“You called me, remember?” I was opening bills with my desk letter opener and was not in a joyful mood. Imagine.
Bostwick’s attention seemed to snap into place. “Oh, yeah,” he said. I think I heard his government-issued swivel chair squeak as he no doubt leaned forward with his new focus. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but you’re the attorney of record and you’d probably find out anyway.”
Was Patty about to be charged? I started composing my phone call to Jamie in my head.
“How do you know I haven’t found out already?” I asked. It was a way of showing him I was competent, and probably had the opposite effect, since I had no idea what I was talking about.
Bostwick wasn’t interested in playing coy, which was probably for the best. “Your client is not what she appears to be,” he said.
Oh, boy. He’d found out about the pregnancy and the fact that it wasn’t Dray’s baby, probably from Denise Barnaby. Wait—wasn’t that a good thing? Didn’t it mean that Patty had less of a motive for killing Dray?
“She’s much more,” I agreed. “For one thing, she can play the piccolo and has an excellent memory for trivia about the sixties.” I had no idea if any of that was true (and I doubted the piccolo thing), but Bostwick didn’t know that either.
“Yeah, and she also leased that house she’s living in a little over six weeks ago,” he responded. “I’m not even sure Patricia Basilico is her real name.”
Well, that took the wind out of my wiseass sails! “What do you mean?” I said, although I knew exactly what he meant. It was a device to buy time. “Patty’s been living in that house for a couple of years.” She’d told me that, or I’d inferred it. It looked like she had been living there for a while and besides, she’d once told me she needed the extra money from Barney’s career to help pay her mortgage. “That can’t be right.”
“It’s right enough.” Bostwick had prepared with every manner of cop cliché and was determined to trot out the lot. “A quick search on the ownership of the property gave us the landlord, a Mr. Elmore Block, and he confirmed the lease. Patricia Basilico is the name on all her IDs and the one she signed on the legal papers, but we haven’t been able to verify any history on that name that goes back more than six months.”
I was still holding the cup of coffee I’d brought in with me, but I hadn’t taken a sip yet. In fact the cup, in my left hand, was halfway from my desk to my mouth and not moving. I made a noise, but I wasn’t even trying to be communicative at that moment. My eyes must have bulged out of their sockets.
Consuelo looked up at me, concerned. I was cogent enough to wave her down when she started to rise out of her seat. But she didn’t look any less worried. She knew it was about Patty and not me, and that wasn’t necessarily helping.
“You’re sure?” was the best I could muster.
“Absolutely,” Bostwick said. “I don’t know what it means, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Captain Henderson didn’t come in here anytime now and tell me to bring your client back in for more questions. Could lead to charges, probably not. Can you explain it?”
“I’m not the defense attorney,” I said, in what I thought was an artful dodge of the question. “Let me call him and one of us will get back to you. Thanks for letting me know, Joe.”
“I’m not the ogre you might think,” he said, and hung up. That was not a cop cliché and so was especially unexpected.
“What’s going on?” Consuelo asked.
“That is an excellent question.” I dialed Jamie’s number, which I had just started dialing two days ago, from memory on my landline. But his secretary—sorry, assistant—said he was not available at the moment and would call me back at his earliest convenience.
I hung up the phone and walked over to the cage to look at the two birds. “Something weird is going on,” I told Consuelo as I picked up one of the larger pieces of chewable wood and held it up so both Maisie and Barney could go for it. Neither of them was interested.
“How unusual for us,” Consuelo said. East Harlem wit is a lot like New Jersey wit. It assumes that things are bad, but not to worry—they can always get worse.
“I know. What time is Patty coming in to pick up Barney?” Maisie was pretending to ignore the parrot but was doing a bad job of it.
“Kill Les Mannix!” Barney alerted us all. Maisie was even less impressed than before. She fluttered down off her perch and began combing the floor of the cage for … something.
“About two, as it turns out,” Consuelo said. “She said something about having errands to run in the morning.”
That gave me about four hours. “Good. Let me see what happens when Jamie gets back, but in the meantime I have a lunch with Heather Alizondo and that’s all the Patty stuff I’m doing today. Where are you in lining up clients other than Oreo?” Consuelo knows that in order to be even a junior agent in my firm (which consists of me and Consuelo), she has to find clients on her own, not just what I give her. And believe me, I know that’s the tricky part.
“How do you feel about fish?” Consuelo asked.
“I’m not making reservations for the lunch. Heather said she’d be in Manhattan and would text me the location as soon as she had one.” Bills were piling up. I hadn’t been in the office much this week at all.
“I mean as clients,” Consuelo said. “I have a man who believes his fish can act.”
That took a second to sink in. “His fish? How does a fish act?” Believe it or not, that was a question I had never actually considered before.
“He says it can swim on cue,” she answered.
“It’s a fish. It pretty much swims all the time. They never stop swimming. So how does he think you can line up work for his mackerel, or whatever?” I opened my email account, which I had been monitoring all week, and saw I still had 254 emails to look at. This whole “modern age of communication” thing might have been overhyped.
“It’s a flounder,” Consuelo said. She didn’t sound very convinced herself, which was a reassuring sign that she was sane. “He says it would be perfect for when Disney decides to do a live-action remake of The Little Mermaid.”
I had steeled myself for her explanation, and foremost in my mind was the desire not to just repeat back what she’d said out of sheer disbelief. “A live-action remake of The Little Mermaid?” I said. I’m sorry, but it just caught me off guard.
“Well, there’s a character called Flounder, and he figures once they decide to do that, there’ll be a search for flounders who can act. He wants to get ahead of the curve.”
If I had worn glasses, I would have taken them off and put them on my desk to signify wisdom and impending advice. “I think maybe you’d better concentrate on dogs and cats for now,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. Consuelo never sounds defeated, but this was not her most optimistic tone. “How do I tell him we don’t want to represent his flounder?” she asked.
“Tell him we have all the fish we can handle,” I said. “Nobody ever told you this was going to be easy. And don’t be too anxious on Oreo. Let the owner get back to you.”
She nodded and went back behind her desk to work on things other than the acting career of a flounder. It was a shame nipping the fish’s acting career in the bud, but now it could concentrate on med school or something practical.
We actually both sat and worked for close to an hour, which was something of a record at this point. I called Giant Productions about Bagels and got an assurance that we’d be receiving the proper paperwork, a deal memo, by email within a few minutes. We didn’t while I was in the office, but that’s how these things go sometimes. Consuelo composed an email to the fish trainer letting him down gently, showed it to me, and then sent it.
It went on that way until Jamie called me back and I told him what Bostwick had said to me.
“I was skeptical about Patty to begin with,” he said. “My investigator has been on the job less than a day and he says there’s nothing he can put his finger on, but
there’s something about her that’s not right.”
“I’ll be seeing her later today,” I reminded him. “What do you want me to tell her?” It seemed pointless to try and get him to show up for the meeting; he’d made it clear he preferred to have me handle any unpleasantness from Patty, although I didn’t think there would be any.
“It’s not what you tell her; it’s what she tells you,” Jamie said. “Remind her that anything she tells us is in confidence and that anything she lies to us about is only going to hurt her, especially if the police find out otherwise. So far nothing she’s told us has held still long enough to be helpful or hurtful in her defense. As soon as she says it, the facts turn out to be something else. That has to stop.”
“Yes, Dad,” I told him. “But the problem is so far I’ve believed everything she’s said and then found out it wasn’t true. What can I do this time to determine if she’s really telling the truth?”
He thought for a while. “Who else is in your office?” he asked.
I told him Consuelo would be sitting in on the meeting, mostly because the whole office is one room and there would be nowhere else for her to go. “Okay, don’t tell her anything before you see Patty,” Jamie said. “See if her impression is the same as yours after Patty leaves, and ask her before you tell her anything about what you think. Is she a good judge of character?”
I looked at Consuelo, who had actually considered representing a flounder because she really wanted to be an agent instead of (or in my mind, in addition to) being an office manager. “The best,” I said.
“Good. Get the whole meeting on a voice recorder so I can hear it too. And press her on the idea that she doesn’t seem to have any history before six months ago. That’s what worries me most.”
“Okay, but first I’ve got a duck who’s up for an insurance spot and then I’m going to have lunch with Heather Alizondo.” I made up the part about the duck. I like to keep people off-balance on what I do. It’s perverse, I suppose, but if they ever heard about an aardvark who can bring an audience to tears, I want to know about it. Dogs and cats aren’t the whole business; they’re just where Consuelo should begin.
“Good,” said Jamie, ignoring the whole duck scenario I’d worked so hard to create. “See if she noticed anything about those people who kept coming in to see Mattone. See if she thinks they’re related to some drug use.”
It was getting near the time I’d have to leave, so I hung up with Jamie and checked my email. Sure enough, Heather had identified a restaurant in the West Twenties that she thought was convenient to me because it was less than a hundred blocks away and still on the same island. I texted her my acceptance and told Consuelo I’d be back before Patty arrived, but to keep her here if I was late.
On the way out, Barney called after me something about putting down the gun. Barney is nothing if not enigmatic.
The trip downtown took about forty minutes, but at least it was unpleasant. The subways are much less awful than they once were, but they’re still pretty grim at the right time of day, which is always. People don’t look happy. All those YouTube videos where someone launches into an operatic aria on the 6 train and everyone is enthralled? They’re all staged. Ever wonder why there’s someone who just happens to be filming before the aspiring Pavarotti starts tenor-ing all over the place? Why there are cutaway shots to other subway riders? Why you can actually hear the singer over the noise of the train? Yup. It’s fake.
So once I had extricated myself from the train and started walking toward Sloppy Burger (the trend in Manhattan is to sell comfort food, pretend it’s chic, and overcharge for it) I was glad just to be breathing regular air again. I was thinking about the lunch with Heather and how to broach the pertinent subjects when Mandy the acting zombie turned the corner of Twenty-Third Street in front of me and looked surprised to see me. I think it was genuine surprise too, though with actors you can never be certain.
“What are you doing here?” I got to ask first.
“We’re filming right around the corner,” she said, pointing. “I’m breaking for lunch, so I can be out of makeup for a while.” Indeed, she did not look nearly as blue as she had when I’d seen her on the slab in Dr. Banacek’s morgue.
“I thought you were done for the week,” I said.
Mandy shook her head. “We’re shooting the exteriors for the teaser today, where I get killed despite being a zombie.” We started to walk, although Mandy had originally been going in the opposite direction. “I think it’s the last scene on the schedule.”
“Have they told you if the show’s continuing?” I asked, although I had a pretty good idea of the answer.
“Why tell me? I’m just a guest player. I wouldn’t have been back next week anyway.”
We dodged a few tourists. You can always tell them; they stare at everything as if they’ve never seen buildings before and they’re not in nearly as much of a hurry as the natives, who always think they’re late for the appointment that’s going to change their lives. “Can I ask you something?” I said. That was, technically, asking her something, but I figured Mandy would be able to tell the difference. And since I had run into her randomly I might as well make use of the coincidence and see if there was something I could clarify.
“Sure. What’s up?” Mandy was walking like an actress; I know the look. She was watching every woman who walked by, trying to see if there was something she could use in a future role. Actors absorb other people. It’s kind of like a science fiction thing.
“When we were on the set you said you thought maybe Dray had fallen off the wagon because you saw random people taking him aside to talk to him.”
Mandy’s face had clouded over when I’d started talking. “That’s not a question,” she said.
“Okay, but this is: Why do you think those people were talking to Dray about drugs? Did they say anything to you?” I probably should have been subtler about that part, but I don’t write the scripts. My father always has.
“You want to know if I’m using cocaine?” Mandy asked. She didn’t seem offended so much as curious about my motives.
Maybe I could deflect the insinuation. “I just wanted to see if you had a good connection,” I said. “It’s always worth knowing where you can pick up decent stuff.” Another block to the restaurant.
Mandy looked at me and laughed. “You’re not the type,” she said.
“I’m not?” I always thought I could pretend to be anything. I was born an actress and became an agent later.
“No, you’re not. And for the record, neither am I. I need to keep my body strong and healthy. It’s my instrument. Messing it up with that stuff would be bad for my career. And I don’t do anything that’s bad for my career.”
“Okay, so why? Why do you think Dray was talking to various people about drugs and not anything else?” We were almost at the door to Sloppy Burger and I’d have to stop in a second.
Mandy shrugged, seeing no reason not to tell me. “I heard a few snips of conversation. About how he couldn’t stay sober and how he wasn’t even sure he wanted to anymore. Didn’t like his wife, didn’t like the job. The usual successful TV actor crap. Let them go out and audition for an online commercial for real drugs, like Viagra.”
Wait, back up. “He didn’t like his wife and he didn’t like being on Dead City?” I asked.
“That’s what I heard, and he said something to me about the wife, but then stars say a lot of things about their wives to young actresses.” She shook her hair just a little bit to emphasize what she thought I didn’t know she was saying.
“Do you think he was trying to … get to you?” I asked.
“Nah, not really. It’s a reflex with some of these guys; they don’t even know they’re doing it half the time.” We stood in front of Sloppy Burger and she looked up at the sign. “They’re being more careful these days too. You meeting Heather in there? This is her place, apparently.” Mandy made a face.
I admitted I had an appointment for l
unch with Heather. “Not your thing?” I asked.
Mandy looked at me incredulously. “I’m vegan,” she said. “Body is a temple, remember?”
Of course. I thanked her for the information even though she thought it was just gossip and left her to meet Heather Alizondo in a chic hamburger restaurant.
The place was trying its best to be trendy in an ironic way. There were cartoon pictures of cows framed on the walls. French fries with faces grinned at us from the wallpaper. The ketchup bottles on the tables were made to look like they had once held champagne. The paper napkins were of a stronger, more substantial type of fiber than most.
Classy, no?
New Yorkers with incomes in the seven figures stood on line to place an order at a counter whose sign read ALL TOPPINGS, $4. The drink of choice was the milkshake, although some of the recipes (emblazoned on the wall behind the counter) included vodka or rum.
Heather was sitting at a table, a small plastic sign with 42 next to her. “Did you order?” she asked after I sat down. “I would have gotten something for you, but I didn’t know what you’d want.”
“I’m not hungry,” I lied. I had limited time and didn’t want to wait on the long line to get a hamburger and fries. I’d pick something up at the deli on the corner opposite my office. “I really wanted to have time to talk to you.”
“That’s sweet,” Heather said. “I’m not sure how much I can help, but I’m happy to offer whatever limited experience I have.” Ego is often masked in modesty. “What’s on your mind?”
I had concocted this elaborate backstory about how I’d always wanted to be a director and that she might be able to offer her wisdom to me in order to help advance my goals. It’s a standard kind of advance that an aspiring showbiz person would use, plus it was only slightly implausible given that I’m an animal agent and not even what the industry would call a “creative.” But now I was somewhat pressed for time and had lost my enthusiasm for the false narrative.
A waitperson came by with Heather’s order and took the 42 placard away. She looked over the milkshake, burger, and fries and, satisfied, dug in.
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