by Matt Goldman
Sebastiano cupped the apple in his hands the way a baseball pitcher cups the ball. “I understand you know nothing about show business. You couldn’t unless you worked in it. But don’t let your imagination get the best of you. Show business is rife with misbehavior. On every level. It’s often ignored, or worse, celebrated. And there are real victims, especially when it comes to sexual misconduct and gender discrimination and racism. Not a lot of senior agency partners with skin my color. For all the liberal grandstanding at awards shows, we got plenty of inequalities of our own.”
He nipped at the apple, chewed, and swallowed. “But we’re not the mob. People in this business don’t get murdered for business reasons. Some get murdered in crimes of passion, but that happens in every town in every community in every subculture whether it’s religion or business or whatever. Murder motivated by business just does not happen in Hollywood.”
I said, “That’s a hard-to-believe generalization.”
“I know. You’re right. But the truth is, all of us who do this know on some level we’re lucky to be here. Don’t get me wrong. People are smart and work hard. But still. Working in show business is like playing with house money. Look at this office. It’s ridiculous. I’m a kid from Danville, Illinois. From the wrong side of the tracks. And every single day I have a moment where I think, I’m the luckiest son of a bitch in the world. We all do. From studio heads down to production assistants fetching donuts at two A.M.
“You know, there’s a saying in this town: there’s no such thing as a show business emergency. And it’s true. Because the stakes just aren’t that high. They never are. Everyone runs around like chickens with their heads cut off because we create the illusion that what we’re doing is important, but none of it is. Worst-case scenario is a movie gets shelved. So what? Or a TV show shuts down production for a week or two. Drop in the bucket.
“My point is, there’s nothing worth killing anyone over. Hollywood is high school with money. That’s all. A game.”
Sebastiano took a big bite of apple, sat back, and waited for me to respond. He’d just fed me a big, fat lie. Not that I knew anything about show business, but his there are no stakes therefore there is no murder theory was complete bullshit. Every day, people manufacture stakes over seemingly nothing. Some asshole didn’t get a second Tinder date with a teacher, so he killed a bunch of kids in her middle school. A mother kills a teenage girl so her daughter can get a spot on a cheerleading squad. Road rage. Disrespect. A fix.
I looked at the smug cheekbones and said, “So you’re telling me it’s impossible someone intended to kill Ebben with a caffeine overdose.”
“I’m telling you it’s unlikely show business motivated someone to make an attempt on Ebben’s life.”
“Did I say show business was the motivation?”
Sebastiano took a sip of bubbly water and shook his head. His phone dinged. He looked at the screen. “Hey, sorry, I got to cut this short. Thanks for the talk. Here’s my card. My cell’s on the back. I’m available twenty-four/seven. Whatever you need.” I took the card and shoved it in my front pocket. The office door opened, and one of Sebastiano’s assistants entered. “Derek here will show you out.”
Sebastiano stood and extended his hand. I took it. Firm steady grip. I looked him in the eye and said, “Thanks for lunch.”
“Anytime.”
I gave him an I-know-that’s-not-true smile and walked out with Derek. Just as we stepped out of Sebastiano’s office, I saw the other assistant use her phone to snap a picture of her computer screen. I pretended not to notice by asking Derek where he was from and how long he lived in L.A. and what his long-term goals were. We passed assistant after assistant outside other offices as he answered my questions. None of them were taking pictures of their computer screens. We rounded a corner and I said, “My keys!” I darted back around the corner and saw Sebastiano’s other assistant holding her phone in front of her computer screen. Again, I pretended not to notice, turned around, and said, “My bad. Didn’t drive.”
Derek walked me to the elevator, reminded me to return my badge to security, then sent me down twenty floors. The navy blazers shot me warm smiles. I tossed my card on the marble slab. The crew cut said, “We’ll need you to sign out.” I went to the sheet, wrote down my departure time, and started to turn away then stopped. I looked down at the sign-in sheet again. Date: January 16. I said, “Son of a bitch.”
The guard said, “Something the matter, sir?”
“No. Sorry.” But something was the matter. January 16 was the anniversary of the school shooting, and Jameson White’s first step into darkness. And I had no idea where he was.
16
I got back in the car with Ebben. He took one look at my face and said, “Sorry. I didn’t know he was going to ambush you.”
I said I didn’t care about Sebastiano and told Ebben about Jameson White—the school shooting one year ago, Jameson’s work in the ER, his breakdown, and why I invited him to Los Angeles. I had known the anniversary was coming up, but I’d lost track of days, and now Jameson was missing.
Ebben said, “Are you going to call the police? Or do you have to wait forty-eight hours?”
“The forty-eight-hour thing isn’t true. Just on TV shows. But I don’t want to get the police involved yet. A police report could reflect poorly on Jameson’s mental state and jeopardize his return to nursing. Maybe if I knew someone at LAPD I could trust, but I don’t know anyone in the department period.”
“So what do we do?” said Ebben.
That’s the effect Jameson has on a person. Ebben had known him less than a day and asked what do we do. I said, “We make some calls.”
“All right. Should we head back toward the house or do we have another destination?”
“Are we close to Westwood?”
“Very close, yeah.”
“There.”
Ebben put the car in drive. I called August, got his address, and told him I’d be there in fifteen minutes. Then I called Ellegaard. He suggested I call my fiancée. I knew he meant for investigative reasons, but it felt personal. God, I missed Gabriella. The past twenty-four hours reminded me of the mess my life had been before her. I was either chasing something or missing something and, regardless of who I was with, I was alone. When I was married to Micaela, I was alone. When I dated someone, I was alone. It wasn’t anyone’s fault—I just hadn’t found a real connection.
Then Gabriella, who had been in plain sight for almost twenty years, revealed herself. Like Kansas to Dorothy. Now that I’d found her, I couldn’t stand being away from her.
Gabriella Nuñez was a deputy chief of the Minneapolis Police Department and MPD’s representative on the Joint Terrorism Task Force. She loved Jameson. She promised to call me back as soon as she had some information.
By the time we got to Westwood, I knew the general vicinity of Jameson’s cell phone even though it was turned off. Gabriella wouldn’t tell me exactly how, but she’d update me with both Jameson’s phone location and credit card usage. That was the good news. The bad news was Jameson was downtown. Or at least his phone was.
Just after we hung up I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize. 818 area code. I answered it and put it on speaker.
“Hey, buddy. How are you, buddy?” It was my friend the Cyclops. Ebben’s forehead scrunched.
“I’ve had better days, Vasily. How about you?”
“Hey, buddy. How you know my name?”
“I’ll tell you if you tell me how you got my phone number.”
“Don’t be joking. Anyone can get phone number. But not anyone can get name from face.”
“Maybe I recognized you. Maybe you’re famous.”
“Sometime you piss me off, buddy.”
“Can’t please everybody.”
“You are Nils Shapiro, no?”
“I told you my name earlier. I showed you my ID.”
“I mad with you, Nils Shapiro. I mad because I read on the Deadline tha
t Ava St. Clair will direct movie with Kate Lennon. I told you no Kate Lennon. I told you at your face. Fuck you, buddy. Fuck you so many times. Now we have big problem.”
“Problems are no good, Vasily. Let’s talk about it. But face-to-face. How about I come visit you on Weddington Street in Sherman Oaks?” There was a long pause. I said, “What’s going on, Vasily? You checking the closets? Maybe I’m in the backyard. I should tell you, dogs love me. Can’t remember the last time a dog barked at me.”
Ebben gave me a raised eyebrow. I shrugged.
Vasily spoke. He sounded out of breath. “I kill you, Nils Shapiro.”
“Don’t worry, Vasily. I’m not at your house.”
“I not believe anything you say.”
“Let me ask you something. Do you lease that gray G550 or did you buy it? Kind of like the looks of that thing although you can’t drive for shit.”
“Fuck you, buddy. You know my house. You know my car. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.”
“Relax, Vasily. I can’t be at your house because I can’t be two places at once. And right now I’m at the police station holding my phone up on speaker.”
He hung up.
Ebben said, “What are you doing?”
“Keeping our one-eyed friend off balance. I don’t know if this guy’s a real threat or not and—”
“You don’t know if he’s a real threat? He just said he was going to kill you.”
Traffic on Westwood Boulevard had come to a complete stop. I could see black smoke up and to the right. A police officer directed traffic going in our direction onto the opposite side of the street where we used one of their lanes to steer clear of a pickup truck engulfed in flames. The whole thing. Like a campfire gone bad.
I said, “What the hell is going on?”
Ebben was nonchalant and matter-of-fact. “Car fire.”
“What? Cars don’t just catch on fire in Minnesota. At least I’ve never seen one.”
“Me neither, but they happen here. Not sure why.”
“This is a weird town.”
“It’s different. But I like it. I used to visit cities like London and Paris and think, Wow, the whole world is here. They either live there or are visiting and feel lucky to be there. That’s what it’s like here. New York and Los Angeles are the United States’ London or Paris or Tokyo or Shanghai or Rome. Los Angeles is truly an international city. Traffic sucks and cars burst into flames and sometimes it doesn’t rain for months and the earth quakes but when you’re here, you’re at the center of something. The place makes me feel alive. Like I can do anything.”
“Other than drive faster than five miles per hour, but I get your point.”
August Willingham the Third lived in a high-rise on Wilshire Boulevard. We parked in visitor parking and approached a doorman who was expecting us. The doorman led us through a lobby that had more chandeliers than France, and rode the elevator with us in case we’d never learned how to push a button. We got out on the twenty-first floor and he led us to August, who stood in his open doorway.
His condo faced the ocean. We walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows and August pointed out the 405 freeway then Santa Monica and Venice. He said it was a clear day, though it didn’t look that clear to me. In the haze, he identified Catalina Island twenty-five miles off the coast. I had only known Catalina as a salad dressing.
The condo was open and modern and everything was white including a grand piano, its lid propped open like a Venus flytrap. Whoever recommended his interior decorator should serve time. I said, “What a dump.”
August said, “It’s an investment,” as if he were apologizing. “My mom is a wealth manager. Thirteen years in the NFL and I sent every paycheck to her. She put me on a strict allowance. While other guys were driving Ferraris and Lamborghinis, I drove an F150. They bought mansions. I lived in a one-bedroom apartment. I knew I had an assistant job waiting for me at UCLA, so we bought this early in my career.”
He took us through the dining room and kitchen, down a hall and into a bedroom with a view of the L.A. basin like we’d seen from up on Mulholland. There were two crops of tall buildings. The close one was Century City where I’d just eaten a turkey sandwich with Sebastiano. The farther one was downtown Los Angeles, where according to my last update from Gabriella, Jameson’s phone still was.
I turned to August and said, “Did Jameson have a connection to downtown when he attended UCLA?”
August said, “Not that I know of. It’s possible he developed one during the summers he drove a cab, but his time was limited. We didn’t have classes but we had two-a-day practices. I roomed with him. I knew when he wasn’t on campus and those times were rare.”
“What about relationships? Any old flames he might be visiting?”
He shook his head. “We prided ourselves on not getting in relationships back then. I know. It was immature, but we were kids. And it would have been impossible for Jameson to hide one from me. He dated, but no one steady.”
My cell buzzed. I looked at the caller ID. Beverly Mayer. I excused myself and walked back to the ocean view where I told her Ebben invested $1 million as seed money to start The Creative Collective. The rest he raised from sources around the world. His first movie was about to go into preproduction. It would star Kate Lennon, and Ava St. Clair was going to direct. I could send her information about those two people if she wanted to know who I was talking about. I added that Ebben was rocked by Juliana’s death, but had chosen to press forward, taking meetings in an effort to find his second project. I guessed that working helped Ebben get through the days but any simpleton would have guessed that.
I did not tell her that most of what I’d learned she could have found on the internet. I did not tell her about my suspicion that Juliana was murdered and Ebben had been the intended victim. I did tell her Ebben was behaving like a well-mannered, financially responsible adult who had done his homework. When I was done talking, Beverly Mayer said nothing, but I heard her breathing into the phone.
I said, “Is there anything else you’d like me to look into, Mrs. Mayer?”
Beverly Mayer said, “No, Mr. Shapiro. You’ve been quite thorough. You have fulfilled your obligations and may return home at your convenience. Please come visit Arthur and me when you do.” She hung up.
I walked back toward the other side of the condo and found Ebben and August in the kitchen. August held his iPhone, the screen facing me, Jameson White at the top of the display. The phone was on speaker and the microphone muted.
August said, “Got a call from Jameson about thirty seconds ago. Sounds like a butt dial. No one answered when I spoke.”
I texted Gabriella: Jameson’s phone just butt-dialed us. Location?
17
Half an hour later Gabriella called and said they’d located Jameson’s phone just west of downtown Los Angeles at St. Vincent Medical Center. I phoned the hospital, but they wouldn’t tell me whether or not they had a Jameson White registered. I relayed that back to Gabriella and she said she’d get on it.
Before hanging up, I walked back to the ocean view for some privacy. I said, “I don’t think I’ll make my flight tonight.”
She said, “It’s Jameson. Of course you won’t. I wouldn’t either.”
“I love you so much.”
I could hear her smile when she said, “How much?”
“More than pizza.”
“Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”
“Oh, I mean it. And more than trout fishing. Because you’re always in season.”
“Stop it or I’ll cry.”
“More than not doing the dishes.”
“You could be the next poet laureate. Find Jameson. And don’t dillydally. Our bed misses you.”
I drove with August and Ebben took his car. We passed the La Brea Tar Pits and the Line Hotel Jameson and I had checked into the day before. Then Koreatown turned into something poorer and more crowded. Old and run-down shops—most of the signs in Spanish. This, Aug
ust explained, was a neighborhood of Los Angeles’s working poor. The maids and gardeners and street vendors. A woman with four children crossed at the light. The people were tiny. August guessed they were Peruvian.
Each time I entered a new neighborhood in Los Angeles I felt like I’d entered a new city. Beverly Hills was different from Hancock Park which was different from Koreatown which was different from downtown.
We arrived at the hospital a few minutes after Ebben and divided forces. August and Ebben went to the emergency room. I went to hospital admissions and approached a man who sat on a stool behind a window of bulletproof glass. He was thin, and bespectacled in oversized wire-rim rectangles. He sat straight-backed and had an I am the gatekeeper sort of way about him. These attitudes aren’t hard to overcome at hotels and health clubs and maître d’ stands, but hospital workers see it all—it’s tough to bullshit a hospital worker. It’s better to let them throw their weight around to get their authority fix, let them get a full head of steam, then use their own momentum against them.
I said, “Excuse me, sir. A friend of mine is missing, and I’m wondering if he’s been admitted to the hospital.”
He lifted his chin, pulled back his shoulders, and spoke into a microphone. “Are you related to the man?” His voice came out tinny and small from a speaker in the glass.
“No. He and I are visiting from Minnesota.” Let him know I’m in unfamiliar territory. Give him an extra boost of authority. “I’m worried about him hurting himself, and last I knew, he was in this part of town.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t give out patient information to non-family members.”
“I’m really worried about him. I’m not asking about his medical condition. I just want to know if he’s here.”
“Sir, HIPAA precludes me from sharing that information. Since he’s missing, I suggest you go to the police.”
“I understand.” Acknowledge his authority. “Thank you. That’s good advice.” Ingratiate, ingratiate, ingratiate. “Where is the nearest police station?”