Even Villains Go To The Movies

by Liana Brooks

  “No, you aren’t.” Angela reached over and rubbed her shoulder. “She didn’t mean that. Mia’s a good kid, she loves you.”

  “She’s failing classes.”

  Fights between Luiz and her daughter Mia revolved around two things: Mia’s grades, and Mia’s string of good-for-nothing boyfriends. Angela had heard every single fight for the past week. “Is she not doing the homework, or does she not understand the subject?”

  “She says she doesn’t understand.” Luiz wiped tears from her face. “I just want something better for her. I don’t want her to wind up like me.”

  Angela took a cookie. “Do you want me to tutor her?”

  Luiz studied her suspiciously.

  Being the only blue-eyed blonde in an area heavily populated by Latinos, Angela had gotten used to the looks of suspicion and contempt. She’d gotten the same response when she’d gone to high school in Laredo while her dad taught at the university for two years. She’d also picked up enough border-style Spanish to make the fights all too easy to understand.

  “I can’t pay you,” Luiz finally said.

  “Let me borrow your bike so I can interview for jobs a couple times a week. That would be payment enough.”

  Luiz mulled it over, grabbing another hot cookie. “You can ride?”

  “I have an M1 license, but I sold my bike when I left New York.” It was sell the bike for cash or tell the school, and thereby The Company, where to send her last paycheck. She’d opted for selling the bike and twisting Delilah’s arm until her sister used her security firm mojo to produce a new life for her under the name Angela Jane David.

  Luiz’s eyes narrowed. “How long have you been riding?”

  “Since I was eighteen. Mom wouldn’t let me have a bike when I was living at home.” She shrugged.

  Luiz drummed her fingers on the table. “If I can get you a job, you’d tutor my daughter so she doesn’t fail classes?”

  “I can tutor her so she understands what she’s doing in class. Failing and passing are up to her. I can’t magically make her a perfect student.” Angela saw a mother’s fear in Luiz’s eyes. It rose off the heat of her skin like a perfume. “I’m a good tutor. I’ve done it before to pay bills.”

  “I know something you can do. The pay isn’t tops, but it’ll cover your groceries for the week.” She stood. “I’ll pick you up at seven. Wear riding gear, black if you have it. Try to act tough.”

  ***

  Arktos landed on the roof of the US Bank Tower in a corona of cold blue fire as the sun sank into the Pacific Ocean. He was late, again. He wanted to run his hand through his hair in frustration, but the mask he wore, the one that lent him better night vision and kept his features hidden while he worked, covered his head. The thieves had pulled off another jewel heist last night, and he wasn’t any closer to tracking them down.

  He walked to the edge of the building, looking down at the City of Angels from over a thousand feet up. People scurried around, wrapped in their own worries, insulated by their private fears and precious egos. Somewhere in that mess were the three people he wanted.

  They were getting better.

  The first heist had been badly executed, and it was only because the police hadn’t called The Company for help that he hadn’t caught them then. It was frustrating that a set of amateurs who couldn’t plan ahead enough to take care of a silent alarm were still smart enough to wear masks and gloves.

  Their second heist had been better planned. The woman had acted as a distraction. A car wreck, an armored car blocked in traffic, and then the fire bug in the group had bombed the truck, grabbed the cash, and they were gone. His only hint had been a flash of blonde under the woman’s USC Trojans baseball cap.

  A blonde woman with the ability to influence emotions fit the description of the mind-raper who’d escaped The Company in New York. It wouldn’t be the first time a rogue had teamed with a villain, and it wouldn’t be the last. And if they had kept to hitting stores and trucks, he wouldn’t be so worried. Last night’s heist though—that had been different. The mind-raper had held an entire restaurant in thrall while the heist team robbed them blind.

  That twist left him with a sick feeling in his stomach and the urge to freeze the criminals in their tracks. His fingers tingled as frost settled around him. Even in the spring heat, he was cold.

  Arktos leapt from the building, letting the rush of air strip away his worries. On the edge of thought, he could feel the tug of an idea. A vision appeared, a hazy overlay of the city, and he saw the studio.

  With a chuckle, he barrel-rolled in the sky, switching directions high above the streets and heading for home. Sometimes his premonitions let him see something that was about to happen, like the first heist that he’d called in to the police. And sometimes it acted like an alarm clock to make sure he got to work on time. A subtle reminder from his subconscious that he needed to get to work if he wanted to get paid.

  Chapter Three

  Dear Mom,

  L.A. is even weirder than I thought it would be. I miss Texas, but I have a job...

  Love,

  Angela

  Hollywood magic created a strip of alley wide enough for a motorcycle gang to roar down in the middle of a giant room that seemed to be mostly places for lights and cameras to hang.

  Angela took off her helmet and wiped sweat from her eyes. Fog roiled around her feet, giving the impression of a winter chill, but the glaring lights were hot. At the far end of the alley, two men argued over something, a camera angle maybe. She glanced at Luiz for direction.

  Originally she’d thought she was coming along to play Luiz’s assistant, make a coffee run or three, but Luiz had introduced her as the stuntwoman AJ David. She’d flashed a couple of cards and told Angela to sign all the paperwork as fast as she could. Angela made a mental note to make sure she had all the proper licenses, permits, guild cards, and union paperwork done by morning. There were rules in Hollywood, and she was certain she’d broken about fifty of the unwritten ones. Hopefully Daddy could fake a California accent long enough to play her agent if anyone called.

  “They’re going to make us do it again,” one of the men said. Angela thought his name was Dyfed, but she wasn’t sure. Luiz was riding as the gang leader, doing tricks that made Angela’s heart stop. Dyfed and Michael were a set of twins who did jumps. Angela was paired with a woman named Raina who had told her their only job was to gun their motors and look fierce. Or as fierce as was possible with a helmet on.

  Luiz glanced at her. “Welcome to show biz. It’s a lot of hurry up and wait. They’re trying to get the angles and lighting right before the talent shows up.”

  “Talent?”

  “Movie stars,” Raina said. “Try not to swoon like a girl.”

  Angela frowned at her but couldn’t think of a decent reply.

  “Glee!” the man on the other end of the set yelled.

  “Patrick Swendon,” Luiz said. “He’s the director. If he tells you to do something, you nod and say, ‘Yes, sir.’”

  “Got it.”

  “Glee!” Swendon yelled again. “What are you doing there?” He was pointing at the ‘gang’.

  Angela turned around to see if anyone had joined them. It was just the five of them in black leather and a morass of confusion.

  “You with the blonde hair!” Swendon shouted. “Earth to Glee! Get over here?”

  “Um...” Luiz said.

  Angela pointed to herself.

  “Yes, you!”

  She coasted her bike across the set, stopping just in front of a lean man who was on the wrong side of fifty and red from anger. “Yes, sir?”

  “You’re supposed to be riding with Tyler, remember? We went over that yesterday. Why are you down there with the gang?”

  Angela bit her lip.

  Luiz coasted up beside her. “Mr. Swendon, this is AJ David. She’s one of my stunt riders.”

  The director glared at Angela. “Get off the bike and come over here.” He
turned and yelled at someone in the shadows behind him. “Get me my glasses! Where are my glasses? Thank you.” After putting them on, he turned back to blink at Angela. “You’re not Glee’s body double?”

  She glanced at Luiz, who shook her head. “No, she’s just a rider.”

  “We need to get her hair covered That’s almost a perfect match for Glee’s wig.” His eyes narrowed. “How tall are you?”

  “Five ten,” Angela said.

  He sighed in disappointment. “Too bad. You would make a perfect body double if you weren’t so tall. Glee’s at least four inches shorter than you.”

  “They’re probably the same height if Glee’s in her heels and AJ’s wearing flats,” Luiz put in helpfully. Job, she mouthed to Angela.

  The director nodded. “How are you with mouthy, temperamental women who like to rage at the world?”

  “I have sisters,” Angela said. No regular human being could ever match Maria throwing a tantrum. Normal humans couldn’t throw lightning and turn enemies to piles of ash when they were in a bad mood.

  “Good enough. Where’s Tyler’s body double? What’s his name?” The director stormed off into the shadows.

  A motorcycle pulled up beside her, fire engine red and ridden by a tuxedoed man. Jet black eyes matched jet black hair. He had a strong jaw and dark skin, but not the right bone structure for a Latino. He was disconcertingly familiar.

  She tipped her head to the side trying to decide where she’d seen him before. At the store maybe? Or on TV?

  “Tyler!” Swendon huffed. “We aren’t ready for you.”

  “I’m done with makeup, there aren’t any lines, and all you need is a shot of me rolling down the alley with a blonde hanging on. Why don’t we shoot this and call the scene done?”

  Angela tried to remember if she’d ever heard of an actor named Tyler. It didn’t ring any bells.

  “Glee said she wanted to do this,” Swendon argued.

  “Glee’s still in her trailer trying to memorize her lines for the next scene.” Tyler gave Angela a look usually reserved for cockroaches right before they became a smear of entrails on the kitchen floor.

  Angela shrugged it off. The big, muscled types were all the same: lots of bulk and no brains. He’d probably played football in high school, and she knew enough football players to gag at the thought of ever spending another night watching men run around in tights.

  “Fine,” Swendon said. “We’ll get the lights in place. Roll down the main drag with the body double. Somebody go find Glee! Tell her she has five minutes!”

  Tyler scowled down at her. “Well? Are you going to ask for an autograph?”

  Several snippy rejoinders came to mind, but instead Angela smiled. “Naturally, as soon as I see an actor I like.”

  He blinked.

  Angela stopped herself from rolling her eyes. “Where am I supposed to be?”

  He got on his bike and looked at her over his shoulder. “Hop on.”

  She climbed on behind him, carefully avoiding the name of the position she was in. There might not have been the Fear of God in her house growing up, despite being in the Bible Belt, but there was certainly the Fear of Grandmother Meredith. As in, “What would your grandmother say?!?” or “Your Grandmother Meredith must be rolling in her grave!” Although Mom had stopped using that when Dad had snapped back, “All seven of them.”

  Dad had never thought highly of Grandma Meredith, and she’d died before Angela had ever met her, but the specter of the proper southern woman lived on. Southern Ladies did not say Certain Words.

  Angela settled in, flipped her hair, and held the bike seat on either side of her thighs. It was that, or wrap her arms around tall, dark, and stupid.

  “You’re supposed to hold on,” Tyler said.

  “It’s a test shot.” She didn’t move to grab him.

  He revved the motorcycle and drove faster than they needed to, weaving between barely visible marks on the floor that Luiz assured her would vanish in post-production. On his mark, Tyler pivoted the bike with precision control, and she had to grab his waist to keep from falling off.

  “Told you so.” He smirked.

  Angela growled and flipped her hair again, making sure to aim for his eyes. Tyler dodged. She slid off the bike and walked over to the camera crew. “Was that good enough? I’d rather drive myself.”

  The woman behind the camera nodded. “It’s good. All we need is Glee and we can do the actual take.” The woman gave her a conspiratorial grin. “What did you think of Tyler Running Fox? Does he smell good?”

  “Tyler...Running Fox?” Angela looked over her shoulder at the biker who’d tried to hurl her to her death. “He’s the one who ruined Hamlet? I didn’t recognize him without the goatee.”

  The camerawoman choked on a laugh. “You didn’t like his Hamlet? He won an Academy Award for that!”

  “The screenwriters butchered Shakespeare’s play. They didn’t even get the ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy right. It was painfully bad,” she said as she became aware of someone looming over her shoulder.

  Tyler Running Fox—Hollywood hero, Academy darling, the highest-grossing and most popular Native American actor ever—glared down at her.

  “I don’t like the way you drive, either,” she said before she flounced back to her bike, well aware she wasn’t going to act in Hollywood ever again.

  Chapter Four

  Dear Mom,

  Tell Gideon I’m proud of him for getting into MIT. My alma mater won’t know what hit it! I’ve already sent an email to my advisor warning her that my baby brother is on his way. She said she’d consider taking early retirement if he wants a math degree. On the other hand, she said that if he goes for an engineering degree like Dad she’ll stick around just to watch the havoc. Apparently, Dr. Trenbel in engineering gave her a hard time while I was there and she would like, and I quote, “To let him try and handle a Smith!” I’m sure she means it with love.

  I had a job for about eight hours, but I don’t think I’ll have a second shift. I’m trying to get worked up about it, but it wasn’t anything more than riding a motorcycle. I miss teaching.

  Have you heard anything about Travys? I tried to find out what happened while I was at the library, but I can’t find a mention of him in the system. Could The Company bury a trial like that?

  Love,

  Angela

  “Okay, that’s where you’re wrong,” Angela said as she leaned over Mia’s shoulder to scrutinize her homework. “A squared plus B squared is C squared, and you forgot to take the square root of the total.” She reached over and put a little square root sign over the number sixteen. “See?”

  “I can’t do math!” Mia flopped forward like a marionette with her strings cut. “When will I ever use this? Tell me when I will ever need to calculate the lengths of the side of a triangle.”

  “When you’re a famous architect designing the next great skyscraper?” Angela suggested. “Or when you’re an artist working on proportions. Everything involves math. Here”—she scribbled the Pythagorean Theorem on Mia’s paper—”this is fun. It’s super easy, plug-and-play math.”

  “Math is not fun,” Mia grumbled.

  “It can be.”

  “It really can’t.”

  “What if I add one chocolate chip to the cookie dough for every answer you get right?”

  Mia eyed her homework. “Make it three, or we’re still going to have chipless chocolate chip cookies.”

  Angela nodded. “Three per correct answer. I’ll take one away for every one I have to help on.” She stretched her legs out and basked in the California sunshine. The AC was wheezing inside, but outside a nice ocean breeze cooled the city streets. A nice something breeze, at any rate. The fog had lifted, the city buzzed around them, and Angela felt safe dipping into the public mood for a minute to check how her neighborhood was doing.

  It was a little like gardening. She didn’t need to pay attention to everything that was going on all the time.
Like checking the flowers and pulling the occasional weed, she checked on the general mood of the area every few days to ensure everything was running smoothly.

  Today the area was happy. Spring sunshine and a clear sky were enough to perk up anyone’s mood. There were a few hints of anger, and one of deep despair, but they were close enough that she could touch them at a distance and alter them, turning anger to patience and despair to humor. Later, she decided, she’d go for a run and check on Despair. It felt like a severe case of postpartum, but she couldn’t remember seeing any new mothers in the area.

  Not that this was a friendly neighborhood. Nothing like the little town in Texas she’d spent most of her time in. On the lakes of LBJ there was a quiet retirement community, a few young families, and typical Southern nosiness. Between her father’s charm, the novelty of being a quad, and her own forceful personality, she’d known everything about everyone.

  LA had tabloids and gossip, but it all centered around the same few people, as if the only measure of worth was money.

  She leaned her head back, soaking up sunshine and the blissfully carefree life of the unemployed who had money for rent and groceries. Tomorrow, she’d be worried again. For today, she would patiently coax Mia into appreciating math and maybe go hit the cupcake place to celebrate her payday.

  Splurging on cupcakes meant a ten-mile run, but what was the point of running if not to eat cupcakes every now and then?

  Luiz bounced down the apartment steps. “AJ, what are you doing? We need to leave.”

  “What?”

  “We have a night shoot, remember? We need to be there by five to start blocking out the fight scenes.” Luiz was already wearing her riding gear—tight black faux leather pants, a tight yellow shirt, and a faux leather jacket cropped short, her helmet dangling from her hand. “You signed the contract.”

  “I insulted the ‘talent’ last night too,” Angela said, miming the air quotes. “I don’t think they want me back.”