Out loud, she said, “I’ll keep my ears open, and if I hear anything useful, I’ll let you know. Okay?”
“Thanks Tilda.”
“No guarantees,” she said, “but what the hell. Being nosy is my job.”
Chapter 21
I only sound intelligent when there’s a good scriptwriter around.
—CHRISTIAN BALE
ONCE she’d shooed Pete out, Tilda went back to her computer, hoping for some sort of inspiration for eliminating more of the last five Leviathans. When nothing sprang to mind, she opened up the file where she’d transcribed her notes from talking to Marc Fitzwilliam. He’d said something about looking for any letters from Leviathan, and since he hadn’t called back, she figured it wouldn’t hurt to check in again.
Apparently the guy lived at his business, because once again, he was the one to answer the phone.
“Marc? This is Tilda Harper.”
“Any luck finding Leviathan?”
“I’ve got more luck than I need.” She explained the problem. “What I’m trying to do now is weed out the phonies, and I wondered if there were any clues in your correspondence with Leviathan that might help. Did you have a chance to go through your files?”
“I did, and I’ve been looking over the letters, but I don’t see anything. Leviathan never put in much personal stuff. All we ever wrote about was the comic—how it was selling, what the deadlines were, the edits I needed. He was all business.”
She knew she was grasping at straws, but still said, “Would you mind letting me take a look at the letters myself?”
“I suppose not, if you think it will help.”
“It couldn’t hurt.” If the process kept on much longer, Tilda was seriously considering seeing whether or not she could get the letters from Leviathan dusted for fingerprints. She found the fax number for the inn and read it to him, and he promised to send the letters right away.
Tilda spent a good five minutes trying to decide if she wanted to drive to the inn or walk, and finally decided to drive—her excuse was that she might want to go somewhere else after picking up the faxes.
The faxes hadn’t shown up when she got to the inn, so she peeked into the bar to see if anybody was around. Dolores the screenwriter was sitting alone at the bar. According to Nick, Dolores was one of Laryea’s ex-gal-pals, which meant that she might know if he had any particularly nasty enemies. And if not, she might have some juicy gossip. Either way, it was a good way to kill a few minutes.
“Hey, Dolores,” Tilda said casually. “Mind if I join you?”
“Sure, have a seat.”
Tilda climbed onto a bar stool, and when the bartender looked her way, asked for a cosmo.
“How’s it going?” she asked the screenwriter.
“Other than being exhausted and frustrated, it’s great. How’s your quest?”
“Exhausting and frustrating. I guess you’ve heard how many Leviathans have shown up.”
“Joni told me. Of course you can’t blame them. Why wouldn’t somebody want to pretend to be an almost unknown comic book writer? I mean, the life of a professional writer is so glamorous. Of course, Leviathan’s life isn’t as glam as a screenwriter’s.”
“Or a reporter’s,” Tilda said.
The two women looked at each other and started laughing. That led to comparing notes of their encounters with people who really did think their lives were like something from the movies.
When that subject ran dry, Tilda said, “I meant to ask how Mr. Laryea is doing.”
“He’s fine. He left this morning for LA to arrange Foster’s funeral. Joni and Edwina went with him, but I figured they didn’t need me. It’s tacky to speak ill of the dead, but as far as I’m concerned, Foster put the ‘ass’ in ‘assistant.’ ”
“Did anybody like him? Other than Mr. Laryea, that is?”
“Nope, not a soul. I knew him back from when John and I were an item, and I think he’d already managed to alienate everybody else in the world. But he was good at his job—I’ll give him that. So I’ll drink to him.” She and Tilda clinked glasses and did so.
“Mr. Laryea must be doing better if he was able to travel.”
“He was never that badly hurt in the first place,” Dolores said dismissively. “The man gets a bruise, acts like it’s a broken bone, then makes a big deal of overcoming the pain.”
“I had a boyfriend like that,” Tilda lied. “That must have been tough to live with.”
“I never lived with John, thank God. He took one look at the mess in my office and I took one look at the clothes in his bedroom, and we knew we were never meant to share a roof.”
“Did you two date a long time?”
Dolores gave her a look. “Are you working?”
“Nope, just curious.” Then, knowing that the majority of Hollywood denizens loved publicity, she added, “Unless you want me to use it.”
“ ‘Screenwriter tells of dating a big star.’ ” Dolores shook her head. “Nah, I don’t think it would do me any good in the business. Screenwriters aren’t supposed to make news unless they look like Diablo Cody. Which I do not.”
“Then it’s off the record.”
“Good—I will commence to dish. You wouldn’t be considering taking a ride on the Laryea express yourself, would you?”
“He’s kind of old for me, no offense.”
“That never stopped John. He has only two requirements in his choice of women. One, he likes them good-looking, and you’re okay there. But two—and more important—he likes women with talent. He doesn’t want a hanger-on or arm candy. He honestly likes a woman he can talk to.”
“Really? He gives the impression of just wanting to flirt.”
“Well sure he flirts. It’s good for business. But for anything more than a one-night stand, he demands brains. Look at the three of us working on Pharos. Joni is a damned good director, and Edwina could convince a conservative to back a biography of Obama. And me . . . Well, modesty forbids me from pointing out my own gifts.”
“I really don’t think I’m his type.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. I’ve read some of your pieces. You’ve got a good voice, you know the old stuff backward and forward, and you respect the material. Yeah, John could go for you in a big way, and I happen to know that he’s currently unattached. But I should warn you. You can’t get too attached to John Laryea. He is the personification of serial monogamy. He won’t fool around on you, but it won’t last forever, either. Six months, nine months, a year at best, and he’s gone. He and I made it seven months to the day.”
“Did that bother you?”
“Hell, no. I knew what he was like. He’s honest about it.”
“Still, there’s a difference between theoretical knowledge and actually getting dumped.”
But Dolores was shaking her head. “Did you ever have a summer romance? At camp or whatever? You knew that when summer ended, the romance would end, too. I didn’t have that strict a timeline, but I knew the end was coming. We were done.”
“It sounds so civilized.”
“Crazy, huh? If it weren’t so civilized, do you think I’d be working with him now? Let alone working with Joni and Edwina.”
“No hard feelings there either?”
“Not that I ever heard of. Don’t you ever stay friends with your exes?”
“Sometimes,” Tilda admitted, thinking of Nick.
“There you go then.” Dolores downed the rest of her beer. “Well, I need to get my nose back to the grindstone. The glamour awaits.”
Chapter 22
I don’t believe in the no-win scenario.
—CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK IN STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN
WITH Dolores gone, there was nobody else around Tilda knew, so she went to check on the faxes from Fitzwilliam and found a fat stack waiting for her. The inn’s restaurant looked pretty full, so she retraced her steps and found a table at the bar big enough for her papers and the chicken Caesar salad she ordered.
; Her dinner was long gone, and she was nearly through the stack of letters when she noticed somebody standing next to her.
“Hey, Nick. What’s up?”
“Just keeping an eye out.”
She wasn’t sure if she should ask him to join her or not, considering their last phone call, but then decided that if John Laryea could manage to work with three ex-girlfriends, she could certainly maintain a platonic friendship with Nick. “Have a seat and catch me up on the news.”
“Sure, okay.” He caught the waitress’s eye, and ordered a beer for himself and a refill on Tilda’s Coke. “I hear you and Hoover went out.”
“Yeah, but . . . Did you know he’s never seen a single episode of Glee or True Blood? I don’t think I can take a man seriously when he’s so far out of the cultural zeitgeist.”
“Hey, Glee is just in its second season. He can catch up on Netflix.”
“Maybe, but I don’t think he’s my type. Thanks for the fix-up, anyway. Keep me in mind if somebody more aware of post-Boomer culture comes around.”
“Will do.”
Tilda felt they were back on an even keel again, which was a relief. She, like Dolores, wanted to be civilized.
“What’s with all the paperwork?” Nick asked.
“I’m reading correspondence between the guy who published Pharos and Leviathan, trying to get a clue about him I can use to cross off a wannabe or two.”
“Anything there?”
“Not so much. No characteristic misspellings, no verbal tics, and no regional word choices. And definitely no references to anything personal. The guy was focused on the book. They talked numbers, and they talked edits. That’s it.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“It was worth a shot.”
“Any more threats, veiled or otherwise, from the non-Leviathans?”
“Yes, but nothing very creative.”
“You do need to be careful, you know. Take this seriously.”
“Seriously, I am. None of them have my address or my unlisted phone number and even if they went online hunting for my address, I’ve moved so many times they wouldn’t know where to find me even if they found the right T. Harper.”
“Still, I don’t like it.”
“I’m not crazy about it, either, but I’m saving all the nastygrams in case it escalates.” It was past time to change the subject, so she said, “So how’s your father doing?”
“He’s okay. Still on the job, but you know, Pete Ellis killing that guy has really shaken him.”
“Do you really think Pete did it?”
“Is it even in question?”
“It is to me. He came by my cottage today, and I’m just not sure.”
“According to the police, it looks pretty cut-and-dried.”
“What about your father’s sixth sense about people?”
“He’s the best at sniffing out bad guys, but I’m not saying Pete is a bad guy. He made a mistake.”
“And lied about it?”
Nick shrugged.
“What is with you?” Tilda asked, suddenly angry. “Has your father ever been wrong about a person before? Even once?”
“No, but—”
“Whereas the cops have been known to be wrong before, right?”
“I don’t know these cops,” Nick objected.
“You don’t know them, but you trust them more than you trust your father?”
“But Pop himself said—”
“Do you trust your father?”
“Of course, but—”
“If somebody had asked you a week ago if you could trust Pete, going purely on Dom’s say-so, what would you have said?”
He thought about it for a minute. “I’d have said that Pop is never wrong.”
She just looked at him, waiting.
“Let me get this straight. You’re saying that since Pop is never wrong about a person, and he trusted Pete, I should trust him, too.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“Huh.” He took a swallow of his beer. “So if Pete wasn’t driving the limo, who was?”
“Hell if I know. And it gets worse.” She explained the conclusion that she and Pete had come to, that somebody had gone after either Laryea or Foster on purpose, though she avoided mentioning Pete’s secret past. “Does that sound completely insane?”
“Not completely, but—Any thoughts about which one was the target?”
“It’s hard to say. Foster was a pain in the ass, but Laryea is the famous one, and famous people often have enemies. Including, maybe, that stalker you’ve been chasing after.”
“Son of a bitch! I saw him again today. When I drove Laryea and the ladies to the airport in Hyannis, I spotted him in the parking lot. I almost had him, too.”
“Then maybe he is the killer. A crazed fan running down the idol who ignored him. Or the idol’s assistant, because he blocked him from his idol.”
“How could he have gotten to the limo?”
“The guy seems to be everywhere. He could have skulked around to figure out where the limo was left—he saw it at the airport so he knew it was the one Laryea had taken before. Then he saw Pete show up with his booze and watched him through the window until he passed out and snuck in to get the keys and . . .” Tilda saw the expression on Nick’s face. “Yeah, it’s kind of thin. Tell you what. Catch the guy, and we’ll ask him.”
“That’s a plan I can get behind. If you see a beanpole with red hair and a camera, ping me.”
“Will do.”
“You know, I’m thinking I should talk to Pop about this. If somebody is after Laryea—the stalker or whoever—we need to tighten security.” He pulled his cell phone out of the holster at his belt. “You mind if I ask him to join us? He’s watching TV in our room.”
“Of course not.”
A few minutes later, Dom came in and sat in the chair Nick pulled out for him. He looked better than he had the last time Tilda had seen him, but only a little.
“What are you two up to?” he asked.
Taking turns, Tilda and Nick explained their theories, though Tilda really wished it sounded a bit more solid.
When they were done, Dom didn’t say anything for a long time, just rubbed his chin slowly. Finally he said, “You two are killing me here.”
“I don’t understand,” Tilda said. “I thought you’d want me to help.”
“Help with what? Pete got drunk, and he got in my limo, and he killed some poor guy. What he needs is a good lawyer—which I got him. If we can keep him out of jail, he needs to go to rehab.”
“But Pop, you’ve never been wrong about anybody before,” Nick said.
“I’m not perfect, Nick. I’m just a guy who’s managed to hit it lucky in the past. We don’t need luck to run our business—we need smarts. Do you honestly think this theory you two have cooked up sounds smart?”
“What happened to all that stuff you told Joni and Edwina about me? That I was such hot shit?” Tilda said.
“When you stick to your job, you are hot shit. Now tell me, how is this your job?”
Tilda couldn’t very well answer that—she knew as well as he did that it wasn’t her job.
“As for you, Nick, you’ve got a job, too, and that’s working for me. Right?”
Tilda could tell how hard it was for Nick to control himself, but he nodded.
“Good. Now I’m going up to bed. Mr. Laryea will be back the day after tomorrow, and I want to make sure everything goes smoothly. And we’ve got to get things arranged for the big shoot the day after that. Are you coming, Nick?”
“In a minute.”
“Fine.” He started to leave, then turned back. “Tilda, I know you mean well, but see it from my point of view. The press hasn’t made a big deal out of this, which means that the business’s reputation is still intact. You start stirring things up, and there’s no telling what will happen.”
“I know what will happen if I don’t stir things up. Pete Ellis will go to jail.” When
Dom started to say something else, “I’m not going to argue with you, Dom. You’re not my boss.”
“Then you do what you’ve got to do.”
When he was gone, Tilda let out a breath she didn’t even realize she’d been holding. “I guess it’s a good thing we broke up after all. Pissing off a boyfriend’s father is no way to keep a romance sizzling.”
“Are you kidding? Ma gives him worse than that on a regular basis.”
“Yeah? I’ve got to meet her one of these days. But in the meantime, I’m sorry for causing problems with you two. I won’t ask you to go against his wishes and try to figure out what’s going on.”
“You don’t have to ask. I think you’re on to something, and it’s like you said. Pop’s never been wrong about anybody before. He may have lost faith in himself, but I haven’t lost my faith in him.” He leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You call me if you need me.”
“Deal,” she said, but once he was gone, she went into full brood mode. Could she really be destroying Dom’s business? Was Pete really in trouble if she didn’t stick her nose in? Did she have a right to keep information from the police? “Screw it,” she finally said to herself. If she was right and managed to find the real killer, then both Pete and Dom would be off the hook and the police wouldn’t need to know anything she was hiding. She just had to be right.
Chapter 23
There is a peculiar kind of satisfaction that comes from working for a powerful or famous person. Washing a car or serving a meal may be considered menial, but when that car belongs to a movie star or the meal is served to a world leader, the work is somehow elevated. The car wash attendant is now helping to create award-winning film while the waitress aids world peace. Being a full-time assistant to a member of the elite is even more intoxicating.
—“TO SERVE IN HEAVEN” BY LORINDA B. R. GOODWIN, PHD
TILDA headed back to her cottage for some strategizing. Though she didn’t intend to abandon Pete, Dom was right that she had a job to do, which meant she had a comic book writer to find. Plus she was still supposedly producing a series of articles about the making of Pharos. That meant she was going to have to work her time out carefully.
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