Now, what if I had said Elvis Presley? I wondered. Well, she would have laughed or called security. Elvis is dead, remember?
“He’s in a meeting,” she said dispassionately. I hate dispassionately. “I’ll let him know you’re here as soon as he’s available.”
“That would be swell.”
And, to my surprise, the empty veneer showed some life. “Did you just say swell?” she asked.
“I think so, yes.”
“Haven’t heard that word in, like, forever.”
“It means ‘so well’.”
“Does it?”
Okay, I made that up. I’ve been making a lot of things up these past 30 years. What’s another white lie?
“Sure,” I said, and took a seat near the front door.
She went back to her computer, grinning, and for all I know Googling the root of swell. Who knows, maybe I’m right and I’m a genius after all. At least she had smiled, and, dammit, smiles always made me feel good.
Of course, her smile had also made me think of my daughter’s smile. And as I waited for Mr. Ladd, I wondered how my baby girl was doing, and I wondered for the millionth time why I wasn’t with her and her celebrating her life. Our life.
Jesus, what the hell am I doing?
I looked again at the pretty young receptionist, but she was no longer smiling, which was just as well, because now she no longer looked like my little girl. Lost in thoughts of my empty life, I nearly failed to notice the man striding purposefully toward me down a side hallway.
“Aaron King?” he said, appearing before me, sticking out his hand. “I’m Gregory Ladd. Why don’t we go back to my office and talk.”
I looked up...and nearly gasped. Luckily, I’m a professional. The man standing above me, the man still holding out his hand toward me, was just the man I was looking for. Then again, I’ve been wrong before.
Not this time, baby.
And so I put on a big fake smile and stood on jelly knees and took the proffered hand and pumped it energetically. Gregory Ladd grinned, which made his badly scarred, pock-marked face significantly less menacing. He led the way back down the hallway to his office.
I followed obediently, my heart pounding somewhere near my throat.
Chapter Forty-nine
The office wasn’t so much an office as a massive open space with a desk in one corner of the room. The rest of the room was comprised of a lot of sofas and overstuffed chairs, and I imagined that the staff of Alpha-Beta had a lot of production meetings in here, hammering out all things to do with the making of movies.
I could also imagine nervous young screenwriters, sweating and stuttering, pitching their movies here. I’d been to such pitch meetings before with young screenwriters, and it’s not a pretty sight.
The room was covered with movie posters and bookcases and heavy curtains. The ancient wood floor was badly scarred and rutted, although it had probably been freshly laid and rut-free back when I was here making movies.
It was humbling to know I was older than wood itself. What was next? Dirt? Small hills? Dan Rather?
I was breathing slowly and calmly, or trying to. I was also trying to look cool and collected, and so, again, I reverted back to my acting days—no, not the parts where I break out in song and dance—but the parts where I really gave acting a go. I decided that an inquisitive, professional mask was best, and so, as Ladd stepped around his desk and sat down, I eased into character. Or at least tried to.
He gestured toward one of the cushioned chairs in front of his desk. “Have a seat Mr. King,” he said.
As I sat, he rather hastily clicked off a few images from his screen. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch what they had been. And, yes, I’m nosy like that. I get paid to be nosy.
His desk was cluttered with tattered scripts, books with broken spines and unmarked DVDs. I hate seeing books with broken spines. Something sort of barbaric about that. Reckless and wasteful. Maybe I had been a writer in a past life. Anyway, he saw me looking at the paperback novels and picked one up.
“We had the author in here last week. A cute little old lady who writes some of the hottest sex scenes you’ve ever read.”
“You got her number?” I asked.
He laughed. “She’s a lot older than even you, Mr. King. In her eighties, I think. What are you...fifty, fifty-five?”
“Seventy-one.”
“No shit?”
“No shit,” I said.
“You’re in great shape.”
“It’s all the salsa dancing I do. Helps burn off the chocolate fudge Ensures.”
He was still grinning. “Ensures...that’s the old-people protein shake, right?” he said.
“Right.”
“You’re a funny guy, King, I like that.” He sat back and steepled his fingers under his chin. He studied me for a moment or two. The light in this room failed to reach the deeper craters of his acne scars. He looked, in this moment, menacing as hell. “You’re here about Miranda Scott.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Word around town is that she went missing. I assume that’s why you’re here.”
“You assume correctly.”
“We’re all worried sick here.”
I’m sure you are, I thought, but knew that wasn’t entirely fair. After all, I wasn’t certain Ladd was the guy. Surely there were tens of thousands of men with facial scars in L.A. who had access to white cargo vans, who just so happened to produce two movies that features Miranda being kidnapped. Not to mention I’m taking the word of a career bum—hardly an iron-clad witness.
Still, say that to my thumping heart and the rush of adrenaline flooding my blood stream.
Easy, old boy.
“Yes, a difficult time for everyone,” I said, proud of my performance. “May I ask what your relationship to Miranda was?”
“I produced her first and second feature. We basically gave her her first shot.”
And, perhaps, feel entitled to her? A sort of ownership?
“So you were, in essence, her boss?”
“In essence.”
Gregory Ladd was a big man, although not overweight. He looked dense and strong, and if he was pissed off enough he could probably rip the arms off his swivel chair and pound you to death with them. Then again, that could be my overactive imagination at work. For the most part, he avoided direct eye contact with me, which I found odd, especially coming from a big Hollywood executive who made a living making the right connections with the right people. Maybe I was the wrong connection.
“Have the police interviewed you?” I asked.
“No,” he said, looking at me squarely. “Why would they do that? Our company hasn’t worked with Miranda for two years. We officially cut ties. She’s already made two other movies with a different studio.”
And how about unofficially? I wondered.
Ladd was trying to sound cool. He was trying to sound nonchalant, but I heard it in his voice. It was jealousy. And there was a touch of anger, too. To me it was obvious: he didn’t appreciate her leaving his production company.
Ladd was clicking his mouse nervously with his index finger, over and over...the movement was compulsive and revealing and I nearly reached across the desk and grabbed the guy by the throat and demanded that he tell me where the hell Miranda was, but I knew that would be a mistake. One, he outweighed me by thirty pounds; two, he was thirty years younger than myself; and three, I just might have choked the life out of him.
Deep breath, big guy.
“What was your personal relationship with Miranda?” I asked.
He shrugged, clicked the mouse. “Typical, I suppose. Saw her on the set. She mostly communicated with the directors.”
“So you did not have a personal relationship?”
“We were friends, yes. Many of us would go out drinking after a day’s shoot. She and I were friendly, certainly, but when the films wrapped....”
His voice trailed off and I knew the feeling. It was the cruel, unspo
ken reality of making films. Crash course best friends for three months, then...nothing. Sometimes the friendships lasted into other movies and sometimes into something deep and real, but more often than not the friendship was done along with the completion of the movie. At least, that had been my experience.
“Were you two lovers?” I asked.
He quit clicking and looked slowly up at me. His face, I saw, was unusually and deeply pock-marked. He looked like a hardened criminal. An unfair stereotype, certainly, but one that might be accurate in this case.
“No,” he said simply.
“Did you want to be?” I asked.
“You ask a lot of questions.”
“When I find Miranda, I’m sure she’ll appreciate my thoroughness.”
“Well I don’t,” he said. “You’re being rude and intrusive.”
I said nothing. I wasn’t looking for an argument, and I wasn’t looking to one-up him with my dazzling wit. I wanted Miranda. I said nothing, and let his emotions play out as I sat there quietly.
“She was a beautiful young woman certainly,” he said finally. “Any man would have jumped at the opportunity to be with Miranda.”
His words hung in the air and I listened to them again, and again. “You just referred to Miranda in the past tense,” I said. “Do you know something that I don’t?”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“You tell me.”
“It was just a goddamn slip of the tongue.”
“Right,” I said. “Could happen to anybody. Do you ever drive those white cargo vans out front?”
“Sure, we all do sometimes. Why?”
“Do you ever shop at Trader Joe’s?”
“Rarely. I don’t see how that has to do with anything.”
“Miranda was kidnapped from a Trader Joe’s in a white cargo van. Follow me now?”
He looked at me openly and threateningly. His broad forehead crinkled. He leaned forward a little in his desk. I think I was supposed to shrink back in fear. I didn’t shrink.
“I don’t like what you’re insinuating,” he said.
“Hardly anyone would.”
“This meeting is over.”
“Figured as much,” I said.
Chapter Fifty
As I left the Alpha-Beta production offices, I quickly scanned the nearly empty parking lot—and spotted what I had hoped to see: A black Mercedes SL500, with a license plate that read: LADSTER.
Sometimes you just get lucky.
I exited the Paramount lot and turned immediately into a rundown gas station just up the street a little. I parked facing the street, with a good view of the Paramount lot. I bought a couple of Frappuccinos and a small box of Oreos at the station’s convenience store, then waited in my car and watched the main exit from Paramount Studios.
It was late afternoon and sweltering. No telling when Ladd might leave, and if he was in the middle of a project, he could potentially be there all night.
Sweat poured from my brow. I finished off the first Frapp-uccino and started on the second. I also started on the Oreos. I was soon buzzing on caffeine and sugar and wishing like hell the convenience store also sold Vicodins.
You got issues, man.
I also thought about Gregory Ladd. He was certainly big enough to abduct Miranda, but that didn’t mean much since there didn’t appear to be any sort of struggle in the Trader Joe’s parking lot. But that didn’t mean there hadn’t been a struggle, either. Milton the bum wasn’t sure what he had seen. First she had been leaving Trader Joe’s, and the next thing he knew she was in the van.
He’s also a drunk.
Sure, I thought. But he was there; he had seen something.
Ladd had been her boss once. Maybe he had a secret crush on her. Maybe he loved her from afar and couldn’t stand the fact that she was making movies with someone else. Or dating her ex-boyfriend again.
And now that ex-boyfriend was dead.
I tapped my fingers on my super-heated steering wheel. I drank some more of the Frappuccino. Sweat rolled down into my ear. I shivered.
I didn’t like how Ladd referred to Miranda in the past tense. As if he knew something had happened to her. As if he knew something had happened to her. As if he might be personally responsible for something happening to her.
I tapped some more on the steering wheel.
He had been jealous or irritated or angry that she had left his production company to make movies elsewhere, that much was obvious to me. But perhaps it went deeper. Perhaps he missed making movies with her. Perhaps he was secretly in love with her.
I didn’t know, but I was beginning to think that Miranda was destined to attract the crazies. Perhaps Ladd, like every other male who had crossed paths with her, had fallen victim to her charm and beauty. But he, unlike the others, had taken things a step further.
Like kidnap?
Maybe.
My cell rang. I looked at the faceplate and saw that it was Miranda’s mother, Dana Scott. I flipped it open.
“Miss Scott,” I said.
“Mr. King, this is Dana Scott.”
“I would never have guessed.”
But she wasn’t listening, or, more likely, she couldn’t quite hear me.
“You there, King?” she asked.
“I’m here.”
“...barely hear....”
Sigh. I sat up straighter and held the phone out at a different angle, hoping that this would somehow help the reception. Amazingly, it did.
“Can you hear me now?” I asked.
“Yes, there you are,” she said, her voice coming in sharp and clear. “Mr. King, I’m calling you off the case.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your services are no longer needed, Mr. King.”
“Has Miranda been found?”
“No.”
“Then how could my services no longer be needed?”
“Did I or did I not hire you?”
“You did.”
“Then I can fire you as I see fit.”
“That’s certainly your prerogative, yes.”
“Then consider yourself fired, Mr. King.”
“How about no.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I don’t consider myself fired.”
“Are you misunderstanding me?”
“Probably not.”
“You’re fired, Mr. King.”
“I disagree,” I said. “At least tell me why—”
“Just get off the fucking case,” she screamed, cutting me off, and had her phone been an old-fashioned phone she would have slammed it down. Instead, she merely clicked off vehemently.
I snapped shut my phone and wondered what the hell had just happened.
Chapter Fifty-one
Two hours and another box of Oreos later, the black Mercedes SL500 finally exited the studio gates and hung a right. I almost cheered. I knew my relieved stomach did. I fumbled for the keys, gunned the car, and whipped out of the gas station, hanging what could only be described as a suicidal left turn onto Melrose. Cars honked, tires squealed, and somehow I made it out of the gas station alive.
Way to stay inconspicuous, King.
Luckily, this was L.A. and honking horns were the norm. Once settled in traffic, and ignoring the glares and fingers of the recently cut-off, I eased close enough to the Mercedes to verify that it was indeed the LADSTER. Once verified, I fell back a few car lengths, and soon discovered that Gregory Ladd was not your typical L.A. driver; meaning, he drove slowly and was generally a peach on the road.
My cell rang again. I snapped it open.
“King,” I said.
“King its Keys.”
“We sound like a bad mattress commercial,” I said.
“Yeah, no shit. Anyway, remember that case we talked about?”
“No, remind me.”
“Don’t fuck with me, King. I’ve got something for you.”
Ladd hung a right and I followed him north up Vine.<
br />
“Go on,” I said.
“My client just called me again.”
“The one who hired you to follow me.”
“Yeah, that one.”
“You on the case again?” I asked.
“No, but my client asked for a referral.”
“What do you mean?”
“My client asked, rather discreetly I might add, that if I knew of someone who could convince you to stay off a case.”
“Convince as in dead?”
“That’s how I took it, but then again maybe my client just wants you roughed up a little.”
“Hard to rough me up when I’ve got my cane.”
“That’s how I figure it,” he said.
“So did you give this person what they wanted?”
“Hell, no. I know some shooters, but I don’t throw work their way.”
“Business and ethics, I’ll be damned.”
“Look, King. The next guy she calls may not be as morally upstanding as me. The next guy she calls may find someone to do you.”
“She?”
“Yeah,” he said, and he was silent, or perhaps this was what is called a pregnant pause. At any rate, when he was done thinking about it, he said. “Yeah...she.”
“What’s her name?”
“Dana Scott,” he said.
I was silent. He was silent. The Mercedes drove steadily on. The early evening was bright and warm. Vine Street was surprisingly quiet, so I dropped far back a few more car lengths without fear of losing Ladd.
“I owe you one,” I said.
“Or two,” he said, and he hung up.
Chapter Fifty-two
Twenty minutes later, the LADSTER turned into Laurel Canyon. Unfortunately, due to the main road being partially washed away by a massive rainstorm last year, Ladd and I—and seemingly all of Los Angeles—were redirected along a narrow side street.
Presently, I was three car lengths behind Ladd, and so far the movie producer made no indication of spotting me. Admittedly, I seemed to have a natural knack for following people. Must be the stalker in me.
What Happens in Vegas Page 39