Reel Stuff

by Don Bruns

  Juliana Londell and Em sat in Juliana’s office, talking across the desk.

  “Ah, there you are, Randy. Betsy.” She stood up and strode out to the lobby. “Mr. Moore, the boyfriend and fired agent.” A bright smile was on her face, the first real toothy smile I’d seen.

  “You had me going, Mr. Moore. You really did. You were good. I thought you two were the real thing. But then, I think Kathy brought some credibility to the situation. I didn’t realize at that time that she was involved with you. Exactly when did she hire you and Emily?”

  Again with the Bavely-as-client theory. I didn’t say a word, but glanced back to the office and saw Em watching us.

  “Oh, your girlfriend? She doesn’t understand just yet that we know. Do you want to tell her, or should I?”

  I said nothing.

  “Emily, come out here.”

  Em approached cautiously. I wanted to just tell her to run for it, but she would have hesitated, slightly confused, and anyway Roberts had a gun. A gun almost always dictates the call.

  “I must admit, Emily, I’m very disappointed. I really thought you had something. I mean that. I seriously expected you to go somewhere. Possibly my finest hour in the industry. Someone off the street who makes it big-time. But, I’ve learned that life isn’t always what you expect it to be.”

  Em’s eyes were wide open. She’d seen the pistol by Roberts’s side.

  “This is Betsy Timmermeister.”

  Juliana motioned to the Timmermeister lady.

  “Betsy is my financial advisor. She helped Jason accumulate quite a portfolio of investments, as you know. Your ex-manager discovered just how much on the computer when he broke into my office.”

  “Juliana, what is this? What do you think—”

  “You’re not that good an actress, Emily. You got me, okay. But now that we have all the evidence, I realize I should have figured this out one hundred times by now. I wanted to believe I could pull this off.”

  I thought Em was a great actress. She’d almost become a two-day wonder, a star on her first attempt. And if it all ended here, she’d accomplished more than ninety-nine and nine-tenths of actors in this town ever did.

  “Kathy Bavely is running an errand for me, Mr. Moore. Once we have taken care of the two of you, she will meet with an unfortunate accident and—”

  “Bavely isn’t involved.” I had to keep this going. The end was much too near.

  “Oh, we know that—”

  “Your sister hired us. Neither of us had ever heard of Kathy Bavely until we arrived in L.A.”

  “Ashley?”

  “Ashley. Do you have other sisters?”

  I was pretty sure she didn’t.

  “The two-time widow? She hired you? No kidding.”

  Juliana genuinely sounded surprised.

  “It makes no difference. Kathy’s involved, trust me.”

  Roberts opened the office door, escorting us out onto the sidewalk. I don’t know why one of us didn’t run, except that the other would have been left behind.

  “Where are we taking them?” Juliana stared at the Escalade across the street.

  “Warehouse number three.” We walked back across the street. “There’s no reason Betsy has to go,” Roberts said.

  “We’ve worked too hard to get here,” the Timmermeister lady said. “I want to be there to see that all the loose ends are tied up.”

  So our parade continued and we all got into the Escalade, Juliana sliding behind the wheel. I wondered what happened to rental cars when they’re not returned. Maybe they have GPS units installed so they can track them down. They’d find mine down by Bavely’s office with half a burger inside an In-N-Out Burger sack on the floor of the backseat. A sad souvenir of our trip to the movie capital of the world.

  Juliana pulled away from the curb, and as I glanced out the window, I saw a black BMW cruising in the left lane beside us. The windows were tinted so I couldn’t see inside, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Mitch and Teller giving us an escort. I had a feeling that both of those guys would love to get their hands on me.

  “I’ve seen your prenup, Mrs. Londell. Pretty specific about fooling around on your husband.”

  She turned her head for a brief instant and looked at me in the backseat.

  “You’ve been a busy boy, Mr. Moore.”

  “I’ve seen you in a lip-lock with Rob Mason, but that was after Jason died. There was somebody before that wasn’t there?”

  Em was sitting next to me, shaking her head, as if to tell me to shut up.

  She was silent.

  “Juliana, it was Clint Anders wasn’t it?”

  All those meetings with C.A. It had to be.

  “Who caught you?”

  Em nudged me, hard. I didn’t see why I should stop now. Whatever I said or didn’t say wasn’t going to change the outcome of our trip.

  “Did Jason walk in on you?”

  “Shut the fuck up, Moore.” Roberts pointed the pistol directly at my forehead. He wasn’t stupid enough to fire a gun in the middle of Los Angeles traffic. I didn’t think.

  “No, it wasn’t him. I saw on the calendar he was on location in Singapore for that month.”

  She looked over her shoulder one more time.

  All of a sudden I realized that Greg Handler was right. The mind is an amazing thing. It can put pieces of the puzzle together while you’re not even trying. Jason Londell was on location while Juliana Londell was seeing Clint Anders.

  “You and Anders, you set up the Miami shoot. Oh, my God, you had to kill Jason to keep him from finding out.”

  “Finding out what?” Em asked, looking at me as if I’d lost my mind.

  “Em, Jason Londell wasn’t even in the country when the kid was conceived. That baby bump you said she was hiding with her serape, it belongs to Juliana Londell and Clint Anders.”

  That’s when I heard the clash of metal on metal, and we were thrown out of our seats.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  The Escalade careened to the right, and Betsy Timmermeister banged her head on the rear passenger door glass with a thud. Em and I followed her, sliding across the leather seat.

  Juliana straightened up, keeping control of the vehicle, and I noticed Roberts’s face, grim as he gritted his teeth. He steadied the gun, pointing into the back seat.

  “What the hell was—”

  A jolt and the grinding of metal on metal as we were hit again. This time we held on a little tighter. I glanced out the window to my left as the BMW pulled away.

  Juliana gripped the steering wheel, her knuckles white. As she slammed on the brakes, the BMW took one more hard swerve into our Cadillac, the car teetering as we crashed into the curb. This time I was ready.

  Throwing myself over the passenger seat, I grabbed for the gun in Randy Roberts’s right hand. Surprised, the man jerked away, his trigger finger pulling back as the pistol exploded, the bullet plowing through the firewall into the engine compartment. Sparks flew from where we caught the concrete curb, and the car went up and onto the sidewalk, grinding to a stop with the front end hung up on a street sign that said “No Loitering.” I grabbed the gun, gave a good hard pull, and yanked it from his hand. Em was upright, watching all the action as I lowered myself into the backseat.

  “You took a concealed weapon class?”

  She nodded her head.

  “Here.” I handed her the gun.

  As I started to open the door, Roberts reached back in desperation. As he grabbed for the pistol, Em showed him she knew how to use it. Grabbing it by the barrel, she swung the handle down, hitting his temple and clipping his right ear, leaving a gash where blood flowed freely. He fell back into the front passenger seat as my side door was pulled open.

  James Lessor stood there smiling.

  “Come on, pard. You, Em, it’s time we got the hell out of here.”

  “Your car still running?”

  “We’re going to find out.”

  James climbed into the
passenger side of the BMW, and Em and I scrambled into the back as I heard sirens in the distance. Ashley Amber turned from the driver’s seat.

  “We need to hang out more. You guys are a lot of fun.”

  “Where did you learn to drive like that?” Em asked.

  “I took a course in stunt work. Pretty thorough actually.”

  When she stepped on the gas pedal, the beat-up BMW took off, and I turned to watch steam rising from the engine of the Cadillac.

  Em leaned in and whispered softly in my ear.

  “What I said about her? I take it all back. Every word.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  We did what any law-abiding citizens would do. We found a cop and gave him an abbreviated version of what had happened. Two days later and after several hours of interviews, the worst part seemed to be over. When we met with the cops, they separated us and grilled each of us over and over again in these tiny investigation rooms like you see on TV shows. One table, three chairs, and station-house coffee. Apparently, our stories matched, because they finally let us go.

  This was the first time we’d had a chance to really talk to each other since Em and I had left Miami.

  “Battery on the phone gave out a while before we found you, amigo, but by then I knew you were headed to the office, and we knew who was with you.”

  “Betsy Timmermeister told me there was no signal in the steel building, but I decided I had nothing to lose by trying. So I called you.”

  We were in Ashley Amber’s suite at the Chateau Marmont, and I decided I could get used to this kind of living. Room service had brought drinks, shrimp and cold lobster hors d’oeuvres, and fresh strawberries courtesy of Ashley Amber, and we were sipping pink champagne on ice. Hotel California stuff. The song had actually been written about this place.

  “When I answered your call, we’d been on the ground for just a short while. I thought you must have butt-dialed me because the voices were muffled.”

  “Phone was in my pocket, James. She’d forgotten about it, and I was praying you would pick up and realize I was in a jam. Thank God, you kept listening and didn’t hang up.”

  “Ashley had a limo lined up, but when we realized you were going to Londell/Bavely, we decided to rent a car and give you a little protection.”

  “Some rental company isn’t going to be happy.”

  I pictured the BMW, banged in a million places, dented so much you wouldn’t even recognize the brand.

  “That’s what insurance is for, Skip.” She actually knew my name. Of course, she’d been sleeping with James, so it was nice she got it right.

  “We heard enough to understand they were planning on killing you. Couldn’t let that happen.”

  “Thank God,” Em said.

  “You knew your sister was sleeping with Clint Anders, right?” I wanted to make sure I had the information correct.

  “No. I knew she was pregnant, and when I did the math, there was no way that Jason could have been the father. He was gone almost forty days in Singapore for that movie shoot.” She paused. “And, I was aware of the prenup. If Jason Londell could prove Juliana was unfaithful, she got nothing. She was really pissed about that.”

  James reclined in an easy chair, sipping his second champagne. It would be only a matter of time before he switched to beer.

  “Amber also knew that Clint Anders was running low on funds,” he said. “She watched the cutbacks on the show, slow down on the mixes, and there were weeks when paychecks were late. Really late. Right, babe?”

  He looked at her to continue the narrative.

  “Plus, Clint was gambling a lot and losing,” she said. “And FX and ABC had cut two shows he was producing. There just wasn’t that much income. I guess Anders knew that Jason was going to figure out eventually that the baby was Clint’s. And knowing he could get a pretty decent payout on Londell’s insurance policy if Jason was killed, invited Londell to Miami to be on his show.”

  “Wow,” Em was genuinely amazed, “Londell must have really liked Clint Anders to do the guest shot for him. A big-time movie guy doing a low-rated television show.”

  “Oh, he did like him,” James said. “He thought he and Anders were best of friends, but since Jason Londell and his wife were separated—once he found out she was pregnant—Jason decided to do a little interaction with Amber, too. Right, babe?”

  I swear the blonde blushed.

  “So, he started a relationship with you?” I was intrigued.

  “We’d always flirted, even when he was married to my sister,” she said. “And after he found out she was pregnant by another person, he needed someone to talk to. He couldn’t believe Juliana had cheated on him. We’d spend hours on the phone, then the chance to see each other came up when Clint invited him to Miami.”

  “You had no way of knowing Clint Anders wanted to kill him.”

  “No. How could I?”

  “It is diabolical what those two planned,” Em said.

  “Oh, yeah.” Ashley nodded in total agreement. “A seven-million-dollar life insurance policy made out to CA Productions. And as long as no one could prove Clint and Juliana were having an affair—”

  “And a baby,” James said.

  “There was the entire investment portfolio, which Juliana apparently offered to share with Anders if he’d keep things quiet.”

  “Not to mention a ten-million-dollar policy that Londell had given his wife.”

  “About one hundred million dollars if Jason was killed.”

  “Enter Randy Roberts,” I said.

  “Yeah, I’d worked with him,” Ashley grimaced. “Not a nice man and a really bad director. I figured that Clint hired him because he was cheap. No one wanted the guy. He was drunk most of the time and could be an abusive asshole to the cast.”

  “But, he’d had some experience.”

  “Experience in killing someone. Audrey Love. She was an actress who got a little out of hand with her attitude and work ethic, and Roberts was asked to intercede. The producer had taken out a life insurance policy on her and thought maybe he’d like to cash in on it.”

  “To be fair,” James said, “there’s no proof. It seems pretty clear Roberts killed her with an overdose, but it was never proven.”

  “Unbelievable.” I was having a hard time comprehending the whole thing.

  “Clint Anders knew a little about the situation, since he was the producer on that show, so when he decided to take out Jason Londell during Deadline Miami, he called his buddy Randy Roberts. Roberts contacted Oscar Teller who had whacked a couple of drug guys here in L.A. and together they concocted this crazy scenario that actually played out better than most of the plots on Deadline Miami.” Ashley finished her champagne and tilted the bottle to pour some more. She was getting a little tipsy.

  “And,” I continued, “Randy Roberts puts on a disguise, assumes a new name, forges identification, and rents the camera. He picked the name Greg Handler because Handler had accused him of being a drunk and a really bad director several years ago. Seemed like a way to pay Handler back.”

  “Why didn’t the shooter, Oscar Teller, just rent the camera? He was playing cameraman, so it would have made sense.” Em had a point.

  “Think about it, Emily.” Ashley took another sip of the potent pink bubbly wine. “Oscar Teller knew nothing about cameras. He was going to shoot Jason Londell, so he knew handguns, but he would have been lost if the clerk at Howell had started to talk technical with him. Randy Roberts knows cameras and he was the natural one to rent the unit. With a heavy disguise.”

  “And,” I pointed out, “a company credit card.”

  There was silence as we sat around the room, each recalling some of the nightmare we’d all been a part of.

  “Have they got Teller?” I wanted to know what happened to the fake who pulled the trigger starting this entire mess.

  “Got him at a local hospital. His friend Mitch admitted him when he wouldn’t wake up. Who knows if they’ll be able to p
rove he pulled the trigger.”

  Would Teller simply walk? I hoped not. The guy had tried to kill me, twice.

  “Betsy Timmermeister, how did she become a part of this?”

  “Good question,” James said. “My understanding is that Juliana Londell started making appointments with her, telling her that Jason was thinking about firing her. She told Betsy if she wanted her commissions to continue, and they were sizable, that she should work with her.”

  “I don’t know if my sister told Betsy that the plot involved killing Jason,” Ashley said, “but she convinced Betsy that Jason was going to dump her and turn the portfolio over to someone else. And Betsy didn’t want to take the chance of losing that revenue.”

  “Juliana Londell. What a devious bitch,” Em said.

  “And Kathy Bavely?” I asked.

  “Oh, she was the genuine thing.” Ashley nodded enthusiastically. “Wanted a shot at becoming a real agent. When Juliana hired her, she couldn’t believe her good luck. I think she saw through Juliana almost from the beginning, and she started keeping a record of whom she met with and what she was doing.” She gave me a sidelong glance. “Well, you found out about that, Skip. Anyway, one thing led to another and Bavely even got in touch with Gene Milner, Jason’s detective. She was feeding him some good information, but I think Milner was a skirt chaser and spent more time and Jason’s money hustling women and running up charges at Chateau Marmont.”

  “Kathy says she’s going to keep the agency open. Wants to still represent me, even after our little deception,” Em said.

  I shook my head.

  “I didn’t say I was going to go along.”

  “So what happens to the cast?” I asked. Ashley seemed to have most of the answers.

  “I think Betsy Timmermeister walks.” She shrugged her bare shoulders, her blouse pulled down over the ivory skin. “Juliana and Roberts will try to implicate her, but she pleads ignorance. She didn’t know what was going down. The poor woman was just trying to service her customer.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Skip, here’s something else you won’t believe. I think Clint Anders may walk as well.”