by Sean Black
There was something hanging in the air unresolved and Lock thought it best to get it out of the way before they went any further. "Have you given any thought to applying for a court order against Mr. Durham?"
Summer blew a stray strand of hair away from her eyes as her publicist took that one. "Summer doesn't want to be painted as a victim in this," said Paula.
Lock didn't know what other word applied to someone who'd almost been strangled to death by an asshole boyfriend but he knew what they were saying.
"Mr. Lock," said Bernstein. "This town is all about image. Right now Summer is seen as a strong young woman, a role model to other young women, someone who is in control. She doesn't drink. She doesn't take drugs. She's not only a very talented actress, she's also a consummate professional. That's why she commands the kind of money from the studios that she does. We don't want anything getting out there into the public domain to tarnish that perception, either with the public or with the people who employ her."
"I understand completely. Since the last incident, has Mr. Durham been in contact?" asked Lock.
Bernstein and Paula traded a look that said yes.
"He won't stop," said Summer. "He hasn't even left my house. That's why I'm staying here."
Lock smiled to himself. He knew there had to be a catch when the young actress's people had offered him and Carrie Summer's Malibu beach home to stay in. They were hiring close protection but they wanted him to throw in a free eviction service.
Summer picked up on his silence. "Don't worry, I plan on staying here. Traffic from the 'Bu's a bitch. But if you could persuade him to leave."
"We can do that," said Ty.
They'd thrown him a curveball right out of the gate but it could work to his advantage, Lock thought to himself. It would give him a chance to see just what kind of asshole he was dealing with. Lock suspected that Ty was right, that a guy like Jason Durham might not be such a tough guy after all. But he wanted some first-hand knowledge before he made up his mind.
"I have some contacts at the Malibu Sheriff's Department," offered Bernstein. "I'm sure they'd be happy to accompany you."
"That's very kind of you," said Lock. "But that may just draw more attention to the situation. If we need them, we can always give them a call. Can you handle things here while I take care of it?" he asked Ty. Ty nodded a yes. Lock looked back at Summer. "Anything else?"
Paula answered for her. "Summer's at the Chateau because she has to do some press here in the morning."
There was an edge to how she said it that deepened Lock's confusion. "Makes sense."
Bernstein coughed into his hand. "It's for the movie she did with Jason," he said, lowering his voice.
Lock caught the look on Ty's face. "He's going to be here?" Ty asked.
"It's in both their contracts," said Paula.
"As I said, we don't want this current unpleasantness going public," added Bernstein.
Lock looked from the manager to the publicist and then to the young actress. She nibbled at a nail with a trembling hand. He got to his feet. "Let me go talk to Mr. Durham for you, make sure he vacates your property and that he's on his best behavior tomorrow."
Four
SUMMER'S BEACH HOUSE was in the Big Rock area of Malibu. It backed directly on to the Pacific Coast Highway, or PCH as it was known by the locals. The front faced out across the Pacific. Like the rest of Malibu it was a quiet community, although a little more diverse than somewhere like the Colony with its private gated access. Here there were people who made less than a million dollars a year.
As he rounded the bend just before Big Rock, Lock passed a Malibu Sheriff Department's patrol car. It was empty, a decoy to dissuade commuters from the San Fernando Valley from speeding. The house was up ahead, just past a rack of stop lights. Summer had already provided him with a breakdown of the layout. There were two entrances on either side. They opened onto side decks, which in turn led to glass security doors and finally to doors that opened directly into the house.
Summer usually used one of the two-door double garages, opening them electronically with a clicker and driving straight in. The garage offered direct access into the ground floor of the house via two doors, one of which opened directly into the kitchen, and another that led into a large open-plan living room.
Decks wrapped around three sides of the property. The two side decks were little more than walkways. The one on the southern side had steps that led down to the beach. There was a large upstairs deck and a smaller porch-sized deck downstairs.
Lock had a clicker for the garage but the noise of the door rolling back up would alert anyone inside the house to his arrival. Neither did he want to approach via the two doors which faced PCH.
He drove past, the house on his left, turned around at the Moonshadows bar and restaurant, and parked the Range Rover a little further down. He got out and walked down to a series of steps which offered public access to the beach. He'd made sure to time his arrival for low tide. He took off his shoes and socks and went for a stroll, his plan being to access the house directly from the beach. Summer had already furnished him with the numbered code for the external glass doors and a set of keys. This way if he came face to face with the tough-guy actor it would be just the two of them.
It was a beautiful day as he strolled down the sands. A couple of people were out walking their dogs but otherwise the place was quiet. The houses sat on pylons. At high tide the Pacific would run directly under them and the beach would disappear entirely.
Sunlight shimmered across the water. On the Big Rock itself sat a dozen or so pelicans. On a smaller rocky outcrop a herd of seals caught some rays. Even the wildlife looked super relaxed out here. It wouldn't have surprised him to see them sporting sunglasses. He expected Jason to be less laid back when he found out that Lock was here to evict him.
Lock took the set of narrow wooden steps leading up to the house two at a time. Like any good intruder who wanted to go unnoticed the key was to look like you belonged there. He pulled himself up and over the gate, landing with a thud on the other side. Two sets of steps stretched up towards the house.
About one third of the way down them stood Jason. He was wearing red board shorts and black deck shoes. His hair was wet and he had a towel draped over his shoulders. In his hand was a Smith and Wesson Colt 45.
"You've got two seconds to tell me who the hell you are and why I shouldn't blow your head off," said the actor.
Five
THE COLT 45 likely had a trigger pull of around six pounds. But it took a whole lot more than six pounds of pressure when there was a real living human being in your sights rather than a paper target at the other end of a firing range. Lock knew that better than most. He had pulled the trigger of a gun more than once. When the situation called for it, he had taken life. There was a better than even chance he would be called upon to do so again over the course of his career.
Jason had killed too of course; cyborgs, vampires, zombies, extra-terrestrials. Hell, just the other month, millions of people around the world had watched him, kitted out in full tactical gear, jump from a Blackhawk and rush a compound to deliver the fatal shot to Bin Laden. And he'd almost killed Summer.
Lock waited. Nothing happened. Jason stared at him. Lock stared straight back. With every second that passed the chances of Jason actually using the gun diminished.
When Lock had decided that enough seconds had gone by, he spoke. "My name is Ryan Lock. Summer asked me to come by and speak to you."
Jason eyed him warily, and didn't lower the gun. "Why didn't you just ring the bell?"
"For one, that would have decreased the likelihood of you speaking to me. Secondly, there's a paparazzi parked just down the way."
Both points were true. Directly across PCH and up the slope was a rehab center that catered to the rich and famous, which in turn meant that the paparazzi staked out this small stretch of highway hoping to long-lens some unfortunate celebrity.
Lock continued.
"I didn't think this would be a conversation you'd want to have standing out there in your shorts. Or with one of your pals at the Malibu Sheriff's Department for that matter."
Framing it as a matter of image management seemed to do the trick. Jason lowered the gun. "I would have used it," he blustered. "Just as well you spoke fast."
Lock followed the diminutive actor up the stairs and through a side door into the house. A plate of half eaten sushi lay on the black granite kitchen counter top next to a jug of what looked to Lock like green algae.
Jason put the gun down and lifted the jug. "Vegetable smoothie?" he asked.
"I'll pass," said Lock.
Jason grabbed a glass from a cabinet and poured himself a tall one. He took a sip and made a face. "I'm trying to get in shape. Start shooting again in a few weeks. Action movie," he said. "You know I'm seeing Summer tomorrow. She could have spoken to me then."
"I know that. That's why I wanted to speak with you first."
The key to dealing with someone like Jason was to remember the guy had an ego the size of a planet. If Lock started barking orders at him from the get go he was more likely to become an even bigger pain in the ass. At the same time, he couldn't tip toe around him either. It would take careful handling. That was the reason he'd come without Ty, who tended to be a little too abrasive in these situations.
"So, speak," said Jason, making a face as he chugged another inch of algae.
"Look, we both know that women can be difficult, right?" said Lock. "I just got engaged. Great gal but we have our moments. In fact we broke up for a while after we first started seeing each other. Right person, wrong time, I guess."
Jason glanced at him over the lip of the glass. "Look, I'm sure you know what happened so I'm not going to lie. I shouldn't have touched her, but sometimes she really pushed my buttons."
Lock knew there would a 'but' in there somewhere. "I'm sure she did. But the fact is, you did assault her. Now she could have gone to the cops, but she didn't."
"Yeah, and why do you think that was?" Jason asked.
Lock could take a good guess at what was coming next. Jason clearly thought Summer hadn't pressed charges because she still held a candle for him. This was one part of the discussion that he couldn't afford to tiptoe around.
"She didn't file a complaint because she doesn't need that kind of publicity any more than you do. You both know how the business you're in works. Save yourself a lot of trouble. Accept that it's over," said Lock. He looked around the open plan ground floor with its floor to ceiling picture windows framing the Pacific Ocean. "She's not coming back while you're still here."
Jason sighed. His shoulders slumped. "I was going to move out today anyway. You happy now?"
"Can I have your word on that?"
"You can," said the actor.
As they shook hands, Lock noticed that the actor was standing on his tip toes to close the gap in height between them. Judging by the heels of his deck shoes he was also wearing lifts.
Gun or no gun, it was hard to be truly intimidated by a man who wore lifts. Some of the toughest guys Lock had served with in the British Royal Military Police specialist close protection unit hadn't exactly been giants. The difference was that they didn't try to compensate for it with trick shoes.
"Gone by eighteen hundred hours?" Lock prompted.
"You got it."
Lock left by one of the doors that fronted onto the highway. Outside, parked right in front of a tow away zone sign was a Nissan Altima with a long-haired white male in his early twenties sitting in the driver's seat, a camera in hand trained up the slope at the garden of the rehab center.
Lock tapped the glass and thumbed a 'get the hell out of here' at the photographer. He took off with a squeal of rubber, and Lock walked north back up PCH to the Range Rover.
He climbed in, more anxious about the situation than he had been before. Something in his gut told him that the conversation had gone far too smoothly. There had been something else that had set off alarm bells. Jason may have been chugging down a health shake but there had also been two lines of cocaine laid out on a mirror on the dining room table. If there was one thing more unpredictable than an egomaniac movie star it was a coked up egomaniac movie star who greeted visitors with a 45.
As he drove back towards West Hollywood, he called Carrie to let her know that he had secured their deluxe beachside accommodation, but not to head over without him. Then he called Ty to give him an updated situation report.
"You think he's going to be a good boy tomorrow?" Ty asked.
"He'd better be," said Lock.
Six
TY STOOD GUARD outside one of the Chateau's twelve bungalows. Summer was the other side of the door, getting ready for the next day's press event with her publicist. Man, so far, he thought, he was loving this gig. For a start, the young actress had taken a shine to him. He could tell. It wasn't surprising either – her being surrounded by all those metrosexual movie stars all day, half of whom who probably batted for the other team. It was just a shame that she wasn't his type – too young, too skinny. Ty liked himself a woman with some meat on her bones. He only hoped she didn't make too much of a play for him. He'd let her down gently if it came to that. Wasn't anything worth worrying about anyhow, not when he had a real worry.
It had turned out that there was a 'no firearms' rule on this gig. The LAPD were pretty strict about carry permits, either open or concealed, and Lock didn't want to fall foul of them, so for this job they would have to get by without a gun, which sucked. Ty always felt naked without his SIG Sauer.
From nowhere, Ty caught the sweet smell of dope smoke on the air. He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in the aroma. Maybe he should just relax and enjoy the ride, he told himself.
"Wake the hell up, asshole."
His eyes snapped open to the sight of Lock glaring at him.
"Just taking a moment. She's safe inside," said Ty.
Lock glared at him. "Okay, I'm going to do a quick recon of the room they're using for the press interviews then I'm going to check that he's out of the Malibu house and pick up Carrie. Can I count on you to stay awake while I'm gone?"
"I was resting my eyes. Anyway, what's this guy gonna do if he shows up?"
"Well, he pulled a piece on me when I met him."
Ty chewed this news over slowly. "Told you we needed to be armed."
"Not gonna happen, Tyrone. But let's not just assume this is going to be a slam dunk. The guy's unpredictable and I don't like him."
"No shit. You don't like anyone," Ty said.
"Okay, I particularly don't like him," said Lock.
Lock was always sweating stuff. "She's heading off to shoot another movie soon, and you said he was too. All we have to do is get her through tomorrow."
"And tonight," said Lock.
"Chill, brother. I'm on it." Ty held out his fist and they bumped.
Two bikini-clad model types weaved around Ty on their way to one of the other bungalows. He made sure not to even glance in their direction. Man, he wished Lock would let him wear his shades.
Seven
BY THE TIME Lock got back to Malibu all traces of the actor were gone – Jason had been as good as his word. The remote clicker for the garage and his set of keys sat on the marble countertop of the bar which fronted onto the living area, along with a brief note for Summer, apologizing once again for his behavior. Lock picked up the keys and clicker and left the note where it was. He was tempted to throw it into the trash but it was rarely a good idea to interfere in personal matters.
He would advise Summer that she should have all the locks changed in case Jason had either cloned the garage door opener or copied the keys. Lock did a careful walk through of the property, paying particular attention to any possible traces of drugs. He wouldn't have put it past Jason to leave behind a bunch of blow and put in a call to the Sheriff's department himself so that he could get even with his now ex-girlfriend.
Once Lock was sat
isfied that the house was it should be, he called Carrie, arranging to meet her for dinner before they headed back. The tide was in and Lock could hear heavy stones, washed smooth by the ocean, crashing into the pylons that supported the house. It was an ominous sound.
He had dinner with Carrie at a roadside Thai joint just north of the turn that led up into Topanga Canyon. With the main business of the day settled, Lock could relax. Carrie looked stunning. They held hands under the table like a couple of teenagers and Carrie teased Lock about his lack of dexterity when it came to using chopsticks. Inevitably, the conversation turned to work.
"So what's the deal with Jason?" Carrie asked him as the waitress cleared their plates.
"The bad news is that he's your standard Hollywood alpha male asshole with a drug problem and a bad attitude when it comes to women. The good news is that I think she got a real scare when he tried to strangle her. I don't think that she'll be going back for more."
"I'll drink to that," said Carrie, lifting her glass of white wine and clinking it against Lock's glass of water.
"Me too," said Lock.
They had both seen enough of life to know that Summer was one of the lucky ones. Domestic violence was like a frog being boiled slowly in a pan of water. By the time the abused partner realized how hot it was, it was often too late to climb out.
They paid for their meal and headed back to the beach house. "This is some place," said Carrie as they walked in.
She took his hand and started to lead him up the stairs. "Wonder what the view's like from the bedroom?" she said as he followed her.
Halfway up the stairs his cell phone rang. It was Ty. Carrie sighed in frustration.
"What's up?" Lock asked his partner.
"We got ourselves a situation," said Ty.
"Jason showed up?" guessed Lock.