?”
“First of all, I didn’t ask for this meeting. I thought I was having coffee with Brit.”
“And Thom,” said Brit. “I told you about Thom.”
“Yes. Brit and Thom.”
Sebastiano said, “I represent Brit and Ebben. I have to be here.”
“And I manage both,” said Debra. “So I have to be here.”
“Fine. Great. Everyone’s supposed to be here. Except Ebben’s not here. And doesn’t The Creative Collective exclude agents and managers?”
“Only as profit participants,” said Sebastiano. “And not all of Ebben’s projects run through The Collective. He first showed me the article about you before The Collective was formed, so it’s considered preexisting business.”
“All right. Whatever that means. But why do you even need my story? There’s plenty of public information out there about the dust murder in Edina. Make up your own private detective.”
“Can’t do it,” said Thom.
“Why not?”
“We won’t be able to sell it if we can’t say it was based on actual events. We need an article and a personal way in. You’re that personal way in. With you, we have a sale. Without you, we don’t.”
“And the best part,” said Debra, “is you don’t have to do anything because you already did it. You solved the case. Just pop your head into the writers’ room once in a while and visit the set. It’s show business. It’s fun.”
It didn’t sound fun. My cell rang. Ebben. I excused myself and stepped outside onto Third Street. Traffic whipped back and forth. Drivers changed lanes as frequently as Minnesota meteorologists changed weather forecasts. No one honked. Traffic flowed. No matter what lofty dreams these people were chasing in Los Angeles, they all seemed to have achieved the status of accomplished driver.
Ebben asked where I was and said he’d be there in half an hour to pick me up. He needed me to attend the rest of the day’s meetings with him. I asked where Jameson was and heard “I’m right here. On the Bluetooth. I got something I gotta do so it’s your turn to play bodyguard.”
I said, “Are you going to tell me what you’re up to?”
“I am not.”
“Any sign of a gray Mercedes SUV?”
“Nope. And I’ve been checking for tails. Just the way you taught me. Even took Riverside Drive back from ABC instead of the 101. Nice and curvy. No place to hide. Haven’t seen a thing.”
“You’re going to earn your junior detective shield yet.”
“Damn right I am. Waze says we’ll be there in twenty-seven minutes. See you then.”
I hung up with Jameson and Ebben, turned back toward the restaurant, and found someone standing in my way.
“Hey, buddy, who are you?” The shaved-head with the eye patch stood about five foot nine, barrel chested and big bellied. He wore a black leather sport coat over a red T-shirt, black jeans, and Italian-looking loafers sans socks. He spoke in a heavy, Eastern European accent, like Count Chocula. “I ask you a question, buddy. Who are you?”
13
“My name is Nils Shapiro. I’m visiting from Minnesota.”
“I know Minnesota, buddy. The Vikings. I learned do not bet on Vikings. They break your heart and your wallet. No?”
“You know the Vikings all right.”
“So buddy, why you visit here?” He pulled a pack of Marlboros from his jacket pocket, fished out a cigarette, and stuck it in his lips. “You want smoke? I give to you if you want.”
“No thanks. Don’t smoke.”
“Fucking Americans. No smoke. No drink. Go to gym every day and wait month for parking spot because you be too lazy to walk block. You should live life.”
“Maybe you need to see more of America before you judge the country as a whole. We got plenty of drunk smokers who only get off the couch to grab another Bud and refill their bowl of Doritos. And those are the classy ones who eat their Doritos out of bowls.”
“I like Cool Ranch Doritos. But the orange dust I do not like on my steering wheel.”
“You’re more American than you think.”
He smoked with an affable grin between inhales and exhales. He was having a good time. His one eye squinted in the sunlight. He said, “I like you, buddy. You fucking funny as shit. Why you leave the Vikings? For sunshine? The beautiful women? You go surfing? Ride the board on the wave? Or maybe want to be famous on the TV? Why you here, buddy?”
I have been asked this question a thousand times in the line of duty, and I’ve lied almost every time. It’s part of the job. But when Brit asked me what I did, I told her the truth. Mostly, anyway. I don’t know why—it just felt like the right move. Maybe it had something to do with being an outsider. A stranger in the strangest land. The truth gave me an anchor to keep me from drifting off into make-believe. I said, “I’m a private detective. I have a client in Minnesota who asked me to come out here and check on one of her investments.”
He laughed. “You are private detective? For reals?”
“For reals.”
“Why you tell me? Do you not want to be, what do you say? Undercover?”
“Sometimes, I do, yeah. But right now, I don’t give a shit.”
His smile went away. “Don’t fuck with me, buddy. I’m not person to fuck with.”
The sun bounced white and hot off the buildings and pavement. Every car that whizzed by gleamed as if it had just been shot out of a car wash.
“I’m not fucking with you.” I took out my wallet. “Here’s my driver’s license. Nils Shapiro. See? Minnesota. And here’s my PI license.”
He smiled. “Okay. All right. You private detective. Like Sherlock Holmes. That’s what you say. Even though I could make phone call and have Minnesota driver license and private detective license in two hours, I believe you.”
“Thank you.”
“You got honest face.”
“I know. It gets me in trouble.”
“Ha! With women, right? You get in trouble with women?”
I smiled and nodded. “You know what I’m talking about.”
“Eh,” he shrugged. “I try. So, buddy, I need something from you. The people you eat breakfast and drink the coffee with, you have to give them message.”
“No problem.”
“You tell them, No Kate Lennon.” He pointed at me with his cigarette.
I said, “You don’t like Kate Lennon?”
“I love Kate Lennon. Best actress in Hollywood. Hot at box office. I say bravo for Kate Lennon in Easy Enough and The Daughter. New York Love, I did not believe her. But I blame script. I can write better script than that. I have one in car if you want to read. Russian tragedy. Will make you cry. But the point, buddy, is tell your friends no movie with Kate Lennon. Find new A-lister.”
I’ve never dropped acid, but if I had to guess what hallucinations might come of it, this conversation would be one of them. I was working hard to suppress a laugh when the shaved-head stuck a finger under his eye patch, scratched whatever was in there, and said:
“This is not joke, buddy. One pretty girl is dead. No one else needs to be dead. So tell your friends. Find new actress.”
One pretty girl is dead? That changed the tone of our little chat. I said, “I’ll go inside and tell them right now.”
“I like you, buddy. I don’t want to hurt your family.”
I stared something cold in his eye and may have even lost my Minnesota Nice smile. “Can I tell them who gave me the message? Your name? Someone you work for?”
“Nah, buddy. I do my job in shadows. Saving name for when I make it big time.”
“All right, but I don’t see many shadows around here. Too much sun. Everywhere you look. Nothing but sun.”
“Welcome to Los Angeles, buddy. And fuck this place you are eating. Get hot dog at Pink’s. You wait in line, but it be best.” He turned and walked away.
I went inside having no idea what to do with the eye patch’s message. I intended to relay it—I saw no reason not to—but I had no footing with these people. I didn’t understand half the words that came out of their mouths. I was in a joke or a nightmare or both. The one-eyed son of a bitch had just threatened Gabriella and Evelyn whether he knew it or not.
Ebben seemed the most relevant person to hear the message. Brit wrote the movie, but he funded it. And he wouldn’t be there for another fifteen minutes.
When I sat back down, Brit, Thom, Sebastiano, and Debra had reverted to opining about TV shows and which actors shined in their roles, which directors had heat on them (their words, not mine), and which of the shows would continue for another season. They talked about show business the way Minnesotans talk about the weather. Show business was their collective experience, what bonded them, what created the foundation of their community. Maybe that was unfair. Maybe people in the shoe business talk the same about what styles are selling and which cobblers are in demand. But it didn’t feel unfair. Their conversations felt more live-to-work than work-to-live.
That I understood. Living to work had been the sad reality of my life. How the meaningless task of hunting an unfaithful husband with a telephoto lens could create meaning in my life. Or the illusion of meaning.
My fiancée and baby daughter rescued me from that. They gave my life mass. Made it real. I could feel them in my heart and in my gut. I woke in the middle of the night and sensed them next to me even when they were two thousand miles away. I wondered if that made my job superfluous, obsolete for all it has provided other than a paycheck.
“Nils? Are you with us?”
I popped out of my head and into Joan’s on Third. “Sorry?”
Brit said, “You’re from flyover country. How do you think people there would respond to a show about a rogue group of doctors who are like Robin Hoods of medicine? By day they’re in private practice catering to the rich who come in complaining about all sorts of bullshit ailments. The rogue doctors write them scrips for the expensive drugs, but give them placebos and give the real drugs to those who can’t afford it.”
I said, “Are they doctors or pharmacists?”
Brit looked at Sebastiano, Debra, and Thom, and said, “Fuck. He’s right. Unless they have their own pharmacy in the doctor’s office, the rich patients would get the scrips filled at their local CVS or wherever.”
Sebastiano said, “Maybe there’s a pharmacist in the group. The way Robin Hood had Friar Tuck but instead of a friar he or she is a pharmacist.”
Debra, dead serious, “That could work. I’d buy that. That would definitely work.”
Thom said, “Is there a way to do it with doctors providing services for the poor instead of prescription drugs? Because basically stealing medicine from the rich and giving it to the poor is insurance fraud and, even more importantly, none of the pharmaceutical companies would advertise on the show. Do we want to walk away from that revenue?”
Sebastiano folded his arms over his chest and gave that a good think. I wondered if they assumed I’d decided to sell them the rights to my story or if their attention span was so short they had simply moved on to the next idea.
Ebben Mayer walked up to our table with a new number on a new stick, and I told the table about my conversation with the eye patch. Drop Kate Lennon. No need for someone else to die.
Thom the line producer said, “I’m calling the police.”
Ebben said, “No. If you call the police, they’ll file a report and we’ll have to tell our insurance company. The production could lose its insurance, then we lose the production. And we can’t lose the production. This movie is the cornerstone of The Creative Collective. The script is fantastic—thank you, Brit. We have a major star. We—”
Sebastiano said, “But Ebben. Making a movie is not worth risking anyone’s personal safety. When someone dies on a movie set, careers are ruined.”
Debra said, “Okay, hold up. This conversation cannot leave this table. Not a word. If it gets back to Kate, she could withdraw from the movie. That would be worse than losing production insurance.”
Brit said, “I can’t believe this is happening. I finally get a movie greenlit and some crazy fucking Russian dude is trying to intimidate us into shutting it down. Unfuckingbelievable. I turned down twenty-two episodes on NCIS to focus on this movie. Do you know how much money I walked away from?”
Ebben said, “We’re making For the People. With Kate Lennon. And I wasn’t going to share this yet but I think you all need to hear it. I got a call from Ava St. Clair’s agent on my drive over. Ava loves the script and wants to direct. She wants to be part of The Creative Collective. She’s rearranging her schedule so we can go into preproduction in March. Now we have a huge star and a huge director. The deal’s going to make. Ava doesn’t care about up-front money.
“If we lose this project it would be like Netflix losing House of Cards before House of Cards got off the ground. House of Cards had all the elements to make Netflix the gold standard of original content. Just like For the People will make us the gold standard. We can’t lose it.”
Thom said, “But we can’t have thugs threatening us. We have to call the police.”
“No,” said Ebben. He looked like he wanted to shout but instead spoke more quietly to prove his point. “If word gets out about this, I don’t care who leaked it, everyone at this table is fired. I’m sorry to be so punitive but you need to know how serious I am. I will find new representation. I will find a new line producer. And Brit, I’ll find a new scribe for on-set rewrites.”
Thom reached over and placed his hand on top of Brit’s. It was the first sign I’d seen of their so-called seeing each other.
Sebastiano and Debra stared hard at Thom, who held up his free hand in surrender and said, “Got it. No police.”
Ebben said, “And Nils. You don’t have anything vested in this, but please. I’m begging you. Keep this quiet.”
I felt my phone vibrate but kept my eyes up. Sebastiano and Debra had everything to gain from derailing The Creative Collective. It threatened their business model, which appeared to be their life. I looked at Ebben and nodded. “I won’t say a word.” Then I glanced at my phone. It was a text from Ellegaard. Ran the plates on gray Mercedes SUV. Call me.
14
Ebben stayed in the restaurant while I waited for his car at the valet. There was a line that included to-be-car-seated children so I took the opportunity to return Ellegaard’s call. He told me the gray Mercedes was registered to Vasily Zaytzev in Sherman Oaks and that he’d text me the address. I told him what I’d learned about Ebben Mayer and what was new with Jameson, and that I hoped to be on a plane back to Minneapolis that night. I just needed to check out Vasily Zaytzev. Not out of duty but out of conscience. Or at least something nagging at it.
A hand yanked away my valet ticket. I turned and saw Sebastiano standing tall and broad-shouldered, his angular face tilted just so to catch the sunlight. His eyes were cloaked behind sunglasses, which, like his expression, looked curated. He said, “Let me pay for this.”
“Nice way to cut in line.”
Sebastiano smiled. He placed a hand on my shoulder and said, “So I hear you’re a friend of the Mayers.”
“Some of them.”
“And you came out from Minnesota to pay your respects.”
“Guilty.”
“Even though you’d never met Ebben before.�
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“All true.”
“And you just happen to be a private detective.”
“You have good sources.”
“So is this a personal or professional visit?”
“Little of both. I’m sure you know how hard it is to leave work at the office.”
“Can I give you some friendly advice?”
“If it’s really friendly.”
“Go back to Minnesota. It’s safer there.” The valet returned. Sebastiano handed him both our tickets, and the valet ran down the street. Sebastiano said, “Let me tell you how this town works. The valet is going to bring my car first. That’s because Ebben’s rental is a Lexus and my car is a Porsche. Status matters. Perception matters even more. And the perception is that I’m a partner at the ACI Agency and you’re a hick from the Midwest sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong. The only value you have in Los Angeles is to rent yourself out as a passenger for the carpool lane.”
The sun felt hot on my pale skin. I stepped into the shade of the valet’s patio umbrella and said, “Wow. You’re like a cartoon villain.”
Sebastiano smiled his white-toothed smile. “I can live with that.”
“And a raging asshole.”
“I can live with that, too.” Sebastiano looked at his phone. “Excuse me. I have to take this.” He held the phone to his face and said, “Tell me,” and walked down toward the adjacent storefront. He just kept walking, his back to me as if I’d never existed. I was thinking about chasing him down to scold him for his bad manners when the valet pulled up in a bright blue Porsche Panamera, got out, looked at me, and held open the door. I tipped the valet a five, got in Sebastiano’s Porsche, and drove away.
I adjusted the seat way up and aligned the mirrors—safety first when stealing a car—and pulled into traffic. Nice ride, although I would’ve gotten a stick. Probably too much traffic in L.A. to drive a stick. Your right hand would be on the shift lever so often your oat milk latte would get cold. The Porsche’s nav showed a hospital a few blocks away. Cedars-Sinai. I took a few turns, made the tires squeal once, and found a lovely parking spot marked EMERGENCY VEHICLE ONLY. I turned on the flasher in case parking control wasn’t paying attention, adjusted the seat even farther forward, turned on the seat heater to high, found a country music station, cranked it up, and turned off the car. I got out and locked it because I’m nice, then walked away with the keys in my pocket and texted Ebben. Ten minutes later, he picked me up outside a windowless monolith called the Beverly Center. I got in the car, and he asked me what was going on.