The Starlet

by Mary McNamara

  Carson and Golonski were gone by the time Juliette returned to the living room. She could see Devlin in the kitchen pouring wine and slicing something. In a moment he appeared with a plate of cheese and meat in one hand, two glasses of wine in the other.

  “I am going to have to make a deal with your cousin before I leave,” he said, settling into the couch. “This is the best salami and prosciutto I’ve ever had.”

  “It’s Gabe’s beloved Sienese pork,” she said absently. “Though I think the salami may be wild boar.”

  “Even better,” he said, helping himself to another slice. “Who in Hollywood doesn’t love a wild boar?”

  Juliette sank back into the couch and put her hands over her eyes.

  “You all right?”

  “Great,” she said. “I’m just great. Mercy Talbot almost leaped to her death off my bell tower less than a week after her mother fell to her death in my quarry. If I wanted to turn this into a high-class resort,” she said, getting a bit hysterical, “I am certainly not going about it the right way.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “I don’t know what I want.” She sighed. “As I think I have made abundantly clear.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that, J.,” he said, and his tone made all manner of things shake loose inside her. She closed her eyes. Hard.

  “What should we do about Usher?”

  “I don’t think we can do much about him, at least not tonight. Unless you think he had something to do with what happened with Mercy,” Devlin said doubtfully. “Which seems like a tough thing to pull off, since he was sitting right beside Golonski the whole time.”

  Juliette shrugged. “I don’t know. I think Mercy is sufficiently screwed up at this point to have misread her script. On the other hand, I did see new pages come under the door and three minutes later I bumped into Usher on my way out. Oh, and his bag is full of money. Lots and lots of euros.”

  Devlin looked at her with admiration. “In the middle of all that, you managed to get your hands on Usher’s black bag.” He shook his head. “Sometimes I do believe your talents are wasted at the Pinnacle. Well, all things considered, I would imagine Mr. Usher will be stealing away under cover of night. If he hasn’t already.”

  “What?”

  “While you all were consoling Mercy, I went looking for him, and he was nowhere to be found. All for the best, in my opinion.”

  “Are you crazy?” she said. “You think we should let him get away?”

  “Let him get away? I’m not the sheriff, Juliette, and neither are you. What did you want me to do? Take him into custody as an officer of Cerreta?”

  “We should have called the police, or the feds or somebody.”

  “The feds,” he said reluctantly, “are already on the case.” He sighed. “That’s the other reason I am here. Things are even more complicated than you think. Apparently someone—Lloyd Watson, I presume—finally gave the DEA something on Usher. Only, when they went to collect him, he had gone off to counsel Mercy Talbot in Tuscany. Where, apparently, he had established contacts with several employees of the Coronet, two Americans and one Italian, who were dealing drugs out of the hotel, presumably to Mercy, or Angie, among other people.”

  “Jesus, Dev,” Juliette said. “Thanks for sharing. How come you haven’t said one word of any of this the whole time you were here? Why did you let me run around talking to cobblers and swiping Usher’s man-purse when you knew all along what was going on?”

  “Because I didn’t put it all together myself until I read that damn Little Book. The fact that he’s got so much cash on him certainly seems to confirm it,” he answered. “And I was sent to sort things out at the Coronet because the Pinnacle overlords have great confidence in my discretion. Oh, don’t give me that dark and fearsome look. I didn’t tell you because you had enough on your plate and I didn’t want you sharing the information with O’Connor.”

  Juliette opened her mouth to protest and realized she honestly could not. Dev smiled almost imperceptibly.

  “Besides,” he said, his tone a bit softer, “I didn’t really know anything for certain.”

  “Well, how do you know so much now?”

  “Because while you were watching tonight’s bit of Hollywood magic, I made a few calls. It seems that the two Americans are in custody and ready to rat out Usher in exchange for not having to go to trial in Italy. But he was careful. He never sold the stuff himself. He just made the necessary ‘introductions.’ And the feds can’t touch him unless he comes back of his own accord—why do you think he’s in Italy? He’s British, and Italy won’t extradite for drug dealing. But the feds aren’t his real problem.”

  “Okay, Dev,” Juliette said with a sigh when he fell silent. “So what’s his real problem?”

  “His real problem is all that money you saw. He didn’t just do a runner on the authorities, he did a runner on his business partners. And they aren’t so fussy about international law.”

  “Not to mention all the publicists and agents and celebrities and their lawyers, who will be screaming bloody murder when all this hits the media. The scandal will be huge,” Juliette said. “Pretty much everyone’s been through Resurrection.”

  “Good Lord,” Devlin said, “I hadn’t even thought of that. That’s a force as dangerous as, and certainly more vindictive than, any drug cartel.”

  “So why are you just sitting here? Why did you let him leave? We should go now, we should see if he’s still here, and hold him somehow. Isn’t that why you came?”

  “No,” Dev said quietly. “I came to protect my interests—the Pinnacle, and you—and that’s what I’m doing. Listen, my love, Steve Usher can deal nice neat packages of cocaine and OxyContin to the rich and famous through his Malibu retreat, but the drug business is the drug business, and at some point not too far up the line there are guys with machine guns and machetes. But if Usher’s not here, we’ve got no problem.”

  “What about justice?” Juliette cried. “Doesn’t this mean he probably had something to do with Lloyd’s death? Or even Angie’s? You don’t think we should call the police?”

  Devlin shrugged. “If he had any brains, Steve Usher would call the police and turn himself in. Either way, I’m fairly sure justice will find him soon enough. I’d just prefer it happened elsewhere.”

  Juliette made a sound of disgust, and he turned on her.

  “Use your head, Juliette,” he said with sudden heat. “This is Italy. Steve Usher, who is apparently the world’s biggest idiot, has double-crossed his American connections and thinks he can set up shop here. No matter who gets to him first, it’s not going to end well, and calling the police won’t change that. Me,” he added, his voice returning to its normal calm cadence, “I’m just trying to minimize the collateral damage. I would rather you and Mercy and Gabe did not wind up like Lloyd or Angie. Mr. Usher can just take his chances.”

  Juliette stared at him; a small part of her knew he was right, but still, his matter-of-fact tone in the face of all that had happened shook her.

  “Sometimes I don’t even know who you are,” she said.

  “That is moderately obvious,” he replied coolly.

  “I’m going to bed,” she said. “I’m very tired and I’m going to bed.”

  “A fine idea,” he said, sitting down on the couch and taking off his shoes. “If you could spare a pillow.”

  After wordlessy finding and handing him the pillow and the linens, Juliette stood in the doorway, trying to think of something to say.

  “Go to bed, J.,” Devlin said. “No doubt tomorrow will be a busy day.” As if for emphasis, he rolled onto his side and closed his eyes. Which was when Juliette saw the gun tucked into the back of his pants.

  Chapter Fifteen

  WHEN JULIETTE WOKE UP the next morning, the house was empty. Pulling on some clothes, she hurried out to the villa. The set around the tower had been almost entirely struck; only a few lashings of wires and cords cut through the dust and
gravel. Stalks of empty light stands stood here and there in clumps, like sheaves of corn leaning against the wind. The tower, the center of so much angst and anxiety, stood as it always had, solid and serene against the bright blue sky, the stone pale in the morning light. In one of the high windows, a tabby cat arched her back. Swallows darted up and under the eaves of the villa, the improbably sharp angles of their wings dark and precise as punctuation marks.

  She found Gabe in the pantry off the kitchen, with a clipboard list in his hand and a look of clear unhappiness on his face as he addressed one of the interns in a voice that Juliette knew all too well.

  “I understand that things are a bit loose, what with the craft services people and two sets of chefs, but we still need to keep track of things. At this point, I don’t really care where anything goes, I just need to know that it went.”

  He turned toward Juliette. “Your friends are going to leave in three days,” he said, dismissing the intern with a nod. “And I have a sneaking suspicion that all they will leave is sawdust and bare wire.”

  “Who told you three days?”

  “Carson told me three days.”

  “Where the hell is everyone anyway? I woke up and I was alone in the house.”

  “Unusual for you these days, I admit,” Gabe answered gravely. “But some of us had things to do.”

  “How is Mercy?” she asked. “And where is Devlin?”

  “Mercy is as she ever was,” Gabe said. “She spent most of the night hunched over the toilet barfing her guts up, and yet she and Michael are currently doing what I believe is called close-up work. Very romantic. I hope she brushed well. I honestly don’t understand how she is still capable of standing, much less acting. I give her points for stamina.”

  “She only does the really good drugs.”

  “Yes, well, that helps, I suppose, but still . . .”

  “Where are they?”

  “They’ve rigged up a rather impressive studio in the carriage house. All of it with two-by-fours and duct tape, as far as I can tell. I don’t think this crew ever sleeps. Things just appear in the morning like magic.”

  “Magic in the form of like a hundred and ten strapping men and women in cargo shorts who are, apparently, eating their weight in your organic produce. So where,” she asked again, attempting to appear nonchalant, “is Devlin?”

  “He left early this morning,” Gabe said, “in his little rental car.”

  “Oh,” Juliette said.

  “He did not say when or if he would return. If that was your next question.”

  “Oh,” she said again. “Well.”

  “Mr. Usher, too, has left us, apparently. His room is empty save for a stack of those horrible books, which I think he must have left as a joke. Mercy has been calling him,” Gabe said. “She seems surprisingly upset that he’s gone. Actually, ‘angry’ would be a better word. Did Devlin go after him?”

  “I don’t think so,” Juliette said, wondering why Dev had left without leaving a note or a text or, God forbid, waking her up to tell her what he was doing. She thought briefly of the gun—how on earth had he gotten it? But the idea of Devlin hunting Usher down to kill him made no sense, so she put it out of her mind. Was he angry that she had questioned his intentions? That she had him sleep on the couch? Did he think she had just used him the other night, and was there even a remote possibility that this would upset him?

  A feeling of helplessness swept over her. She had left Los Angeles to avoid the hamster wheel of internal monologues like this one. She had left Los Angeles precisely so she could stop obsessing about all the varied and seemingly contradictory feelings she had for Michael and Devlin, for the Pinnacle, for Hollywood, for Los Angeles, for her life in general. And here she was, knee-deep in it all once again, having exposed herself in ways that had seemed impossible even two weeks ago. Where would she have to go to find a little peace, a little solitude? Iceland?

  “I said— Oh, look, it seems I was wrong. Usher has not really left us,” Gabe was enunciating when she dragged herself out of her thoughts. “Here he comes, with two new and important-looking friends.”

  Looking out the window, Juliette watched as Usher lifted his white-linened self out of a big silver car and, flanked by two stocky men in dark suits, strolled through the courtyard, gesturing to the tower and the villa and back to Casa Padua as if he were conducting a tour. As he spoke, he was also conferring with his cell phone, nodding and smiling, and when he hung up he made a follow-me motion with his arm and conducted his friends toward the carriage house, presumably to find Mercy.

  “Interesting,” Juliette said, more than a bit surprised, as much by Usher’s easy manner as by his appearance. So much for Dev’s theory that he was fleeing under cover of night.

  “What should we do?” Gabe said. “Call the police?”

  “And say what?”

  “I don’t know, that he’s an American drug dealer?”

  “And this means what to the Italian authorities?”

  “Well, at least call Dev. He looks like he might be packing heat. What?” Gabe asked. “Remington Steele, right?”

  “Nothing,” Juliette said, remembering Devlin’s warning about Usher’s “real” problem. “I’m going to have a little chat with Steve. You better stay here; you talk too much.”

  “Oh, no. Wither thou goest, I go.”

  Together, Juliette and Gabriel made their way to the carriage house, which was indeed chockablock with the now all-too-familiar lights and electrical cords, swarming with texting personal assistants and crew members in boots and shorts. They were between takes, the electricians adjusting the lights and carrying impossibly heavy things around. Usher, meanwhile, was chatting amiably with Carson and Golonski, while his two friends were getting autographs from Michael and Mercy, snapping pictures with their cell phones. He did not seem like a man in danger or on the lam or anxious in any way, and his friends appeared just polished enough to know Steve Usher but dull enough to be investors of some type. Juliette wondered if Devlin had gotten it all wrong; maybe Usher had skipped the country to get out of the drug business.

  “I like your movies,” the taller one was saying to O’Connor. “Not the last couple, which were kind of sappy, but the ones from before. The one about the cop murders I liked and The Second Sicilian, and that one you did with Scorsese, what was it called, The Undisturbed. You were fucked-up crazy in that one.”

  He shook his head in admiration. “What’s this one about?” he said, taking in the period clothes—which for Michael included a flouncy white tunic and a hat with a feather—with obvious distaste.

  “It’s complicated,” Michael said. “And I don’t get to kill anyone. But I hope you like it anyway.”

  “Ah,” Usher said, catching sight of Juliette and Gabe. “Here they are. Just the people I was looking for. Walter, Frank,” he said, beckoning the two men over, “let me introduce you to the owners of this marvelous place. These are some business associates from Los Angeles and I’ve just been telling them how much I’ve pestered you to sell dear old Serena.”

  “Cerreta,” Gabe corrected.

  “Yes. Indeed. But they won’t,” he said brightly, turning to Walter and Frank, who each extended a hand to Juliette and Gabe. “It’s a family property, you see.”

  “It’s nice here,” said Walter, the one who had been talking to Michael. “Quiet. Old. I’ve never seen a real castle before.”

  “It’s not a castle,” Gabe corrected, “it’s a villa. But,” he amended, catching sight of Juliette’s face, “there is a real castle. About a mile into the woods. If you’d like to see that. The crew was using it, though.”

  “We’re done,” Carson said. “We just need to load up that gate and the statues. You can keep the lawn if you’d like, or we’ll remove it, up to you. There’s a few trenches that need to be filled in; we’ll do that tomorrow. Actually, you and I should take a tour of the grounds tomorrow and make sure everything is as it was.”

  “I fi
nd that impossible to believe,” Gabe said. “But yes, I’m happy to survey the damage with you.”

  “I am still holding out a small hope that you will change your mind, you know,” said Usher, anxious to regain control of the conversation. “So if you don’t mind, I’d like to take my friends around a bit more, show them the interior of the villa and your marvelous vineyards.”

  “I’d like to see a real castle,” said Frank.

  “No one’s there today,” said Carson regally. “Help yourself.”

  “Perhaps you would care to join us,” said Usher, to Gabriel and Juliette.

  Juliette shook her head. “Thanks, but I’ve got some calls to make. I’m afraid we thought you had left us, Steve. We cleaned out your room and everything. Are you back? Because we’ll have your books taken back if you’d like . . .”

  “Absolutely, I’m still here,” Usher said. “I was just running into Florence on an errand, and to meet up with my friends here. I’m here until the shoot’s over. I don’t know why anyone would think otherwise.”

  “Mercy was calling you,” Gabe said.

  “I know, I know, I had turned my cell phone off. Quite accidentally. But I’m here now.” He threw a small wave to Mercy, who was being touched up by the stylists. “Not going anywhere. Just on a tour.”

  “Our mistake, then,” Juliette said, trying to read Usher’s overly reassuring tone. “I’m terribly sorry. It was nice to meet you gentlemen. Though we are not interested in selling Cerreta, we’re happy to answer any questions you might have.”

  “Juliette.” Mercy shook off the stylist. “Juliette, can you come here for just one minute, please?”

  Juliette made her way into the carriage house, where Mercy and Michael were standing in front of a green screen. Michael was staring at the ground, his brow furrowed, while Golonksi talked into his ear; as Juliette passed, he offered her the briefest of smiles, the smallest of waves, before returning to his original expression of deep thought.