Reel Stuff

by Don Bruns

  She shut down and didn’t say another word to me until we arrived at Juliana’s talent agency.

  I parked half a block from the office in the closest spot I could find, and she jumped out and headed down the sidewalk. Juliana was giving her some paperwork to fill out. She promised she’d only be a minute.

  As I sat there watching her walk away from me, two things happened.

  A green Jag XKE pulled up in front of the office in a newly vacated spot, and the secretary Sue Waronker walked out of the office and headed toward my rental. As she reached the car, I rolled the window down.

  “Hey, Sue.”

  Looking down, she made a sour face.

  “The best manager in Hollywood, right?”

  “The case could be made. It appears Em got the part.”

  Her expression was vacant.

  “In the sitcom? The one Juliana had her read for? The blonde bombshell?” She looked totally bored. No excitement for a brand-new client.

  I nodded. “By the way, who’s Juliana’s boyfriend? The one in the green Jag up there by the office?”

  She shook her head. “What’s with you?”

  “I told you, your boss got me fired. You told me yourself that she is a real ballbuster. And I want to know more about her. Like who is she dating?”

  Sighing, she glanced at the green sports car.

  “Not that it’s any business of yours, but the guy in the cool car,” she ran her eyes over my cheap rental Chevy Aveo, “that’s Rob Mason. You haven’t heard of him? I’m surprised you two aren’t old drinking buddies since you’re in the same business. He manages some of the biggest new names in the industry. I would think he would be friends with you due to your huge successes.” She gave me a broad smile, insincere at best.

  I know sarcasm when I hear it.

  “And he’s dating Juliana Londell?”

  “They seem to be friendly.”

  I smiled.

  “Will there be anything else, Kip?”

  “Yes. How long have they been seeing each other?” I had nothing to lose, and the answer had value. If she gave me an answer—

  She didn’t. Rolling her brown eyes, she walked away.

  “So, I saw you talking to the secretary. Flirting or getting information?”

  “You know how much I flirt.” Never. “I’m still working the case. Information, Em. Information.”

  “And you’re suggesting I’m not working for information?” The bitterness had returned in her voice.

  “Not suggesting,” I said. “Stating the fact.”

  “For your information, Mr. Moore, Juliana started talking about a guy named Rob Mason. Another manager whom she seems to be very close to. Like maybe they were seeing each other.”

  I pointed to the car parked in front of Londell’s office building.

  “The guy with the green Jag who lip-locked her earlier today.”

  “Oh.” She didn’t sound surprised. “Anyway, since you’ve been fired—”

  “You’ve got to rub that in, don’t you?”

  Em ignored my comment. “She said with her connection to this Mason guy, the sky was the limit as to my potential. So I’m thinking this might be a good deal for us. You and me.”

  “Us?”

  “I think she wants to hook me up with Mason.”

  “Hook you up?” My voice rose.

  “Agent and client, dumb ass. Let’s not project things into this conversation that aren’t there.”

  The turn of the conversation had taken me aback.

  “I’ll find out how long they’ve been dating,” Em said. “If she was unfaithful to Jason then that fact might help us in the murder investigation.”

  Begrudgingly, I nodded. “Maybe this Martin Scott was right. Possibly you do have potential.”

  “You’re just starting to realize that?”

  “Damn, Em, I’ve been your biggest supporter since forever.”

  Pursing her pretty lips, she pouted and said, “I was always aware that I was able to get what I wanted, Skip. That was clear to me at an early stage in my life. But then I haven’t wanted much. No huge-scale dreams. And Daddy had a job waiting for me after graduation that paid very well.”

  “So, all of a sudden someone else is interested, and you’re willing to give up whatever you have to—”

  “What do I have?”

  “A pretty secure job with—”

  “Daddy? He’s sixty, Skip. Think about it. He’s not going to do this forever. My father is going to retire if he doesn’t run himself into the ground and die first. And then what? I run his business? I don’t think so.”

  She was working herself up, and I knew better than to interrupt.

  “I’m not an architect, I’m not a construction worker and, frankly, without my father, I couldn’t and wouldn’t do that job.”

  Up until this time, I thought she was set for life. It had never dawned on me that she was looking down the road.

  “So what are you saying?”

  “I need a new career.”

  “Really? Em, you’re doing great right now.” I hadn’t found my first career yet. Still floundering.

  “In your eyes, Skip. Not in the real world. And I’m not sure you play in the real world sometimes. Do you seriously believe that you and James are going to make a big career out of the P.I. thing?”

  Honestly, I didn’t. I was living James’s dream, not mine.

  “And even if you did, I’m not coming aboard full time. I don’t want to be your girl Friday. I’m in your corner, boyfriend, but I have much higher goals for myself. And for you.”

  “What are they offering you?” I was afraid to even hear the amount.

  “Three thousand dollars for one week.” She gave me a weak smile. “If they continue the character, my manager will negotiate a new deal.”

  Three thousand for one week. I had a business degree. Still, it took a couple of seconds. A hundred fifty-six thousand dollars a year if she worked every week. I made about twenty-eight thousand a year. She was being offered five and one half times what I made. To be an actress. She was probably worth that, and more, but still—

  “All right. I’m not exactly happy about this, but you’ve put up with some of my crazy ideas, so I’ll get on board. You pursue the actress thing and keep Juliana distracted, and I’ll keep bugging Sue Waronker, Kathy Bavely, and anyone else who can help us solve this case.”

  “Really?”

  “Really, what?”

  “You’ll let me pursue this?”

  “Let you?” I actually had a choice?

  “Skip, thank you.” She leaned over from the passenger seat and mashed her lips to mine. It was almost painful. Almost, but then the softness and sensuousness of the kiss set in.

  Finally, she pulled away. Her dewy eyes, her flushed face made me wish for the sanctity of our motel room.

  “I need you to be on my side. How can I do this without you?” Nodding her head, she said, “I want to solve the case. But put yourself in my position. Someone sees a value in your talent that you’ve never considered, and all of a sudden you want to explore that value. That talent. Well, I’m there, Skip. I want to see what the other side feels like. So far it feels really good.”

  So far, everything was an ego boost to my girlfriend.

  Nodding back to her, I started the car. Potential was the furthest thing from my mind. Aside from my swim team coach in high school, I’d never had anyone who saw major potential in me. My life consisted of a disappearing father and a mother and sister who wrote me off years ago. Other than James and Em, I’d never met anyone who seriously had hope for me. No one.

  And now I had a girlfriend who has just discovered she may be in line to be the next big thing. An American princess. Stranger things have happened. Sixteen-year-old Lana Turner skipped school one day and was discovered drinking a Coke at the Top Hat Café on Sunset Boulevard. Within a week, Zeppo Marx from the Marx Brothers had signed her to his agency and she became one of th
e biggest actresses in movie history. I know, I have a bottomless pit for useless movie trivia. Someday I needed to find a way to make that pit pay off.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  In The Postman Always Rings Twice, Frank Chambers says to Cora Smith, the Lana Turner character, “With my brains and your looks, we could go places.”

  In our situation, it was Em’s brains and Em’s looks. Together, with her brains and her looks, she could go places. Sometimes she took me along, but I was kind of dragging down the potential.

  I still didn’t tell her about the BMW trying to run me over, and we drifted off to sleep never totally reconciling.

  Waking up early, I realized it was eight o’clock already in sunny Miami. I walked into the fresh outside, listening to early birds, and called James.

  “On the job, pard. Last night a carload of high school drunks jumped the curb and plowed into one of our sets. Guy on duty about got run over.”

  “Soundtrack of my life.”

  A car, jumping the curb, and trying to run pedestrians over.

  “So, you’re saying maybe yesterday in Los Angeles was an accident?”

  “Not my call, amigo. You were there. If you think someone was trying to kill you, then I’m with you. However, last night, three a.m., these five high school kids were potted, and they lost whatever control they had. No one was killed, but it was damned close. They didn’t set out to destroy a set. They set out to have a good time, and it didn’t end so well.”

  He was silent for a moment, and I considered the possibilities.

  “I suppose it could have been an accident. Someone who was into excess. Drugs, alcohol, who knows?”

  I knew better. That car was headed right for me and, if I’d been any slower, it would have hit me and thrown me half a mile.

  “Maybe they were trying to scare me.”

  “It was what it was, Skip. I’m glad you’re among the living. I had serious thoughts yesterday about what life would be without you. We’ve come too far and we’ve damned sure got a long journey ahead. You can’t go now. Understand?”

  “I’m not planning on going anywhere.”

  “How is the star?”

  “Considering a name change. Emily Minard doesn’t seem to make it for her management team.”

  “Liz Taylor is taken.”

  “All the good ones are taken. J Lo, Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried, Blake Lively—” Some of my favorites.

  “Honey Boo Boo,” he responded.

  I laughed out loud. Things had gotten a little too serious.

  “Skip, when are you coming back?”

  “I’ve got most of the information I need. Juliana has a ten-million-dollar policy on Jason, and she’s dating some new guy named Rob Mason, a super manager.”

  “Ah. A new boyfriend.”

  “Or an old one that she kept secret.”

  “And he’s going to help raise the kid?”

  “I’m not privy to that kind of information, James. She doesn’t confide in me. She doesn’t even like me that well. And her secretary, Sue Waronker, who is giving me some good inside information, detests me. You know how it is. I’ve made somewhat of a reputation for myself.”

  “You always were the charmer in our duo.”

  “So where do we go from here? Juliana had motive and possibly was unfaithful. It’s a far cry from anyone charging her with murder.”

  James was quiet for a moment, turning things over in his head.

  “Well, I think it’s clear. You need to break into that office when no one is there. Check the computer, Facebook account, Twitter, and tear the place apart. If you can find that she was screwing around on Jason before he died, she had a damned good reason to kill him. A ten-million-dollar insurance policy that may go south.”

  “And according to what you found out, a seventy-five-million-dollar reason, that being the supposed value of his estate.”

  “With that ten, it’s eighty-five million dollars, Skip. Can you even fathom that? Eighty-five million?”

  We both paused, savoring the dollar amount.

  “And it all disappears if someone can prove she was unfaithful to him. Disappears. Do you believe that?”

  “It all disappears, Skip, if someone can prove she helped kill him. I’m pretty sure that a murderer doesn’t qualify for one dime. I’m right, right? And I know it was her. I just know it.”

  “She’s a real bitch, James.”

  “I haven’t met her, but everything I hear points in that direction.”

  Bright lights approached as traffic picked up along the boulevard. I gazed at the road that ran by our motel, hypnotized by the steady stream of cars. Even this early in the morning, Los Angeles commuters were out in droves, headlights beaming into the morning mist.

  “Being a bitch, Skip, that in itself doesn’t make her a killer.” James sounded disappointed.

  “No, but you can see the ruthlessness in her eyes. Her secretary pretty much told me the lady uses people very hard to get what she wants.”

  “Oh, and that’s unusual in moviedom?”

  “You’re right, man. And I agree with you. I think she was involved. The more I see her, the more I think she’s guilty. Of something.”

  “You willing to find out? You’re going to have to make the effort to dig up that information.”

  I wasn’t willing. I really didn’t want to take that chance.

  “Breaking and entering. That’s got to be a serious offense, right?” I was just guessing out loud.

  He chuckled. “Skip, it’s a misdemeanor. I don’t mean that it isn’t illegal, but a misdemeanor. I looked it up online.”

  “You looked it up?”

  “Well, I thought we might have to go there sooner or—”

  “You thought I’d have to go there.”

  “Skip, I looked it up. If you do have to break in, it’s not a severe sentence. That is, if they find you guilty.”

  “Not a felony?”

  “No. It’s not even breaking and entering. California doesn’t have that crime on their books. It’s burglary, vandalism, and something else. I forget. But all you’re doing is looking for information. You’re not walking out with a big-screen TV or anything of value. Unless you see something we can’t live without.”

  I considered this. If we were going to get to the bottom of the crime, I needed to get more information, make copies of documents, and be sure that we had correct information.

  “James, if you have any opportunity to talk to Em, don’t mention this conversation. She’s in somewhat of a vulnerable state.”

  “I get it.”

  “I’m not sure you do. I’m not sure I do. All of a sudden, she’s getting this rush of attention, from actors, from agents, from managers. For some people that takes a lifetime. In this case, she’s been here two days. I was thinking about this while she took a meeting with the producer of this sitcom she’s auditioned for. Actually, they’ve already promised her the part. But I’m thinking of the term ‘fresh meat.’”

  “Wait a minute. She got the part?”

  “They’re already considering expanding the role.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  “You’re not jerking me around?”

  “No.”

  “This sounds impossible.”

  “Tell me about it. We made up her entire résumé. Other than a high school play, she’s done nothing as an actress. You know it, I know it, but I’m starting to think she believes her own publicity. Not a good thing.”

  “Congratulations are in order.”

  “James! Did you hear me? Come on, man. They are going to figure it out. This isn’t the real world here. Nothing is going to happen except they’ll throw us out on our ear.”

  “Don’t be too fast to discount this, Skip. I’m trying to fathom our Em—”

  Our Em?

  “—being the star of a television show. It’s a done deal, right?”

  “How do I know? I’m not in the busine
ss. She seems to think the casting is finished, and she is in the first episode.”

  “What did you mean by fresh meat?”

  “Kind of how we referred to freshman girls in college. These people, agents, managers, producers, and directors, they lose interest in ninety-eight percent of the talent they represent almost as soon as they sign them.”

  “I’m not following, Tonto.”

  “There are a handful of stars. Leading characters. A handful. The others, they’re bit players. If you’re representing talent, you are only as good as the newest actor you rep. All these representatives, they’re all looking for the next big thing. Actors on the B-list are a dime a dozen, but the newest sensation is a possible A-list commodity. Em is hot for the moment. Without a track record. If she really could pull this off and become successful, well, all bets are off. She is the current fresh meat.”

  Total silence on the other end, a continent away.

  “James?”

  “This is Emily Minard? From grade school, high school, college?”

  “The same,” I said.

  “Let’s just say, for imagination’s sake, that she actually clicks.”

  “Clicks?” I was afraid of that term.

  “Becomes an overnight sensation.”

  “Then what?” I asked.

  “Better off not being involved in the Juliana Londell case. Am I right?”

  He was.

  “I really believe the Londell lady is guilty. But deep down, I guess I’m hoping that she’s innocent. That way Em gets her shot, right?” I asked.

  “Are you? Are you really hoping that Juliana is clear on this? You don’t really want Em to become a celebrity, do you? You’re afraid you’ll lose her. I’m right, amigo. It’s me, Skip. Come on.”

  I could have answered immediately, but James was my best friend and he already knew the answer. I didn’t have to respond.

  “Skip, get what you can and come back to Miami. If someone is trying to finish you off, if they’re successful, then trying to solve this problem without you wouldn’t be as much fun.”

  “One more attempt, James.”

  “On your life?”

  “No. One more attempt to get as much information as possible from Juliana Londell. Then I’m coming back. I don’t know about Em.”