Hollywood Secrets

by Gemma Halliday

  “We’d really like to speak to her,” Trace added.

  The brunette froze. Clearly she knew that voice.

  She looked up from her script. “Trace Brody,” she said on a breathless gasp.

  “Hi.” He stuck his hand out.

  She shook it, then looked down at it with an “I’ll never wash this hand again” expression on her face.

  The only thing better than being famous in Hollywood was knowing someone famous. Or at least having met them so they could shamelessly name-drop at the next cocktail party in the hills.

  A notion this girl clearly subscribed to.

  “Wow, really nice to meet you too. Wow, I’m so… wow. I mean, I love your work. Wow, it’s just so diverse.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Wow”, did she have some vocabulary or what?

  “My name’s Cindi. With an ‘I.’”

  Of course.

  “Wow, I am, like, your biggest fan. I mean, biggest,” she breathed. She set down her script, showing off a pair of fake breasts that bobbed up and down beneath a too-tight T-shirt as she deeply breathed in the scent of true celebrity.

  “Nice to meet you,” Trace said, still trying to get his hand back from her.

  “Listen, we were looking for Carla,” I prompted again. “Is she here?”

  Cindi with an “i” shook her head. “Sorry, they wrapped her already. She’s gone for the day.”

  Shit.

  “When did she leave?” I asked, still hoping maybe we could catch her.

  “About an hour ago. Why?” she asked.

  “We wanted to ask her a couple questions about Bert Decker.”

  “Her boyfriend?”

  I perked up. “So they were dating?”

  She nodded. “Sure. He even came to visit her on the set a couple times.”

  “Did she mention him ever giving her something?” I asked. Then off Cindi’s confused expression added, “for safekeeping maybe?”

  She shook her head. “No. What sort of something?”

  I bit my lip. I wasn’t sure how specific I wanted to get with Miss Co-star. She didn’t exactly look like the type that could keep a secret.

  “Oh, I don’t know, like a bit of information. On a disc? Or flash drive maybe?”

  Again she cocked her head at me. “Sorry. She didn’t mention anything like that. But it’s not like we are BFFs or anything, ya know? We kinda run in different circles.”

  “Did she mention when the last time she saw Decker was?” I asked, grasping.

  “Sure. He was here today.”

  Trace and I both leaned forward.

  “He was?” I asked. “When?”

  She scrunched up her button nose. “Just before we broke for lunch? He said he’d just come from the airport. He was only here to see Carla for a couple minutes.”

  “Did Carla mention why he stopped by?”

  “Not really. But you know, she did say that Decker had some big project going. And she was helping him with it.”

  I wondered if said project had anything to do with the flash drive.

  “Do you know where we could find her now?” Trace asked. “Did she mention where she was going when she left?”

  “Oh sure,” Cindi replied. “Decker had booked her a stage role. In Vegas.”

  Mental forehead smack. “The gig’s today?” This was turning into some great wild goose chase.

  “Yeah. She was heading straight to the airport. Said she had a five o’clock flight.”

  I pulled out my cell and looked down at the readout. 4:20. There was a slim chance…

  “She flying out of Burbank?” I asked.

  Cindi nodded. “I think so.”

  “Thanks!” I called, grabbing Trace by the arm and making a bee-line for the door.

  “So nice to meet you!” Cindi called after us. Though I was pretty sure it was directed at Trace and not me.

  I made only one short stop at the unattended wardrobe rack before we navigated back out of the studio lot, then roared down Hollywood Boulevard toward the Burbank airport.

  There are three major airports that service the L.A. area – LAX, Burbank, and Long Beach. While Sunset Studios was technically closer to LAX, the Los Angeles International airport was the major West Coast hub, which meant a nightmare when it came to parking, ticketing security, and getting through the place without being mugged or otherwise accosted. LAX was for international travelers and tourists. Burbank was the locals’ secret, the alternate solution servicing almost as many domestic flights as LAX but with half the hassle.

  Though, we realized as we pulled into the main thoroughfare, that still left the other half of the hassle to deal with.

  After snaking through marginally moving traffic past the runways, through the arrivals terminal and baggage claim, we finally hit the short-term parking, where, after circling just three times, we found one empty space. Next to a yellow curb. Saying a silent prayer to the parking gods, I took it, beeping my Jeep locked as we ran for the elevator up to departures. After a quick look at the monitors, we found one flight leaving for Vegas that evening at 5:00. Unfortunately, the little status line next to it read “on time.” I looked down at my cell readout. 4:40.

  Which meant Carla was probably already at the gate.

  Which meant there was no way we were getting to her without a ticket. The gates were past the security check-point where no one ventured without a boarding pass, photo ID, and a thorough inspection for shoe bombs. Not even Trace Brody.

  “Great,” I said, plopping down on a plastic chair beneath the monitors. “She’s probably already boarding.”

  Trace squinted at the monitors, his eyes scrolling down the list of departing flights. “Most likely.”

  “Now what do we do?”

  His eyes stopped at one entry. Another flight to Vegas. He grinned. Then turned to me.

  “How’s your blackjack?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I might have protested that this was a long shot. That we weren’t even totally sure Decker had passed the flash drive off to Carla. That, even if he had passed it to his girlfriend, she might not have it on her now. But Trace must have seen one too many of his own movies, as he was all about the long shot.

  “Got any other bright ideas?” he countered when I gave him a skeptical look.

  Sadly, I did not.

  So I backtracked to the car and grabbed my laptop and Nikon as Trace booked us two seats on the next flight to Vegas, leaving in an hour and a half. We then made our way through security (where they made me detach all the parts of my camera in case I had hidden weapons in the lenses), then hunkered down in a pair of seats at the terminal to wait for our flight. Luckily our gate was right across the fairway from a souvenir shop where I grabbed a bottle of Vitamin Water. Then I booted up my laptop ad settled in to get a little work done while we waited. I tapped into the airport’s wireless system, and downloaded the photos Felix had sent for the next day’s edition. Most were of stars going to the grocery store, out to eat, running errands, or caught in their pajamas as they picked up their morning papers. I pulled up my photo-editing program and began cropping, lightening, and sharpening the photos as Trace leaned back in the seat next to me, watching the news on the TV monitors mounted in the corner of the terminal’s ceiling.

  I was on the last photo (Jennifer Aniston pumping gas at a Chevron on Melrose) when I was interrupted by the sound of music playing from Trace’s pocket. I cocked my head to the side, recognizing the tune. It was that song from the sixties by Jimmy Soul that went, “If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife…” I raised an eyebrow at him, wondering who that particular ringtone was reserved for.

  Trace pulled his phone from his pocket and hit the on button, cutting the song short.

  “Hey, Jamie” he said.

  I raised the other eyebrow. Iiiiiiinteresting.

  I leaned a little closer. This morning I’d been practically peeing my pants with paparazzi excitem
ent at witnessing an honest-to-God phone conversation between the golden couple. And now, while I wasn’t breaking out the Depends, I couldn’t help the newshound in me doing a little squee that I could actually hear the other end of the conversation this time. If I leaned over. And tilted my head toward Trace’s phone. And covered the other ear. Nope, I didn’t look like I was eavesdropping at all.

  “What’s up, babe?” Trace asked, holding the phone to his ear.

  “Ugh, you know I hate it when you call me, ‘babe.’ I’m not some truck-stop waitress.”

  Geez, picky, picky, I thought.

  But Trace responded with an automatic, “Sorry. What’s up?”

  “What’s up is that I just got back from my dress fitting.”

  “I knew she had a dress!” I said. Apparently out loud, as Trace turned to me raising a questioning eyebrow.

  Yeah, totally not eavesdropping. I clamped one hand over my mouth.

  Though, from the fact that he didn’t move farther away, he apparently didn’t mind.

  “How did the fitting go?” he asked into the mouthpiece instead.

  “It was a total disaster!”

  “The dress didn’t fit?”

  “Well, of course it fit. It’s a designer gown tailored to my measurements,” she shot back.

  I silently willed her to mention which designer by name.

  “The problem is some paparazzi prick took my picture in it.”

  Trace glanced my way.

  “Hey, don’t look at me! I was here the whole time.”

  “Babe, there are going to be hundreds of pictures of you in that dress. What’s the big deal?”

  “What’s the big deal? What’s the big deal!” she screeched on the other end.

  Trace pulled the phone away from his ear.

  “The big deal, Trace, is that our wedding isn’t for another two weeks. No one is supposed to see this dress for another two weeks!” Her tone had gone from distressed right up into whiney two-year-old threatening a full-blown tantrum. I could almost picture her stomping her foot in time to her complaints. “Do you know how the press has hyped up my dress, Trace?” she asked.

  Again he shot a look at me, as if I was personally responsible for a world of hype.

  I blinked back innocently.

  “I may have read about it,” he answered.

  “If pictures of my dress leak before the wedding, I’ll be yesterday’s news before I even walk down the aisle. Imagine what that will do to my reputation! I cannot have my first pictures of my wedding dress leaked to the public by some slimeball with a telephoto lens.”

  “Did this particular slimeball happen to smell of pork rinds?” I couldn’t help asking.

  Trace repeated my question to Jamie lee.

  “God, I don’t know! He was fat, gross, and had a twin.”

  Mike and Eddie. Dammit! I cursed under my breath. Not only had they scooped me on the wedding dress, but the second it appeared in Entertainment Daily, Felix would know it, too.

  “This is such a disaster,” Jamie Lee whined again on the other end.

  I had to agree. Though for entirely different reasons.

  Trace closed his eyes and sighed out loud. “Okay. What do you want me to do about it?”

  “I want you to buy me a new dress,” I heard Jamie Lee say.

  “Great. How much?”

  “One hundred and fifty thousand.”

  I choked on my Vitamin Water. Holy tulle and lace, Batman! That was a hell of a price tag for one little dress. I made a mental note to call that amount in to Tina as soon as I had the chance.

  “Fine. Get the dress, send me the bill,” Trace said into the phone.

  That was it. I was so dating the wrong guys. I thought back to my last boyfriend. The most expensive thing he’d ever bought me was a pair of flip-flops at Old Navy. And those had been on sale!

  “Thanks, honey,” Jamie Lee responded. Gone was the whiney toddler, in her place something dripping with enough honey to attract a whole colony of flies.

  “So are we fine?”

  “We are now.”

  “Great. Listen, I may be spending the night out of town,” he said.

  “Fine. Whatever. Listen, I gotta go.”

  And before he could comment further, silence on the other end said she’d already put in her last word.

  “Boy, she’s a peach,” I said.

  He shot me a look.

  “I mean, not that I was eavesdropping or anything,” I quickly covered.

  He shook his head. “She’s not that bad,” he responded, shoving his phone back in his pocket.

  “Again with that phrase. You better watch out, Trace, sounds like true love to me.”

  “Drop it,” he said, pulling a stick of gum from his pocket. He unwrapped it, biting down hard.

  “If you say so.” I paused. Sipped my drink. Listened to the steady hum of travelers huffing to their gates.

  Finally I couldn’t take the silence anymore.

  “Interesting ring tone you have for her.”

  He grinned. “Like I said, she’s not that bad.”

  I couldn’t help a little snort.

  “A little drama comes with the territory,” he said.

  “Which reminds me…” I reached into my bag and pulled out the little item I’d liberated from the wardrobe rack back at the Sunset Studios. “This is for you.”

  I handed it to Trace. He took it, turned it over in his hand, held it up in front of him with two fingers.

  “It looks like a dead squirrel. What is it?”

  “A mustache.”

  He looked at it again. Then back at me. “You have got to be joking.”

  “Hey, you’re the one who complained about the lame disguise. This is much better. There’s sticky tape in the bag.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “You’d rather be mobbed for autographs wherever we go?”

  He sighed. Deeply. “Fine. Point taken.” He stood and made his way to the restrooms across the walkway. Two minutes later he re-emerged with the mustache artfully affixed to his upper lip.

  “How do I look?”

  I bit my lip to keep from laughing. “Kinda like a seventies porn star.”

  “Smartass,” he hissed. Though, I could tell from the way the dead squirrel was twitching, he had half a smile brewing again.

  I turned back to my photo assignments, finishing up the last Aniston pic, then emailed the lot of them back to Felix, along with the candid “glistening” photo I’d taken earlier of Trace.. I looked down at the time. We still had a good forty minutes before our flight left.

  Remembering our interview that morning with Ben Carlyle, I decided to indulge my earlier curiosity about Tootsie’s alleged admirer – Johnny Rupert.

  I pulled up the Hollywood archives database and keyed in his name.

  Johnny was the small-time actor who’d landed a few minor roles in a string of films put out by Sunset Studios in the forties and fifties. While I wasn’t 100% ready to rely on Carlyle’s assessment of the guy, I had to admit, as I pulled up the photo of Johnny, I could well imagine him the following-a-starlet-with-his-tongue-dragging-on-the ground type. He was slim, even for those days, and short. The less-than-masculine term “petite” came to mind. His features were all just a little too small for his face – a pinched mouth, a tiny, upturned nose, and a pair of close-set eyes rimmed in thick, black lashes. His black hair was slicked back from his forehead and, in the first photo I found, he was wearing the typical suit and tie of the time. He was standing on the Sunset Studios lot, in the same courtyard Pippi Mississippi inhabited today. His suit was just a little too big in the shoulders, a little too long in the wrists, belaying the fact that it was an ill-fitting wardrobe piece and not of his own personal collection. He was posed with two other actors, both similarly clothed.

  I went back to the search results, coming up with only two more pictures of the guy, both clearly taken on the same day at the stud
ios. Although the lack of photos wasn’t terribly surprising considering his lack of big credits.

  I opened a new window and pulled up a news search engine, keying in Rupert’s name. After scrolling though a page of hits that had nothing to do with my Rupert, I finally came across a link to an old newspaper article detailing how he had, indeed, died in a car crash in the eighties. He’d been out with a Ralph Kingsly, another actor, on their way to Las Vegas for the weekend when they’d been struck by a semi truck whose driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and jumped the median. Johnny had been in the passenger seat and died instantly. His buddy, Ralph, had been airlifted to a nearby hospital and listed in critical condition at the time of the accident.

  I wondered if Ralph had made it. I plugged his name into the internet movie database, searching for credits. A small list of roles came up under his name, indicating that he hadn’t been mortally wounded in the crash. Though nothing was listed past 1970, when he’d apparently made his last film. I made a mental note to look for Mr. Kingsly when I got home.

  Since I still had a few idle minutes, I decided to follow the one other we had as well: Becky Martin.

  Here I came up with quite a few more hits, Becky apparently having appeared in quite a few films, many of them beside Tootsie. In fact, she’d taken over the lead role in the film Tootsie had been shooting at the time of her death. Hmmm… suspicious indeed. Carlyle hadn’t mentioned this fact, though I had a feeling his sights were so set on Johnny, Becky’s possible guilt hadn’t even entered his mind.

  I leaned in for a closer look at the girl. She was younger than Tootsie, probably early twenties if the fine layer of baby fat on her face was any indication. She was blonde, like Tootsie had been, though her hair had a platinum quality that appeared almost white in the black and white photos. Her nose was a little too big for her face – something that certainly would have been taken care of by Dr. B had she rose to stardom in modern times – but her eyes were big, blue, and rimmed in enough mascara to make her look like a china doll. Her hair was worn in a close-cropped bob, her bangs clipped just above her penciled in eyebrows. In several of the photos she wore a bow cocked off to the side.

  But for all her attempts at a fresh, innocent look, her big blue eyes held the unmistakable glint of a calculating woman, a young lady who was on a mission to stardom no matter who got in her way.