by Sean Black
"Best not mention that to Summer's people," Ty said, with a nod towards the bedroom door.
Although Carrie was a reporter, she and Lock had a deal that they could both discuss their working lives without it going any further unless they were both cool with it. She had never let him down and he couldn't see a situation where she would.
Lock headed back to the Range Rover to make the call, doubly aware of how sensitive it was. Carrie answered on the third buzz.
"Hey, cowboy. You all done?" Carrie said.
She sounded relaxed and happy. In the background he could hear Angel barking, the surf rolling in on the beach below and the squawk of a seagull who had taken to hanging out on the deck.
"Not quite."
He gave Carrie a brief summary.
"Has it leaked yet?" she asked him once he had finished.
"Not yet, but it looks like it's just a matter of time. The guy's pretty unstable."
"What are her management and PR people saying?"
"Difficult to get any sense out of them," Lock told her. "They're freaked too. I mean she doesn't want something as private as this broadcast all over the internet. It's not like she's some reality TV star. The kid has a major league acting career in front of her. Might be good publicity if you're looking for fifteen minutes but she's in the game for the long haul."
Carrie sighed. "You know once it's out there that's it. TMZ or someone picks it up first, then the tabloids, and then the mainstream media run with it. Meanwhile it's gone viral and there's no way of putting the genie back in the bottle."
"So what you're telling me is I can't save her from this?" Lock said.
"Not unless you can get hold of the footage and persuade him to destroy it."
"I'm not exactly his favorite person."
They were at a dead end. It only took the click of a button to cause someone untold misery these days and Jason's finger was right over that button. If Lock didn't find a way to stop this fiasco in its tracks he would have failed his principal. There was physical damage. There was emotional damage. Then there was reputational damage. Sometimes it was easier to make a recovery from the first than the other two. When he took on the job of protecting someone it went far beyond making sure they weren't physically harmed. He was responsible for all aspects of their well being.
Lock had watched the tabloid exposure of various celebrities down the years where they were held up to public ridicule for no other reason than it made someone money. He wasn't about to allow something like that to happen to someone he worked for. He didn't know how he would stop it, but he would find a way, and if he couldn't then he would make sure that Jason paid a heavy price. That was the deal with Lock. If he was on your side, he was on your side until the job was done.
Twelve
LOCK SAT WITH his bare feet dangling over the edge of the Chateau's swimming pool as Ty came out to check on him. It was past two in the morning. Ty slipped off his sneakers and socks and sat down beside him. Both men stared for a while at the shimmering blue water.
"How's Summer?" Lock asked.
"Sleeping," said Ty.
They lapsed back into silence. Ty was worried. Not for his friend and partner –but for Jason. When Lock went quiet and descended into a brooding silence was when you had to watch out. His eyes were hooded. He didn't smile. There was a darkness to him that swept outwards to take in everything in his orbit.
"You know if we mess this guy up everyone's going to know it was you. Could be bad."
Lock shot him a sideways glance. "Don't worry. I got something way more satisfying in mind."
"Like what?" asked Ty
"You'll see," said Lock.
"Just don't be asking me to make a sex tape with the dude. Movie star or not, I don't roll in that direction."
"Which is probably a huge relief to the entire gay community," Lock said. He took a breath. "Everyone's got a weak spot, even someone like Jason. What do you think keeps him up at night? Apart from booze and blow. What do you think he fears the most?"
Ty shrugged. "Breaking a nail? The hell if I know."
"Think about it, Tyrone. He's an actor, a tough-guy movie star, the man runs on ego. If he was made of chocolate he'd eat himself. What would kill him inside?"
"I still don't know," said Ty, frustrated.
"Well, I'm going to show you. But it's going to take some work and Summer's cooperation. I think I can talk her round to it but I'll need you to hire the logistics."
"Just tell me what you need."
Lock pulled out a single sheet of lined paper, unfolded it and handed it to Ty. "My list of requirements."
Ty scanned the list and a broad grin formed. "Oh, you bad, Lock. You real bad."
Thirteen
THE LOS ANGELES Police Department tended to stay out of celebrity spats until there was an actual criminal offense, or the clearly evidenced threat of one. It was a solid policy and one Lock would have followed had he been in their position. They had a force of ten thousand officers and an urban population of almost four million people that left them straining to deal with the major crimes that occurred daily – armed robbery, homicides, rapes, murder-suicides, kidnappings, and the ever present threat of a terrorist attack. An ex-boyfriend refusing to hand over footage of his girlfriend performing a sex act on him wasn't up there. But their understandable indifference cut both ways. As long as Lock was careful, they wouldn't be looking too carefully at him working on a little bit of payback.
Lock handed Ty two thousand dollars in cash and sent him off to begin preparations. Cash would ensure that there was no trail back to them. He had also given Ty the name of a location scout he'd gotten from Summer's manager. The job of a location scout in the movie business was fairly self explanatory but more broadly they were fixers, able to arrange access to places and have those places secured sufficiently that a production crew could film without interruption, which was precisely what Lock's plan called for.
The next part required Summer's assistance. When he sat down and outlined what he had in mind and what he wanted her to do for him she was nervous. Like many people in her situation she wanted the whole problem to just disappear into thin air. He explained to her that wasn't going to happen.
"Listen to me," said Lock. "He will leak that footage. Maybe not today or tomorrow but at some point. Or he's going to hold it over you and you're not going to get a good night's sleep while he does."
Summer looked around nervously. "Couldn't you just, I dunno, beat him up or something?"
"I'd be breaking the law."
"But if there were no witnesses..." she went on.
In truth, Lock had already considered the possibility more than once by now. "Me doing that might make you feel better. Hell, it would make me feel better. I'd enjoy it. I know Ty would love the opportunity to kick his ass. But there's a problem when you ask someone like us to give someone a beating." Lock paused. He wanted what he was going to say next to sink in. "Maybe he has a heart condition that no one knows about? Or we land a blow in the wrong place or too hard? Then the guy's dead. Would you be prepared to live with that?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Of course not."
"I'm glad to hear it. And even if we just slapped him around a little, he'd still be all the more likely to release the tape because his ego would have been wounded. That would put you right back to square one. So what I'm suggesting is something a little more long term. This is like the Cold War. Russia didn't bomb us because they knew that we'd wipe them out. Mutually assured destruction. Now he's got his nuke and we need one of our own. When that's in place then we cut the deal."
Summer blew a stray strand of hair from her eyes as he laid out what he wanted her to do.
Lock nodded. "At the place I mentioned. You said you'd been there with him before?"
When he had finished, she said, "Sounds simple."
"The best plans usually are," said Lock.
She pulled her cell phone from her bag, and clicked down her cont
acts list. She pulled up Jason's number and hit the call button on the screen. Lock could see the tremble in her hands.
"Jason, hi. It's me."
Lock had installed an app on her phone that allowed calls to be recorded. A separate split jack meant that he could listen in, even though he already knew how it would play. Men like Jason lived for the game. More than anything else they cherished their ability to get into someone's head and stay there. That was why, when a woman decided to truly sever all ties with an abusive partner, they often reacted violently. They could deal with everything except being ignored.
Jason's suspicion quickly gave way. Summer didn't seek to reconcile first. Instead she expressed her worry about the footage and whether anyone else had seen it. Jason said they hadn't. Summer's relief was genuine.
"Thank you," she said to her ex, no doubt hating herself as she said it. Lock gave her a thumbs up. He would run the recording through voice analysis software after the call and be able to know for sure whether Jason was telling the truth about having shared the sex tape.
The offer of a truce prompted a small measure of contrition on Jason's part. He made the request to meet her. Without giving a clear no, she played hard to get, finally agreeing but insisting on setting the time and location and hanging up before he had a chance to try to take things in a different direction.
Mission accomplished. They had Jason where they wanted him, and best of all, he probably thought it was all his idea.
Fourteen
DINNER WAS SET for nine o' clock. Nine was late by Hollywood standards, where a pile of spec scripts or book galleys usually demanded early nights. The restaurant was a small Indian place on Westwood Boulevard not too far from UCLA. Summer would arrive alone.
Lock and Ty would stay out of sight. They had weighed the risks and felt that Jason was unlikely to do anything in public but if he sensed their presence or even caught so much as a glimpse of them he would be gone and their chance to lift the weight of the footage from Summer's shoulders would have slipped.
They had given the young actress a crash course in self defense. Don't throw a punch. Hit with your elbows and knees – the hardest parts of your body. Aim for the weak spots; groin, throat, eyes, solar plexus. As soon as you have the chance to run, take it. It was all pretty much common sense, though in Lock's experience, common sense wasn't all that common.
Carrie had spent the day on the phone working her contacts. The news was mixed. Lots of people now seemed to know about the sex tape, a few of the sleazier ones were sniffing around the story, but so far Jason was neither confirming or denying its existence. It wasn't out there. That could change with the click of a send button – and with that click or tap of a screen would come a world of pain for Lock's principal.
At the wheel of the black Range Rover, Lock drove north on Westwood Boulevard staying a block behind Summer's Prius. Carrie had already found street parking opposite the small Indian restaurant where Summer was due to meet Jason. The choice of location had been crucial. Somewhere like Westwood or Century City was where celebrities went if they didn't want to run the gauntlet of paparazzi who hung out in West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and along the Sunset Strip. Westwood was more business district than residential and that meant the type of location they had been looking for was easier to find here.
As instructed, Summer hung a right into a ten storey parking structure a block from the restaurant. Lock dropped back into traffic, disappearing into a red sea of brake lights. He keyed his radio. For this operation, they had ditched their cell phones back at the beach house with Angel as they didn't want calls between them being traced. As far as the cellular networks were concerned everyone, apart from Summer, was sitting in Malibu.
"Ty?" said Lock.
"Yes, sir."
"You have a visual?"
"Sure do."
"Okay, let me know when she's on the way back down and you can confirm the vehicle location."
"Will do."
Lock turned into a side street, drove down it a few hundred yards, one-eightied the Range Rover and stopped.
His radio crackled. "I have her. She's walking out," said Ty.
"Thanks," said Lock.
There was another burst of static and then Carrie came on. "He just arrived."
"Anyone with him?" Lock asked.
"No, he's alone. He valet parked and walked straight in. Okay, I have her at the corner of Westwood and Kinross. She's a couple of minutes away."
"Let me know when they're both inside," said Lock.
Three minutes later Carrie confirmed that Summer and Jason were both inside the restaurant. Carrie would stay where she was. As soon as they left the restaurant, Carrie would have eyes on them again.
Lock pulled away from the sidewalk and tracked back to the parking structure where Summer had left her Prius.
The Range Rover turned into the concrete high rise parking garage. There were two lanes for traffic coming in and two lanes for traffic coming out. You picked up your ticket from a machine on the way in. The first twenty minutes were free, after that there was an hourly charge. The opening hours were six in the morning until midnight. On the way out you paid at one of several pay stations on each of the garage's ten levels. There were two stairwells, one at the east and one at the west end of the structure. The west facing stairwell also had an elevator.
Lock stopped at the ticket machine closest to the glass-fronted attendant's booth. He glanced over at the attendant who was decked out in a blue uniform that made him look like a cross between a minor league baseball player and a video game Mario Brother. The attendant was busy studying a rack of closed circuit display screens, his face obscured by a matching blue ball cap that was pulled down low over his eyes.
The attendant looked up and glared at Lock. He had to choke back a laugh as Ty ran his finger around the collar of his blue parking attendant shirt. He scowled as he slid open the glass window of the booth. "We got a problem with the top three levels so they're closed. Other than that, park where you like," said Ty.
Lock strained to read Ty's name badge. "Thanks for the heads up, Miguel," he said, pressing the button and waiting for a ticket. The screen embedded into the machine that would usually have displayed a live video feed of his Range Rover was blank.
Ty muttered something Lock didn't quite catch, and slammed the window back shut.
Lock worked his way up to level seven before running into a series of bright orange cones. A chain strung across the ramp blocked any further progress. He pulled into a spot at the end of a row next to a double cab Dodge Ram. According to the parking attendant Ty had paid three hundred dollars to take the day off, the truck had been there for three days. Lock got out, ducked under the chain and walked up the rest of the way, the levels eerily empty.
The only car on the top level was Summer's Toyota Prius. It was parked in the very middle of a row of spaces that faced out onto the windowless back wall of an office building. A concrete lip rose about three feet. Beyond the lip was a sheer drop to an alleyway.
Lock glanced up to check out the brand new HD quality surveillance camera that had been installed specially to capture a twenty by twenty area. Behind him were another two cameras, triangulating the area around Summer's car. Each camera fed back directly, via an encrypted Wi-Fi connection, to a central server. They also had memory cards in case the Wi-Fi connection was lost. The cameras themselves were housed in the type of reinforced casing that you would find in a million other public places. He could have gone for smaller cameras but had elected for hiding them in plain sight. People were so used to cameras watching them these days that they barely even registered, and certainly not when the individual was in a pressurized situation.
He keyed his radio. "You have a visual?"
"You're all set for your close-up, brother," came Ty's reply.
Fifteen
SUMMER FOLDED HER napkin over her lap and kept her hands there. That way Jason couldn't see how much she was shaking. He was a
ll smiles and small talk as they ordered, a star-struck waiter fluttering around them until finally Jason asked him to give them some privacy.
Jason looked down at her plate – the food untouched. "Not hungry?"
She shrugged. "Can we talk about the video you sent me?"
He chewed a mouthful of Bhaji, his eyes never leaving her face. "What video?" he said, his mouth still half full.
"Let's not play games here."
He smirked. "You used to like games. Remember that game where I used to tie you up. Or the one where..."
"The video," she said. It felt like everyone in the restaurant was staring at her, that they'd heard. She imagined that if tonight didn't work, this would be what the rest of her life would feel like. People watching. Of course Jason would be some kind of stud and she would be relegated to that all too common Hollywood role - the whore.
"Okay, okay. The video," Jason said. He waved the waiter over and ordered another Kingfisher beer. "Good times, huh?" he said to her. "Good times."
"I want you to destroy it."
He took a sip of beer and made a sighing noise. "You want some of this?" he asked her.
It was as much as she could do not to pick up the glass and throw it over him. "No, thank you."
She had to remain calm. Lock had impressed that on her. The chances were that Jason wasn't going to change his spots and do the decent thing. They had to give him the opportunity first though. When he refused then they would go to plan B. Lock's note on that had been simple too. Get Jason into position but don't make it too obvious. Improvise if you had to. Lock would have made a good director she'd thought as he'd run through his solution.
"Okay, so say for sake of argument that I have this video you're talking about. It's all I have left to remember you by. I mean memories fade but something like that, well it's a little more permanent."
She could see his enjoyment of her discomfort etched on his face. He was getting off on it. She did her best to re-focus. This was a scene like any other.