Overexposed

by Michael Blair

  “And when will that be?”

  “The lawyers are working on it as we speak. By the end of the week at the latest.” His right eyebrow joined the left, dancing up and down in counterpoint.

  “That’s not good enough. We’ll have lost another week. I just don’t see how this is going to work out. I’m sorry.”

  Quayle’s face darkened and his fists clenched at his sides. “If you aren’t now, you will be. I’ll see to that. No one screws with me and gets away with it.”

  “I’m not screwing with you, Will. Things just didn’t work out, that’s all. I’m sorry.”

  “I know what this is all about,” he said. “It’s her, isn’t it? She’s trying to fuck me over.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said. “Who’s trying to fuck you over?”

  “Your girlfriend,” he said, coming down hard on the word. “She put you up to this, didn’t she? Sure. That’s it, isn’t it? She’s had it in for me right from the beginning. Bitch!”

  “You mean Reeny? What’s she got to do with this?”

  “You and that bitch set me up, didn’t you?”

  “Will, you’re not making any sense,” I said. “Why would we do that? And watch your mouth.”

  “Uh?” His eyebrows lowered in synch as his craggy brow furrowed. His Botox injections were definitely wearing off. Shaking his head, he said, “Well, it’s not going to work. A deal’s a deal.”

  “If there was a deal, you’re the one who’s not living up to it, not me.”

  “We’ll see what our lawyers have to say about that,” he said coldly.

  “I have a lawyer too, Will. She vetted the proposal. We didn’t commit ourselves to anything. There was no deal.”

  “We’ll see about that.” He stamped out of the studio without another word.

  “Oh, yeah?” I said as the door to the stairwell swung shut.

  chapter twelve

  “I’m sorry I got you involved with him,” Reeny said later when I told her about my altercation with Willson Quayle. “He won’t make trouble for you, will he, for backing out on the deal?”

  “There was no deal,” I said. “Whatever arrangement we had was contingent on acceptance, in writing, of the proposal, accessibility to useable source material, and timely delivery of the advance. They met none of those conditions, plus a few others.”

  We were on the roof deck, eating stir-fried veggies and ginger shrimp under the awning. It was a beautiful late summer evening with just enough humidity in the air to set fire to the sky and make the sunset interesting.

  “It sounds to me like you’re better off out of it,” Reeny said.

  “I think so too,” I said, chasing an elusive shrimp with my chopsticks. “I should’ve realized from the beginning that the job was a little too good to be true.”

  “You’re sure you wouldn’t like me to speak with the producers?”

  “I’m sure,” I said. “Frankly, I don’t want to have anything more to do with One-Way Willy or Sun Dried Toys.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t include Star Crossed in that list, ’cause next week we’re going to be shooting a couple of exteriors here.”

  “Here?” I said around a mouthful of broccoli. “Where here?” Granville Island was a popular location for film and television shoots, although the administration set strict limits on the number of shoots and the size of the productions.

  “Sea Village,” she said, gesturing with her chopsticks. “That big house at the end of the dock. You should have received a letter from the producers by now.”

  I didn’t recall seeing one, but there was a stack of unopened mail, two or three days’ worth, in the old wood salad bowl on the kitchen counter.

  “The big house at the end of the dock is Lionel Oliphant’s house,” I said.

  “If you say so.”

  “It’s just I’m surprised he agreed to it.”

  “You don’t sound very enthusiastic yourself.”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” I said. “I’m as film friendly as the next guy, maybe more, but the last time we had a location shoot here, a lot of the residents were, well, shall we say, inconvenienced when a stunt went wrong and part of the main dock was wrecked and the sewage collection system was damaged.” Waste was extracted from holding tanks in each floating home by a vacuum system and pumped into the city sewers. “It was pretty stinky around here for a while.”

  Reeny smiled and said, “I bet. But I think the house owner’s son or nephew is in the business, a producer or something.”

  “Must be a nephew. Lionel doesn’t have any children. He’s always complaining about them, that they’re noisy and messy and impolite.”

  “So’s my dad,” Reeny said, then fell silent. She prodded at the remains of her stir-fry with the tips of her chopsticks.

  “More wine?” I asked, poising the bottle over her glass.

  “No, thanks,” she said.

  I put the bottle down. There was something on her mind and I was pretty sure I knew what it was. It had been wishful thinking to hope that the ghost of Chris Hastings had been exorcised. It hadn’t. I wasn’t going to press, though.

  “Have you told the police about the name Chris gave you?” she asked at last.

  “Not yet,” I said. “In all the excitement with Willson Quayle, it slipped my mind.”

  “But you’re going to?”

  “I’ll call them tomorrow.”

  “Mm,” she said absently, not looking at me, poking at the food on her plate.

  I laid down my chopsticks. “Damnit, Reeny,” I said. “What do you want me to do? The man died in my house. I’m sorry if you’re afraid it will get Chris into trouble with the police, but I can’t just forget about it. I know you think you owe Chris a lot, and I guess you do, but he’s not worth it, if you ask me. He ran out on you two years ago. He sold your home out from under you for a dollar and consideration. And he didn’t stick around long enough the other night to even say hello. He obviously doesn’t give a damn about you, so why should you lose any sleep over him?”

  “I know you’re right, Tom. I shouldn’t care about him, after what he did, but I do. I wish I didn’t. I can’t just turn off my feelings, though. Maybe you can, but I can’t.”

  “Would that I could,” I said. And would that I could keep my mouth shut.

  We sat in silence for a few seconds more, then she stood up. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go for a run. I’ve got some lines to learn.”

  “It’s getting dark,” I said.

  “The seawall is well lit,” she said. “And, believe it or not, I can take care of myself. I’ve got a black belt in karate. Chris was one of my teachers.”

  And a fat lot of good his martial arts training had done him, I recalled morosely. She began to gather the dishes.

  “I’ll do that. Go for your run.”

  “I won’t be long,” she said. “An hour at most.” She went downstairs. I collected the dishes onto the tray and took it down to the kitchen.

  While Reeny was out for her run and learning her lines, Daniel dropped by.

  “I came across this in the second-hand bookstore the other day,” he said. “I couldn’t resist.”

  He handed me a slim, slightly dog-eared paper-bound book titled Gorilla Chess. The cover showed a huge silverback gorilla playing chess against a caricature of Boris Spassky. Inside was advice on tactics to distract your opponent while he was contemplating his next move, such as humming Andrew Lloyd Webber show tunes, sawing one leg of his chair half an inch shorter than the others, or, if playing at home, getting your wife, girlfriend, or eldest daughter to parade around in a filmy negligee.

  “Funny,” I said.

  “Really?”

  “Well, sort of. Thanks.” I offered to make tea, but when I told him it was English Breakfast, he declined. Too much caffeine.

  “Is everything all right, Thomas?” he asked, as I handed him a glass of slightly flat club soda.

  “Sure. Why?”
r />   “You seem a little down in the dumps.”

  “I guess I am,” I said. I told him about Willson Quayle and losing the Rainy Day Toys project.

  “I’m sure you’ll manage,” he said. He evidently had more confidence in me than I did.

  I then brought him up to speed on the saga of John Doe, a.k.a. Tobias Zim, the visit from Chris Hastings, and Reeny’s need for closure, if indeed that’s what it was.

  “It seems to me,” Daniel said, “that if anyone should understand the need for closure, you should. Do I need to remind you that you almost got yourself killed closing the chapter on Carla Bergman? You’ll just have to be patient with Reeny and do what you can to ensure that she doesn’t get hurt.”

  “She’s the one with the black belt,” I said.

  He went home and I puttered about until Reeny got back from her run. I heard her swear as she closed the door. I went into the hall. Her hair was lank and damp, she was bathed in perspiration, and her Walkman headphones dangled around her neck. She had an object in her hand.

  “What is it?”

  “This was on the front step,” she said.

  She handed me a Virgin action figure doll. It was dressed in an Indiana Jones outfit — safari shirt, shorts, and tiny hiking boots — identical to the outfit Reeny had been wearing the day I’d waited for her at the marina, albeit smaller. However, the doll’s outfit was accessorized with a six-inch meat skewer, driven through its chest. Simulated blood ran from the wound between the plump little breasts.

  “Christ,” I said.

  “One of your neighbours has a pretty crappy sense of humour.”

  “Probably more than one,” I said. “But I don’t think any of them would do this. Whoever it was, though, you must’ve just missed him, because it wasn’t there when Daniel left less than half an hour ago. And it sure as hell wasn’t him. This is nasty. Do you want to call the police?”

  “No,” she said with a shake of her head. “It’s just some pathetic loser playing a sick joke. Maybe that Barry Chisholm character didn’t get enough signatures on his petition. Ricky used to get roses with the blooms cut off from some guy. Last year she even got a latex casting of a huge erect penis with a note that said if she wanted to see the real thing come to room such and such of such and such hotel. The studio sent a guy from security, made up to look like Ricky — Ricky isn’t exactly small — and they caught the silly prick.” She grinned. “Turned out he worked for the makeup department and it wasn’t even his penis he’d used to make the mould.”

  “I don’t know. This is pretty bad.”

  “Happens sometimes,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Reeny went upstairs to shower. I put the skewered action figure in my briefcase, along with the one in lingerie from the film studio. Despite her assurance that it was nothing to worry about, I worried anyway.

  When she came downstairs after her shower, she said, “I’m sorry about earlier, Tom. I was being silly.”

  “I’m the one who should apologize,” I said. “You weren’t being silly at all. I was being patronizing. I had no right to expect you to turn your back on him. In fact, I’d be disappointed if you did.”

  “Well, I’ll accept your apology if you’ll accept mine.”

  “Deal.”

  “And call the police tomorrow. I hope Chris didn’t have anything to do with the death of that man, but if he did, even indirectly, he deserves what he gets.”

  “Ugh,” my sister said the next morning.

  “Gross,” Bobbi said.

  “Cool,” D. Wayne Fowler said, examining the skewered doll. “I wonder how he did that. He heated up the skewer, I bet. Yeah, look, see how the plastic is melted around the exit wound. And he used nail polish for the blood.”

  “Oh, for god’s sake,” Mary-Alice said, disgusted.

  “S-s-sorry,” Wayne stammered sheepishly. Mary-Alice seemed to have the same effect on him as Bobbi did.

  I shooed them out of my office, then dialled the number on the flyer, identified myself to the woman who answered, and told her I had some more information about John Doe.

  “What sort of information?”

  “A possible name. Tobias Zim.”

  “One M or two?”

  Her guess was as good as mine, I thought. “Keep it simple,” I said. “Go with one.”

  “What was the source of the information?” she asked.

  “A man named Christopher Hastings,” I said. I paused, half expecting the name to set off bells, but the woman on the line said nothing. I said, “He was evidently supposed to meet Mr. Zim at the Hotel Vancouver on Sunday evening, the day after he died.”

  “You said ‘a possible name,’” the woman said. “Why?”

  “Because Mr. Hastings wasn’t sure Tobias Zim was his real name.”

  “I see. Can you tell us how to contact Mr. Hastings?”

  “No,” I said. “I can’t.”

  “Very well. Thank you, Mr. McCall. An investigator will get in touch with you if we need anything else.” She hung up.

  Bobbi came into my office as I put down the phone. “Where’s that invoice I prepared for the time we spent on the proposal?”

  I pawed through the mess on my desk. “It’s here someplace. Why?”

  “I think we should send it.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Why not?” I found it, smoothed it out, and handed it to her. “Anything on the books today?” I asked.

  “Nothing I can’t handle,” she replied. “By the way, what should we do with the Star Crossed merchandise?”

  “Send it back, I suppose. I’ll take care of it.”

  But when I went out into the studio to pack up the Star Crossed action figures and accessories to ship back to Rainy Day Toys, the Virgin dolls were missing in action. Quayle had brought three: one in the black vinyl Barbarella cheerleader outfit, one in the Indiana Jones outfit, and one in a glittery, body-hugging space suit, complete with bubble helmet and little air pack.

  “Maybe Quayle took them with him yesterday,” Bobbi said. “He did say she was his favourite.”

  “I didn’t see him take anything with him when he stomped out,” I said.

  “Maybe D. Wayne borrowed them for company while he watched tapes,” Bobbi suggested. However, the Star Crossed tapes were in the box with the Star and alien dolls and accessories.

  I couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen the Virgin dolls in the box. Had one of them turned up on the doorstep of my house, with a meat skewer through its chest? I made a note to have the studio locks checked.

  “I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it,” Bobbi said.

  But I had other things to do besides worry about kidnapped Virgin dolls. Bobbi, Wayne, and I loaded the new computer equipment into the freight elevator and took it down to the loading dock, where we transferred it into the van. While Wayne minded the store, Bobbi and I returned the equipment to the computer dealer.

  “Sorry it didn’t work out,” the salesman said.

  “Me too,” I said.

  When Bobbi and I got back to the studio Sergeant Gregory Matthias was waiting in my office. Bobbi beamed at him, giving him both barrels at full wattage. Most men would have turned instantly to Silly Putty, but Matthias, obviously made of sterner stuff than most, was all business.

  “I was in the neighbourhood,” he said.

  “There’s not much I can tell you that I didn’t tell the woman on the phone,” I said.

  “When did you speak to Hastings?”

  “Sunday evening. He was waiting for me on the dock by my house when I got back from dinner.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He wanted to know why Tobias Zim was at my house.”

  “Did he tell you what his relationship with Zim was?”

  “He said they were business associates,” I said.

  He nodded, scratching a note. “Did he say what kind of business?”

  “No.”

  “Anything else?”

  “
Reeny wasn’t the only person John Doe, or Tobias Zim, talked to about Hastings,” I said. I told him about our meeting with Tim Fielding and Mona Hastings. He made more notes. “Hastings reckons he was probably trying to get in touch with him to change the time or place of their meeting.” He scratched another note and closed his notebook. “Have you got the results of the toxicology tests?”

  “Nothing conclusive,” he said. “If John Doe — Tobias Zim — was poisoned, it was by something very exotic. However, the pathologist is of the opinion that he had a stroke, a very small one, and died quite peacefully as he dozed in the chair.”

  “You don’t buy that?”

  “Look at it from my perspective,” Matthias said. “Tobias Zim, if that’s his name, speaks to Ms. Lindsey, Tim Fielding, Hastings’ mother, and god knows who else about Hastings. He then dies on your deck. Meanwhile, for a dollar and consideration, Hastings signs his boat over to Carl Yeager. Yeager evicts Ms. Lindsey, who’s been living on it since Hastings disappeared two years ago. Two days later, the boat burns to the waterline, and the Yeagers, for all intents and purposes, disappear, only to show up on your doorstep a couple of days later. Then Hastings pays you a visit, wanting to know what Tobias Zim was doing at your birthday party.”

  “I must admit,” I said, “when you put it that way, it certainly looks suspicious.”

  “Two more things,” Matthias said. “I ran Carl Yeager, Jackie Yeager, and Tobias Zim through all the databases we have access to. Nothing. They don’t exist, so far as law enforcement agencies are concerned.”

  “And the second thing?”

  “I’m curious about that,” he said, pointing to the Virgin action figure with the meat skewer through its chest. It was sitting on the bookshelf in my office, next to the one in homemade lingerie. “Your lab tech told me Ms. Lindsey found it on your doorstep last night.”

  “A sick joke,” I said.

  “In light of all the other things that are happening, I think it’s more important than ever that I speak with Ms. Lindsey.”

  “She hasn’t called you?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll remind her when she gets back from work,” I said.