“This one isn’t yours.”
“They’re all ours, really.” She tilted her head at my outfit. “Are you an impersonator or something?”
“Or something.”
“Dean’s birthday is going to be next level.” The girl motioned for me to follow with a tilt of the chin as she turned toward the door. That move she nailed. Eighteen years ago, I would have scaled walls for her. Now all I saw was a kid pretending to be all grown up.
The bottom floor of the lighthouse was dominated by a single round room. A fire pit encircled by a leather couch anchored the space. My greeter stepped down to join three of her sisters.
Bowman Fletcher wasn’t the only man of his era who embraced arcane contractual requirements. In his will, Big Don stipulated only a male heir could inherit the Calabria fortune. Though Dina was firstborn, the Brand legacy had gone to her brother. After that, the best she could do is produce a son and hope Kit didn’t do the same.
It took Dina seven tries to get a boy. She must have really loved her first husband, because she gave him two attempts before she dumped him. The next four husbands only got the one. Sometimes Dina dumped them before she even gave birth, as if she could sense another daughter was on the way. Then, the summer after Kit died, her last husband gave her Dean. She stayed married to that one.
Just in case.
Those months after Kit’s death were the closest the rights to Jove Brand ever came to defaulting back to the Fletcher estate. In court, Dina argued that she was bearing a male heir and thus the Calabrias still maintained the rights. Fortunately, the case was argued in Italy, the capital of all Catholicism. The ruling came back that if she bore a son, the rights would fall under her conservatorship until Dean turned eighteen. A birthday which, according to his mermaid sister, was just around the corner.
“Mom’s all the way up,” my greeter informed me before resuming banter with her sisters. While they were loved, each of them was a failed attempt. I knew how they felt.
The second floor was a combination of dining room and kitchen. No outsider did the cooking in a Sicilian family. The top floor was where the work got done. How many Brand pictures had been planned out on those bowed couches? How much film history was made, overlooking the waves, a glass in one hand and a cigar in the other?
When I told Missy to leave Dina for last, I left out half the reason. I didn’t ever want to see her again, and, to hazard a guess, she felt the same way. But here we were. Dina was waiting on the terrace, taking a call with her back to the sea. The dowager queen never rested. She put her phone down but kept her drink, appraising me with the frankness of a woman who had masterfully cast six Brand films, including handpicking the last two Jove Brands. I appraised her right back.
Dina was what her daughters would one day be if they did everything right. She indulged in the vices so many lived for without giving them free rein. A proper balance of exercise and diet kept her skin and hair healthy. You’d never know she was a mother seven times over. The little work she had done kept everything how it was, rather than transforming her into a different creature.
Her looks were only half of it. The other half was the knowledge of who Dina Calabria was, what she had accomplished. Her brother may have saved Jove Brand, but Dina restored him, secured his place alongside Robin Hood and King Arthur. Except better. Robin Hood needed Sherwood Forest and King Arthur Camelot. Jove Brand changed with the times, a man always one step ahead of the present.
But the only way to make a myth was to kill history. Seeing her again erased eighteen years of forgetting. The proper response was probably anger, but weakness beat it to the finish line. Right then and there, I wouldn’t have been able to lift a gallon of milk.
“You held up pretty good,” Dina decided.
“Clean living.”
I stepped through the glass doors to join Dina on the terrace. Like her daughters, she was solar-powered. I was jealous. The sun didn’t kiss me as much as it spat in my face.
“No, I mean it.” Dina took me by the chin to turn me into profile. “You’re a dead ringer for Brand now.”
I didn’t mind the hand. Dina always did like taking control.
“Maybe on a book cover,” I said.
Dina betrayed the trace of a smile. I couldn’t recall ever seeing her laugh, even before Kit died. Even in play she was all business.
“You know, people thought I was crazy, casting Collin Prestor,” she said. “Market research indicated men found him nonthreatening and women comforting. Not very Jove Brand.”
Dina had steered us toward Sir Collin all on her own. I said something to stay the course. “Sure, but what had he been in before A Gentleman’s Play? The butler in a few period pieces and those romantic comedies where the American girl moves to the English countryside?”
“They hadn’t seen him onstage.” Dina peered into her glass like it was a scrying pool. “When I saw his Marc Antony, I knew. The stunt stuff we could sell. Pop sold it seven times with Bryce Crisp. That crap doesn’t matter, the punching and shooting.” She remembered who she was talking to and threatened to smile again. “No offense.”
“Oh, I’m with you. Jove Brand isn’t about choreography or spectacle, not anymore. It’s about properly executing the myth, reenacting the—”
“The ritual,” Dina finished. She looked at me like she was seeing a whole new person. “You weren’t this sharp back when we were sneaking around in Hong Kong.”
She hadn’t changed a bit. Anyone else would have tried to pretend it never happened, avoided the topic completely. Not Dina. Dina walked right up to the elephant in the room with a bag of peanuts.
“I’ve had plenty of time to reflect. Along with a multitude of helpful people pointing out my shortcomings.”
Dina dismissed my modesty. “You looked good on the poster. Kit kept the dogs off with that one-sheet and the distribution trailer.”
“Good thing there was plenty of footage where I’m not talking.”
“Near Death looked like Kit fixed everything A Beautiful Disaster caught heat for. You were young. You looked good with your shirt off. You could throw a punch and ride a motorcycle. That shot where you flip out of the helicopter and kick Moon-Tzu was something else.”
I forced my jaw to unclench so I could reply. “Yuen almost died.”
Dina drained her glass with a shrug. “That’s show business. Want one?”
I swallowed my first reply and reminded myself that I needed to find out what Dina knew about the murders if I was going to clear my name. “Too much sugar.”
“Then I must have a sweet tooth.” Dina went back in to reload, pouring from the same crystal decanter her father drained for fifty years. The drinking was the only sign my presence had any effect on her. Dina had never been much of a boozer.
I leaned over the rail to gape at the many decks and terraces built into the cliffside. The rest of Dina’s daughters and their toddlers were playing on the beach. She came back out with a club soda in her off hand.
“To Jove Brand,” Dina said, clinking my glass for me before handing it over.
“May he live forever, no matter how many times he dies,” I added before taking a drink. It wasn’t flat, which was a minor miracle considering it had probably been sitting in the bar fridge longer than her son had been alive. “Did Missy tell you why I wanted to meet?”
Dina studied the depths. “I didn’t talk to Missy. Missy’s people talked to my people.”
”Missy wasn’t trying to get between you and Kit, you know.”
“She didn’t have to try.” Dina took a drink. “They were effortless together. The moment they met, I became an outsider.”
“Kit loved you, Dina.”
“Yeah, well, we always hurt the ones we love, right?”
In the silence, we looked to the ocean as a ship disappeared into the horizon, its sails waving white. I caught her eye before I spoke again. “I didn’t kill Sir Collin, and I didn’t kill Layne Lackey.”
Dina looked at me like I was an idiot. So much for the newfound respect my insights had won. “I know that, dummy. Do you think I’d meet with a murderer? Open my door to a guy whose hands are deadly weapons? Let him near my children?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Oh, yeah.” She slapped my forehead. “What did I ever see in you?”
Someone you could wrap around your little finger. “I could do those handstand push-ups.”
“Oh yeah,” Dina said. She took a drink to hide her muted smile. I was glad I never battled the bottle, with the way people leaned on it. “It was the bastards who killed them, Ken. The same bastards who have been trying to steal Jove Brand since my father made him into something worth stealing.”
“Who?” I kept my part short. Dina was ramping up and I didn’t want to slow her down.
“The same types that tried it back with Near Death. The studios, the mob, the commies, the Asians. These media empires are buying up every property in sight, proven or not. They’ve made a movie out of any show that got as much as a second season thirty years ago. They make movies out of video games that were rip-offs of movies. You don’t think they want Jove Brand?”
I put on my considering face. “Is Brand worth killing over?”
“Final Bow grossed a billion, before home video and merchandising,” Dina said. “Jove Brand plays worldwide. Higher grosses in Europe than in the States. The Shensei brothers gave us a big leg up, distributing us in Asia. Jove Brand grew alongside their market. Final Bow was huge over there. China loves anything with wheels in it. Niles began training the day he was signed. Over there, the biggest stars do their own stunts.”
“You don’t say.”
“Quiet, dummy,” Dina said. “Niles is you, if you could act.”
“Yeah, I saw Raid the Roof. He’s a legitimate martial artist, on top of being fearless. I broke out in a sweat watching that scene where he scales the skyscraper.”
“And he came cheap. We paid Prestor forty million for Final Bow.”
I whistled. Sir Collin’s paycheck was quadruple Near Death’s budget.
Dina consulted her glass for portents. “Niles is something else, you’ll see. We’ll get seven films out of him easy. And he has a family tie to Brand. His grandfather was Bowman Fletcher’s editor. As a kid, he was Brand every Halloween. The pictures are a marketing jackpot.”
“Makes for a good story—Brand superfan grows up to land his dream role.”
Dina tacked into the wind to save her curls. “Superfan is right. Niles was dying to meet all the old Brands. It was his idea, using you on Beautiful Downtown Burbank.”
“Remind me to thank him.”
Dina smirked. “Don’t embarrass the kid. I think he did it so he could meet you on the sly. Ham Price dying was a blessing in disguise, God forgive me for saying it.”
She wasn’t talking about pork products. “Hamilton Price, the singer?” I asked.
We realized at the same moment Dina’s liquid lunch had loosened her lips. She tossed the contents of her glass over the rail. The wind pushed most of it back at her. “You have privilege?”
“Born with it, according to the internet.”
“No, attorney-client privilege, moron. Are you licensed?”
“No,” I admitted.
“We’re going to have to do something about that. It will come out eventually anyway. Before we cast Niles, Ham Price was set to be the next Brand. Then he hung himself jerking off. Stupid bastard, he could have had it all.”
“Price spent his childhood in a boy band before making it solo. He knew what having it all meant. You sure it was an accident?”
Dina’s brow could still wrinkle, if it had enough cause. “You think the pressure of being the next Brand got to Ham?”
“That’s not what I’m suggesting at all.”
“Jesus,” Dina said, rolling air around in her empty glass.
Even with the wind I was starting to sweat. The sun was putting a nice sear on my face. The armored blazer might as well have been airtight. Dina didn’t notice, so I shielded my forehead as if I were making a visor for my eyes.
“Let’s have a pretend conversation, because saying this out loud seems bonkers,” I said.
“I like hypotheticals,” Dina replied.
“Let’s pretend someone has been trying to tank the Jove Brand franchise. For whatever reason they decided now was their big chance.”
Dina was an old hand at brainstorming to break story. “Maybe because Collin Prestor announced his retirement from the role.”
“I like it. But Sir Collin’s murder wasn’t the first action taken. The ball was always rolling. Maybe it rolled over Hamilton Price.”
“Still, Collin was marked.” Dina toasted her glass at me. “He had to go. The killer is waiting for the perfect moment.”
“Then they see me onstage, and they decide to improvise.”
“Sure,” Dina agreed. “The skit is all about you chopping people to death. That’s not too big a jump.”
“Now they have a patsy. As long as I’m close to whoever they want dead, I’m the default choice. A man acting alone. No conspiracy, just a jilted washup who’s finally snapped.”
“Ken Allen Oswald,” Dina said.
“I already used that one.” There was no way to ask the next question subtly, but it had to be asked. “Did Sir Collin’s death void the contract?”
Dina shook her head. “Nope. We filmed his exit while shooting Final Bow, the same way Pop did with Bryce Crisp.”
“How many people know that?”
“Not many. Me, the director, the screenwriter. Most of it we shot in the middle of production, in bits and pieces disguised as deleted or extended scenes. The money shot we kept quiet.”
One hand wasn’t hacking it as a sun visor, so I added the other. “Sir Collin dies?”
Dina watched the tide come in. “Brand has to die. You can’t have two Brands at once.”
So that was part of the contract. It was long rumored among the fandom that there could only be one Jove Brand at a time. That Jove Brand could never step down, never abandon his post. He had to die in service of the Crown.
“You must be busy lately,” I said.
“You don’t even know. I’m used to putting out fires, but this one, it’s like the gates of hell have opened. Niles is freaking out. I’m on the phone with him three times a day, talking him off the ledge, assuring him the franchise is safe. But . . .”
“But maybe it isn’t.” I rotated in an attempt to cook evenly. “Layne Lackey was investigating Sir Collin’s murder. From what I can tell, he was getting close to figuring it out.”
Dina was paying attention now. “What makes you think that?”
“Well, I think that at least the killer thought Layne was getting close. He was interviewing all the right people. Which reminds me, did you meet with Layne Lackey recently?”
“Yeah.” Dina sighed. “As much as he drove me nuts, Lackey made himself a necessary evil.”
“He was good at that.”
“Layne Lackey.” Dina turned his name into a curse. “Leaks are strategic, with strict timelines to fuel interest and control the cycle. All that little shit cared about was growing his web traffic. Much as we tried, none of our fan sites could compete.”
“The fans can always sense a shill,” I said. “What did Layne Lackey want to talk about?”
Dina finally noticed me cowering from the sun. “You’re burning up, aren’t you? All right, I’ll take mercy on you.”
She led me back inside and pointed me toward a wide couch. The corner of a blanket poked out from under it. Dina probably spent more nights up here than in her own bed. She refilled my club soda and poured one of her own before joining me, taking up the opposite end. We had never shared a piece of furniture so far apart. She stretched her legs toward me but they didn’t quite reach. I waited for her to lead.
“Mostly Lackey asked about Old Game, New Rules.”
“Niles Endworth’
s debut has a title already?”
Dina threw her head back, groaning in self-aggrandizement. “Remind me to make you sign an NDA before you leave. We haven’t leaked the title yet.”
“I’ll take it to the grave. What did Lackey want to know?”
“The normal stuff. Who was cast, locations, set pieces . . .”
“Contract questions?”
Dina sat up a little. “Yeah, I guess so.”
Being this close to her brought sense memories I had fought hard to kill back to life. At least this time, I was the one prying for information. The methods Dina employed back then were definitely more effective than the ones I was using now. The tension I felt told me they probably still would be.
Dina finally made up her mind what she was willing to share. “Layne asked plenty about Dean.”
“Because he’s coming of age.”
“And about to inherit the whole shebang,” Dina confirmed.
“Eighteen is a little young.”
Dina threw her head back. “Could you go back in time and tell my pop that? And while you’re there, remind him I was right about A Beautiful Disaster. But no Calabria man, father, brother, or son, has ever listened to a Calabria woman.”
Dina was reclined too far for me to get a look at her face. I was tempted to move, but standing up might have signaled our meeting was a wrap. “You going to retire, Dina?”
Dina snorted. “Hardly. Dean’s a good kid, but he’s still a kid.”
“Kit was only twenty-four when he made Near Death.”
“And look how that turned out. If he would have given me a seat at the table, listened to me, we might have made something special.”
I wanted to reply or taken both of you down, instead of just him, but that might have triggered an argument I had no hope of winning. “What if Dean sells?”
“Dean’s not going to sell,” Dina assured us both.
“What would he get if he does? Three billion? Four?”
Dina’s gaze could have killed. “Dean’s not going to sell.”
I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees. Getting the jacket off the back of the couch felt good, but I still couldn’t read her expression. “Did Layne bring it up? Ask what will happen to you when the clock strikes midnight?”
Jove Brand is Near Death Page 12