They moved on down the sidewalk, lone pedestrians other than the man in the expensive suit staring at the sun. There were no other walkers, but a steady flow of traffic on Century Park West, just a few feet from where Bob stood. Tourists walked, but Angelenos didn’t; they drove. Walking was so...pedestrian.
Bob cranked his head back down, his gaze once again straight ahead, but seeing nothing, his dilated pupils blinded by the sun. He swiveled his head to the right, then farther, looking back at the building. He squinted, as if struggling to regain his vision to focus on something, then he looked forward again.
He stepped forward until he was perched on the edge of the curb. Stood stock still, arms at his side, eyes front. A delivery truck rounded the corner at the edge of the building, accelerated as it hit the straightaway of Century Park West, in the curb lane, approaching the spot where Bob stood.
Just as the truck reached his perch, Bob stepped directly into its path.
The driver blared his horn and slammed on his brakes, but physics dictated the result. Had it been going faster, it might have sent Bob skyward and curbside. Had it been going slower, it might have simply knocked Bob forward and down, then come to a halt before him. But it was going at the perfect decelerating speed to knock Bob upward, to slam into him as he was airborne, smacking his head against the windshield, splattering it with blood, and then ricocheting him onto the pavement where one front wheel rolled over his torso, flipping his body over and askew as the rear curbside wheel crushed his skull before the truck came to a stop.
The driver jumped out of the truck and ran to the rear. He took one look at the body, gray matter oozing from the skull like egg white from a cracked egg. Without warning, he vomited on his shoes.
The male tourist in the aloha shirt ran back up the sidewalk, his female companion trailing him. He pulled up short when he reached the scene. His companion let out a cry, like a dog in pain.
“Holy shit!” he said. Then he did what tourists do: He snapped pictures with his camera.
The security guard from the building rushed to the edge of the curb, cell phone to his ear. He stopped short and stared at Bob’s body. “You can still send the ambulance, but I think it’s too late.”
He snapped his phone shut and tucked it into his side jacket pocket. He shook his head and mumbled to himself. “I guess you got nothing to say now, either, you uptight sonuvabitch.”
CHAPTER 37
Teri stood in front of the smaller closet in her bedroom, her mind a blank. She felt as if she had just awakened from a nightmare, not sure what the dream had been about, but only that it had been traumatic. She couldn’t even remember what she was doing in front of the closet or how she had gotten there. Although the police had left her with a very movielike “don’t leave town,” she knew that she had to get away. She had run from her problems before, but would that work now?
As her thoughts returned, they took a turn for the melodramatic. Phrases like “dark forces” took root. Sure, she was an actress who made her living off of drama, but there was no question that dark forces had been set in motion against her. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you, and just because you’re melodramatic doesn’t mean someone doesn’t want you dead.
And speaking of paranoid, Mike hadn’t been much support. He had also been a little too quick, a little too glib, in coming to the defense of Doug Bozarth. What did they really know about him, anyway? Nothing, that’s what. He was almost a non-entity as far as the Internet was concerned. How was that possible in today’s age, where “Google” had become a verb and one’s clout was measured by how many “hits” you got when your name was Googled. But not Doug Bozarth. He was just an anonymous billionaire who showed up out of the ether, checkbook in hand, and begged to foot the bill for the movie.
She wasn’t surprised that Bob had tethered himself to Bozarth, and she probably shouldn’t have been surprised that Mike had, as well. She knew how important money and success were to him, things she had provided over the years until her fall from grace. She had been naïve enough to think he stuck by her, after a shaky start, because he believed in her and wanted to nurture her back to the top. Now, though, she wasn’t so sure. His alliances seemed to run deeper with Bob Keene and Doug Bozarth than with her. So deep, in fact, that his ability to question and to think critically seemed to have vacated the premises, pushed out by blind faith in the promise of wealth and prestige from strangers.
Teri pulled a variety of suitcases from the closet and scattered them across the floor.
God, who needed this many?
Most of them had been gifts from productions she had been on and at least one full set came from an ad for a national brand she had done. They nearly filled this closet, adjacent to her regular closet, added for no other reason than to store things she didn’t need, like her suitcase collection. But behind all those bags was the one she was looking for. The battered vinyl bag of faded green, its zipper discolored but still workable, albeit prone to hang-ups. The one that she filled with all her worldly belongings nearly twenty years ago when she had thrown it in the bed of a battered Ford F-150 pick-up truck in the middle of the night, then pushed the truck down the driveway until it was far enough from the house that she thought she could start it without being heard inside. Back when she left Bandera, Texas, behind for a shot at fame and fortune in Tinseltown.
As she had all those years before, she filled the bag with essentials, then lugged it to her SUV and tossed it in the back. With no need for silence, no eyes or ears inside to avoid, she got behind the wheel and turned the key. The Highlander started instantly, unlike the pick-up truck that had required her to pop the clutch as it rolled downhill in the driveway. She pulled out of her driveway and headed for points east.
Police and paramedics dominated the scene outside the Century City office building that housed TAA. A crowd of on-lookers gathered on the sidewalks on both sides of the street, trying to get a glimpse of the body, or at least of some blood. There was curiosity from late arrivals, who wondered whether this was just another scene being shot for a movie.
When Mike Capalletti turned off of Santa Monica Boulevard onto Century Park West, his first thought as he saw the crowd that had gathered was the same as the question from the onlookers. Was someone shooting a movie? Not uncommon in Los Angeles, and certainly not uncommon outside of his office building. He quickly dismissed the thought. If someone was shooting, he would have known it. Permits had to be issued, permissions from building owners obtained, and notices would have been sent to the building’s tenants advising them. After all, with the demands of movie-making for controlled silence and orchestrated traffic, it was a standard protocol to advise tenants so they could schedule their comings and goings accordingly. It could be a nuisance at times, but it was one most gladly accommodated. After all, it was the movie industry that put food on the table—and bought luxury cars and summer homes, and provided seven figure incomes.
He pulled into the building’s parking garage, descended to his floor, and parked in his assigned spot. Ownership of a coveted parking space was just one more perk of being an up-and-comer at Hollywood’s most powerful talent agency. He rode the elevator to the ground floor then punched in Teri’s number on his cell phone as he exited. He hadn’t liked the way things had been when he left. Teri wasn’t thinking straight, not that she could be blamed. No one had ever tried to kill him even once before, much less twice. Still, now was not the time to make waves. The only wave that mattered was the tsunami of publicity that they would all ride to a smash box office weekend. Teri needed to tap the brakes, take a deep breath, and relax.
Straight to voicemail, just like every other call he had made since leaving her house. Well, fine. If that’s the way she wanted it, he would wait her out. Sooner or later, she’d call him. She always did. And with Mona in the hospital, she had no one else to call.
As he headed for the bank of elevators that serviced the agency’s floor, his
attention was drawn outside to the gathering crowd. Just what in the hell was going on out there? He veered to the revolving doors and pushed his way outside. Almost subconsciously, he tried Teri’s number again as he forced his way through the crowd, as if he had a God-given right to move to the front. A man wearing a pink polo shirt took offense, refusing to move as Mike pushed on his shoulder. With his elbow, Mike added an extra oomph to one last shove that did the trick. The man turned and glared at Mike, who ignored him, just as his call went to voicemail.
“Damn it, Teri,” he said as he hung up and tucked the phone in his coat pocket.
Nearly at the front of the crowd now, he got his first glimpse of blood in the street and the body of a man, lying on his back on a gurney. Visible only from the waist down, there was still something oddly familiar about the legs.
And the shoes. Definitely something familiar about those shoes. One shoe still on a foot, the other shoe about four feet away, on its side, as if the man had been knocked clean out of it. It wasn’t the maker of the shoe that grabbed Mike’s attention. Designer shoes were a dime a dozen in this part of town. There were, however, two significant things about the shoes. One was the extraordinarily small size for a man’s shoe. The other was the way the sole, particularly the heel, appeared to be worn on the outside, as if the wearer were unusually bow-legged, putting unnatural stress on the outer edges with each step. Mike knew a man with small feet and bowed legs.
He shouldered his way the final few steps to the front of the crowd, panic rising inside as he got a full view of the body. He dropped to his knees on the curb, afraid he was going to vomit. There was so much blood. And where Bob’s head should have been was a flattened lump, covered with a towel or some kind of cloth, as if hiding something horrible from view. He saw bits of bone chips and oozing gray matter around the edges of the cloth.
A cop glanced his way, then started over, obviously prepared to shoo him back into the crowd. But something about Mike’s apparent agony— his ashen complexion, the almost inaudible keening sound that emanated from deep in his throat—must have stopped him.
“Sir,” the cop said. “I need you to stand back.”
Mike heard the jumble of words but couldn’t make them out. The cop’s voice sounded like so much white noise against the backdrop of the murmuring crowd.
“Sir? Sir?”
Mike felt a hand on his shoulder shake him, gently at first, then rougher. He managed to tear his eyes away from the body in the street and focus on the cop. The man was young, couldn’t have been more than twenty-four or twenty-five.
“Sir, do you think you know this man?” the cop asked.
“That’s Bob Keene.” The words came out in a hoarse whisper.
“You’re sure?”
“Those are his glasses,” Mike said, as he pointed to the broken frames lying next to the curb. “And I bought that tie for him in Scotland.”
“He works here?”
“He’s the head of our agency.” Mike looked at the body again, as paramedics lifted the gurney and slid it into the back of a waiting ambulance.
“Is he going to be okay?” Mike asked. But even as he asked the question, he knew how stupid it must have sounded. Bob’s head had been crushed and covered. You didn’t cover the faces of the injured; only of the dead.
The dead! God Almighty!
“What happened?” Mike asked.
“He stepped right out in front of a delivery truck. The witnesses said it looked like he did it on purpose. Do you know why he might have done that?”
“Suicide?”
The cop shrugged.
Suicide didn’t make sense. Bob stood to make a lot of money with the release of The Precipice. They all did. What made more sense was another murder attempt. Or, in this case, completed murder.
“Mike!”
A familiar voice, yet out of place. Mike turned and scanned the crowd. He could make out faces of fellow workers from TAA, a few assistants, one agent. Even one of the mail room guys. They were all looking at him, but none gave any sign that they had spoken to him, or even cared to.
“Mike!”
He turned to his right. Doug Bozarth stood next to a police cruiser, talking to an officer who took notes on a pad. Bozarth looked directly at Mike as he spoke. He glanced back at the cop and nodded. The cop flipped his notepad shut and excused himself. Bozarth headed toward Mike.
What the hell was Bozarth doing here? And how did he get here so fast?
This couldn’t have happened all that long ago. Nobody had even called Mike yet to report the death, which surely would have been done by now if the body had been identified. If the police had checked for ID in Bob’s pockets and seen the ubiquitous business cards, they would have contacted the office. But the officer who spoke to Mike hadn’t known who the victim was.
Almost as if cued by the thought, Mike felt the buzz of his cell phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out and glanced at the read-out. Sure enough, it was his assistant. Mike answered.
“Yeah.”
“Mr. Capalletti, it’s about Mr. Keene.”
“I know all about it.” Then he hung up, just as Bozarth reached him. “Helluva thing,” Bozarth said.
“How’d you get here so fast?”
“You okay? You don’t look so good.”
“They said it looked like suicide. That doesn’t make any sense.” “Maybe it was a conscience attack.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Mike asked.
“How’s Teri?”
Mike tried to process the non sequiter. Bozarth was trying to tell him
something, to send a message, but Mike was having trouble connecting the dots of the conversation. Then it kicked in, like a mule’s kick. “Are you saying Bob had something to do with trying to kill Teri?”
Doug Bozarth, the inscrutable man with the textbook case of poise, appeared to blanch. For a brief second, his eyebrows arched and his eyes widened. Mike thought he detected a twitch at the corner of his lips. The reaction might have gone completely unnoticed had Mike not been focusing so intently on Bozarth’s face. He tried to process what it was that had caused the reaction. It wasn’t the news about Teri. After all, he had asked about her. How he knew, Mike wasn’t sure. Mike hadn’t called Bozarth to tell him, and he felt sure Teri hadn’t. Yet Bozarth knew.
Then it hit Mike: the word that precipitated the response was Mike’s use of the word “trying.” As in “had something to do with trying to kill Teri.” Not “had something to do with killing Teri.” Bozarth had expected Mike to tell him that Teri had been killed, which meant he knew all there was to know about the gunshots from the hills. Which meant he had something to do with putting the shooter on that hill in the first place.
“Is she okay?” Bozarth asked. The tone of his voice indicated uncertainty, which nailed down the certainty for Mike. Teri had been right about Bozarth all along.
“She’s fine. Pretty shaken, but otherwise okay.”
“Where is she?”
Mike hesitated, unusual for him. Lies usually formed instantly and escaped his lips without delay, without thought. He was, after all, a lawyer and an agent. “She went with the cops.”
“Why aren’t you with her?”
Mike searched for another lie but couldn’t find one.
“She shouldn’t be talking to the cops without her lawyer present,” Bozarth said. “Why didn’t you go with her?”
“I was following them when I got the call about Bob, so I came here.”
Bozarth scrutinized Mike’s face, as if scanning for truth. Then he abruptly turned and walked into the crowd, pulling his cell phone from his pocket as he walked. When Bozarth put the phone to his ear, Mike dashed through the crowd, back into the building. He had his own phone out and repeatedly hit Teri’s speed dial number as he waited for the elevators to the parking garage. It wouldn’t take long for Bozarth to find out that he had been lying and that Teri was not with the police. That she was maybe, in fact, stil
l at home. Would he try again? He had to warn her.
“Come on, Teri,” he said as the phone rang. “Pick up. Pick up, pick up, pick up.”
The bell sounded, the doors opened, and he stepped inside.
CHAPTER 38
Bits of shattered glass sparkled in the moonlight that peeked in through the narrow gap in the curtains blowing inward with each gust of wind from the hills. No lights were on inside, casting Teri Squire’s den in shadows. There was a hint of smoke in the air, thick in the moonbeam, testifying to yet another wildfire kindling in the hills. A gloved hand reached past the shards that rimmed the perimeter of the sliding door. It found the latch and unlocked the door. The frame slid open, the curtains pushed aside, and two ski-masked men stepped inside, both holding guns. There was no sound other than the crunch of glass beneath leather-soled shoes.
The men paused. One breathed heavily, mouth open, each breath ragged. The other made not a sound, as if holding his breath.
The silent one gestured toward the kitchen. The mouth-breather nodded and stepped that way. The silent one headed toward the back of the house.
After a few minutes, they met together in the den. The silent one pulled a cell phone and punched a number on speed dial. “She’s not here,” he said to the man who answered. “Looks like she dragged luggage out of a closet.”
Teri had lost track of time miles ago, about halfway through Arizona. The freeway stretched out before her, illuminated by rows of neon lights lining each side. The moon was still low on the horizon, full and orange and strangely welcoming, as if to say “This way to Texas. This way home.”
Nearly twenty years ago that moon had been at her back as she traveled this route in reverse, running from Texas and family, running from a home that no longer welcomed her, that no longer wanted her. But she was a different person then. Now she was Teri Squire, movie star, her face gracing magazine covers and silver screens, attending premieres and high society parties.
But back then she was just a scared teenager. Back then she had been Peggy Tucker, ranch girl, tomboy. She even had a different face then. One that age and a cosmetic surgeon’s wizardry had combined to blur into a memory. But other memories remained vivid, unhidden behind the new memories and successes she had built for herself. And now, here she was once again, running from a life she had made for herself. She wondered if she had ever really stopped running, or if she ever would.
The Bequest Page 17