Beach Town

by Mary Kay Andrews

  20

  Friday, midmorning, Greer was, as usual, trying to do two things at once. Returning a text from Phil, the production manager, who wanted to know when construction would be complete at the high school gym, where the next week’s scenes were to be shot, and trying to lock her motel room door. She finished typing, shoved her phone in her pocket, and turned around to lock the door, only to find Eb Thibadeaux standing in the doorway of her room with a stack of clean towels.

  It was the first time she’d encountered him since fleeing the Hometown Market in the dead of night three days earlier. Every day since then, she’d regretted that moment, and tortured herself, wondering how everything had gone so wrong so quickly.

  “Hi!” she said brightly.

  “Hey.” His eyes were dead. He thrust the stack of towels into her arms.

  She searched for something meaningful to say. What she came up with was not her best work. “How’ve you been?”

  “Fine.” He turned back to the cart of linens he’d been trundling down the passageway outside her room, and produced a large plastic sack, which he hung on the doorknob of her room.

  “What’s this?” She picked up the bag and peered inside.

  “Couple things. The key to the city, which you left at city hall, and your bra, which you left behind after you snuck out of my place three nights ago.”

  “Oh.” Her cheeks burned with shame—not at having slept with this lovely, decent man, but at her behavior afterward.

  “You’re welcome.” He turned abruptly and pushed the cart down the corridor at an accelerated pace.

  She tossed the towels onto her bed, pushed the thumb latch, closed the door, and raced down the hallway to catch up with him. “I noticed you replaced the air conditioner in my room. Thanks so much. I’m sleeping so much better now that I can cool it down.”

  “Don’t thank me. It was Ginny’s idea,” he said, still in an eerily accurate robot imitation. He knocked on the door he was standing in front of, called out “Housekeeping,” and then, after a moment, used his key to unlock the door. She stood in the doorway, watching as he placed another stack of towels on another dresser.

  “Eb, look. I’m sorry about the other night.…”

  He upended the contents of a trash basket into a large plastic bag attached to the laundry cart, then turned to her.

  “Sorry you slept with me? Or sorry about afterwards, when you lied and told me you were going downstairs for ice cream—and then just ran away? Do you have any idea how I felt, when I finally realized you weren’t coming back? Who does something like that? Was I that terrible?”

  “No! You were wonderful. I had fun. Oh God. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just … shouldn’t have let things go as far as they did. You’re amazing, but sleeping with you was a really bad idea. It was totally unprofessional on my part.”

  He reached into a carton on top of the cart and brought out miniature shampoo and moisturizer bottles and tiny bars of soap, which he slammed down on the dresser.

  “What was so wrong about it? We’re single, consenting adults. And you said yourself, movie people are notorious for hooking up on movie sets.”

  “I’m not notorious for it,” Greer said, her cheeks burning. “I told you, I don’t do hookups.”

  Eb’s cheek muscle twitched. “We had sex. And then you left. Wham, bam, thank you Sam? If that’s not a hookup, I don’t know what is.”

  “Okay, I didn’t handle that very well.”

  “Yeah, the ice cream ploy was pretty bush league. I expect something better than that from a professional liar like you.”

  Greer walked out of the room and returned to her own. A moment later she heard him knocking on the next door. “Housekeeping.”

  21

  The call came at 2:00 a.m., Thursday. The caller ID screen read Cypress Key Police Department. Greer sat up in bed and hit the Connect button, her heart pounding, already imagining any number of reasons why the police might be calling her at that hour. None of them were good.

  “Hello? This is Greer Hennessy.”

  “Hey, Miss Greer. This is Chief Bottoms. Look, I’m over here at the PD and we’ve got one of your people in my holding cell, and he’s raising a big ol’ ruckus. I think you might want to come over here and talk to him before things really get out of hand.”

  “One of our people? Which one?” Greer had a feeling she already knew.

  “Kregg,” Chief Bottoms said, her voice dripping disgust.

  “Oh no,” Greer groaned. “What did he do?”

  “Mmm, reckless driving, speeding, open container, public indecency to start with. And if he keeps running that foul mouth of his, I’m gonna find a bunch of other stuff to add to the list. I haven’t run a breathalyzer on him yet, but I can tell you right now what it’ll show.…”

  “Please don’t do that,” Greer said. “I’m on my way right now.”

  She called Bryce Levy on her way to the police station. The first call went directly to voice mail. “Bryce—it’s Greer. I just got a call from the police chief. They’ve got Kregg in custody for speeding and some other stuff. Just thought you should know.”

  Her phone beeped to signal an incoming call. She ended the voice mail and clicked to connect.

  “Greer?” Bryce’s voice was gravelly with sleep. “What’s wrong?”

  “I just left you a message. I’m on my way to the police station. The cops have Kregg in custody.”

  “Dammit. What did he do this time?”

  “Speeding and reckless driving for starters. Possibly driving under the influence too. I think the chief called me as a courtesy. What do you want me to do?”

  “Get him out of there as quick and as quiet as you can,” Bryce said. “Whatever it takes, okay? We do not need to get this out to the media. Understand? Call me when you know something.”

  * * *

  When she pulled the Kia into the police station parking lot, a tow truck was just arriving—trailing a shiny black Porsche Carrera with a vanity tag that read “KILLA.”

  Arnelle Bottoms looked as though she’d gotten a wake-up call about Kregg, too, because in place of her ever-present uniform she was wearing jeans and an orange and green Florida A&M University T-shirt, and sitting at the station’s front desk.

  “Mornin’,” she said, as Greer walked through the door.

  “Thanks for calling me,” Greer said. “I just saw a tow truck pull up with a Porsche. Is that Kregg’s?”

  “Ain’t nobody else in Cypress Key driving a car with a $130,000 sticker on the window,” the chief said.

  “Hey-y-y!” A loud voice echoed from the back of the station. “Hey, cocksuckers, you better cut me loose! When my lawyer gets here, he’s gonna sue your asses! You fuckers are goin’ down!”

  “Hear that?” the chief said, pointing toward a door at the rear of the small reception area. “He’s been like that since we put him in there.”

  “He’s a prince of a guy,” Greer commented. “What exactly was he doing?”

  “Depends on who you believe. Shelley, the bartender at the Crow’s Nest, said he and a couple of his homeys rolled in there shortly after midnight. They were drinking shots and beers, and partying pretty good. Your boy got in a verbal altercation with one of the locals, and Shelley suggested they take it outside. At which point your boy—

  “Please don’t refer to him as my boy,” Greer said.

  “Right. So, the accused, Kregg, took that to mean he should whip out his pecker and piss right there on the sidewalk outside the front door.”

  “Oh no, no, no,” Greer moaned.

  “One of the locals saw Kregg’s new Porsche and had some derogatory remarks to make about it, so Kregg, he invited the local to a little drag race. Right down the middle of Pine Street, at one o’clock in the morning. By that time, Shelley had already called nine-one-one, and one of our patrol officers, Balfour, was en route. That’s when he clocked the Porsche at one hundred ten miles per hour, as Kregg blew by him�
��right down the center line of the street.”

  “I’m guessing Kregg won the race?” Greer asked. “What happened to the local?”

  “He peeled off as soon as Balfour switched on lights and siren,” Chief Bottoms said. “Doesn’t matter. The dumb-ass was driving his work truck with the phone number right on the door. Balfour’s on his way over to his house to pick him up.”

  Greer glanced anxiously around the station. She and the chief were alone. No reporters, no photographers. Thank God.

  “I take it no official charges have been filed yet?”

  The chief shrugged. “I thought I’d meet with you first. You’ve been straight up with us since you came to town, and my officers love all the extra pay, doing security work for you.”

  “And we really appreciate all their hard work,” Greer said.

  “On the other hand, he…” the chief jerked her thumb in the general direction of where Greer assumed the holding cell must be, “is nothin’ but white trash. He’s been hollerin’ to call his lawyer since we brought him in, and you just heard a sampling of the kind of names he’s been calling us.”

  “So sorry,” Greer said. “Not everybody in the business is like that, but the ones like Kregg—too much attention, too much money, too little sense—give everybody else a bad name.”

  “That’s the truth,” the chief agreed. “All my guys say that Adelyn Davis is a total sweetheart. Poses for pictures, signs autographs, nice as can be.”

  “Which brings us back to Kregg,” Greer said. “Obviously, I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t have any real authority to make offers on behalf of Kregg or the production company, but I do know that sometimes, when an actor has misbehaved, we make arrangements for restitution in lieu of formal charges being filed.”

  “Restitution?”

  “Kregg could make a generous donation to the charity of your choice. I would imagine the production company might also be willing to make a contribution.”

  “I was thinking some community service hours would be good, too,” the Chief said. “I bet that boy would look real good in a safety orange vest, picking up trash on the side of the county road.”

  Greer laughed. “I’d pay money to see that! Unfortunately, I think his lawyer would probably scream bloody murder about that idea. And his bodyguards would probably get in the way.”

  The chief yawned loudly. “We’ll come up with something. Maybe have him film a public service announcement about safe driving.”

  “Good idea. Do you want to release him to me, or keep him until morning?”

  “Get him out of here,” the chief said. “And when I get home tonight, I’m gonna burn every single Kregg CD my kids own.”

  “That’s it?” Greer said, trying not to sound incredulous. “No incident report? No charges? Don’t you want something in writing from me?”

  Arnelle Bottoms winked. “I don’t need anything in writing. I know right where you’re staying. Later on today, after we both get some sleep, you can tell me how much he’s gonna contribute to our Police Benevolent Society.”

  “Fair enough,” Greer said.

  “All right then. Lemme go get that piece of garbage out of my holding cell.”

  * * *

  The chief’s hand was clamped firmly on Kregg’s shoulder as she steered him into the front room of the police station.

  Kregg’s eyes were red rimmed and heavy lidded. He wore tight black jeans and an unbuttoned blue work shirt with hacked-off sleeves. And orange jail-issue flip-flops. He slouched against the counter.

  “He’s all yours,” the chief said, giving him a gentle shove in Greer’s direction. “Oh yeah.” She brought out a large, sealed manila envelope from behind the front counter and thrust it into Kregg’s hands. “Here’s your stuff.” She stabbed the front of the envelope. “Need you to initial that it’s all there.”

  “It better be.” He ripped off the top of the envelope. Two thick gold rope chains, a diamond stud earring, the Porsche keys, and a diamond-studded money clip holding a fat wad of twenty-dollar bills spilled onto the counter.

  Kregg picked up the pen Arnelle Bottoms offered, scribbled his initials on the envelope, and tossed the pen to the floor. He slipped the chains around his neck and tucked the cash and the earring in his pocket.

  “Let’s go,” he said, looking directly at Greer.

  “In a minute,” the chief said. She pointed at the pen. “I’d like you to pick that up.”

  Kregg shrugged, leaned over, and retrieved the pen.

  “One more thing,” the chief said sternly. “This lady here, Miss Hennessy? She just guaranteed your Get Outta Jail Free card. She didn’t have to get up out of bed and come down here tonight. And I didn’t have to call her. But because she is a nice person, I extended her that courtesy.”

  “Great,” Kregg said, sounding bored.

  The chief poked him in the chest. “You, on the other hand, are not a nice person. So if you get in any more trouble in my town—and I mean if you so much as spit on my sidewalk—I’m gonna lock your punk ass up. You understand me, boy?”

  Kregg rolled his eyes. “Yeah.”

  “Uh-uh,” the chief said, poking his chest again. “You speak to me, it’s ‘Yes ma’am.’”

  “Yes ma’am,” Kregg said, smirking. “What about my car?”

  “Your car is out in the parking lot, but you ain’t driving nowhere tonight, unless you want Officer Balfour to run a Breathalyzer test on you,” the chief said.

  “How’ll I get home?”

  “I’ll take you,” Greer said wearily.

  * * *

  “A Kia?” He looked at the car in disbelief. “I’m supposed to ride in this piece of shit?”

  Greer slid into the driver’s seat. “You could always ask the chief to have one of the officers take you back to Bluewater Bay.”

  He turned his head as they passed the Porsche. “They better not mess with my car, man. If there’s one scratch on it…”

  “What?” Greer asked. “You’ll sue the police department? After they just let you walk away from speeding, drag racing, and public indecency charges? And without checking your blood alcohol to add driving under the influence?”

  “Hey!” Kregg said sharply. “It wasn’t all my fault. That dude in the bar, he called me out. What was I supposed to do?”

  “Walk away? Offer to buy him a beer? I can think of half a dozen choices that would have been better than running one hundred ten miles an hour down Main Street.”

  He gave her an appraising look. “What’s your name again?”

  “Greer Hennessy.”

  “You’re something with the production company, right?”

  “I’m the location manager.”

  “Right. So, thanks, I guess, for getting me out of there before one of those redneck cracker cops decided to pistol-whip me or something.”

  “Let me give you a piece of advice, Kregg. Lose the phrase ‘redneck cracker’ while you’re in this town. Okay?”

  “Sure.” He leaned against the headrest. “Shit. What time is it?”

  “Almost three.”

  “You happen to know what time my call is in the morning?”

  “Seven. At the beach.” She said it with a deeply malicious satisfaction.

  “Shit.”

  He closed his eyes, and Greer thought he’d fallen asleep. They rolled up to the makeshift guard shack at Bluewater Bay and the off-duty cop, recognizing Greer, waved them through the open gate.

  Kregg turned and looked at her through bleary eyes. “Hey, uh, we can just keep this between us. We’re cool, right? No press, right?”

  “You and I are cool, and I’m certainly not about to alert the media to what happened tonight,” she assured him.

  “Cool.” He nodded his head. “And, I mean, Bryce doesn’t need to hear about this. Okay?”

  “Too late,” she said. “I called him on the way to the police station.”

  “Jesus! Why’d you have to go and do that?”

>   “Because he’s the boss. And he’d find out anyway.”

  “Did he sound pissed? Jesus, now I’m gonna have him on my case all over again.”

  “He didn’t sound pissed at me,” Greer said. “But I’d imagine he’ll want to have a discussion with you tomorrow.”

  “Great. He’ll call my mom, and then the shit will really hit the fan.”

  “Your mom? Really? How old are you?”

  “She’s my manager, okay?” He shot her a look.

  Greer shrugged it off. “By the way, sometime tomorrow you and your mom-slash-manager are going to want to make a very large, generous contribution to the Cypress Key Police Benevolent Society. And by generous, I’m thinking fifty thousand dollars sounds about right.”

  “Oh, hell no! Why would I give money to those redneck—I mean, cops?”

  She pulled the Kia into the driveway of the rapper’s rented house and parked behind the Hummer.

  “Call it an expression of gratitude for walking free tonight.”

  “Fu-u-uck.” He climbed out of the Kia, slammed the door, and headed for the house without a backward glance at his chauffeur.

  “Nighty-night,” Greer muttered.

  22

  Watching Kregg run lines and block scenes on the beach Thursday morning, nobody would know that he’d had only three hours of sleep after a long night of partying. His eyes were uncharacteristically clear, his voice was strong, and for once he seemed to hit his mark with every shot as Bryce put him through his paces.

  Greer, on the other hand, felt and looked like death warmed over, with dark circles under her eyes and a fatigue that no amount of caffeine could assuage. The night before, she’d fallen into her bed for what seemed like only minutes before being roused to start solving problems. Fortunately, since the day’s shoot was actually at the beach behind the Silver Sands, she hadn’t had much of a commute.

  She watched the grips lay a pathway of wooden planks across the soft, white sand, to afford traction to the camera dollies, and pitied the crew working in the high-nineties heat.